Rebuilding a broken toy

[imomus]

The closest I ever got to meeting my idol, David Bowie, was when I was living in New York circa 2000. Word was that he was readying a new release, Toy, which would mix new versions of some of his lost 1960s rarities with new songs. Close to Index magazine at the time -- and particularly fond of Bowie's early work -- I pitched the idea of an interview.



Index liked the idea, and Bowie often gives exclusives to arty niche magazines, but the encounter never happened. Virgin, Bowie's label at the time, didn't release Toy, for reasons which have never been fully explained. The new songs appeared on Heathen, some of the old ones slipped out as b-sides and freebies, others made it into some of Bowie's live sets. Although the official line from Bowie HQ is that the Toy album will one day get an official release, it looks increasingly unlikely. Meanwhile, so many scraps of the "lost album of lost songs" have appeared on YouTube that it's possible to assemble a ghostly, pseudo-video version of Toy in pretty much its entirety.

So that's what I thought I'd give you today, all embedded on one page. Ladies and gentlemen, a ghostly, pseudo-video version of David Bowie's lost album of lost songs! A broken, discarded toy rebuilt!

Conversation Piece
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Shadow Man
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Wood Jackson
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Uncle Floyd (Slip Away)
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Let Me Sleep Beside You
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Afraid
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Your Turn to Drive
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Baby Loves That Way
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I Dig Everything (Live)
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The London Boys (Live)
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Silly Boy Blue
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Excerpts from some of the tracks not available on YouTube can be heard in this Toy Medley:

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And the Illustrated David Bowie Discography site has clips of Liza Jane, Hole in the Ground and In the Heat of the Morning.

Meanwhile, for a free taste of some of my own back pages, check out the MySpace page Anne Laplantine has dedicated to our collaborative album Summerisle (2004). Pretty much the whole album's there for the taking. (The accompanying Summerisle horspiel is also available free online.) Anne and I are talking seriously about starting work on a sequel soon.

Comments

[olamina.livejournal.com]

A few years back, I came down an elevator and when the doors opened, David Bowie was standing there busily reading messages on his Blackberry. He was waiting for another elevator so he didn't even look up. I wanted to say something but I couldn't think of anything and frankly my mouth wouldn't work at all. It was all I could do to get my legs to work and walk my silly stunned self away.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what I'd say either, because he's heard it all before. Some variant on "Merci d'exister!" -- thanks for existing. But it's a strange phrase, because existing isn't, in itself, something one's personally responsible for.

Maybe "thanks for being exemplary and, ultimately, determinant"? But would he hear the commas?

[(Anonymous)]

I once shoulted the exact phrase at a carload of hot girls driving past at the beach once.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But did they hear the commas?

[(Anonymous)]

I once shoulted that exact phrase at a carload of hot girls driving past at the beach once.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But -- again -- did they hear the commas?

[robinsonner.livejournal.com]

Frank Zappa expressed it in 1974 when Fido (a 'modified dog'?), was questioned about "conceptual Continuity" and answered thus: "The crux of the biscuit is the Apostrophe(')" (http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/bowie.htm)

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

Mel Brooks meets his idol.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

YOU SHOULD HAVE DRAGGED HIM INTO THE LIFT AND RAPED HIM. Or at least have had an awkward conversation along the lines of THAT'LL GIVE YOU, ER, BEES.

God. Kids these days know nothing about fangirling. *shakes stick*