Available as a double CD, limited edition double vinyl and DVD, ‘Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars – The Motion Picture’, celebrates some 30 years treading the boards – and what a treat you have in store. In addition to the new 5.1 Dolby surround sound stereo mix by long time Bowie collaborator and producer, Tony Visconti (responsible for classics like Low, Heroes, and Scary Monsters) you have for the first time on CD all the concert introductions and consummate between show chat together with some unedited (read long) versions of tracks like ‘The Width of A Circle’. All wrapped up in a funky little clamshell display case with facsimile theatre ticket, press cutouts and pullout poster. Not bad if you can get it, eh?
The re-release works pretty much on all levels, and in all its glorious media options; as a crisp, remasterd audio CD and as a lasting visual document making use of all the latest gizmos and interactive qualities of DVD. In fact, it’s the events of July 3rd 1973 at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in some kind of weird virtual reality theatre box. If the scratches on the vinyl ruined it for you on the record or the out of synch soundtrack ruined it for you at the flicks, then let me make it plain, this is wholly superior – and about as close as your senses will get to actually being there.
With a DVD commentary provided by Tony Visconti and the film’s director D.A Pannebroker (he of ‘Monterey Pop’ amongst other things) you’re also treated to some frankly marvellous background trivia – even if it is delivered in a sometimes tired and unremarkable fashion by the two weary bookends themselves. For instance, did you know that the film was originally intended as a half hour showcase for the then cutting edge ‘Select-A-Vision’ media? (a new type of record that could do audio and visual things at the same time….amazing) or that Mick Ronson’s black and blond Les Paul guitar was the result of a boring evening in with a dozen or so sheets of sandpaper for company? And were you aware that ABC were so nervous about the lyrical references to death and suicide that they wanted them beeped out? I certainly wasn’t. Neither was I aware that the glitter-chrome effect on film was the result of tiny pieces of magnesium flaking from the camera onto the celluloid. A little bit trainspotterish, I know, but interesting.
The hand-held cine quality of the camerawork may seem impoverished by modern standards and the commentary provided may locate the film in the harsh geography of business rather than rock history but it’s a striking record of glam-theatre all the same: the weighty and deliberate gestures, the extravagant narratives, the impure excesses of kinky costumes and extraterrestrial make-up, the wild ejaculating thrust of Ronson’s guitar, the teetering around on heels like tarts, the wacky mime shows and the improvised flashing of god-given arse. I still have no idea what it all means, but then perhaps that’s the point. Bowie disrupts the smooth, autonomous flow of information to our senses so that the world we’re actually in appears alien, an unchartered territory. You might think it more Rocky Horror Show than deconstruction – but it is whether you like it or not.
Tellingly, the release reveals the genuine blood, sweat and tears that used to go into creating truly original and memorable rock records and great gigs. And it’s perhaps more ironic it’s the absurdly theatrical and artificial Ziggy Stardust that now highlights the ease with which a slick rock fantasist with the right publicity department can approximate the mad and unpredictable vicissitudes of greatness.
Not that I’m accusing the insincere posturing of pretenders like Craig Nicholls directly you understand, but there’s simply no fooling Ziggy.