David Bowie – A New Career in a New Town (1977) A Nacho Video

David Bowie • A New Career in a New Town • 1977

Audio:

David Bowie • A New Career in a New Town • From the album Low.

Video:

The Man Who Fell to Earth • Directed by Nic Roeg • 1976

News From Home • Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1976

Musicians:

David Bowie • Tap Sax Section, Harmonica, Piano

Carlos Alomar • Rhythm Guitar

Dennis Davis • Drums

Brian Eno • All Synthetics

Ricky Gardener • Guitar

George Murray: Bass

Roy Young • Piano

David Bowie & Tony Visconti • Production

This video has been on the cards for a couple of years. The first minute or so started out as part of my 2017 documentary

David Bowie is The Man Who Fell to Earth

https://vimeo.com/221740373.

After I put out that film, Catt and Melinda at The Church of David Bowie asked me several times to expand on the ANCIANT section, and create a stand-alone video for the track.

I’m putting out this video now, to help promote the latest The HD Projects film, which also incorporates another proto version of this ANCIANT video:

Tracing My Dad • Vol. 10 • Tony Visconti discusses Dennis Davis and David Bowie • Part 2 [76/77]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjcA3cdg5fw&t=2s

The HD Projects is Hikaru Davis, who is the young son of Dennis Davis, David Bowie’s drummer between 1974 and 1980.

I’ve been helping Hikaru with his project since 2016, and the current video is the second, in a series of four I have made, from a recent exclusive interview with music producer Tony Visconti. Each video focuses on a specific phase of Tony’s work with Bowie and Dennis. The current one focuses on the making of David Bowie’s album, Low.

Please follow Hikaru and his The HD Projects: www.facebook.com/thehdprojects

www.youtube.com/thehdprojects

IG thehdprojects

____

“You know, there is a vast difference between loneliness and aloneness. (Aloneness) is a state of freedom which comes into being when you have gone through loneliness and understand it. In that state of aloneness you don’t rely on anyone psychologically because you are no longer seeking pleasure, comfort, gratification. It is only then that the mind is completely alone, and only such a mind is creative.”

“It’s beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.”

– J. Krishnamurti

Low is often called Bowie’s blues album. He doesn’t sing on A New Career in a New Town, but that’s him on Harmonica, the traditional instrument of the blues, lending the track a gorgeous feeling of aloneness and new possibilities.

As Chris O’Leary points out on his Pushing Ahead of the Dame blog, “Bowie’s harmonica stands out in part because it’s the least-treated, and so the most “organic,” instrument in the mix”. The mix being of course; Eno’s beautiful synthetics in the electronics of the  “verses”, and the heavily processed rock band instruments in the “chorus” section. Notable in the latter, is Dennis Davis famously Harmonizer-pitch-shifted snare drum. If you listen carefully, I think you can hear how the effect on the snare is often alternating between hard and soft, one snare hit after another. According to Tony Visconti, Dennis figured out that if he hit the snare in different ways, he could trigger the Harmonizer to create differing sounds.

Bowie’s lonesome harmonica in A New Career in a New Town, reminds me of John Barry’s harmonica-driven Theme From Midnight Cowboy, from the wonderful 1969 movie of the same name, by John Schlesinger. Midnight Cowboy’s narrative starts out with a young man full of dreams, traveling to a New York City, only to find himself there unsuccessful, ripped off, and desperately lonely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOZYT8nX2X4&t=7s

What else was Bowie telling us with this track, and it’s title? Certainly in it’s placing as the final track on side 1 of Low, ANCIANT IS indicating the new musical direction of side 2. Is it also hinting at the “new” Bowie, settling into his desperately needed return to Europe and the anonymity of his new life in Berlin?

Back when I made the David Bowie is The Man Who Fell to Earth documentary, I liked the idea of using A New Career in a New Town cut with The Man Who Fell to Earth footage of Newton doing business deals in New York with patent lawyer, Farnsworth. Initially Farnsworth is wary of Newton, and skeptical about his ideas. But after an entire night scrutinizing Newton’s extraordinary blueprints, Farnsworth is astonished…

Hope you dig it!

More videos to follow, so please keep your electric eye on me babe!

I don’t own the rights, and I’m not making any money out of this etc. Just a fan making videos for other fans.

Nacho’s Videos

#Low #BrianEno #DennisDavis #CarlosAlomar #TonyVisconti #TheManWhoFelltoEarth #NicRoeg

—

Nacho 

Movie editor. Yogi. Humanitarian. Music fan. Bowie obsessive.

Vimeo

YouTube

Facebook

Hope ya dig it!