David Bowie R.I.P

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.

heard "let's dance" just now -- still such an wonderful/odd sounding hit.

from Jim'll Paint It

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/12439255_617455185074756_8430022611780275721_n.jpg?oh=47764bcf5c19013e205789281dc07116&oe=5745BDD2

I love David Bowie’s music deeply, and yet when I learned of his death last night I instantly flashed on a terrible, guilty memory whose repetition at present risks speaking ill of the dead: Sometime around the Earthling album in the late ’90s, I sat with a friend and my boyfriend and we started to take cheap, idiotic pot-shots at that album, which we regarded as a catalogue of typical uninspired aging rock star moves, a case in point of a vampire trying to draw sustenance from a then-thriving subculture (drum and bass).

I remember listening to that album played at a bookstore for a good half-hour (it was around 8pm which is why the staff could play jungle beats). It was such an odd experience, stayed with me for years but I could never go back and try the album proper, but I remember getting a kick out of this lol old guy trying it out..balls etc.

oh wow i'm listening to Blackstar for the first time; "I Can't Give Everything Away" lifts the two-note harmonica line from "A New Career In A New Town," one of my favorites.

this is so sad.

Basically unable to function as a real human today. Surprised by the level of grief.

The release of Blackstar two days before his death is probably one of the most brilliant artistic gestures in the history of pop music. Unreal

Me as well, hardcore. And I also resigned from a shitty job today - sent out emails to all the pertinent folks last night before bed - so today is a perfect day to stay home and celebrate The Dame and forget all the bs.

flappy bird otm though the sense of "timing" for lack of a better word or phrase to describe it all is overwhelming.

my kid rufus and his pals at the variety show last year. he's the one with the hair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WceXXacO1SU

uh doing bowie. should have said that...

Bowie had been working on a book as well, right? Wonder how far he got.

full of despair, but he will live forever. after all he came from the future. can't imagine what music would be like now without his work.

woke up this morning to the news and felt completely shattered. feels unexpected and painful in a way few other celebrity deaths have been for me. ended up writing a short tribute in like half an hour while sleepily listening to my co-workers chat.

i actually had "blackstar" stuck in my head when i woke up this morning and it was still there as i came across the news, v v surreal

nb i came very close to watching velvet goldmine last nite w/ a friend who;d never seen it, that would have been extra spooky

Will Sheff's blurb in the Talkhouse roundup is typically corny-but-canny.

listening to Earthling right now, what can you even say about it? so many good and really bad ideas chased after simultaneously

on his history with NYC, in 2003:

Having performed a gig outside London on a Thursday in June 1972, I shot home to sleep, then caught an early-morning flight — getting me to Madison Square Garden about ten minutes after Elvis hit the stage. I had the humiliating experience of walking down the center aisle to my very good RCA-provided seat while Elvis performed “Proud Mary.” As I was in full Ziggy regalia by this time — brilliant red hair and Kabuki platform shoes — I’m sure many of the audience presumed Mary had just arrived....

People here are very decent about their interactions with well-knowns. I get the occasional “Yo, Bowie,” but that’s about it. My only rule is to avoid tourist areas. But if I weren’t known, I’d still avoid ’em. In London, the saying goes, life takes place behind doors. Here it’s on the street....

My three favorite places in New York are Washington Square (it’s the emotional history of New York in a quick walk), the Strand bookshop (it’s impossible to find the book you want, but you always find the book you didn’t know you wanted), and Julian Schnabel’s house (the most extraordinary interior and quite beautiful; no one else but Julian could carry it off).

http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/david-bowies-reflection-on-being-a-new-yorker.html

I left work early and am gonna do some drinking before my radio show in 2 hours. the fuckin DMCA means that I can only play three Bowie songs in two hours (unless we turn the streaming off), so I'm gonna play "Heroes," "Station To Station," and "Blackstar"

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?

― Poliopolice, Monday, 11 January 2016 19:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, I do: I entered.

what happened was, you got an jnstrumental (mostly) with DBowie la-lai-ng a melody, and singing a chorus, and you had to write verses. Then you saved them onto the website Bowienet, and then you got a series of other contributions that you could rate out of five. I was quite pleased with my entry, and I have to say all the other entries (and there were huge amounts) were pretty awful.

Anyway, it was won by Alex Grant, and his entry was . OK. The only other decent lyric I ever saw was his when I sneaked a look at the finished product's booklet. I still think mine was better but it wouldn't upset me to think someone else favoured his over mine, it was comparable.

I had a thought about finishing the instrumental with my lyrics for the ILX version of "The Next Day" but I had mislaid the cassette a friend had sent me of the backing from back in the day, and didn't find it in time.

One day.

(some time later, Robbie Williams did something similar, and my lyrics for that were awful, so it goes to show, something or other)

I always loved this super funky version of "What in the World" from the STAGE live album. Fucking great.

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

My obit: http://www.spin.com/2016/01/david-bowie-tribute-eulogy/?utm_source=share-fb

great piece alfred

v nice. the chameleon bit is not something that had occurred to me tbh

one correction: i'm pretty sure the pumpkins never covered "quicksand"

That was Dinosaur Jr.

The Pumpkins covered "Kooks" in 1993. Billy insults the band at the end. "MISERABLE!"

https://archive.org/details/tsp1993-06-29

hmm I've a memory of a late summer '93 Pumpkins show during which they covered "Quicksand" and, I think, "Kooks."

xpost

ah, there you go!

The Pumpkins covered "Kooks" in 1993. Billy insults the band at the end. "MISERABLE!"

oh ha! guess i'm not as deep a fan as i thought

"The Secret Life of Araiiibia"

(Sorry, carry on, folks)

They did a pretty cool cover of "Fame" in 2014 around the release of the last record. They did a pretty lame cover of "Space Oddity" on the Oceania tour. And of course, at Bowie's 50th birthday party in 1997...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HD73LyWpcw