Moonage Daydream: Bonus Post!!
Where guest 'Stacker Brad Kyle dives deep with tales of Bowie’s StarDusty and Ashy years
Thanks to Brad Kyle from the great Front Row & Backstage Substack for this behind the scenes 2-part David Bowie bonus post! If you are a music nerd like me when it comes to music from the 60s and 70s (and sometimes the 80s) check out his archive-rich Substack here (more links below).
Take it away Brad!
1.
Having enjoyed Steve's recent review of the new Moonage Daydream music doc, I thought the Earworms and Song Loops readers might enjoy my October 2021 account of being at Burbank's NBC-TV studios the day in 1980 Bowie appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
It includes a found interview with Bowie's bassist for the night, John Kumnick, as he remembers that memorable night (where Bowie performed "Life on Mars" and "Ashes to Ashes"). Few know that Bowie, having taken some time off beforehand (and had no functioning, rehearsed band, except for longtime guitarist, Carlos Alomar), had to hastily assemble the band you see on The Tonight Show, and John was one of that one-off band!
Not only was that evening extraordinary (and the events surrounding it), but I think it'll add some shading that will, ultimately, merge neatly into Steve's wonderful account of the new Moonage Daydream doc. Enjoy!
2.
The song, "Moonage Daydream," the third track on David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars," released on RCA Records (US & UK) on June 16, 1972, the summer before my senior year of high school.
I have a very personal relationship with this album, as it became as much of a favorite as it did an influential piece for my music adventures I'd avidly seek in the years to follow! I purchased the album at my local Houston (TX) record store for $2.99, which, during the first week of release, was the sale price for the store. It would then increase to $3.99, and all this on a 1972 list price schedule for RCA, of $4.98.
[ed note: Earworm & Song Loops always appreciates a good bargain!]
It's this song which, essentially, is our introduction to the Ziggy Stardust character, on an album that's less a rock opera (as some have described) than it is simply a concept album.
According to SongFacts, "Moonage Daydream" was written by Bowie "specifically for 19-year-old fashion designer Fred Burrett, whom he met in The Sombrero gay bar" on Kensington High Street in London.
Bowie's designs for the newly-dubbed Freddie Burretti (aka Rudi Valentino) was to groom him for stardom (as a singer), and while credited as a vocalist on the song, a take of the song he might have recorded was not used as the final take that made it onto the "Ziggy" album. Burretti ended up designing a number of suits, though, for Bowie, among them:
Back to SongFacts:
"Bowie got the lyrics for ‘Moonage Daydream’ by using the cut-up method employed by Beat novelist, William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), and artist Brion Gysin. At the time of "Moonage Daydream," he was doing this manually, cutting up his own jottings, and then rearranging them at random, looking for psychic patterns. Later, he took to using a computer program that allowed him to draw large text samples from books and magazines, as well.
"In a 2003 interview with Performing Songwriter magazine, Bowie explained how the song, "Sure Know a Lot About Love" by the Hollywood Argyles (a studio band who had a #1 hit with "Alley Oop" in 1960 and which featured Kim Fowley as co-producer. Fowley would later produce albums by The Runaways) influenced this song.
Said Bowie: 'It was a combination of the baritone sax and the piccolo on the solo which I thought, 'Now, there's a great thing to put in a rock song' (laughs). Which I nicked, then put in 'Moonage Daydream' later."
Thanks Brad for the double shot of Bowie inside stories! And keep an eye on your inbox for a new Earworm and Song Loops newsletter later this week!
Thanks for the bonus content! And what's funny is that the Argyles' song sounds nothing like Moonage Daydream, but then again I didn't play the piccolo bits side by side.