Bowie's Approach

[Arpangel]

We can discuss this till the cows come home, it makes no difference to me, how someone comes up with ideas, as long as they are good that’s fine, good to whoever likes them, one mans meat etc.
Also, it doesn’t matter who it is, amateur, profession, talking about how they work, they aren’t me, and it probably wouldn’t work for me.
I take bits from all over, ideas, methods, it’s a mess, but somehow, I seem to record stuff, that works, sometimes, I can’t even describe my working method, it’s a mish-mash.

[Albatross]

Everyone works differently, well everyone I've ever met anyway.

I've loved Bowie's work since I first heard it, so rich and beautifully crafted.

I think that artists get put a bit on the spot though. Some reporter has a list of questions and the artist can either do a Dylan and sling the questions back with a shrug, or try and indulge the audience. But doing the arty interview is part of the game, or was.

Just secretly I don't think anyone really knows where the stuff comes from. One of my favourite of his albums is Young Americans and by his own admission he was so fked up when he made that he didn't know where he was half the time. How does one honestly make sense/formularise that? Genius I think is about the only way to put that in a nutshell. Rationalising post event is likely to be a good guess or for the camera me thinks.

Everyone works differently.
Everyone works differently.
Everyone works differently.

[Arpangel]

Everyone works differently, well everyone I've ever met anyway.

I've loved Bowie's work since I first heard it, so rich and beautifully crafted.

I think that artists get put a bit on the spot though. Some reporter has a list of questions and the artist can either do a Dylan and sling the questions back with a shrug, or try and indulge the audience. But doing the arty interview is part of the game, or was.

Just secretly I don't think anyone really knows where the stuff comes from. One of my favourite of his albums is Young Americans and by his own admission he was so fked up when he made that he didn't know where he was half the time. How does one honestly make sense/formularise that? Genius I think is about the only way to put that in a nutshell. Rationalising post event is likely to be a good guess or for the camera me thinks.

Everyone works differently.
Everyone works differently.
Everyone works differently.

The eternal question is can we really judge our own stuff, I look at Bowie and put him on a pedestal, and can’t imagine making work so beautiful and complex.
But did he think the same way? I don’t think that what I do is clever, beautiful, or appealing, I’m surprised when people like it, and even more surprised if they think it’s involved or complex "how do I do it" it’s simple I say, anyone can do it.
I think we all have this insecurity about our music, doesn’t matter who you are, Joe next door or Bowie, I think it’s good to be like this, it keeps us on our toes, like Bowie, eclectic, always moving on, constantly questioning.
The difference between me and Bowie is that I don’t have mass appeal, if you do, it somehow confirms that you’re doing the right things, being liked by a lot of people is a good thing, it would certainly make me feel that my work was worth it.

[Albatross]

Though there's an awful lot of fans who couldn't care less about the music, its the image, the tentacles of the thing not the body. They want to identify with a tribe, be regarded in a certain way.

I know there's a boozer I sometimes frequent, little place with a really fantastic jukebox. The guys all say they love their music and talk about music a lot ... our vintage age wise and have attended lots of gigs and bought loads of records over the years. Fans not musos ... god bless 'em.

They put on their tunes, three for a pound, and then spend the three or four minutes crapping on about how much they 'love this band' and how they saw them in 70'something and how they had a drink at the bar and the drummer came out and had a beer and blah blah blah. I sit in the corner trying to listen to the song.

If that boozer sold records and merchandise they would buy them.

Its why I'll always maintain that if you want to rejuvenate record sales you need to get back to selling physical media in places where the 'fans' can congregate, dress up and be part of the rock'n'roll.

[Arpangel]

Though there's an awful lot of fans who couldn't care less about the music, its the image, the tentacles of the thing not the body. They want to identify with a tribe, be regarded in a certain way.

I know there's a boozer I sometimes frequent, little place with a really fantastic jukebox. The guys all say they love their music and talk about music a lot ... our vintage age wise and have attended lots of gigs and bought loads of records over the years. Fans not musos ... god bless 'em.

