David Bowie R.I.P

From his final single, Lazarus:

Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now

Look up here, man, I’m in danger
I’ve got nothing left to lose
I’m so high it makes my brain whirl
Dropped my cell phone down below

Ain’t that just like me

jeeez

fuck this fucking news

watching 'lazarus' and 'blackstar' clips, the recurring motif is a blindfold. wondering whether the cancer affected his sight. regardless of that, at least the man got to work his death into his art in the most beautiful way.

btw 'blackstar' is his best song in forever imo

Awfully sad, devastating news.

Listened to "Low" on the commute home, only thing I could do.

I just listened to Blackstar for the first time apparently around his time of death. What a haunting way to be introduced to that record. And it is one of his best in decades. RIP

......

RIP. Fuck!

Just woke up to this awful news. Coincidentally, "It's No Game" was in my head as I came across this in the paper. Painfully sad. What a huge loss.

this is so sad :'(

rip

When Michael Jackson died, news spread a lot slower. I remember seeing it on cable news. I remember texting friends who were going off to the shore for the weekend. People were shouting it from their cars well into the summer evening. The radio played all his hits. It was shocking, a media circus for days we all recall, and yet we all saw it coming. I never considered myself a fan, but he was the King of Pop, sure.

Bowie's death couldn't be more opposite. The news of Bowie's death swept across twitter so fast, too fast, this new album I didn't even get to listen to yet still in a cardboard box, in the middle of a nasty January night. No one is around. Everyone I'm talking to, we were the only ones in our homes awake. It is a painful delirium like the many sleepless nights I had when I was much younger, when the Ziggy Stardust record was the best company I had. RIP, David Bowie.

^ beautiful post

This one is really tough on me. I'll never understand how it feels to be that dedicated to one's art, to toil away with dignity up until the very end. What an amazing life he had.

tony visconti has posted on facebook :

He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life - a work of Art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry.

the ending of BLACKSTAR, that final looking-into-the-abyss wash of guitar and keyboard, sounds even more 'staring death in the face' now

rip

This was the first thing to actually make me cry https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMichaelSkolnik/posts/903694659748939

They look so happy!

"David’s friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person. He was the best there is."
- Iggy Pop

What a way to say goodbye. The only comparison that comes to mind is "These Are The Days Of Our Lives."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8

so sad for iggy :(

https://youtu.be/pO2vkaQAdSw

This is terribly sad.

Very hard to deal with this atm. Every social media channel seriously overflowing with touching tributes from all kinds of people (among them friends who got first in serious contact with Bowie through compilations of mine), a real heartbreaking sense of what he meant to people. On the other hand terribly idiotic jokes in the creative agency I'm hating to work today from pricks who couldn't care less... don't know what to say.

great anecdote here involving the beat:

https://twitter.com/PhilipNByrne/status/686484733379887107

^ was probably saxa i'm guessing?

so many thoughts going through my head - listening to first Blackstar, then Hunky Dory, now Station2Station in the office. What a variety of emotions, ideas, creative thoughts he was able to communicate, so many great collaborations.

can't help but feel very sad that I never got to see him perform, a dream since I was a teen and I had made a promise to myself I would fly anywhere in the world with my little brother to see him

Gosh, this was unexpected. He was a huge favourite when I was young and also my mom’s absolute favourite artist. Many happy memories of listening to Bowie with her, especially taking her to see him in 2004.

When I heard that Lemmy had died I was at work. But when I got home the first thing I did was play 'Ace of Spades', because it's so obvious, what else do you do?
I was wondering earlier this morning which Bowie track to play and couldn't come to a decision. But I settled on the title/opening track of 'The Next Day', and it feels like a fitting send off to listen to that album and then 'Blackstar' all the way through.

^^^ I put on Station to Station as it's my favourite DB album, but how can one record possibly sum up his career? Even his missteps (of which there were many) were at the very least interesting, and he has left such a wealth of material, a real embarrassment of riches.

this news really sucks. am genuinely much sadder than i ever expected. and im not even a huge mega fan (though i own about 75% of his albums). never suspected cancer. so sad. never saw it coming at all.

Listening to them in the order to which they came to me.

Which was a little odd, starting with Let's Dance (I was 13 when it came out, OK?) but adult ears are a lot kinder to that record.

I have had much of "Blackstar" running through my head this past week. It's an album that's made a big impression on me. I think the melancholia of "Dollar Days" the most.

It's 6 am where I am. Too early to be up. Was having an intense dream and woke, picked up my phone to scan Twitter just to break the dream's grip when I came across all these Tweets referring to Bowie in the past tense. What a shock this is.

