Spaced-Out

EVERY NEW David Bowie album including his latest, Stage, carries an invitation to join his Official International Fan Club slipped inside the record with the dust jacket. The offer promises all sorts of paraphernalia: the official David Bowie News, a personal membership card, a biography, a charter certificate (suitable for framing), a poster, and more.

The marketing boys at the entertainment conglomerate RCA must know their audience's secret needs. But who are they aiming for with this fan club stuff? A league of otherworldly transexuals? Or the stereotypical, rock-and-roll, teenybopper, fan club crowd? David's enigmatic, vaguely disquieting expression in the offer's picture provides no clue.

Nor, indeed, does the two-disc album, a live recording of unspecified stops made on Bowie's 1977 summer tour. Each side has a distinct sound, roughly charting some of the solar systems Bowie has visited in his galactic travel.

He begins with his older stuff, "Ziggy Stardust" and songs from that album like "Five Years," leaving on the rock riffs and self-consciously-confused lyrics. The sound quality will strike fans of the vinyl Bowie as poor; his lushly-produced effects get stripped down to what a seven-man band can handle on stage. Bowie's vocal machinations, so clever and startling out of the studio, lose some of their sparkle when forced to follow one another in sequence. The side has a nightclub feel, like a good band at Jack's going through some of Bowie's old hits. Bowie doesn't even take a beat between each song, a la Ramones: keep those tunes rolling and drinks flowing.

The second side is much more pleasing. "Station to Station" starts with a synthesized spaceship zoom that will become all too familiar by the album's end. The sound, accordingly, becomes more electronic; the musicians, it seems, were chosen for their talents in that direction. But the following song, a version of "Fame," is loose, funky and better than the original, even if it does take four guys to fake "TVC-15," a companion song from the album Station to Station that has Bowie growling lyrics about his favorite android.

Bowie meets David Eno on the third side. Though the graffiti in the bathroom at WHRB proclaims "Eno is god," his success as artist and producer is a curse as well as a blessing. Eno specializes in the synthesized wail. He is credited with co-authoring only one song on the side, but the spacey sound is heavily influenced by his work. The titles are all new and banal with the exception of "Speed of Life," which has an unusual, European-pop kick. Kraftwerk is three albums ahead of Bowie-Eno here. This side should come complete with a light show.

"Heroes" leads off the final and most successful side. The Stages version, though it cannot approach the German-language studio import in poetry or sound, has a dramatic sound that showcases Bowie's vocal power effectively. "What in the World" and "Beauty and the Beast" are rockers which combine haunting power riffs with strong singing and enough electronic flourishes to give Bowie the feel.

Like any Bowie effort, parts of Stage improve with repeated listening; parts wear thin. The album is as schizophrenic as its creator. It avoids retracing the anthologizing effort of Changes One; nor does it chart Bowie's future course with clarity. Prospective members of the Official International Fan Club who want some new sounds will simply have to wait.