David Bowie R.I.P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFAnA9oPRE

i thought TMWSTW was more or less disowned or ignored in terms of the DB canon until the nirvana cover.

Americans have some funny ideas.

but they are ours.

kinda funny in the NPR interview how he says things later echoed by Stephin Merritt: 1) i'd rather someone else was singing my songs, 2) I wouldn't play live if i didn't have to.

one thing that keeps circling back for me is how he was kind of the coin of the realm for many different circles of outsiders - the burnout hippies who i hung out with for a while would listen to bowie with awe and wonder, but then i'd be traveling in vastly disparate social circles - ostensibly normal people with secret lives in high school; the people at the underage queer niteclub that saved my life in '85/'86; board game geeks - and no matter what they were genuinely into, everybody'd come into contact not just with bowie as a celebrity, a fixture, but with the music, the albums, the stuff in there. on the few occasions where I'd meet somebody with no opinion about Bowie, it would seem odd - really almost a religious attitude from me: how can you not care about this?

A few years ago I was watching the news and there was some piece about Bowie & Iman. My mother happened to pass though the living room and remarked "Isn't he that Alvin Stardust guy?". I couldn't believe that someone could be so ignorant. It was like a teenager from the US saying "Who's this Abraham Lincoln dude?".

After I saw the Chicago Bowie Is ... exhibit I got into a few arguments/debates with friends as to who else could support a similar exhibit. Beatles, of course, probably Bob Dylan. But during the course of our discussions the only person I could come up with as a possible successor to Bowie was Madonna, someone else who proved throughout her career a really smart synthesizer of someone else's ideas, a recognizer and savvy poacher of talent, an icon that changed the direction of the cultural dialogue. (And, coincidentally enough, overlapped with Bowie's commercial/public peak thanks in no small part to the very next record Nile Rodgers produced). But she's far less creatively restless, I think, or at least far more concerned with what other people think, though in a sense her career right now maybe parallels Bowie c. "Hours" or something like that. A transition/holding pattern. Live performance is also much more important to Madonna, too. She needs that energy, which is why she works so hard to get that. But Bowie got all his energy from ideas. That was enough, and possibly explained why, no matter what he did, it always seemed so natural and effortless. No stories as far as I know of Bowie laboring in the studio. That was his happy place.

Listening to "Lust for Life" right now, still perhaps or at least often enough my favorite Bowie-related project.

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'Had no idea he had been still alive', girl at office, 22yrs.

Madonna's his greatest heir.

I got into a few arguments/debates with friends as to who else could support a similar exhibit.

Yeah, but it got panned as BS, iirc.

Madonna may be his offspring but she didn't inherit his soul.

tbf Bowie has a thirty year head start on Björk, but she's more of a spiritual heir than Madonna imo.

Bill Buckley's former mag:

Millions of words will be written about the death of David Bowie, the theatrical pop singer who died of cancer at the age of 69. He was famous for the various dramatis personae he adopted over the years—Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke—and for his experiments in androgyny, having surfed a wave of sexual indeterminacy (the rumored affair with Mick Jagger, etc.) right up until the moment that wave crested, at which point he married a famous supermodel and adopted a somewhat more conventional aesthetic. Very few men will ever be able to say that they aged as gracefully.

Bowie was an influential figure in music, art, and fashion, but he was a pretty good armchair economist, too, having chosen a necessarily entrepreneurial occupation. He was quick to appreciate the cultural importance of the Internet, and in 2002 he gave a famous interview with the New York Times in which he made some predictions about the future of the music industry: the decline of labels, the emergence of the utility model of music distribution, the blurring of previously clear lines of ownership and authorship, the decline of effective copyright (he wasn’t quite right in predicting that copyright would simply cease to exist in a decade) and the return of performance as the central economic activity for musicians.

He was a financial innovator, too, raising $55 million via the now-famous “Bowie bond,” in which he traded future royalties for cash money in hand. (This turned out to be a much better deal for Bowie than for his investors.) That wasn’t entirely successful, but the idea clearly influenced subsequent projects such as Kickstarter. No one has quite figured out what business models are in fact going to be effective for cultural undertakings such as music, publishing, and journalism, but Bowie was ahead of the curve in identifying the underlying problem.

