Bottoms on sleeves no. 8

UFO - Force It

Not so much bottom but for of thigh and leg on this one although these is a hint of a pair of buttocks on this most unusual and controversial of Hipgnosis sleeves.

What we have here is a kind of surreal bathroom setting where a half naked (bottom down) young lady is taking advantage of an almost half naked (bottom up) young man (the plumber?), forcing him against the wall in the bath/shower. Oh and the title is a pun on the word 'fawcett', ie. a tap (hence bathroom setting, geddit?).

I know nothing about the record, or indeed about the band, other than it was published in 1975 and was their fourth studio album. It didn't chart and neither did it spawn any hit singles although according to allmusic, songwriters Schenker and Moff were finally finding 'their groove' on this one and "the group launches itself wholeheartedly toward the hard rock direction that would make them stars". Fair enough.

Anyway we're more concerned with the cover here and to that end there are one or two interesting points. Firstly, wiki would have us believe that the bathroom twosome on the cover are couple Genesis P. Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, a pair of scamps indeed who got up to all kinds of controversial tricks in the 70s (and beyond) with their COUM Transmissions "performance art" project. We haven't found evidence or confirmation that it is actually them although given that they got up to much bawdier tricks than just posing half naked in a bath back then, one wouldn't put it past them. Orridge and Tutti also formed their own band Throbbing Gristle with Chris Carter in 1975.

Second point of note is that those prudish USA people had to publish their own version of the album cover in which the couple are basically invisible, a nice piece of early photoshopping, which probably took about a month to do in those days. Plenty of 'force-its' still on display though.

Force It was remastered and re-issued in 2007 - you can listen to it here.

Countdown To Christmas : Mike Oldfield - In Dulci Jubilo

Always thought this was more of a Pagan type song but turns out it is a bona fide traditional Christian tune, dating back to the Middle Ages, no less with 'Ii dulci jubilo' and the rest of the original words being a maceronic (good word) mix of Latin and German.
In 1975 ye good olde 'trad Dad' Mike Oldfield brought the tune into ye moderne age - forgetting all about the words - with this jolly interpretation of In Dulci Jubilo which gets duly pulled out at folkie Christmas gatherings, and quite rightly too. Our Mike does so like to do things all on his own, and here's a classic video performance using 'modern' film techniques to show him playing all the instruments at the same time. Must have been hell to synch back in the 70s.
So, good Christian men (and women).. Rejoice! .. and jig around a bit too to the multi-instrumental talents of Sir Mike of Oldfield....take it away Mike:

From Station to Earth

The David Bowie Story pt.5

Well it's the mid-70s and Bowie, now The Thin White Duke, continues his cocaine-fuelled L.A./U.S. trip (pun intended) and proceeds to record his tenth studio album Station to Station. He was also working on the movie The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nicholas Roeg's film interpretation of the sci-fi novel by Walter Trevis, with Bowie acting and attempting to write a soundtrack in his L.A. home. But perhaps more about the movie anon, cos I haven't seen it for years.

The soundtrack idea was however abandoned and thus Station to Station came about. Or at least that's what seems to have happened since our David was so off his head all of the time that he remembers practically nothing of the period ("I know it was in LA because I've read it was"). Apparently it was at this time however that he started to take an interest in Krautrock, especially Kraftwerk, although to be honest not a lot of that transpires on this album.

Station to Station is however very much a transition (transit?) album, taking us out of the US soul Golden Years are still firmly rooted the "plastic soul" of Young Americans. The cover of the 50's song Wild is the Wind is my fave Bowie vocal performance to date.

dance fix and back towards a more European, nay Mittel-Europa, phase. The title track itself is two songs joined together at the hip, with a very much more European feel, whereas tracks like the hit
A memorable live tour followed, for which Bowie had originally wanted Kraftwerk as support band. Sadly, this never happened for technical reasons.

The period is also notorious for Bowie's alleged penchant for all things Nazi, culminating in an apparent "nazi salute" to a crowd of fans on his arrival at Victoria Station in London in May 1976. Among the crowd was a young Gary Numan (né Webb), who also denied said gesture.  "All you need is some dickhead at a music paper or whatever to make an issue out it ...." said Bowie, which is exactly what the NME did.







Station to Station has recently been issued in a special triple CD set - original album remastered plus the legendary Nassau concert. Get it.

Black music / white boy

The David Bowie Story pt.4
..in which our David promptly turns his back on glam rock and plumps instead for a full-immersion in American black music in Philedelphia, USA of all places and invents 'plastic soul' (his phrase).
Gone was the glitter and make-up of Ziggy Stardust and all that the character ensued (including accompanying musicians such as Mick Ronson) and in was a more 'sobre' look and a new approach to music, adopting and adapting the American (read 'black') soul sounds to effectively create the first successful white singer of the genre. Many British white singers would emulate this approach in the not too distant future, becoming especially fashionable in the early 80s: from Paul Young to Tony Hadley, from Rick Astley to Boy George.

The ensuing album Young Americans (1975) was a big success in America of course although initially threw a lot of glam-Bowie/Ziggy fans, especially in the UK,  who were still not yet used to Bowie's habit of changing styles and persona. An edited version of the title track became his biggest US Billboard hit up to then. Despite its groundbreaking plastic or white soul style the album sounds a little dated today. His cover of The Beatles' Across the Universe, a late addition, sticks out like a sore thumb and can only be attributed to his new found friendship with fellow-Brit-in-the-USA John Lennon with whom Bowie co-wrote Fame, the album's closer and other hit.
His cocaine habit (nay, addiction) continued of course and TV appearances for which the US producers and audiences craved, were often marred by Bowie being completely off his head on coke.

He was also very thin, and very white...