‘Tin Machine’ Tin Machine

By Ian Dixon
“Hello Humans, can you hear me thinking?”

These words begin Bowie’s second Tin Machine album, critically panned as ‘second
rate’. This marks Bowie’s second attempt at equanimity within a band since heading
up The King Bees as Davie Jones in the mid 1960s (Trynka, 2011). In the interim, he
added the moniker ‘Bowie’ (vying to outdo Mick Jagger (meaning ‘hunter’) by
naming himself after a legendary hunting knife – although the story is still hotly
debated) and becoming a mega-star (Sandford, 1996). 1 Was forming Tin Machine an
act of sheer pretension or a genuine plea to return to his roots? Indeed, for the
inimitable David Bowie, self-conscious pretension is an active part of his stagecraft
and key ingredient within his famous ‘personas’, which brings us to another
quandary: where is his faithful, protective mask during the Tin Machine era? Did the
1980s, which saw him perform to audiences in the hundreds of thousands, selling
albums in the tens of millions, see him emerge from behind the mask? Had he finally
accepted his Reality as a household name without obfuscating his (dubious) ‘true’
self behind theatrical disguise? 2 Or was he making Tin Machine, the band, his latest
attempt at subterfuge; albeit in the guise of honest, grassroots rock ‘n’ roll? As band
member, Hunt Sales, famously remarked, this was presumably the only garage band
in existence with a millionaire for a lead singer (Leigh, 2014). How ironic that ‘Woody’
Woodmansey, the drummer of the Spiders from Mars, once declared Bowie as
simply ‘one of the lads’ who became a star and a show-off and relinquished his
duties lugging gear as he had done in the early days (Trynka, 2011).

An assessment of the Tin Machine album in hindsight, however, highlights the

successful experiment it was: his image, though tainted, lived to see many more
reinventions. Consequently, both Tin Machine albums can be seen as improvisations
on themes and ideas which would take another decade to perfect with the
emergence of his next manifestation of (flawed) genius in albums such as Outside
(1995) and Heathen (2002). Fast forward yet another decade and The Next Day
(2013) appears without warning; offering up songs of radical contrast from the
heartbroken Where Are We Now?to the rock lament The Stars (Are Out Tonight). So
the Tin Machine experiment represents a necessary pipeline through which Bowie’s

1
Biographer Wendy Leigh argues this is not true and that Bowie fashioned himself on entrepreneur
Norman Bowie.
2
Where Kiss had theatricalised even the act of unmasking (1983-1996) after their 1980 album Kiss:
Unmasked, heralded a change, Bowie, in this same era had merely neglected the mask until it stuck
firm in place (Shaar Murray, 1981).
creativity passed, surged, died and re-emerged. We might therefore consider Tin
Machine’s second album from the point of view of the music; Bowie’s fandom; the
Tin Machine band; the Bowie mask; the album itself and the individual tracks as a
way of rescuing the album from damnation within the Bowie lexicon.

Arguably, all the libel against Tin Machine connotes the best part of the great man’s
life: the music itself. The first Tin Machine album was lambasted as a work of garage
band wall-of-noise and both garage devotees and Bowie fans alike seemed baffled.
For my part, I confess to greeting the first album hoping to hell it would match his
seminal works of the 1970s, and after a valiant period of evangelical apologism, I
resolved (along with the rest of the enclave) that it was awful. This second album
was released by Polygram in Australasia in 1991 and, despite its questionable merits,
ushers in a new era in music – a time when the rock giants of the 1970s were truly
gone (maybe not as ‘gone’ as Syd Barrett, but gone nonetheless). New rock
supergroups such as Pearl Jam and Nirvana took up the mantle. Indeed, the 70s gods
of rock returned in the guise of ‘old rockers’ two decades later (De Generis, 2007),
(those that had not carked it, that is).

Certainly, the diehard Bowie fan really wants the second album to work, and listens
intently for the expected sense of transcendence to rise. Alas, like their response Tin
Machine one, the exemplary fan falls somewhere between disappointment and
denial.

There is, however, much that this album promises and foreshadows, echoes and
reinvents: both in Bowie’s music and that of his protégés – all commendably. With
hallmark screaming guitars supplied strategically by Reeves Gabrels, who also co-
wrote most of the material, the album provides a clarity and balance, which might
betray a rookie breed of excellence… had it been anyone but Bowie in the co-driver’s
seat. The reputedly telepathic Sales brothers, Hunt and Tony, fill out the basic line-
up contributing some not-quite-dirty-enough tunes to the song list. According to
biographer Paul Trynka, all three accompanying performers on Tin Machine toured
with, befriended and did copious amounts of cocaine with Bowie in preparation for
this album.

