David Bowie R.I.P

that's beautiful <3

That second Cher video above is bonkers on so many levels. She looks like she's got that Aleister Crowley hat on.

Hearing him dip into early rock and roll makes me wish he did another Pin-Ups type record geared more toward that music (Lennon, Lou, Neil Young, Robert Plant). That plaintive, longing quality in his voice would have been so right on an album of Doc Pomus and Roy Orbison tunes.

xxpost re Absolute Beginners, the version on Bowie at the Beeb from a while back (the second, live disk) is baroque, completely OTT melodrama with every conceivable flourish and somehow absolutely destroys. I have cried to it on several occasions since whenever it came out and am sort of afraid (!) to listen to it now...

above I meant that so many of DB's peers ventured into that territory

God, The Idiot is just about the ugliest great pop album ever. That Dinah Shore clip above is amazing. Did her booker have time to clean out his office or was he just escorted directly off the premises?

Hulu had a great Dick Cavett show appearance by Bowie on the front page last night....doing 1984 and Young Americans with the Young Americans soul band - you can see Luther Vandross on backing vox....holy shit the interview part was uncomfortable Bowie is soooooo coked up and fidgety and odd, he's sniffing constantly and won't make eye contact with Cavett and keeps fiddling with the cane he has an affectation....looks like he's weighing all of 90 lbs

Hulu had a great Dick Cavett show appearance by Bowie on the front page last night....doing 1984 and Young Americans with the Young Americans soul band - you can see Luther Vandross on backing vox....holy shit the interview part was uncomfortable Bowie is soooooo coked up and fidgety and odd, he's sniffing constantly and won't make eye contact with Cavett and keeps fiddling with the cane he has an affectation....looks like he's weighing all of 90 lbs

this was on the DVD that was included with the YA reissue a few years back.

He's drawing something awful on the carpet with his cane.

Absolute Beginners, the version on Bowie at the Beeb from a while back (the second, live disk) is baroque, completely OTT melodrama with every conceivable flourish and somehow absolutely destroys.

Even the original - it feels over-the-top but sincere, not retro. Love the piano, love the chord changes, love the lyrics. It also feels like the culmination of his backup-singer-men+sax years, and its pinnacle.

cavett thing is also on youtube

holy shit the interview part was uncomfortable Bowie is soooooo coked up and fidgety and odd

He's like that on Soul Train, too, which was probably within days or weeks of the Cavett appearance. iirc, multiple takes were needed, and at one point Don Cornelius had to take him aside and say, "What the hell is wrong with you? Get your shit together."

i just watched the cavett thing today! cocaine. love the room sound of that show for the band.

there is a much higher quality version out there (from the Bowie DVD) that has details you miss in the youtube video. it is marvelous, it looks like it was filmed inside of cotton candy. so much glitter, so much lens glare. he was a shining god.

Busta Rhymes

David...

I think back to this time when you moby and I basically were roommates for 3 months...

You made it so impossible for anyone not to laugh or smile that you were basically the sunshine of the tour!

U were the rockstar, the gentleman, the teacher n student and the mark u left on all us is
Enormous. U will 4ever be my friend, big brother and Inspiration. Until we meet again Travel in Harmony.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/12507691_1002838006453469_2604259052842266543_n.jpg?oh=41a1926b8bedbdc2aaa772197d364402&oe=570E14D0

what a life

10 lives in a life.

not making eye contact w/ Cavett is a good move imho

I would watch a sitcom that was Bowie, Busta Rhymes, and Moby as roommates, all Young Ones style, Bowie: Mike, Busta: Vyv, Moby: Rick

Moby feels like more of a Neil to me.

Moby more of a Neil imo

lol xp

so it's agreed then.

Trust me on this: Neil/Rick hybrid.

Really? Moby seems like a total Rick to me

WFMU soundtracks tribute last night. i liked that Falcon and the Snowman thing.

