ALIEN CITY 1979 rare private glam psych Bowie LP LISTEN

$

150

When I was a kid in the late 70’s, I had a friend who very well may have been David Bowie’s biggest fan.  He used to play all the albums for me, back when I couldn’t afford to own anything besides used 8-tracks, and I was soon as infatuated with this bizarre androgynous glam rocker as he was.  But, like a true Bowie fan back then, he believed that David’s discography officially ended in 1974.  To him, “Young Americans” never existed (and even today, I wish that were true), and there was no Berlin phase of Bowie’s career either.  No, David Bowie was forever frozen as space alien/Aladdin Sane/Orwellian dog-boy, and that was that.  In our world, “The Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family” never faded out.

I mention all this because, after listening to this mega-obscure self-financed album called “Alien City,” I kinda think my old friend might’ve grown up to become just like Jon Turnbow, the man behind this project.  Only 500 of these micro-pressings came out in 1979, but it was clear a lot of work went into it – Jon had spent five years (“Five Years”, how ironic is that?) working on “Alien City”, a loose concept album about celestial visitation that musically channels early 70’s Bowie while assuming valiantly that The Thin White Duke never happened.  Many of “Alien City”’s songs are introspective, piano-led numbers, so he also seems to fav or the laid-back Bowie of “Lady Grinning Soul” and “Aladdin Sane” over the harder-edged, sexed-up glam of “Cracked Actor” or “Diamond Dogs.”   Which is not to say that he’s completely out of touch with his musical time – there are quite a few songs here that show Jon’s been checking out the early punk/new wave movement (even more so than Bowie himself).  “Information Overload” is a lost robot pop classic, with lots of jagged, angular punk guitar and the happy sounds of nuclear bomb explosions in the background.  If you played this for Gary Numan’s mom (assuming he has a mom), she’d swear it was her son’s latest Tubeway Army single.  “Get Away” even flirts with reggae in the same way early Police did, but with Jon’s vocals channeling glam-era Bowie.  Or Jobriath, with a touch of Pete Shelley from the Buzzcocks, that lead singer from the Doctors of Madness, and Ian Hunter as a child, to be more precise.

Of course, none of this would matter if the music didn’t stand on its own, and it does, using Bowie’s mannerisms and lyrical concepts, but incorporating them into Jon’s own warped hybrid of prog-rock and new wave pop.  The songs are catchy too, which helps, and Bowie’d be the first to tell you that.  There’s even some fine female backing vocals on “Older Men.”  It’s a long album too – over 50 minutes – and that kinda makes up for Diamond Dogs, which a stingy Bowie faded after only 36 minutes.  And if you have trouble following “Alien City”’s colonization story, there’s even a lyric sheet. 

With only 500 of these pressed, and no reissue in sight, “Alien City” remains a mostly unheard treasure.  And if he’s not somehow involved, I doubt even my former Bowie-obsesssed friend’s heard it.  It’s an album that’s truly one man’s life work, and completing it was so exhausting for Jon Turnbow, he reportedly checked himself into an asylum after it was released.  Which, come to think of it, was a very smart way to avoid going through a “Philly soul” phase.

Original 1979 pressing on the private Dog-Star label, unreissued and don't hold yer breath!  Cover's still in the shrinkwrap!  Vinyl looks clean, plays VG+ due to lo-fi crackly press.  Also comes with the lyric sheet too!  A well-preserved, beautiful package for an album you rarely ever see. 

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