I haven’t been all that political on my blog as of late. To be honest, it’s just been too damn draining, but I felt the need to speak up against this, only because I don’t feel like enough people are.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, James Gunn was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 because a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women and a Nazi started a smear campaign against him.

In a world where everything seems to be falling to shit all around us, I know it might sound trite to have this be a hill I’m willing to die on, but fuck this. This is emblematic of everything wrong with American discourse. Bad faith actors, “fake news,” public shaming, hypocrisy, and the ever-growing shamelessness of the right-wing, who slam a man for jokes he apologized for all while praising a President who admitted on video to sexually assaulting women.

I can’t do much to fight against this, all I can do is share this petition asking for Disney to give the man his job back, and not to kowtow to literal Nazis and literal rapists. Please sign and share it. Let them know.

Also, if you see horribly-written, poorly researched articles about the topic (like this one or this one), maybe comment or email the writers. Let them know how you feel about them being taken on as useful idiots for a right-wing smear job designed only to silence anyone who speaks out too loudly against Trump. Remind them that any article about Mike Cernovich that doesn’t feature the line “a man who has admitted to sexual assault and condones rape” is fucking up. Remind them that Jack Posobiec is a LITERAL NAZI who spreads Nazi propaganda and codes his messages with Nazi symbolism.

And don’t forget that it’s always okay to fuck up a Nazi.

Okay, now David Bowie.

Tin Machine
You Belong In Rock ‘N’ Roll (Extended Mix)
Amlapura (Indonesian Version)
Shakin’ All Over (Live)
I’m really interested in hearing the upcoming Loving The Alien David Bowie box set, which covers the artist’s much-maligned mid-80s output. I’ve always though that a little bit of that kickback was unwarranted. Let’s Dance has a few bad songs on it, but it’s a good album. Ditto for Tonight. I will fight anyone who tells me that “Blue Jean” is not a wonderful 80s pop song.

Of course, there was a lot of less-than-stellar stuff there too, the most obvious being Never Let Me Down, the only album in Bowie’s discography that he seemingly disowned completely. That’s why I’m so interested in buying the box set, as it will include an entirely remixed and redone version of the album that will hopefully strip out some of that horrible 80s production and polish some of those songs into the gems that I know they can be.

It really can’t be understated just how bad that album is though. If it was an album by a band, it would’ve caused them to break up. It led David Bowie to do the opposite and form a band, Tin Machine, just so he could escape from being David Bowie for a while. Yeah, Tin Machine wasn’t perfect either, they also had seemingly had a miss for every hit, but they were at least different, and they really gave Bowie a good place for him to experiment and re-invent himself for the 90s, where he reached another creative high-point, in my opinion.

I occasionally read that the Tin Machine albums served as a precursor to grunge, and while I love them both dearly, I certainly can’t see that. Tin Machine’s sound may be stripped down, but it’s certainly not raw. These albums still sound like slick 80s rock albums, just slick 80s rock albums that are a little less bombastic than what else was going on at the time.

“You Belong In Rock ‘N’ Roll” was the lead single off of the group’s second album, and it failed to light up the charts anywhere. It’s a great tune, if a bit odd. It feels like a cross between “Low” era and “Let’s Dance” Bowie; brooding and off-kilter, but still pop. Not an easy balance to make, but Bowie (of course) pulled it off just fine. Can’t believe it bombed.

The original version of “Amlapura” is an album cut, this version, recorded in Indonesian, was exclusively a B-side and has never been re-released. Same for this live cover of “Shakin’ All Over,” which features a short-but-dope-as-fuck solo by Reeves Gabrels. Wonder if these will get remastered and repackaged for the next Bowie box set? Those things have been really random with the rarities, so it’s hard to tell.

Enjoy the Bowie. And pleas don’t forget to sign that petition.

And if you feel the need to comment in praise of Cernovich, don’t fucking bother, I screen comments for a reason.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2018 at 10:22 pm and is filed under B-sides, David Bowie, remixes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.