Maps of Music

Santa Monica '72 (1989)

Where the lyrics of Santa Monica '72 take you, and where it was really made.

Bootleg for more than 20 years, this 1972 concert recording was only issued officially in 1994, and that release was made without Bowie's approval.

Key places

Where the Santa Monica '72 concert was recorded (1972)

Recording site Santa Monica Civic Auditorium — The album was recorded at this auditorium on 20 October 1972 during the Ziggy Stardust Tour. The recording was taken from a KMET FM radio broadcast. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Live album by David Bowie, recorded at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on 20 October 1972 during the Ziggy Stardust Tour
• Taken from KMET FM's radio broadcast
• Available only as a bootleg for more than 20 years
• Author David Buckley wrote that possessing a copy was the test of a "proper Bowie fan"

Background

• Released in 1994 by the Golden Years label, semi-legally/officially, without Bowie's approval
• Griffin Music handled the American release in 1995
• Part of a series of mid-nineties releases by MainMan, Bowie's former management company during the seventies
• Setlist differs from Ziggy Stardust – The Motion Picture (1983), which was recorded nine months later and was also bootlegged before its belated official release
• Setlist has no songs from Aladdin Sane, except "The Jean Genie", although those songs were very present by the end of the tour
• Generally considered a superior representation of the Ziggy Stardust concerts in both sound quality and standard of playing

Recording

• Concert date: 20 October 1972
• Source material is the KMET FM radio broadcast
• Track listing: 18 tracks, opening with a short intro and closing with "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"
• Personnel: David Bowie (guitar, vocals), Mick Ronson (guitar, vocals), Trevor Bolder (bass), Mick "Woody" Woodmansey (drums), Mike Garson (piano)
• Official version Live Santa Monica '72 was issued by EMI/Virgin in 2008

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Early life

• Born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London.
• Studied art, music and design; took up saxophone in 1961.
• Adopted the stage name David Bowie in 1966 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.

Career

• Breakthrough with "Space Oddity" in 1969, reaching the UK top five.
• Glam rock success in 1972 with the Ziggy Stardust persona and album.
• Berlin Trilogy (Low, "Heroes", Lodger) with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti in the late 1970s.
• Greatest commercial success with Let's Dance in 1983.
• Fronted the hard rock band Tin Machine from 1988 to 1992 before resuming a solo career.
• Final studio album Blackstar was released two days before his death in 2016.

Legacy

• Sold over 100 million records worldwide.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
• Widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

Reappraisal

• NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, in 1981, called it not simply "the performer's best ever bootleg" but "far superior to either of Bowie's official location recordings" to that date, David Live (1974) and Stage (1978)
• Generally considered a superior representation of the Ziggy Stardust concerts in terms of both sound quality and standard of playing

Records

• UK Albums Chart: peaked at number 74 during 1994
• Released in the Netherlands as a gold disc edition with the DJ's closing remarks at the end
• US special limited box set with a T-shirt, a key chain and a short video, limited to 1000 copies
• Even more limited wooden box edition with Bowie's image carved into the lid, 250 copies made

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The Dutch gold disc edition closes with the DJ's remarks.
• The US box set's video was not from the Santa Monica show; it was previously unseen footage from a silent colour film of a concert in Dunstable, England on 21 June 1972, combined with the Santa Monica audio.
• In Belgium the album was released in 1995 as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars "Live".
• In Japan the album was released without the intro or the outro as Live 1972 in 1997.
• The Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man" performance on this album was featured in the film Almost Famous (2000), and was also included on the soundtrack album.
• An official version, Live Santa Monica '72, was issued by EMI/Virgin in 2008.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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