Anyone get to listen to it on Bowienet back in 99?

How was it?

http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/bowienews/news0799.htm

I remember finding a very expensive CDR for sale, that claimed to have it on it- but have never found it or its sample floating around on the net.

Someone please share this

Ive not got these mixes but would love to hear them

The rock mix is on the second Hours disc.

Never heard that one either.
I have a 2 disc set of Hours demos but not sure if you are refering to this one that you once found.
This Hip Hop mix is not on that one for sure.

Indeed the "Rock Mix" is on the second CD.

This mysterious promo CDR was on a site dedicated to selling such material, and it was just there in the middle of other things from that period. I believe they wanted $400 for it. I posted a link on Bowie Audio a while back, and have since lost it. I know it sounds shady, but given the strange alternate Hours mixes discovered on this site, not too out of the ordinary.

I've been thinking about this album a lot again, and think it might really be three separate projects tossed together.

I think it's very likely that much of the material, especially B-Sides, is actually Outside material with new production. "We Shall Go To Town" "No One Calls" "We All Go Through" "Pretty Things Are Going To Hell" bear more than a passing resemblance to Outside material.

There's also a "Hip Hop" or more beat oriented group of songs, who's presence is felt through out the album's final production. 1917 being an extreme example of this. I would wager this is what came out of the video game project.

Lastly there was some kind of acoustic project, possibly contemplated, I would suspect, towards the end of recording, similar to how NLMD was recorded at the end of those sessions. Seven and Survive would point to this.

Again, all conjecture, but interesting to think that "missing" Outside material may have been available since 1999...

interesting theory, although according to Pegg, the bowie/gabrels partnership purportedly wrote and/or demoed around 100 songs between late 1998 and the release of 'hours...' so there was no shortage of material or need to tweak older recordings. gabrels has stated that We All Go Through, The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell and, more surprisingly, Survive, were intended for his solo album. others were written for Omikron and went on to form the basis of 'hours...'

so while the three projects tossed together idea is correct, it's more likely that all originated within one year (Omikron, Ulysses, "Bowie album") and that the most suitable material was merged and spruced up for 'hours...', while the more experimental stuff was relegated to b-side status. there are echoes of "Heroes" and Low in the b-sides as well as Outside... and Pegg also points out the similarity between No One Calls and Thirteen O'Clock from Trevor Jones' Labyrinth score.

What do you mean?

What I meant by the NLMD reference was that the title track of that album was recorded at the end of the NLMD sessions, and benefited from a "less produced" feel because of that.

I too read that Bowie and Gabrels had amassed quite a few songs before recording Hours, but I'm not sure that that prohibits any of them starting off as Outside material. Some of Outside's material started as Gabrels' compositions I think too.

Some of the Bsides are I think reworked/extended omikron instrumentals. For Instance "No-one Calls" is in fact "Awakened 2" with lyrics (its the song u hear in the omikron game at the Awakened base). "1917" is a longer version of "Thrust", which is briefly heard at the rooftop demonfight. "We all go through" can be heard over the credits.

I havent heard the hip hop mix, but I remember back in 1999 at Bnet people were able to vote on their favorite single mix. There were three the current single mix, a rock mix and another one.. Was that the hip hop mix?

thanks, i'm not a games person so i've never seen/heard the music in context, but am sure i have the boot cd somewhere.


yes, the other two were released, the hip hop mix hasn't been. whether the advertised CD-R mentioned earlier in the thread included the genuine mix is unknown... so far.

That all does seem to make more sense. I'm still suspicious though...

As far as the site with the cd goes, it was a regularly mentioned site on Bowie Audio for picking up slightly rarer bowie items. Any thoughts? I wish I had the link still...

there was a dealer in LA (i think) who also sold at international record fairs. i remember him having in-house CD-Rs with multiple versions of the Beck remixes and other 'hours...' titles at a London fair. his prices were insane but i remember taking his business card and looking at his website, but this was years ago and i can't recall the name unfortunately. whether this is the site you're thinking of is another matter. pirate CD-Rs are so easy to make of course, so it's a grey area.

You probably mean SLCD. They still have a lot of promo cdr's that look genuine to me (though you can never be sure).
They still had that Thursday's Child promo cdr last week, at (I think) GBP300, but it's not there now.

that's the place. content genuine, prices genuinely insane.