#BowieSteunt - TV On The Radio - Province (2006)

Op 8 januari was het vijf jaar geleden dat ene David Robert Jones het tijdelijke met het eeuwige verwisselde. De wereld kent hem beter als David Bowie. Er was niet één Bowie maar er waren er vele, want hij gooide de vaak zelf gekozen bijnamen (Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane, The Dame, The Picasso of Pop, Jareth The Goblin King, …) sneller af dan het publiek kon volgen. Maar bijzonder was hij wel en elke periode en elk alter ego leverde pareltjes op. . Wij focussen even op een ander aspect van zijn persoonlijkheid: de bereidheid om vrienden altijd uit de nood te helpen, hetzij met vocalen, hetzij met productie, hetzij met een combinatie van zijn talenten.

Flashback naar Pukkelpop 2006..Vrijdag 18 augustus. We staan in de gezellige Clubtent en worden compleet omver geblazen door TV On The Radio die er de tweede en doorbraakplaat 'Return To Cookie Mountain' voorstellen. Het New Yorkse viertal is moeilijk te typeren, maar probeer eens met “glitchy electronic noise and soulful lo-fi indie rock". Veel dichter komen we niet, maar verrassen deden ze wel. En ook zij hebben iets met David Bowie.

Maar laten we beginnen bij het begin en laten we gitarist-keyboardspeler-producer Dave Sitek even schetsen hoe hij Bowie tot hem kwam: "I remember the first time I heard Heroes on the radio. I was probably eleven or twelve. My dad had a really bitchin’ Pioneer stereo, and I used to lay down in front of the studio and listen to the radio. I had a little tape recorder, and I’d record stuff. That day I played sick and stayed home from school. I was flipping through the radio and Heroes came on, right at the moment when he raises his voice, I said, 'What the hell is that?' I recorded it and kept that cassette for a long time, with the second-half of the song. When I was about fifteen, I was listening to that cassette and I thought I should hear the rest of the album. I went to the local public library in Columbia, Maryland. They had a record player there and some records, including 'Heroes'. I brought my tape recorder and recorded the whole album. I probably listened to that exclusively for a month. It was one of the most believable records I’d heard.”

Fast forward naar 2004, als David Bowie een fotosessie doet met een styliste die Young Liars, afkomstig van de eerste ep van TV On The Radio, speelt en op de vraag wie daar speelt, antwoordt de styliste: “It’s my friend’s band.” Waarop Bowie antwoordt: “I’d like to talk to him.” En ze geeft hem het telefoonnummer van Dave Sitek die aan het touren is en in Philadelphia verblijft en plots een telefoontje krijgt: “We were about to play a show and were unloading the van, and I got a call and it was him. At first I thought it was Julian [Gross] from the Liars fucking with me. David Bowie is pretty much the highest up in my world, so I was like, 'Julian’s doing this.' I was just in denial and I was questioning it. Then he said, 'No, this is actually David.' I realized that even though Julian is an incredible prankster, he couldn’t pull off David Bowie’s voice. David was telling me about how much he loved the record and it was daring and refreshing and a bunch of other things. It was kind of a blur to me. I was like, this is not happening."

Maar het was wel degelijk David Bowie en Sitek mag bij Bowie thuis aan tafel: “He was very kind to me and I thought, 'This guy can’t possibly want to talk to me again.' But he did. After talking a couple of times, he invited me over to his studio. When I went into the room where he wrote a lot of his music, one thing that struck me was that he had the same four-track I had. That tickled me. I remember when I walked out of his building onto that street in New York, I thought, 'Did I just step out of a dream?' When we started making 'Return To Cookie Mountain', I dropped off a disc of demos for him. About a month later, he wrote to me and said, 'I really love this Province track, the lyrics and the strange choice of sounds. This is really incredible.' And without even thinking about it, I said, 'Well, you should come to the studio and be on it.' Which was kind of a ballsy move, and he said, 'OK, I’ll be there sometime next week'. He showed up at my studio in Williamsburg."

"Tunde [Adebimpe, zanger] couldn’t get his head around it. I couldn’t either. We were both, 'What the hell is going on?' David was an absolute gentleman. He was super generous with his time and down to earth. He was wearing New Balance sneakers and talking to us about music. He listened to everything. He was into Lightning Bolt, like I was, and I talked to him about Górecki’s third symphony. Usually when you’re in a studio, you hear the vocals and have an idea of what to do next. But he’d sing the parts and you’d go, 'Uh, that sounds like a finished record.' But true to form, he was like, 'You know what you’re doing, so do you think it’s right?' He wasn’t trying to turn TV On The Radio into Bowie. He just wanted to participate and honor the song and be a part of it. To do it without his guidance is going to be hard. He was a steward of change.”

Mooi verhaal en zeer mooie song van een bijzondere groep die helaas niet meer speelt sinds het overlijden van bassist Gerard Smith die in 2011 overleed aan kanker.