ALIEN CITY (Jon Tornbow) Rare private glam/psych Bowie

$

50

Someone who sold a copy of Alien City a few months ago related such an enchanting story (while aptly describing the album and its music) that I decided to use it here:

“When I was a kid in the late 70’s, I had a friend who very well may have been David Bowie’s biggest fan.  He used to play all the albums for me, back when I couldn’t afford to own anything besides used 8-tracks, and I was soon as infatuated with this bizarre androgynous glam rocker as he was.  But, like a true Bowie fan back then, he believed that David’s discography officially ended in 1974.  To him, Young Americans never existed (and even today, I wish that were true), and there was no Berlin phase of Bowie’s career either.  No, David Bowie was forever frozen as space alien/Aladdin Sane/Orwellian dog-boy, and that was that.  In our world, “The Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family” never faded out.

“I mention all this because, after listening to this mega-obscure self-financed album called Alien City, I kinda think my old friend might’ve grown up to become just like Jon Turnbow, the man behind this project.  Only 500 of this micro-pressing came out in 1979, but it was clear a lot of work went into it – Jon had spent five years (“Five Years”, how ironic is that?) working on Alien City, a loose concept album about celestial visitation that musically channels early 70’s Bowie while assuming valiantly that The Thin White Duke never happened.  Many of Alien City’s songs are introspective, piano-led numbers, so he also seems to favor the laid-back Bowie of “Lady Grinning Soul” and “Aladdin Sane” over the harder-edged, sexed-up glam of “Cracked Actor” or “Diamond Dogs.”   Which is not to say that he’s completely out of touch with his musical time – there are quite a few songs here that show Jon’s been checking out the early punk/new wave movement (even more so than Bowie himself).  “Information Overload” is a lost robot pop classic, with lots of jagged, angular punk guitar and the happy sounds of nuclear bomb explosions in the background.  If you played this for Gary Numan’s mom (assuming he has a mom), she’d swear it was her son’s latest Tubeway Army single.  “Get Away” even flirts with reggae in the same way early Police did, but with Jon’s vocals channeling glam-era Bowie.  Or Jobriath, with a touch of Pete Shelley from the Buzzcocks, that lead singer from the Doctors of Madness, and Ian Hunter as a child, to be more precise.

“Of course, none of this would matter if the music didn’t stand on its own, and it does, using Bowie’s mannerisms and lyrical concepts, but incorporating them into Jon’s own warped hybrid of prog-rock and new wave pop.  The songs are catchy too, which helps, and Bowie’d be the first to tell you that.  There’s even some fine female backing vocals on “Older Men.”  It’s a long album too – over 50 minutes – and that kinda makes up for Diamond Dogs, which a stingy Bowie faded after only 36 minutes.  And if you have trouble following Alien City’s colonization story, there’s even a lyric sheet. 

“With only 500 of these pressed, and no reissue in sight, “Alien City” remains a mostly unheard treasure.  And if he’s not somehow involved, I doubt even my former Bowie-obsessed friend’s heard it.  It’s an album that’s truly one man’s life work, and completing it was so exhausting for Jon Turnbow, he reportedly checked himself into an asylum after it was released.  Which, come to think of it, was a very smart way to avoid going through a “Philly soul” phase.”

Released privately in the U.S. on the Dog-Star label in 1979, this one comes with two inserts.  The cover is in VG condition.  There is a warp on the record that causes a “whooshing” noise (although it plays through just fine on side one and does the same on side two with a 1.8-gram tracking force), and it’s in Good+ condition.  The reserve on this item is $49.99.

Winner pays postage (in the U.S., this would be about $4.50 for one LP sent by Media Mail).  Package insured upon request.  Winners outside of the U.S. will be notified of postal fees, but an approximate cost for one LP to many countries is $15.50 by airmail.  If you bid on and win more than one item, you WILL save on postage!  Note: I do not gouge on postage and packaging costs.  Record will be carefully packaged in a strong, oversized LP mailer.  In addition to money orders and checks, I also accept PayPal.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.  E-mail: david.o@jjldj.com.  This week I am mainly listing psychedelic or acid rock and psych-related albums (many of them the kind of thing that gets listed in Acid Archives if it happens to be by an American artist or band).  To see more rare and collectable items, click on the “view seller’s other auctions” button above.  Other key words: garage, basement, underground sounds, hippie, acid folk, private press, custom press, fuzz, hard rock, hardrock, prog, psychedelia, sike, Pokora, hippie.