David Bowie R.I.P

Still very much unbelievable and surreal. Grinded through work today, not really willing to listen to anything else than William Basinski and Ambient 4: On Land on repeat.

Was just about to post Eno's take above as well, found it very moving.

It's his German version of Heroes, Helden, that I can't get enough of today.

weird popular guy that loved performance arts and was really into making music

wrote a few good tunes. condolences to his family.

A few good tunes!?

https://www.facebook.com/gordon.wilson.921/videos/vb.1847187167/10203940174905208/?type=2&theater

if you love Bowie (though I expect that's why you're on this thread) but haven't watched The Prestige yet, treat yourself soon!

Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.top10films.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fintothenight.jpg&f=1

if you love Bowie (though I expect that's why you're on this thread) but haven't watched The Prestige yet, treat yourself soon!

good Pilate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hvHu8gHUc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=214&v=jv6mEv_rDdE

Also suddenly saddened by the thought of no more Agent Phillip Jeffries!

^^^

oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv6mEv_rDdE

The Christopher Priest magic thing? He's in that? Still haven't seen.

he plays Tesla, one of the best bits in the film

https://soundcloud.com/steve-nieve-official/steve-nieve-plays-life-on-mars

A few notes of farewell to a great artist and fellow musician. Your work will never cease to inspire us all.

In the 80’s before computers made it possible for everyone to be a keyboard player, I had constant work with Clive Langer and Alain Whinstanley. Clive and Alain produced the soundtrack for Absolute Beginners, and I was involved on several tracks, including playing the string synthesisers on David’s title song "Absolute Beginners".
My Royal College of Music mate Rick Wakeman added the final piano flourishes. At the same moment in time, the huge concert Live Aid took place, Elvis was asked to appear solo, but thankfully I was involved by playing on Bowie and Jagger’s “Dancing in the Street”.

For this session I played bass piano on the backing track, which was an incredibly exciting studio moment. Jagger arrived unexpectedly early in the recording room as we were running down the track, and began dancing around us, whipping the music up several notches in the process.

The song was played round and round to his dancing, many many times before the record button went red, by which time the vibe was truly red hot. After this there was a killer scene in the control room with Bowie and Jagger, out starring each other, and me, all the musicians on the track, Clive and Alain, listening back. They overdubbed their voices two takes each. We all stood listening back takes A+B of David’s vocal and the best lines were compiled. Then Mick took the the chair beside Clive listening line by line. Each time the room was asked A or B? If the concensus was for take A, Mick insisted on take B.

This went down for the entire song. “It sounds pretty wonderful now” says David to the whole room, “does anyone have any ideas for overdubs?”. Although the quiet one in situations like this, I said instantaneously “Yeah I have a vox organ here, I can bring it in, it would add a cool flavour”. “Go get it then” said David, and I headed out through the door.

As I headed by Mick I heard him quip “That’s the sound I hate the most in the whole world”… I immediately looked at Bowie thinking to myself “what a catastrophe" but David smiled at me and I will never forget this smile that we all love so much. Needless to say the Vox Organ never made it to the mix.
But I will always remember how David made everyone feel at ease and brought out the best in people, even the contrary Mr Jagger.

Quickly a final mix was played back, I recall Bowie actually leaping over the mixing desk. He was standing behind the desk between the back and the control room window and in one seemingly effortless and elegant kick of his leg he just seemed to fly over the desk and landed right beside Clive and I. Later we all went down to Docklands to watch Bowie and Jagger shoot the video, once again, two megastars determined to out dance the other.
Brilliant.

that's a pretty great story about an unfortunate record

yep

It's his German version of Heroes, Helden, that I can't get enough of today.

That German version of Heroes reminds me of the day I stopped listening to 6 Music, because they played it and the stupid DJ talked over half of it with his lame Bowie "impressions"

Reading that Eno tribute, I'm hoping the terrific circumstances of Bowie's death spur him and many others to do something similarly extraordinary when facing the final curtain.

Although death comes too quickly for many, this kind of death, the slowly approaching train, is an horrendous curse upon the soul, to be wished upon nobody, and it speaks of the man's magnificence how he has wrung this blessing from it.

I thought you didn't like him much?

The new album is amazing and my favourite thing he's done

i... i have never heard this German Heroes before!