As any entrepreneur will tell you, recruiting the right people is an enormous challenge. Bowie had the good sense to spot Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose contribution to “Let’s Dance” was simply irreplaceable. Bowie in fact had nearly impeccable taste in guitarists: Reeves Gabrels, Adrian Belew, etc. He was an excellent personnel man.

And without being cynical, there was a fair amount of marketing savvy behind his enigmatic image and his penchant for playing a new character every few years: He was like a fine restaurant with no fixed menu, where the atmosphere “isn’t painted on the walls,” as they say. He wasn’t all things to everyone, but his portfolio was well-diversified.

The artist was admirable, to be sure, but the businessman wasn’t half bad, either. The free market isn’t only about investment bankers and factories. Increasingly, it isn’t even mainly about that. It is about human flourishing. David Bowie’s career was a reminder that business can be beautiful.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429557/david-bowie-was-brilliant-businessman

He's only got a 20 year start on her, really. Which feels mad to say. I feel like time is compressing.

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brendanOB • 21 hours ago

He was also a pretty good dad, if an unconventional one. There are interviews with his son, director Duncan Jones, that make this clear. Good dad, entrepreneurial, wore a lot of suits... he's a conservative icon!

Avatar The Old Man brendanOB • 17 hours ago

Although showing up late to his wedding because he was engaging in a three-some (with his wife-to-be) isn't exactly Bill Buckley behavior. But he had many conservative attributes.

Has this been posted yet? This is bonkers. http://www.theuncool.com/journalism/david-bowie-playboy-magazine/

Wow @ Bowie as businessman obit. I mean, we all KNOW this, but eurgh, that's crass.

eh the madonna thing is overrated IMO, i mean i get it on a certain level but i agree that bjork could be perhaps a better comparison

this is a cool bit from the Let's Dance Wiki

Rodgers later recalled that Bowie approached him to produce his album so that Bowie could have hit singles.[7] Rogers reported that Bowie came into his apartment one day and showed him a photograph of Little Richard in a red suit getting into a bright red Cadillac, saying "Nile, darling, that’s what I want my album to sound like."[8]

Bowie, having just signed with EMI Records for a reported $17.5 million, worked with Rodgers to release a "commercially buoyant" album that was described as "original party-funk cum big bass drum sound greater than the sum of its influences." The album's influences were described as Louis Jordan, the Asbury Jukes horn section, Bill Doggett, Earl Bostic and James Brown.[1] Bowie spent three days making demos for the album in New York before cutting the album, a rarity for Bowie who, for the previous few albums, usually showed up with little more than "a few ideas."[9] Despite this, the album "was recorded, start to finish, including mixing, in 17 days," according to Rodgers.[10]

Stevie Ray Vaughan met Bowie at the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. After Vaughan's performance, Bowie was so impressed with the guitarist he later said "[he] completely floored me. I probably hadn't been so gung-ho about a guitar player since seeing Jeff Beck with his band the Tridents." Of Bowie, Vaughan said, "to tell you the truth, I was not very familiar with David's music when he asked me to play on the sessions. ... David and I talked for hours and hours about our music, about funky Texas blues and its roots - I was amazed at how interested he was. At Montreux, he said something about being in touch and then tracked me down in California, months and months later."[1] In a contemporary interview, Vaughan described the recording sessions for the album:

David Bowie is real easy to work with. He knows what he's doing in the studio and he doesn't mess around. He comes right in and goes to work. Most of the time, David did the vocals and then I played my parts. A lot of the time, he just wanted me to cut loose. He'd give his opinion on the stuff he liked and the stuff that needed work. Almost everything was cut in one or two takes. I think there was only one thing that needed three takes.[11]

Has this been posted yet? This is bonkers. http://www.theuncool.com/journalism/david-bowie-playboy-magazine🔗/

yeah it's a lil nuts

PLAYBOY: Last question. Do you believe and stand by everything you’ve said?

BOWIE: Everything but the inflammatory remarks.

