David Bowie - The Lost Beeb Tapes
Various BBC Sessions
Label: The Godfatherecords G.R. 375
Audio Source: radio broadcast
Lineage: Silver --> EAC --> WAV --> FLAC 8 --> MWP.
Number of Discs: 1
Artwork: included
Total running time: 79m 22s
From the earliest recordings made in 1967 to the sixteenth session in 2002 Bowie has contributed some fascinating live sets to the BBC archives.
The early recordings of Bowie at the BBC particularly hold great interest and document an artist still trying to find his way in the world with apparent giant leaps in style although if you really study them it’s more of a rapid evolution.
Most of the unofficial recordings have variable sound quality and generally attribute the wrong dates to the various sets Bowie performed up to the early 70s. Pick and mix bootlegs confuse matters still further as do the often repetitive set lists. The official Bowie at the BBC release is by far the best available but is far from complete so this is where this new release from Godfather steps in as in contains many of the important tracks missing from the original release and all in excellent quality.
Okay, the four volumes of ‘The Rise and Rise of Ziggy Stardust’ are more complete still, but have poor quality on some sessions. So if you have the official release then the ‘Lost Beeb Tapes’ makes a sensible purchase filling in most of the gaps in great quality.
The first session documents all the tracks from the Top Gear session of 1967. This vaudevillian period is often derided by Bowie fans but in truth the songs reproduced here live are worthy of re-evaluation and Bowie’s juvenilia is much more refined and developed than many would have us believe. These are clever songs for those with open minds and beautifully played.
‘When I’m Five’ is a sentimental monologue from the 1968 Top Gear Session and is the only full studio recording of the song (A rough demo also exists). The Dave Lee Travis Show of 1969 brings us a great version of ‘unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed’ delivered quite ferociously that in some way could be attributed to the then recent death of Bowie’s father.
The 1970 show offers us ‘Waiting for the man’ and ‘The Width of a Circle’ backed by Bowie’s then band ‘The Hype’. Both songs are guitar heavy workouts almost progressive in delivery.
The John Peel show of 1971 is quite an oddity and unique in sound and structure with various guest vocalists and friends helping Bowie fulfil his Warhol-come-Svengali aspirations. The pick of the sessions is the 1971 Bob Harris show featuring just Mick Ronson and Bowie in a stripped down acoustic set of ‘Hunky Dory’ songs. All the songs are played quite superbly and it’s surprising the whole set didn’t feature on the official release. The 1972 Bob Harris session completes the disc with a full on Ziggy version of the Velvet’s ‘White Light/ White Heat’. So it’s a 10/10 for Godfather so far.
Bonus tracks feature three tracks wrongly attributed to ‘Arnold Corns’ with the exception of ‘Moonage Daydream’. Unfortunately more complete and better quality versions of these three bonus tracks are available elsewhere.
Tracklisting:
01 - Love You Till Tuesday
02 - In The Heat Of The Morning
03 - Silly Boy Blue
04 - When I Live My Dream
05 - Little Bombardier
06 - When I'm Five
07 - Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed
08 - Waiting For The Man
09 - The Width Of A Circle
10 - Queen Bitch
11 - The Supermen
12 - Song For Bob Dylan
13 - Andy Warhol
14 - Oh! You Pretty Things
15 - Kooks
16 - Fill Your Heart
17 - Amsterdam
18 - Andy Warhol
19 - White Light, White Heat
20 - Lady Stardust
21 - Right On MOther
22 - Moonage Daydream
Tracks 01-05 - Top Gear (18-12-67)
Track 06 - Top Gear (13-05-68)
Track 07 - Dave Lee Travis Show (20-10-69)
Track 08 - Sound Of The 70's: Andy Ferris (25-03-70)
Tracks 09- 13 - In Concert : John Peel (03-06-71)
Tracks 14 - 18 - Sound Of The 70's: Bob Harris (21-09-71)
Track 19 - Sound Of The 70's: Bob Harris (23-05-72)
Tracks 20-22 - Arnold Corns, Radio Luxemburg Studios (10-03-71)
Torrent History:
Uploaded to Mind-Warp PaVilion by Piras on 23-11-2010.