Bowie was someone it actually took me a while to get into, and he's still not in my most personal pantheon, but I love a lot of his music and he was a fascinating person. Man Who Sold the World gave me a way in through it's classic rock riffage, but I think my real conversion experience on him was watching Ziggy Stardust, and in a way it was as much people's reactions to him as it was him that changed my feelings about him, just the energy between him and his audience that made me feel that he tapped into something unconscious in people and that this was really, really important to them at that historical moment.

i can cosign most of that there

i also really admire the savvy and intelligence of good showmen, and then you put the musical innovation on top of that.

I think it transcends that moment and that is why people are so upset right now. He was an androgynous icon, a weird alien shapeshifter, someone who rocked SUPER HARD but did so in a way that always subverted the machismo of rock and was always hovering from the sidelines to throw a dash of weird into the status quo.

The amazing thing about Bowie is he puts on a huge front but is one of the few artists that actually delivers. Discovering his albums for me was like discovering Beatles albums, constantly exclaiming "He wrote THIS TOO???".

The collected instrumentals album (lions share of which comes from the Berlin trilogy obv) is so perfect, I want to go for long walks in its world

reportedly the last picture taken by Iman of David Bowie on his birthday three days ago:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYdZHyuVAAAokvL.jpg

I was thinking about his relationship to "rock" while listening to the Heroes instrumentals this morning. He obviously loved rock'n'roll -- both the music and mythology of it -- but he never confined himself to it. He had equal footing in the avant-garde and in musical theater, and I think the key is that he didn't segregate or even differentiate them. He never sounded like a rocker trying to be arty, or an arty guy trying to rock, or a theater kid doing all of the above, because he was comfortable with all of his influences and they all made sense to him and flowed through him. Sometimes more successfully than others, but that's the nature of an experimenter.

this kind of death, the slowly approaching train, is an horrendous curse upon the soul, to be wished upon nobody

indeed.
due to bowie soundtracking over 20 years of my life with bh, i had only recently come around to be able to listen to certain albums of his again.
earlier today i had to switch off 6music/5live/facebook etc as it was all getting too much.
i had intended to get blackstar tomorrow, but i have no idea when i will be able to listen to it.

fuck cancer.

thoughts with you, m

The amazing thing about Bowie is he puts on a huge front but is one of the few artists that actually delivers. Discovering his albums for me was like discovering Beatles albums, constantly exclaiming "He wrote THIS TOO???".

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, January 11, 2016 12:59 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd almost say he was more like my Beatles than the actual Beatles (who I like but have never felt a particularly deep connection with).

i appreciate that bowie was a consummate showman with these incredible personas but also a private person, a sort of 'give the people everything of my art and nothing of my own life' philosophy that resonates with me.

While the timing of the album played out like a choreographed plan, cancer does not follow orders well, however determined one is to fuck with it. And fuck it.

i had intended to get blackstar tomorrow, but i have no idea when i will be able to listen to it.

fuck cancer.

― mark e, Monday, January 11, 2016 1:12 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just FYI i put in an order today but if you were intending to get Blackstar on vinyl i would get on it TODAY, lots of places sold out already. i got mine from MusicDirect.com, SoundStageDirect had them at least a few hours ago, none on Insound, Best Buy, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. B&N said I could reserve one in a store and pickup later, then i got a email saying it was gone.

Was wondering about this earlier today, delighted to see what I suspected being confirmed, stick yer knighthood up yer arse, FTQ.

"Where the fuck did Monday go?" .....

do you guys remember like 10-15 years ago he had this contest where a lucky fan was going to write the words or melody to one of his songs? Whatever happened with that?

Maybe Scott Walker won

local tumblr gay on my feed saying "he called himself the arayan (sic) superman. if u don't get as upset when cosby or r. kelly dies you're a racist". been meaning to unfriend the cretin for a while anyway.

xp it appeared on Hours, apparently: http://www.davidbowie.com/news/david-bowie-include-whats-really-happening-track-written-cyber-song-bowienet-contest

important reaction policework there, xp

Today's "Mutts" comic strip seemingly attributes the lyrics to "Nature Boy" to Bowie.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/12540773_10154456014289746_3410372207873061167_n.jpg?oh=2adb793d1a42da77e3e7061ef0db5deb&oe=5743228E

Argh, sorry for size.

he did the song in the Moulin Rouge soundtrack

(FWIW)