In his book Niles talks about hearing all the "Let's Dance" demos and thinking there was nothing there at all, then being amazed as it all came together.

I don't see Bjork as heir or anything to Bowie at all.

Madonna's his greatest heir.

which hair?

Seen quite a lot of "Me and Bowie" type pics, funny how Bowie gives good face in all of them.

He's only got a 12-year start on Madonna, surely? 69 vs 57, 1970 vs 1983

photograph of Little Richard in a red suit getting into a bright red Cadillac

I want to see this picture.

not sure about today, but in the 80s, prince and madonna were the obvious heirs IMO.

prince more so than madonna IMO (charles shaar murray seemed to think so).

Listening to Song For Bob Dylan and getting chills all over hearing it as a narrative for Bowie's own, cosmic "retreat."

He recognizes a certain valor/heroism in that "dead" poet's self-invention and holds this quality in the highest esteem, credits it for deranging perspectives and terrifying the norms.

Obv. DB himself was already at it by then and embarking on his own, dramatized version of that trip, only more calibrated, more generous....and now nearly a half-century later, subbing in [David Jones] and [alias of choice] we're right there again.....

Oh, hear this Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you
About a strange young man
called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
His words of truthful vengeance
They could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
And put the fear in a whole lot more

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

You gave your heart to every bedsit room
At least a picture on my wall
And you sat behind a million pair of eyes
And told them how they saw
Then we lost your train of thought
The paintings are all your own
While troubles are rising
We'd rather be scared
Together than alone

Ah, Here she comes...[etc.]

Now hear this Robert Zimmerman
Though I don't suppose we'll meet
Ask your good friend Dylan
If he'd gaze a while
down the old street
Tell him we've lost his poems
So they're writing on the walls
Give us back our unity
Give us back our family
You're every nation's refugee
Don't leave us with their sanity

Ah, Here she comes....[etc.]

don't feel like you need to give this attention, but this is the stupidest thing i've read yet:

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2016/01/11/david-bowie-as-the-right-wing-artist/

"he had a flirtation with fascism but people still liked him!"

BOWIE: I really wanted Norman Rockwell to do an album cover for me. Still do. I originally wanted him for the cover of Young Americans. I got his phone number and called him up. Very quaint. His wife answered and I said, “Hello, this is David Bowie,” and so on. I asked if he could paint the cover. His wife said in this quavering, elderly voice, “I’m sorry, but Norman needs at least six months for his portraits.” So I had to pass, but I thought the experience was lovely. What a craftsman.

How familiar was "The Man Who Sold the World" when Nirvana covered it? I figured it took real crate digging for Cobain to own its host album. It wasn't even a hit in America.

I learned about it through the Sound and Vision box on release in 1989, which had the salutory effect of making a whole lot of his seventies work, famous or deep cuts, seem like they were on an equal level. So there's that. But there's another less-remarked link: Richard Barone covered the song in 1987 on his live album Cool Blue Halo, more pointedly with a prominent cello part from Jane Scarpantoni. Yesterday I dug up my copy of Barone's autobiography Frontman -- great read in general BTW -- because I remembered a particular anecdote:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYfvLxRUMAAdDdI.jpg:large

A friend added on FB: "My brother and I saw Richard Barone play "The Man Who Sold The World" at The Backstage (now an upscale homewares store) in Seattle in 1990." So he wasn't blowing smoke in his book -- it seems to have been just enough of a local hit to trickle down that way.

I don't see Bjork as heir or anything to Bowie at all.

OTM.

on the few occasions where I'd meet somebody with no opinion about Bowie, it would seem odd - really almost a religious attitude from me: how can you not care about this?

I was a teenager from Station to Station thru Scary Monsters (the latter of which is the sole Bowie LP i remember being in our house, bcz my younger sister bought it). I simply didn't get into what was on the charts, consumerwise -- I only started to burrow into the Beatles albums at 15 or 16. (The only album purchases i specifically remember from 1980 were End of the Century and Argybargy.) I was an outsider and wanted to stay so, with no desire to liberate myself with makeup. I probably preferred to keep my distance from people who hated OR loved Bowie, at least until i joined drama club as a junior. Staying in my room watching baseball or old films, or listening to comedy LPs, was a good enough day for me. Whenever Bowie surfaced on TV or radio I liked him well enough; that was all.

