Darkness and Disgrace - AVAILABLE NOW! - TW David Bowie Conversation Piece

The songs from Darkness and Disgrace, the show based on the work of David Bowie featuring Des de Moor and Russell Churney, has now been recorded and can now be ordered through Amazon.

The 70-minute recording also features special guest backing vocals from the show's director, Barb Jungr, on a couple of tracks.

Track Listing

1. Future Legend/Bewitched Music: Richard Rodgers 1:11
from Diamond Dogs 1974

2. Diamond Dogs 3:53
from Diamond Dogs 1974

3. It's No Game 3:07
from Scary Monsters 1980

4. The Man Who Sold The World 2:44
from The Man Who Sold The World 1970

5. Look Back In Anger Music: David Bowie, Brian Eno 1:56
from Lodger 1979

6. We are the Dead 5:54
from Diamond Dogs 1974

7. Lady Stardust 3:17
from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars 1972

8. London Boys 2:50
Single 1966

9. Boys Keep Swinging Music: David Bowie, Brian Eno 1:48
from Lodger 1979

10. The Bewlay Brothers 5:08
from Hunky Dory 1971

11. Be My Wife 1:04

12. Always Crashing in the Same Car 2:31

13. Be My Wife (Reprise) 0:51
from Low 1977

14. Life on Mars? 3:27
from Hunky Dory 1971

15. Please Mr Gravedigger 3:08
from David Bowie 1967

16. Station to Station 2:53
from Station to Station 1976

17. All the Madmen 3:46
from The Man Who Sold The World 1970

18. The Buddha of Suburbia 3:48
from Buddha of Suburbia 1993

19. "Heroes"/Kopf bis Fuss Music: David Bowie, Brian Eno/Friedrich Hollaender 2:40
from "Heroes" 1977

20. I have not been to Oxford Town Music: David Bowie, Brian Eno 4:41
from "1.Outside" 1995

21. Time 5:28
from Aladdin Sane 1973

22. All the Young Dudes 3:27
Mott the Hoople single 1972

Downloads a couple of these tracks here

Darkness and Disgrace is one of those ideas which at first glance might seem puzzling and dissonant, but like one of longtime Bowie sideman Mike Garson's chord voicings, it ends up being wholly right and appropriate. David Bowie is, after all, a bona-fide British pop star, while our own musical trajectories have taken us further and further away from the world of commercial popular music. These days, Des is an English chansonnier and Russell a jazz/blues pianist with a line in comedy and cabaret, and we met each other through performing work that on the surface appears very different from, say, The Man Who Sold The World, Lodger or 1.Outside.

But back in the 1970s we were both Bowie fans, and David's work has left its traces and signposts: theatre, storytelling, science fiction, music hall, mod, Jacques Brel, soul and R&B, the importance of the well-turned lyric, the extraordinary pianism of Garson... Years later, it only took a chance remark from Des that he'd once thought of doing a show entirely of Bowie songs and the current project assembled itself almost before our eyes with the utmost sense of logic.

Barb Jungr, a close friend and colleague, offered to direct the show, which evolved into Darkness and Disgrace. On stage, it's a music theatre piece in which Bowie songs in stripped-down arrangements are interspersed with spoken texts, quotes from interviews and dramatised excerpts from other works linked to the songwriter's career, such as Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

The show began life at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, London N1 in April 2000 and has since been through several incarnations, including a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. If nothing else, it would be excellent proof of the old adage that a good song needs only a voice and piano or guitar to be effective, but it also seems to have struck a chord both with devoted Bowiephiles seeing something new in well-loved work, and people who were put off by aspects of Bowie's image without recognising what a great songwriter he was, and is, beneath the Aladdin Sane flashes and the Kirlian haloes.

For us, of course, it was partly that image that attracted us to Bowie's work back in our teenage years. We're both from families of immigrants and asylum seekers, and grew up with a sense of never quite belonging, being misfits and outsiders, a sense compounded by the fact that both of us were also clever, bookish, solitary, sensitive boys with no aptitude for sports whatsoever. Not surprising that we found Bowie's concerns with alienation, the trademark "man-from-Mars schtick", so appealing.

Then there was the sexual ambiguity, such a major factor in Bowie's early 70s persona, and of obvious appeal to a gay man who seems straight (Des), and to a straight man who is often mistaken for gay (Russell).

There was his sense of theatre: the bewildering parade of masks, guises and personae, the ease with which he slipped from one to the next, and the glee with which he courted controversy.

And then, of course, there was the work itself. We'd both been captivated by the sheer quality of the writing, the lyrical intelligence, the unashamed literary sensibility and resistance to accusations of pretentiousness, and a breadth of reference unprecedented in the world of the three-minute pop song. And the musical bravery: the compulsive innovation, the lack of complacency, his refusal to revisit old ground.

With this in mind, we couldn't have been more chuffed and slightly overwhelmed when David Bowie himself commented, after hearing a tape of the show: "To hear these songs in such a personalised context is a real ear-opener. I listened as though someone else had written them." As songwriters ourselves, we also recognise the slightly spooky way that a good song seems to take on a life of its own, independent of the person who spawned it. We hope you will also find something fresh and unexpected in our versions that reveals new layers in these unique and masterful songs.

Russell Churney and Des de Moor

London, August 2003

Credits

* Russell Churney voice, grand piano, acoustic guitar
* Des de Moor voice, acoustic guitar, electric bass, percussion
* Barb Jungr guest voice

Russell plays all the piano; sings lead vocal on 12, joint lead vocals on 3, 5 and 9, and most other harmony and backing vocals; and plays the first guitar on 10. Des sings all other lead and some of the harmony and backing vocals and plays all other instruments. Barb sings backing vocals on 7 and 22.

Recorded by Richard Lee at the 100 Club, London W1, June 2003 and by Des at Pirate Jenny's Studio, London SE14, July and August 2003, entirely on digital hard drive recorders. Mixed by Des at PJs. DDD.

Special thanks to Cecilia Darker, Cleo Sylvestre and Finnuala McNulty at the Rosemary Branch; Chris Umney; Mark and Susan at Bowienet; Mike Leigh; Dillie Keane; Adam Longworth; Chris George; Lester Richards at Pentameters; Jeff Horton and Richard Horton at the 100 Club; Ian Harris; and David Bowie.

Words and music by David Bowie
Arranged by Russell Churney and Des de Moor
Directed for the stage by Barb Jungr
Album produced by Des de Moor

from http://www.desdemoor.com/

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