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/64566

(or did in 1985; haven't listened yet)

Think Gil Evans arranged some of the Absolute Beginners soundtrack; dunno if any input re Bowie's contributions (my idea of an intriguing team, though)

this is not america is a great song. lots of stray abandoned one offs from this time

He's drawing something awful on the carpet with his cane.

― Three Word Username, Wednesday, January 13, 2016 1:01 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Supposedly he's drawing the Kabbalah tree of life, comprised of connecting "stations" of the spirit (such as Kether and Malkuth). He's also drawing it in the photo session shown on the Ryko StoS reissue.

Falcon and the Snowman--- with the Pat Metheny Group, right? Pretty okay flick too, as I dimly recall.

For this is not the miracle.

Awful, misguided Penn performance.

falcon spirals tooooooo theeeee grouuuuuund

Awful, misguided Penn performance.

And this is different from every performance he's given post-Fast Times how? Penn is absolute garbage as an actor; he's never played a believable human being in anything.

lol true

penn performances i like a lot:

at close range
carlito's way
the thin red line
sweet and lowdown

he's good but also garbage yes. i think his mickey cohen role in gangster squad was even worse than i am sam.

great hair in Carlito's Way

I had forgotten about Sweet and Lowdown though, yeah he is genuinely good in that

Penn is maybe the best American film actor of the last 30 years, but he is sometimes terrible, as in Falcon

James Cagney never played a "believable human being" but may hv been the greatest

kinda like Bowie eh

Are we done talking about Sean Penn yet

I mean I like him okay in some movies but more Bowie talk please

There's also a Russell Harty [truly terrible, Brit talk show host] interview that makes for very uncomfortable viewing, it's a transatlantic link-up with Bowie inside a domestic TV set left on the set that makes it even more awkward.

relevant Penn image

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01872/Sean_penn_cannes_j_1872618c.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbCVyt9saPM

Harty had previously been the headmaster of a public school, and it comes through, but even though his interview style could be patronising (see Kate Bush) or awkward (The Who) I still have a soft spot for him.

xpost:

Oh yeah, that Harty interview is definitely awkward. I think it was the second time Harty had interviewed Bowie, the first time was in his Ziggy era. Bowie is obviously off his face and a bit cranky.

And this is different from every performance he's given post-Fast Times how? Penn is absolute garbage as an actor; he's never played a believable human being in anything.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱),

he's fine in the early roles (Bad Boys, At Close Range) until the stink of Method became obvious. He did lovely work in Dead Man Walking and I wasn't embarrassed by Milk.

Just heard Duran Duran's cover of 'Diamond Dogs'... urgh.

head Beck's?

check this out…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTM2HBy_ix4

Dinah shore show, probly before the Iggy show. With Henry Winkler and Nancy Walker, a woman I know from 70s talk shows and nothing else. start around 2:20 and go til 2;35. He's not as fucked up as he was for the Cavett show, maybe not at all. But I saw a clip extracted from this sequence on some VH! legends of rock doc in the '90s, and laffed my balls off. Link will take you to a stormingly funky "stay" from the show.

also, sirius has suspended the boring singer-songwrter-y "loft" channel for an all DB channel. Played a good "Scary Monsters" by Superchunk, who I generally think are ur-dull 90s indie schlock. has been light on Berlin shit, but are hitting a lot of 90s-early 00s shit that maybe not everyone fucks with. also played "criminal world" which was on one of the first cassettes I ever bought at the age of 12. It's lovely, very cool arrangement, and brought a tear to my eye for the first time during all this.

Have not seen any recollections from Fripp or from Reeves Gabrels yet. I used to be friends with a guy who is buds with almost every living elite guitar player (vai, calrton, Lukather, satriani, etc) including Gabrels, and he told me that it didn't end well between RG and DB. Essentially, their last collab was "Hours," and as far as publishing goes, RG said it should have been called "Mine."

head Beck's?

this one is good!

I like that "Criminal World" over a lot, thanks to the flute colliding with that rhythm section.