Diamond Dogs

Hello friends,

It’s Chuck coming to you from Denver. Where we’re starting a new tour. Check your local listings as they say.

If you follow me, you might just know I’ve been kicking a Temple Beautiful Musical around for more than several years. Co-writing with klipschutz.

And thanks to some seed money, recently we rolled up our sleeves (again!), working intensively with our script guru Gene Corr. We now have a rewritten script with some extra polish and Gene’s blessings. The libretto is leaner, more focused, and emotionally true. The story has a clearer arc, the relationships have more weight, and the characters finally seem to understand what they’re doing in the play.

This next-level stuff all came to pass through working with Chicago-based career theater m’ofessional Richard Friedman.

To get here, we’ve gone through a couple theatre companies. Way back when, for a spell, there was even a Tony award winning writer in our midst. More directors, table reads, staged readings… Lots of twists and turns. We’ve written new songs. Re-tooled old songs. Put the whole deal up on the shelf and pulled it down. This time around, we’re hoping we have all the tumblers clicking, all the boxes checked.

As a result of this project you could say I have a heightened awareness of Musicals—and you would be right!

Everything is a musical to me now.

Which brings me to Bowie.

I subscribe to Lloyd Cole’s Substack. It’s a revelation. Along with sharing the ephemeral artifacts of his “process” as it were—Lloyd the songwriter, Lloyd the record maker—he has given his readers a great gift by taking us on a guided tour through Bowie’s 70’s oeuvre.

And it’s amazing. Lloyd is incredibly knowledgeable and insightful. And has clearly thought hard and long about this stuff. Plus he’s got the literary chops to dig in. And like any good music writing, he got me reaching for the records.

Those records are part of my DNA. That’s my Substack tip right there, BTW. If that sounds like your cup of meat, sign up for Lloyd Cole’s Substack HERE.

Which brings me to Bowie’s Diamond Dogs LP.

I’m beginning to think that a Diamond Dogs musical is a no brainer. Bowie thought so too, but was blocked by George Orwell’s family, which wouldn’t grant him permission. (Go ahead and factcheck me.)

In my fantasies, I would write it! (Yeah, right, like I need another project! But maybe I do. Or do I?) One thing for sure: By now, I’d be ready when theatre arts academics asked me, “Yeah Chuck, cool dialogue and all, but what do the characters want?”

I’d be like, “Oh that’s easy. They want to “Buy some drugs and watch a band. Jump in a river holding hands.”

Who can’t relate to that? I can see it now. Tourists by the busloads in Times Square throwing down for that airbrushed dog t-shirt.

“Bow wow, woof, woof!”

Picture it: the characters are already there. Rebel Rebel is the ingenue. But the actual protagonist is Halloween Jack, because of course he is. He’s a cool cat who lives atop Manhattan Chase. He swings everywhere on a rope like Tarzan or Peter Pan, right? He and Rebel Rebel are hiding from the regime. Then you’ve got the Diamond Dogs themselves: a Greek Chorus. In matching costumes. Mink coats and fur leg warmers. It’s all right there.

The only mystery is why nobody’s done it yet. Imagine a dystopian set. Exposed wires and pipes and catwalks, see-through rusty metal grates, steaming manholes… in a cellar like a church. Or where the lizards lay crying in the heat.

When the lights go dim the first thing you hear is that synthesized voice. The voiceover of Big Brother. And then the harmonized guitars. And pow! “This ain’t rock and roll, this is genocide!”

More cowbell!!

Oh well, I should have been a Broadway Musical Producer.

***

Growing up in lower California with two older sisters, Bowie’s 70s records made their way into our house. My sister Jeanne even saw the Station to Station tour. On a school night, no less. But yeah, Hunky Dory. That was my education. Who’s Andy Warhol? Who’s Zimmerman? Martin Scorsese says that when filmmaking works, the filmmaker is able to make you care about his or her obsessions. That’s the job. That’s the goal. That’s the whole point. By the time I got my hands on Diamond Dogs after securing my copy at the Music Box on Harbor Boulevard in La Habra, I’d been turned on to Chuck Berry and was learning guitar. I heard that riffing on Diamond Dogs and maybe, just maybe a voice inside my head said, “You can do this, man.”

A lot has happened since that incredible run of LP’s Bowie seemed to just effortlessly spit out with hardly a breath in between. I actually ended up working on an album with Diamond Dog producer Toni Visconti. [Alejandro Escovedo’s Real Animal. Yeah, check it out:

I suppose Visconti let a few tricks out of the bag. Not too many, though. But there was this gem I’ll share with you and run the risk of meandering too far into shop talk: When Marc Bolan doubled his rhythm parts, they were always a little sloppy to Visconti’s ears. He’d tried to get Bolan to do a tighter overdub, but Bolan couldn’t be bothered. And would brush him off. In the end after decades of hearing those songs on the radio, Visconti told me he reluctantly came around to Bolan’s thinking. At this point he can hardly imagine it another way. Sloppy doubles and all.

Judge here for yourself:

PS: Those records hit me pretty hard. Especially Hunky Dory. [Breaking news: according to Lloyd, it “sold 5,000 copies.” More proof that what’s popular isn’t necessarily right. And what’s right isn’t necessarily popular.]

PPS: Thanks for subscribing. For being here. They say the only way to get good at writing is to actually do it, one misspelled word at a time (praise be to spellcheck). That’s one reason why I’m here. You’re the other reason. So thanks for being here too.

Onwards,

-CP