David Bowie. Santa Monica ‘72
£
50
$
66
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Description
For sale from my personal vinyl collection is a duplicated copy of David Bowie. Santa Monica ‘72 Original live radio broadcast recording sounding just as it should sound, raw and more personal/live unlike the present day, recently released Parlophone remastered issue. EX condition throughout, the two vinyls are in pristine condition with no visible marks but does have slight sound distortion in parts but nothing drastic. Please bare in mind this album is a semi unofficial release, please see all photos.
Originally recorded for an American radio station, the lack of sonic polish on Live Santa Monica ’72 is actually its great strength as the band snarls and roars through a set of their finest numbers. Bowie fluffs the odd line, Bolder and Woodmansey fire on all cylinders and Ronson’s guitar work is nothing short of blistering. Oh, and keyboard player for hire Mike Garson is in there somewhere, his playing being overwhelmed by the power of one of the finest live rock bands that ever existed. With the minimum of extraneous rubbish, Live Santa Monica ’72 is a document of primal rock and roll in its natural environment, as Bowie an The Spiders nail definitive live versions of some of the greatest rock songs ever written. From the distorted thrill of “Hang on to Yourself”, a breathtaking version of “Ziggy Stardust”, via a feather-spitting “Queen Bitch”, and then on to a musuclar copver of “Waiting for the Man” and a set-closing double punch of “The Jean Genie” and “Suffragette City” (which was topped by the encore of “Rock’n’Roll Suicide”, Live Santa Monica ’72 is a hell of a live rock album. There’s moments of lightness and fragility to, such as a glorious version of “My Death” and a head-turning run through “Life on Mars”. Just about every Ziggy-era Bowie tune you’d want to hear is performed, with the strange exception of “Starman”, the song which had acted as the springboard to success for the Ziggy character.
Live Santa Monica ’72 is not only a celebration of Bowie and The Spiders from Mars as a live act, but of Bowie himself as a rock star. Sure, as his career progressed he would further redefine what a rock star was, but this recording captures him in the first flush of sustained success, as he embraces and comes to terms what it was to be adored by millions and to achieve a level of success that he’d been reaching for for the best part opf a decade. This is as honest and unpolished a document of Bowie’s commanding stage presence as you’re ever likely to hear and it celebrates a period of his career during which he wasn’t trying too hard to out-think himself, or the rest of the music industry.
As great as Bowie is throughout Live Santa Monica ’72, it’s also serves as the definitive document of Mick Ronson the guitar icon. As valuable as he was in the studio, it’s accepted that on the live stage, Ronno was the only person that Bowie had to ‘share’ the on-stage limelight with at any point in his career. As big a star as Bowie was, the Ziggy character would not have been a success without the Chief Spider, and Bowie would never find a creative foil as utterly vital to him as Ronno was.
Live Santa Monica ’72 was finally given a legitimate archive release back in 2008, and is now easy to locate and purchase. Yes, the radio host announcements that frame the performance and the variable quality of sound certainly betray its origions as a bootleg, but as a document of David Bowie and The Spider from Mars doing what they did best, it’s both thrilling and invaluable and a reminder that while Bowie would indeed go on to record with better musicians, he never had a better band behind him than The Spiders From Mars.
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