Goodbye, great and inspiring soul.

Side 2 of Diamond Dogs :(

waiting to see if morrissey says anything.

Yeah, they were sort-of mates..

I knew for a year this was the way it would be.

I am devastated by this. He meant so much to my young friends and I when music was everything to us. He was an emblem by which we identified ourselves. We couldn't imagine a life without his music.

I was driving back home tonight. I had to pull over... I'm sad and not sad - if anyone could ascend/transcend, it would be him.

I bought Scary Monsters the week it came out. I was 13. It's always been about that album. It's never not sounded like one giant step into the future. I just put it on now and it's still like that. I'm freaked out that Blackstar is still sitting in the unplayed folder.

RIP

Don't really need to hear David Cameron talking about 'Hunky Dory' tbh.

Can't adequately put into words how important Bowie was when I was growing up. Always seemed like Glasgow (and environs) was especially insane about Bowie, a real Bowie Town, and from Bowie to Lou Reed, the Velvets, Iggy, Orange Juice, JAMC, Pastels etc etc etc.

I've got my older sister to thank for introducing me to Bowie (Lou Reed, the Velvets and so on). So thanks to her and thanks to David Bowie. RIP.

I'm freaked out that Blackstar is still sitting in the unplayed folder.

^^^

I'll listen to it this afternoon. I like to be in the right mind space when listening to any new album, but with this more than anything.

Discovering Ziggy Stardust was... discovering music. As a teen there were many important artists that expanded my idea of what music could be, what emotions it could produce, what iconography it could make available. Bowie was the nazz.

Feel very connected with other Bowie fans today, he somehow made a community out of an existential outsider-role (and made it work as music). Finding out that a friend shared this connection to Bowie always made me happy - it was never an exclusive club, but a hint that we understood each other emotionally.

RIP.
I'm stunned, and will be for a while

One of the real titans of music. So sad.

This is possibly ghoulish and grotesque but one angle that is really weird to think about is that Angie Bowie is on Celebrity Big Brother at the moment, and won't know.

Wendy Leigh (gossipy Bowie biographer) on BBC earlier this morning in an eye rolling tribute started with more even-handed adjectives, genius, chameleon, then notched it up with "he was also psychic and a wizard, he planned the time of death, it was all planned out so that it would hit exactly when Britain was waking up"

Oops, sorry, not wizard, *magician*

"This is possibly ghoulish and grotesque but one angle that is really weird to think about is that Angie Bowie is on Celebrity Big Brother at the moment, and won't know."

im sure they will let her know - would prob be good for the drama

His debut is maybe the worst album I've heard from '67, no joke. To not only come back from that but to have a subsequent decade of nigh-unimpeachable albums, several of which are unquestionably among the greatest of all-time, is an astounding feat. After that, the dude got a lifetime Stevie Wonder/Francis Ford Coppola pass to do whatever he wanted after bringing it so hard. So many amazing songs that hold up to listen after listen. 'Five Years' seriously makes me teary pretty much every time I hear it. Don't know if I can hear it today.

I'm really devastated and keep crying at work. I'm sort of surprised by how hard this has hit me because it's not like I've ever identified as the #1 Bowie fan or anything but my God if he wasn't a phenomenally talented powerhouse of a magical person. It's so sad. Surely he should be immortal. RIP.

At the calculated risk of being a namedropper, a few weeks after Bowie died I went to a gig I knew Ben Monder would be at and talked to him a quite a bit. He told me about how much he loved hanging out with Bowie and Tony Visconti while working on that last record, how smart they were, how much Bowie read and how much he retained of what he read.

When I scanned through that link, I thought - "wait, this doesn't look like 1980," then I got to the right music and I got the pun.

Which link?

The YouTube embed of the 1980 Floor Show

I'm sure all of the people putting additions on the house that Bowie built love Bowie, but just about *every* creative person loves Bowie. I know inspiration is where you find it, but there's a lot of other stuff out there from which to draw, imo.

i remember being confused by that 1980 thing when i saw it on tv. i think i'm still confused. "floor" sounds like "4" and one of the songs in the set is 1984. and it's a floor show. ok i'm good now.

Okay finally watched a bit and saw. Guess that’s Ava Cherry. Also hadn’t realized the theme song was actually Johnny Rivers singing “The Midnight Special.” D’oh!

And Dooshenka … is Amanda Lear!

Thread delivers.

Detailed writeup here, along with a link to dedicated FB group:

https://madelinex.com/2018/09/01/ziggys-last-stand-bowie-the-1980-floor-show/

Private group though.