David Bowie R.I.P

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)

From personal experience and just as something I've generally noticed - especially this past year - people with terminal cancer set great store by making it to landmark days.

I lost a very close friend to secondary liver cancer a few months ago; six weeks before she died we saw each other and she seemed like she had a lot more time than what eventually transpired. She was making plans to come back again. But she started fading just a few days after her birthday, and was gone about a fortnight later. People seem to be able to coast along being moderately ill for just long enough for others to think it's not imminent, but once you're past a certain psychological boundary, it seems to me that the end can come very quickly.

I'd like to hear what that amazing dude who did the song-by-song website/book has to say. I'm too afraid to start putting the records on because I get choked up just going over to them. Just a constant in my life, almost everyday.

Why, he's right here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/01/11/the_making_of_sound_and_vision_the_archetypal_david_bowie_song.html

& he's keeping up a good stream of tweets, @bowiesongs

just last week the boweisongs guy was complaining about how bowie kept putting out new music (cuz he had started when bowie was "retired", this presenting what appeared to be a finite body of work)

xp

Thanks, Alfred and woof.

Has George Clinton weighed in yet?

Apparently I've never shared my brush-with-Bowie story here...

Attended a live performance at The Bottom Line club (West 4th Street, RIP) of the legendary Uncle Floyd Show, (a cultishly adored New Jersey UHF kiddie-show parody/vaudeville exhumation, cheerfully lowbrow and leeringly offensive) with some college buddies in January '81 -- it was SRO, and we stood beside the exit near stage right. Preshow murmurs/exclamations of "Bowie's here!" and so he was. (It was his off night from playing The Elephant Man on Broadway, and he told the cast Lennon had turned him onto the show.) Many autographed napkins procured at intermission.

As Floyd tinkles away at the piano for the show finale, Bowie glides past us and exits, followed by his extremely large bodyguard... who falls flat on his face, at our feet.

DB that night:

http://i456.photobucket.com/albums/qq286/OldFred_photos/Bowi.jpg

and his Floyd-inspired tune, from Heathen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQrJE56oU7I&sns=em

One of his best late tunes too.

Beautiful posts here. This is why I love ILX. And all you folks. Play his music as LOUD as you can today.

Just last week I was enjoying this clip of Bowie:

Ian Penman ‏@pawboy2 Jan 5

Possibly my favourite clip of Bowie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkJeClpQ8zQ … Remember watching it teatime, with my Mum; off to the barbers next day, too...

and this:

Ian Penman ‏@pawboy2 Jan 5

This, of course, being the other contender: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy80bUKt54I … #IPsync #JohnnyBoyCollar #KingOfHair

Hopefully both have been put up already

xxp
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3052/3080528290_3793dcc56a.jpg

bravo!

I'm halfway through Aladdin Sane, playing as loud as I'm able without disturbing my workmates. This was such an unstoppable run.

Yeah, "Slip Away" is wonderful. And the fact that it pays homage to Floyd and the gang (who I grew up watching every evening in NJ) gives it a special place in my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf7Yu0HIfrc

Brief overview of his time in film xp

the way he looks in that video is just... i mean, look at the earring in that still

^^^points off for failing to mention Into the Night

xxp

RIP

Will we ever have another musician like Bowie?

thoughts from dr dr3w, Stephin, Sondre Lerche, Rick Moody etc:

http://thetalkhouse.com/music/talks/talkhouse-contributors-remember-david-bowie/

Okay, 'Time' was the song that finally took the wind out of me. God damn.

Aside from the invention and the chops and the catchiness, his music works because he put so fucking much of himself into it.