David Bowie - Clareville Grove Demo (3LP 7")

Following on from Spying Through A Keyhole, in early 1969 at his flat in Clareville Grove, London, David Bowie with John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson continued to demo ‘Space Oddity’ and other tracks. 

This live demo tape session is set for release as a 7" vinyl singles box set of six home demos, four 
of which are previously unreleased recordings, Clareville Grove Demos will be released on 
17th May 2019. 

As with the Spying Through A Keyhole vinyl singles box set, the design of each single label is 
presented to reflect the way David sent many of his demos to publishers and record companies, 
featuring his own handwritten song titles on EMIDISC acetate labels with cover and print photos by 
David’s then manager Ken Pitt taken in the Clareville Grove flat. 

The singles themselves are all mono and play at 45 r.p.m. 

Due to the nature of some of the solo home demos where Bowie accompanied himself on acoustic guitar, the recording quality isn’t always of a usual studio fidelity. This is partly due to David’s enthusiastic strumming hitting the red on a couple of the tracks, along with the limitations of the original recording equipment and tape degradation. However, the historical importance of these songs and the fact that the selections are from an archive of tracks cleared for release by Bowie, overrides this shortcoming.