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Jul 23, 2018 David Bowie By Christopher Roberts

A new version of David Bowie‘s 1987 song “Zeroes” has been shared. It’s taken from a re-recorded version of 1987’s Never Let Me Down, which is part of a new box set, and can be heard below (followed by the original version of the song). Also a long lost early demo of Bowie singing with his previous band The Konrads has been unearthed. The demo for “I Never Dreamed” is believed to be Bowie’s first recording and has been put up for auction. You can listen to a 12-second clip of the demo below.

On October 12 Parlophone will release a new Bowie box set, David Bowie Loving the Alien (1983-1988). It’s the fourth in a career spanning series of fantastic box sets of the late singer’s work, following up David Bowie Five Years (1969-1973), David Bowie Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976), and David Bowie A New Career In a New Town (1977-1982). The box set includes the studio albums Let’s Dance (1983), Tonight (1984), and Never Let Me Down (1987), as well as the live album Glass Spider (Live Montreal ‘87), the previously unreleased Serious Moonlight live album, and the compilation Re:Call 4 (containing B-sides, remixes, soundtrack cuts, and other rarities). But perhaps most interestingly, it also has a new 2018 version of Never Let Me Down. Producer/engineer Mario McNulty oversaw the new version of the album, which features new instrumentation by Bowie collaborators Reeves Gabrels (guitar), David Torn (guitar), Sterling Campbell (drums), and Tim Lefebvre (bass), as well as a string quartet with arrangements by Nico Muhly and a guest cameo by Laurie Anderson on “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love).” Bowie, who passed away in 2016, spearheaded the idea of redoing the album way back in 2008, when he asked McNulty to remix the album’s “Time Will Crawl” and Bowie then suggested doing the rest of the album. The new instrumentation wasn’t recorded until earlier this year.

The demo for “I Never Dreamed” was thought to be lost, but was found by former Konrads drummer David Hadfield (it was in his loft). It was the only Konrads recording to feature Bowie (then David Jones) on vocals (he mainly played saxophone in the band) and was recorded in 1963. Bowie left the band later that year. The recording is expected to sell for £10,000 and you can check out the auction here.

Hadfield had this to say about the recording in a statement: “Our agent, Eric Easton, who also managed The Rolling Stones, asked us to do a demo so he could try and get us an auction at Decca. So in early 1963 I booked into R.G. Jones small studio in Morden. In preparation for the demo David and our guitarist Neville Wills wrote 2/3 songs. We had decided that we would do a couple of guitar instrumentals and one original song. I chose ‘I Never Dreamed’ as it was the strongest, the other two were a bit weak! I also decided that David was the best person to sing it and give the right interpretation. So this became the very first recording of David Jones (Bowie) singing 55 years ago! There is no other recording featuring David as lead in existence. Decca initially turned us down, but when they eventually gave us an audition later that year, vocalist Roger Ferris was the lead voice and David sang backing harmonies.”

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