I have a friend that I grew up with that now lives in New York. I touch base with her on Facebook every now and then but haven't seen her face to face in at least twenty years. It's a bummer because we went through a lot together back in the day, were roommates (with about eight others) around 1980. Back then she had a thing for David Bowie and I just ran into some Bowie oddballs and it made me think of her. She, Margaret, inventor of the Bowie Fast.
What is the Bowie Fast, you ask? Something that, at one time seemed silly, worthy of a teasing. Later it made total sense. I think it was somewhere around 1978-79, someone was putting on a record and they were asked not to play Bowie. It seemed Margaret liked Bowie so much that she didn't want to risk getting sick of him. She was on a Bowie Fast. Now I know what you're thinking, that Bowie's catalog is so vast that it would be nearly impossible, particularly for a Bowie fan, to even hear all that he's recorded enough times to go to that length. Not the ease in 1978. Bowie only had about a dozen albums out. There was no internet, no downloads or search engines, no deluxe editions. Outtakes, then only on bootleg LPs or via tape swapping, were hard to come by if they existed at all, There was roughly twelve hours (or less) of Bowie recordings readily available. The Bowie Fast makes total sense.
Here's three covers and a link to a collection of more outtakes, demos and the like. Margaret, hope you like :)
David Bowie - Mother mp3 at Internet Archive Orig: John Lennon
David Bowie- Chim Chimney mp3 at Internet Archive From Mary Poppins
David Bowie and Bryan Ferry - The In Crowd mp3 at Internet Archive Orig: Dobie Gray (?)
The collection (80 cuts):
Bowie For Bowie Fans at Internet Archive
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