They put on their tunes, three for a pound, and then spend the three or four minutes crapping on about how much they 'love this band' and how they saw them in 70'something and how they had a drink at the bar and the drummer came out and had a beer and blah blah blah. I sit in the corner trying to listen to the song.

If that boozer sold records and merchandise they would buy them.

Its why I'll always maintain that if you want to rejuvenate record sales you need to get back to selling physical media in places where the 'fans' can congregate, dress up and be part of the rock'n'roll.

I don’t look at any of this stuff in relation to age, yes, there were tribes, and you felt part of a "movement" it was great, I loved it.
There simply isn’t anything happening out there that interests me now, if there was, I’d be involved. My partners son listens to Kiss FM before going to work in the morning, total, and utter shite, I listen to Resonance Extra in the car and even that’s becoming really annoying, the types, the people, talking about their music, as a "philosophical tool" and how it relates to the space time continuum, please, just go away.
There are tribes out there right now, but they aren’t speaking to me, they aren’t aimed at me, there’s nothing I can identify with.
My philosophy hasn’t changed since my late teens, it’s always there, some tribes just seemed to express the same outlook on life, but I’ve decided clubs are bad, they are way too narrow, in their vision.
All of my hero’s are dead, more or less, William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Francis Bacon, Harold Budd, Ivor Cutler, Joe Zawinul, all I need is for Brian Eno to pop off and I’ll have a full deck.

[BigRedX]

Its why I'll always maintain that if you want to rejuvenate record sales you need to get back to selling physical media in places where the 'fans' can congregate, dress up and be part of the rock'n'roll.

You mean... like gigs?

For every band I've been a part of in the last 15 years has on average made more money from the merch table after a single gig then they have from 6 months of on-line sales and streaming revenue.

And as a punter, AFAIAC there are only two types of music - that which I like, and that which I don't. While there are genres that I will be more receptive to, there's no real rhyme or reason to what I actually like and don't like. There are plenty of artists who technically tick all the boxes for me to be a fan, but on a musical level I can't connect at all, and there are others who fall way outside of my musical comfort zone, but I love what they do anyway.

And I'm far more likely to buy a band's record/CD/cassette/T-Shirt off their merch stand after I've seen them play a great gig then I am to download it from an on-line source the following morning.

[awjoe]

There are plenty of artists who technically tick all the boxes for me to be a fan, but on a musical level I can't connect at all, and there are others who fall way outside of my musical comfort zone, but I love what they do anyway.

Well, you did that tune called 'Stars', right? Based on that, I'd like to hear some of the stuff outside your zone that you like anyway.

[Arpangel]

There are plenty of artists who technically tick all the boxes for me to be a fan, but on a musical level I can't connect at all, and there are others who fall way outside of my musical comfort zone, but I love what they do anyway.

Well, you did that tune called 'Stars', right? Based on that, I'd like to hear some of the stuff outside your zone that you like anyway.

Me too, how can you love what they do, if they fall out of your comfort zone?
I have friends who are musicians, but we never talk about music, I have friends who are builders and we talk about music all the time.

[tea for two]

He's one major artist that didn't mind sharing useful wisdom.

This is the thing I dig about Davie Jones. He was open about where he borrowed from.
Davie didn't reinvent the wheel. Davie mish mashed already existing music.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel. There's plenty already out there we can mish mash.

*60s70s rock musicians made a career from borrowing Black music.
*New Order Blue Monday was a mish mashup.
*Jamiroquai, Daft Punk made a career from mish mashing, sampling 70s Disco and Funk.
*The Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony riff probably one of the most famous examples (borrowing Orchestral The Rolling Stones' The Last Time, recorded in 1965 by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra and arranged by David Whitaker
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9YrllfAMwHI
Resolved 22 years later only in 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48380600).

[awjoe]

You can borrow as much as you like, but that's not the main thing. The main thing is that it's coming out of your inside, that it's authentically you, that it's not copying. Borrowing okay, copying weak. Johnny Cash 'borrowed' a NIN tune, but he made it real when he did it. Not exactly what Bowie was talking about, but related.

But if you copy because you've got no spark or depth, then that's somewhere on a scale from negligible to despicable, depending on how judgemental the listener is feeling.