Ziggy Stardust: the Motion Picture

One of the coolest things about ripping vinyl to MP3 is getting to listen to albums I haven’t picked up in years. Other than the turntable, I don’t have a stereo system, per se, anymore. So the only time I really get to hear these old albums is when I rip them and have the computer and turntable all wired together.

Picking up “Ziggy Stardust: the Motion Picture” was like finding a lost treasure. I just have a couple Bowie CDs, and find that I really don’t listen that much anymore to him. But I put this record on, and goddamn, it’s good! It was hard for me to narrow the tracks down to a reasonable sampling to share.

The Ziggy Stardust fansite 5 years has a lot of information about the movie, including reviews, US and UK release information, and so on. The movie and the resulting album were recorded at the July 3, 1973, show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. DA Pennebaker shot the concert, which was the Spiders from Mars’ final show. The recordings were shelved for 10 years, finally seeing the light of day in 1983.

In a 1999 interview, Pennebaker talked about filming Bowie: "Well, he is incredible to watch. I mean, I could see myself getting a hard-on just looking at him sometimes, which is ridiculous. But I think that the reason we made it was because RCA said, we have this guy and he's going to do a concert, maybe the last one he's going to do, and you've got to go make a film.
"I thought they said Bolan. I thought it was Marc Bolan I was going to do. And I was very excited because I really dug glitter rock. So I kind of set off with the wrong guy in mind. But I've spent time with Bowie, and I've seen him go into his head. He just disappears. He's like Dylan. He has someplace where it's just all music, and he's all alone."

A note in Wikipedia says that the soundtrack album was remixed and rereleased in 2003, with almost the whole show being restored except for "The Jean Genie/Love Me Do" encore featuring Jeff Beck. The continued absence of Beck's sequence has been variously attibuted to an issue over royalties or to the guitarist feeling, in producer Tony Visconti's words, that "he didn't fit in the film."

Hang On to Yourself.mp3
Ziggy Stardust.mp3
Moonage Daydream.mp3
Let’s Spend the Night Together (Rolling Stones cover).mp3
Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide.mp3

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Clarification
I got a note yesterday from Magnetic Mary about my comments on her blog and calling her a “Google-stalker.” I meant the comment in fun, and she understood, but she also wanted to make sure all of my readers understand.

She wrote, “Before your readers get the wrong idea about my stalking and general addiction to the person of Danny McCormack, allow me to explain that he used to play bass in one of my top 5 favourite bands, The Wildhearts, and later he formed The Yo-Yo's. ...He's been out of the spotlight for about a year, but now he's trying to come back with a new band, very cooly named The I told you so's.”

I have a very dry sense of humor that rarely translates to writing, especially if you don’t know me well. No harm intended!

posted by aikin @ 8:19 PM