David Bowie R.I.P

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.

In case you were wondering what the paranoid American right-wing thinks:
http://www.infowars.com/david-bowie-a-non-appreciation/

"thinks"

Josh Marshall!

But since then I’ve been struck by just how intense and widespread the outpouring of grief and memory has been. Much more than I would have expected - and from a much broader range of people that I would have imagined...

....But what I have thought a lot about in the last few days is the way Bowie seemed to embody a certain aspect of “the 60s”, albeit it one that really happened in the 1970s, which was his golden decade. This mid-late 20th century transformation, which is encrusted in so much cliche and mawk, had two broad components: one that was conventionally political and generally left, and a second which was broadly liberationist, sexual, a dream of being unchained from history, identity, confinement, open to a free field of self-expression and self-invention. It was out of this milieu and set of beliefs that much of the gay liberation movement emerged, a certain phase of women’s liberation, racial identity movements and much else.

If the radical economic politics that many associate with the 60s never panned out, this ethic of individual liberation and expression continued to pulse through our culture for decades and in some ways is flowering in new and triumphant ways even today, whether at the Supreme Court, at the City Clerks office or on boutique television shows on Showtime.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/liberation

At times, Mr. Pop said, it was like having “Professor Higgins say to you: ‘Young man, please, you are from the Detroit area. I think you should write a song about mass production.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/arts/music/david-bowie-iggy-pop.html?_r=0

whoa natalie cole is also in that clip veronica posted

and bowie presents her with a gold (?) record!

I put this on FB but this Tina Turner/Bowie duet of "Tonight" from 85 is fucking beautiful, they look so happy and it made me tear up

http://youtu.be/7icGpchTH4c

Check the King Crimson video I posted above for Fripp's brief, touching (and Frippish) comment.

I loathe the album version of that Bowie-Tina duet :(

the cod reggae

iggy nyt thing ;_;

“He wrote the [ chord ] progression on ukulele, and he said, ‘Call it “Lust for Life,” write something up.’”

: o

that whole piece is awesome

Tonight is his weakest album for me by miles.

I saw KC do that tune at the Town Hall in NYC that year and was thrilled…the video you posted appears on my end to only be the performance…do you mean that's the extent of Fripp's comment, TWUN?

The text accompanying the video on youtube (Fripp runs the DGM Crimson channel):

"During the interview with Robert Fripp for the BBC's "David Bowie: Five Years (2013)"
… a question was asked, answered, and edited out of the documentary.

"Q: Why was Bowie so influential? (paraphrase).
A: He spoke on behalf of what is highest in all of us."

reeves…

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/11/462692110/a-guitarist-remembers-david-bowie-just-wanted-a-good-laugh

Tonight is a disgrace. I can't think of a major artist -- even Dylan! -- in that period who released such a shambles: two original songs, a couple of dumb cowrites, covers, untested producer. Marcello otm: "There isn’t really the sense, listening through Tonight, that Bowie is even bothering to listen to himself, let alone commit to making a good or merely listenable record."

lol:

In Padgham’s case this appears to have meant, in dramatic contrast to Nile Rodgers’ use of space and air, a blundering maximalist approach, filling up the treble-heavy spaces with everything he can find, including entirely inapposite gated drums and the migraine-inducing “Borneo Horns” (essentially the same horn section heard on Let’s Dance, but far more reined in, as though tied to its paddock). Padgham sounds afraid of silence, and in the case of songs like “Tumble And Twirl,” despite the efforts of uncredited bassist Mark King, we are really not far away from the slapstick cod-exotica of “Illegal Alien.”

"He spoke on behalf of what is highest in all of us."

ok, mourning has jumped the shark

I've never been able to bring myself to listen to it

xp

Tonight is a disgrace. I can't think of a major artist -- even Dylan! -- in that period who released such a shambles: two original songs, a couple of dumb cowrites, covers, untested producer. Marcello otm: "There isn’t really the sense, listening through Tonight, that Bowie is even bothering to listen to himself, let alone commit to making a good or merely listenable record."

Oh man, you should hear the stories behind Union by Yes

"He spoke on behalf of what is highest in all of us."

ok, mourning has jumped the shark

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius),

jump they say!

gooood you guys idgaf about the album, the video duet is great u should watch it

you think Tonight is worse than NLMD, Alfred? and I don't know in what sense "untested" could mean w/r/t Hugh Padgham in 1984.

Yes. At least NLMD is entertaining and scowl-inducing: a freak like Bowie attempting a Springteen-ian AOR crossover with Peter Frampton -- and he tried! Tonight he didn't try at all.

For all of the split opinion about Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine and even some of Bowie's '90s works, it's rather telling that Tonight is one of the Bowie albums that gets talked about the least. At least Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine etc. still provoke a reaction... Tonight just sits there in his discography, gathering dust and being forgotten about. For good reason, too, it's a woeful record and undoubtedly one of his lesser works, if not his worst. To think it was the follow-up to Let's Dance, too, which may not have been to the tastes of those that loved the artist leanings of his 1976-1980 work and even before, but I could never consider it to be a bad record.

*artier

(essentially the same horn section heard on Let’s Dance, but far more reined in, as though tied to its paddock)

This is why I adore Marcello right here

Some Bowie 80s Movie Singles Poll

apologies if this was already linked, ctrl-f "Star Special" not found

https://youtu.be/ATSTjjEMmuk

In May 1979, David Bowie did a two hour radio show called Star Special in which he played some of his favourite records.

is Anthony Newley on it?

I can't think of a major artist -- even Dylan! -- in that period who released such a shambles:

Ever heard Down In The Groove? If not, count yourself lucky.

Xpost Mekons are on it.

just realized that blackstar is the only album cover of his that doesn't feature his image (something which wikipedia confirmed, though i thought i was sooooo clever)