David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

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MadMac
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David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by MadMac »

hello,
just saw the video...
and surprise... a Parker Fly he play's live
Bildschirmfoto 2021-04-18 um 07.41.16.png
M.
life is what you make it...
You should have no difficulty looking at stains on the walls or the ashes of a fire or the clouds or mud, and if you look closely at these things you will find wonderful new ideas, because the mind is stimulated by insignificant things to new inventions.
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vjmanzo
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by vjmanzo »

Love it!! I really liked this era of Bowie’s music, and I totally remember seeing this! Thanks for posting this!
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by Browndog Owner »

Yep, Reeves told me that Bowie borrowed it from him. It wasn't his guitar, only a loner.
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vjmanzo
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by vjmanzo »

Great info, @Browndog Owner; thanks.

I recall seeing Reeves playing a Fly (Deluxe?) without magnetic pickups, but I can’t remember when that was exactly; it was striking because it was a vibrato-equipped Fly but without mags (like the Fly Concert).

Of course, if you search Reeves+Fly you get some variation of this NiteFly image, which is impossible to not stare at 😂
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jb63
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by jb63 »

He played an artist during the 1995 tour, but he and Carlos mixed things up a bit.
I think it was 1996 where the guitar you mention turned up, but it wasn't used a lot.
By the end of 96 he'd use a the nitefly with the GK2 almost exclusively.
I can't remember which synth he had it plugged into. Its mentioned in some interviews at the time. GR20, maybe.
One of the ones that uses the strings so its more like a pedal than a synthesizer.
just plain lost
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by Browndog Owner »

Ken Parker made up the guitar shown above and it indeed features a GK-2 pickup and a Fernandez sustainer kit installed. The piezo saddles in the bridge are disconnected. He used this guitar on both of Bowie’s Earthling and Hours albums. At that time he played through a Roland GR-20 guitar synth, and Roland VG-8 guitar processor. He told me that his custom made live stage 13 pin cable was the longest that Roland has ever made. He also used a Roland expression pedal to get lots of sound variations.
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by vjmanzo »

Great info, @Browndog Owner! Thanks!

I really like David Bowie’s music, and I was just listening to Earthling the other day!
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jb63
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by jb63 »

Earthling is great but you have to hear the live treatments to really appreciate it.
There's an album called Live and Well.com you should check out. Really great guitar stuff.
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Re: David Bowie play's FLY on 50'th birthday

Post by Browndog Owner »

True. Earthling is a brilliant album. Reeve’s regretted that there wasn’t another follow up album in the same genre. From there to Hours was a bit of a leap. More could have been exploited with their (Bowie / Reeves) sound at that time.
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