Produced by Tim Palmer (&Tin Machine) and mixed at Studio 301 in Sydney Australia,
this album prefigures the simple rock line-up of the Reality tour (2003). But the
cookie-cutter mentality to songs does not quite have that ring of authenticity, nor
does Bowie adequately disappear in the background. Had Bowie read too much
Marxism during his performance of the titular role in Berthold Brecht’s polemic play
Baal (1982)? Did he look back in anger to find his teacher lounging in his overalls? Or
was he simply in denial of his status as mega-star? As forerunner to much of Bowie’s
subsequent work with virtuoso guitarist Reeves Gabrels, the album promises a
burgeoning style, which subsequently shape-shifted all the way to Outside. But
where The Spider’s lead guitarist Mick Ronson had been the exemplary axeman for
the glam rock era and ‘crafty’ guitarist Robert Fripp had all but created Scary
Monsters’ keystone, inimitable, psychotic rock, Gabrels virtuosity just becomes
annoyed, annoying and overweening.

The cover art provides a first glimpse of the material to come, while simultaneously
causing a cringe of trepidation. Bowie’s languid stare at the camera on the inner
cover of the CD seems to deny the contrasting cover depicting four circumspect (and
circumcised) Egyptian male nudes (banned in some countries). Bowie glowers with a
touch of suppressed charisma as if subsuming himself in the (dubious) mentality of
band solidarity were just a private joke he had not let the others in on. His look
seems to say: ‘I am just visiting here’, like the space traveller Thomas Jerome
Newton of The Man Who Fell to Earth (1975) or the escapee from worldly
oppression, Major Tom.

Once the album is in the player, the scrutiny begins in earnest: as does our attempt
to recover the gems hidden in the detritus. With yet another reference to 2001: A
Space Odyssey, ‘Baby Universal’ kicks the album off with a techno-fetishist repetition
of the word: ‘baby, baby, baby…’ The hook is excellent and reeks of self-referentiality:
space, star babies, alien voices and a reversal of the haunting ending of ‘Diamond
Dog’(‘bra, bra, bra, bra, bra…’). ‘Baby Universal’s’ theme curiously collides two of
Bowie’s notable obsessions: space and mental telepathy. Yes, Sir David, we can hear
you thinking: do ‘think’ us some more. For a moment there’s real potential in this
album.

‘One Shot’, written with Tony Sales, produced, mixed and engineered by Hugh
Padgham (returning for another crack after Loving the Alien). There is a touch of ‘The
Labyrinth’ in the song’s simplicity and screaming guitar lead (not mixed so far back as
to obscure its pretensions to garage band). And yes, Gabrels peels off an awesome
arpeggio or two, but does it add up to a unique song? Here the listener is privileged
to hear fine musicianship hitching a ride on a less than satisfactory vehicle, which
only goes to prepare us (dejection beginning to set in) for the pedestrian song: ‘You
Belong in Rock n Roll’. Yet, this next track, with the whispered, haunting, low crooner
tones of Bowie at his best, promises to impress. However, the song proves a mere
practice-run for the far superior ‘Where Are we Now?’ on The Next Day. If this is rock
‘n’ roll, then it ain’t the 60s anymore. And if this is garage, they ain’t waking up the
neighbours. Yet, the song actually sits nicely in the set: well arranged; some
inventive SFX mixing, which creates a rush of insight for the listener; and some fine
restraint on Bowie and Gabrels’ part (although seemingly vying for attention). Just
when the album might have become odious, ‘If There Is Something’ (written
exclusively by Chuck Ferry) arrests Gabrels’ guitars from competing with Bowie’s
voice and the two elements dovetail melodiously and effectively.

‘Amlapura’: trippy, deliberately messed up, like coming off cocaine – which
according to Wendy Leigh (2014), Bowie was snorting copiously at the time of this
album, having claimed to have ‘kicked’ the habit previously. The dream-life
represented in the appropriately titled ‘Amlapura’, couched in a sound-reverb shell,
which echoes Pink Floyd (less satisfactorily). The song also prefigures psychedelic
revival bands such as The Dandy Warhols and Tame Impala, invents upon the past,
only to leave us hankering for the future.

And so to‘Betty Wrong’. Scrap the tedious guitar clichés and play this on half speed
and the incisive sheering chords cut through with the delightful weirdness of a David
Lynch film. Indeed, the title sounds like a character from Twin Peaks(this is not such
an improbable simile when you consider that in 1992, Bowie acted for Lynch in Twin
Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and provided the title track for Lynch’s Lost Highway
(1997), I’m Deranged (1995). Perhaps that’s what ‘Betty Wrong’ lacks – the essential
‘derangement’, which comes to fruition on ‘Outside’ years later. ‘Betty
Wrong’s’curiously switching bass, all-too-squeaky-clean, yet muffled riffs
counterpoising Bowie’s smacked-out lyricism and affectedly exhausted vocal delivery
contributes to a song, which is tonally satisfying, if not fully congealing. However, by
this stage we are aching for the quintessential Bowie: the genius that invents (even
steals) melodies such as ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ for sublime songs like
‘Starman’ (1974) (Trynka, 2011).

