Discord & Rhyme: An Album Podcast

Discord and Rhyme is a podcast where we discuss the albums we love, song by song.

068: David Bowie - Station to Station (1976)

“This is from back in the Seventies. Well, my Seventies, they weren’t necessarily your Seventies.”
—David Bowie, introducing “Station to Station,” Atlantic City, 2004

One day in September 1976, fueled by cocaine, peppers, and milk, David Bowie entered a Los Angeles recording studio, and then emerged a couple months later remembering nothing about what had just happened. Discord & Rhyme is here to fill in the blanks for you: He spent those two months recording Station to Station, a transitional album between his funk and experimental art rock periods that may be his all-time greatest work. The only album from Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona is only six songs long, but they’re so colorful and dense that Producer Mike and co-hosts John, Rich, and Ben spend nearly two hours talking about them. There’s so much going on in this music that it could fill a movie or book (and Ben even wrote one about him), but for today, a really enthusiastic podcast episode will suffice. And unlike your television set, there is no evidence that your podcatcher of choice will try to eat you!

Miscellany

  • Mike meant to mention in the episode that not only was Carlos Alomar the guitarist in Bowie’s rhythm section during this period, he was also Bowie’s musical director, and as such played a major role in what his albums from that time sounded like.

  • Mike also wants to be clear that he really does think Ben’s book is very good, disagreements over the Berlin-era ambient material notwithstanding. Even when Ben doesn’t like something, he’s always very thoughtful about it. Like, he actually listened to those Tin Machine albums.

  • We somehow got through a discussion of “TVC15” without mentioning his totally bonkers Saturday Night Live performance of the song, backed by Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. The video also features performances of “The Man Who Sold the World” and “Boys Keep Swinging.”

  • For a very positive re-assessment of the Young Americans album, check out this episode of the Heat Rocks podcast featuring Lynell George. 

  • This is almost so famous that it needs no annotation, but just in case, the cold open is a riff on Bowie’s “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy” duet with Bing Crosby, from the 1977 holiday special Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas

Other links 

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

  • Mike DeFabio (host)

  • Benjamin Marlin (moderator)

  • Rich Bunnell

  • John McFerrin

Station to Station tracklist 

  1. Station to Station

  2. Golden Years

  3. Word on a Wing

  4. TVC15

  5. Stay

  6. Wild Is the Wind 

Other clips used 

David Bowie:

  • Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy (with Bing Crosby)

  • Space Oddity

  • Little Wonder

  • Life on Mars?

  • Beauty and the Beast

  • Ziggy Stardust

  • Farewell Speech (from Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture)

  • 1984

  • Young Americans

  • Saviour Machine

  • John, I'm Only Dancing

  • John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)

  • Sound and Vision

  • "Heroes"

  • Stay (Live Nassau Coliseum '76 version)

  • Blackstar

  • 5:15 the Angels Have Gone

  • The Wedding 

Others:

  • Kraftwerk - Radioactivity

  • Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express

  • Elton John - Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding

  • Johnny Rivers - Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

  • U2 - Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

  • Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories - Stay (I Missed You)

  • Dave Matthews Band - Stay (Wasting Time)

  • Nina Simone - Wild Is the Wind

Band/album personnel 

  • David Bowie – vocals, guitar, tenor and alto saxophone, Minimoog, Mellotron, production

  • Carlos Alomar – guitar

  • Roy Bittan – piano, organ

  • Dennis Davis – drums

  • George Murray – bass guitar

  • Warren Peace – backing vocals

  • Earl Slick – guitar

  • Harry Maslin – melodica, synthesiser, vibraphone, production

  • Steve Shapiro – photography 

Credits

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

  • Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

  • Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

  • The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

  • Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

  • Herbie Hancock - Hornets

  • Kraftwerk - Autobahn

  • Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

  • David Bowie - Stay (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream Station to Station and other albums by David Bowie at store.davidbowie.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Special thanks to Mike DeFabio for editing, production, our theme song, and hosting this episode. See you next album, and be ever wonderful.

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