Should add, here is Barone's version for comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-m0sWVO3NM

holy shit re: richard barone & nirvana! that's like the fucking same arrangement

nice detective work Ned!

There are several great posts upthread about how strange it feels to mourn the loss of someone (some thing?) so multifarious. His art was formative for me like it was for millions, mild-altering to a little boy....but so much of the love and adoration is obv. for an abstraction of the real person/husband/father/bandmate/friend.

I feel like I should be sadder than I am. I'm sure it will hit me hard right now, but mostly I just feel confused.

Bowie was a there-not-there chart presence in the U.S. from 1977-1980. Scary Monsters hit #12 in 1980 after Lodger peaked at #20 and "Heroes" at, jeez, #35. SM was a massive British hit taking advantage of Blitz kids + New Wave, so I wonder if his record comapany promoted the fuck out of it in both countries.

(but) right now

Checking the UK album charts, every Bowie album between 1972 and 1984 was Top 5 (not counting reissues... but including "Stage"!), "Never Let Me Down" was the first to fall outside the Top 5... it got to #6! Every single Bowie studio album from "Ziggy" onwards was Top 10.

kinda funny in the NPR interview how he says things later echoed by Stephin Merritt: 1) i'd rather someone else was singing my songs, 2) I wouldn't play live if i didn't have to.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, January 12, 2016 8:00 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i loved this part. Bowie is too real.

thanks for the Playboy interview, pretty fascinating. Bowie seems very much a link between the super famous artists of the 60s like the Beatles and Stones, and say, Michael Jackson or Madonna in the 80s. He knew what he had to do, and how to do it -- there wasn't the process of disillusion at becoming (and remaining) famous, and even when he talks about getting ripped off by his mgmt, it hardly puts a dent in his vision, almost like another small part of the process. There were other people who dealt successfully with massive fame before him, but he seems like one of the first people to actively court it, manipulate it to his end, and have his art reflect that.

Checking the UK album charts, every Bowie album between 1972 and 1984 was Top 5 (not counting reissues... but including "Stage"!), "Never Let Me Down" was the first to fall outside the Top 5... it got to #6! Every single Bowie studio album from "Ziggy" onwards was Top 10.

Yeah, but what were the raw numbers? It takes 1/5 as many copies sold to go gold in England as it does in the US (100K vs 500K) and 1/3 for platinum (300K vs 1 million).

On the condition of his estate: http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_29371257/music-legend-david-bowies-online-record-sales-climb

also "18 months out of 40 years and I'm still the crossdresser here, fuck ok" xxxp

Trigger warning: article linked above contains Lefsetz.

Some good bits in that Playboy interview:

I’ve learned to flow with myself. I honestly don’t know where the real David Jones is. It’s like playing the shell game. Except I’ve got so many shells I’ve forgotten what the pea looks like. I wouldn’t know it if I found it.

... The minute you know you’re on safe ground, you’re dead. You’re finished. It’s over. The last thing I want is to be established. I want to go to bed every night saying, “If I never wake again, I certainly will have lived while I was alive.”

... The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from. I do think that my plagiarism is effective. Why does an artist create, anyway? The way I see it, if you’re an inventor, you invent something that you hope people can use. I want art to be just as practical. Art can be a political reference, a sexual force, any force that you want, but it should be usable. What the hell do artists want? Museum pieces? The more I get ripped off, the more flattered I get. But I’ve caused a lot of discontent, because I’ve expressed my admiration for other artists by saying, “Yes, I’ll use that,” or, “Yes, I took this from him and this from her. “Mick Jagger, for example, is scared to walk into the same room as me even thinking any new idea. He knows I’ll snatch it.

I realised that I have never really thought about going to see David Bowie live as something that would be appropriate. I'd say this is because my first (and second and on to a hundred) Bowie album was Diamond Dogs, because that's the one the local library had.

If my timeline is correct, that Playboy interview would've been conducted roughly around the time of Bowie's coke nadir.