So with ‘You Can’t Talk’ (again written with Tony Sales), the messy grunge guitar, the
driving, steam-train beat propels us through lyrics, which should be worth listening
to, but somehow, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’just isn’t manifesting here. Is it
that Bowie’s invention is too good in the chorus to deliver a sense of the holistic song
– especially a garage (w)hole? Embarrassingly, the lyrics seem lazy and teenage, yet
without the prerequisite youthful anger, which ought to accompany such garage fare:
the genuine, raw-power rage, which underpinned works like ‘Scary Monsters’ (1979)
and ‘Ziggy Stardust’ (1972) is simply saddened by impending middle age; nor does it
bear the inspired improvisations of ‘Heroes’’ (1977) lyricism. When the tired, clichéd
fade out announces a sheer lack of creativity at the song’s ending, we are left
wondering where Bowie’s mask is? Is he emerging from behind the disguise to a
disappointing response? Should he simply venture back behind the personas we love
so much?
The next track ‘Stateside’ is: Iggy Pop meets Screaming Jay Hawkins. The Hammond
organ and slick lead guitar (both played by Gabrels) seems merely an excuse to
scramble up the fret-board for a good old-fashioned ‘rave up’ ending (with a dash of
Steve Vye xxx).

‘Shopping for Girls’ bears a taste of ‘Lodger’ (1977) or ‘Blackout’ from the Heroes
album with its inspired hatred of the world. Unfortunately, with none of the edge,
nor the concessions to feminism, which shone from ‘Lodger’(‘I guess the bruises
won’t show, If she wears long sleeves, (Don’t hit her)’ (Bowie, 1979). For all its noise,
the song somehow seems tame, as if washed by an all too generic chorus. Here, we
observe a concession toward Bowie auteurism: we fall, yet again, into the trap of
comparing this wanting album to the master’s former greats.

‘A Big Hurt’: could that be Suzy Quatro sneaking into his influences (an ironic
reference to the one girl in glam rock who dressed as a boy instead of vice versa)?
Perhaps only Oz-centricity recognises this similarity? In any case, the Sprechgesang
in A Big Hurt is palpably self-conscious. Yet, even this is understandable for an artist
such as Bowie: always deliberately self-conscious compared to the ‘organic’ Rolling
Stones. Bowie always more interested in conveying ideas, intellectual narcissism,
interplanetary tin cans and lost, remote screaming style than unadulterated rock ‘n’
roll. Perhaps this is why both Tin Machine albums suffer so: without music as vehicle
for ideas, Tin Machine is just bad rock.

Speaking of which, his next track, ‘Sorry’(bearing no resemblance to The Easybeats

or even The McCoy’s ‘Sorrow’ (for which Bowie recorded the definitive version)
demonstrates that Bowie and Gabrels have a deft capacity for clashing styles against
each another while retaining the essential ‘sense of the song’ and still rendering it as
garage. The welcome acoustic twelve-string guitar, which opens and concludes this
track, makes us wish the writers really were sorry, rather than just crooning about it.

‘Goodbye Mr Ed’ (written with Hunt Sales) sports lyrics, which again promise the
Bowie that was and will be again, particularly with pop references to 1960s U.S. TV
shows and classical Greek mythology alike. The parallel voices (albeit missing Bowie’s
backing up his own lead: ‘the many Bowies’ as Shaar Murray put it (1981)). This track
foreshadows the bleak, ironic lament of ‘Better Future’ off the Heathen album, but
without the messed up innocence of Bowie’s infamous ‘Baby Grace’ vocal delivery or
the bleak entropy of its strikingly accurate witness to our evolving reality post 9/11.

With unwarranted feedback to finish off, Bowie improvises a screaming sax line, as if
to announce, like Monty Python: ‘I’m not dead yet!’ At the conclusion of Tin
Machine’s second album, the listener concedes that it is definitely an improvement
on the first. But, was Bowie really ever satisfied to reside in the background? Or was
it doomed from the start, implying that it simply could not be done? Indeed, there in
the foldout photograph of the band, beams Bowie’s impish, wry testament: his
knowing refusal at anonymity.

Look, can’t we just let Bowie off the hook (so to speak?). Just because he has
provided us with genius in so many forms over so many decades, must we expect
him to conquer every genre in existence? Indeed, Tin Machine II is an experiment in
garage rock, which, although questionable in its own right, still gestated many an
experiment to come – and with admirable delivery. The albums which stem from this
one – Gabrels Bowie’s Outside, Heathen, Reality, The Next Day all bear the hallmarks
of Bowie’s relinquishing genius, but then again there was a time when Bowie cut and
ran from the highpoints of the past. It is, of course, the self-righteous indulgence of
Bowie fandom to make comparisons to his former glories. Fans must therefore
concede that, compared the travesties of Tonight and Never Let me Down (which for
many fans spelled the death knell), it is an album with a balance of the pragmatic
and the trippy; the hard-edged and the gilt-edged, the beery dance halls just a tad
too sober and clean for genuine garage. Indeed, the album is a bottleneck of talent
still waiting to flow and fills the hard-core fan with sorrow (complete with string
quartet backing track). Yet, surely the clarity of Tin Machine’s production and the
slick, riffing rock ‘n’ roll style (even as we cannot help our judgement) is only to be
admired (if I still sound like an apologist – I am).