David Bowie R.I.P

J.D., a lovely tribute. That sense of we-can-be-heroes is certainly why so many of us fell hard.

Weird timing! I'm listening to Tonight for the first time ever, and 'Loving The Alien' specifically. It's a good song, but I wonder if there's a better arrangement/live version of it out there somewhere...?

― Professor Bworlph (Old Lunch), Friday, January 15, 2016 12:07 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8cENJO39Rs

This is meant to be amazing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rnj10

― piscesx, Friday, January 15, 2016 9:04 PM (2 hours ago)

I'm half way in and it's fantastic. Very funny. The Angie/David "Cobbler Bob" sketch had me in tears of laughter.

If (and only if!) you appreciate this little cartoon then it'll be right up your street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FODvjYoVEi8

Excellent piece on S&S. Morgan starts from the unpromising position of talking about his film roles, but she uses as a great jump-off point.

Good summary of the whole week as well.

I know it sounds pathetic but the Buxton thing was the first Bowie thing I could handle after the news. A cosy, affectionate couple of hours and really good on the very early Deram stuff.

thanks alfred -- that means a lot to hear, coming from a writer i respect so much.

My god, thank you for that 'Loving The Alien' video, Alfred. That was gorgeous and haunting and very nearly did me in.

Dovetailing w Turrican's story upthread, I heard a story today about a mid 20's coworker who was surprised to learn that David Bowie was a musician. "I couldnt figure out why everyone was flipping out that the guy from Labyrinth died." No idea that he was famous for singing, dude knew of zero Bowie songs. He said he doesnt listen to music ~at all~.

The power of the babe

I don't find it that surprising that someone doesn't know any Bowie songs (I doubt that my parents do) but I AM surprised that all of these people are apparently familiar with Labyrinth.

There must be someone out there that cant believe the guy from Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence has just died

very funny cartoon and i'd never even heard of Tony Visconti til this week

what the hell would the 80's have sounded like without him?

According to Mark David Chapman, if he didn't succeed in killing John Lennon, his plan was walk back to the theater where Bowie was performing The Elephant Man and shoot him. Supposedly a copy of The Elephant Man program was found in Chapman's hotel room along with a photo he took of Bowie leaving the theater.

O_O

xp as usual you've blown my mind

I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe now

happened to walk past the david bowie mural in brixton in the freezing cold at about 1am and there were around twenty people standing there singing 'suffragette city' together

didn't think it was possible for me to hate chapman more than i already do

Ken Scott says in his book that 95% Bowie's vocals were done in one take.

Sund4r and fgti, so sorry for tweaking you one more time about that stuff, I totally understand where you are coming from, my post was kind of tongue in cheek, I was reminiscing about the good times we had last year on the music theory thread. I guess if it elicited such a beautiful post from fgti it was worth it. But I am going to drop that line of response, not only was that the last such post of this thread, it's the last such post I'll ever do.

I tried to resist that cartoon up thread but had to give in when it got to Derek and Clive.

I keep getting sad again

one thing that makes me especially sad is that bowie never wrote a memoir -- i bet that could have been awesome

I wonder if he ever got started on one. There was a lot of time between Reality and The Next Day.

I keep getting sad again

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl

me too, it's OK.

just came back from an 80's night tribute at the local arcade where I was sitting and crying quietly, finishing a beer while people young enough to be my kids danced to "Golden Years" and my wife (who is older and never grew up with Bowie or music fandom in general) fidgeted and cast worried looks at her inconsolable husband.

now we're gonna make chocolate chip cookies

three people I personally know have died/are dying this week, one of them a close friend

fuck

There's no better feeling of being among the living than "Golden Years" and chocolate chip cookies, even when mourning and missing those who are gone.

One-off from 2007:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HnjsULFHmM

"Queen Bitch" blasting out of a hippie shop on PCH in town tonight - people dancing as they walked past.

Couple nights ago I was at a late-night diner and the folks at the table next to me suddenly broke out into a "have you listened to Blackstar yet?" conversation.

<3 sleeve

i keep thinking I want to do some Bowie karaoke but me ugly-crying on my knees singing Starman prob isnt what ppl need to see

"Ziggy Stardust" has always been my go-to karaoke song. Don't think I could manage it right now (hell, I can't even play the "Rebel Rebel" riff without breaking down)

i sang life on mars to myself in the shower the morning after he died, it's the only song of his i havent played yet

i cant

;_;

i sang "heroes" at karaoke on wednesday and discovered 1) it's in my range 2) can't get through it without crying

Los Angeles folks - big Bowie remembrance gig at HM157 on Saturday night. Should be fun!
https://www.facebook.com/events/177258945965503/

I know this has been talked and written about a million times by now, but I finally gave Blackstar a thorough listen and watched the videos. Jesus Christ, what a brilliant, chilling, profound way for an artist to go out. Will take some time to digest.

I decided to teetotal tonight, thus sparing the free karaoke room at the arts complex opening party from my rendition of "All The Young Dudes" (since I'm closer in range to Hunter than Bowie).

that buxton show is terrific, is there some easy way to do an mp3 rip of it? hope they keep it up

scott walker doing laughing gnome had me irl lolling

the gilmour fan around 6:48 in that comfortably numb live with bowie doing verses also brought a smile to my face

my friend's DJ thing tonight in W'burg

https://www.facebook.com/events/1535486980077558/

what about going backwards to his 1st album?

never spent much time with this before, but silly boy blue really got to me this morning...

You wish and wish, and wish again
You've tried so hard to fly
You'll never leave your body now
You've got to wait to die

damn

Don't recommend trying to sing Kooks to your kids, in the way I used to do when they were smaller and Bowie was still with us. Made a rod for my own back there. :/

Buxton MP3 is available - let me find the link (though it's not as good quality as streaming it on iPlayer). Alternatively I can Dropbox it to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvMbkg1ZoFc

I'm really caught off guard by how hard this is hitting me. I didn't even think I was among the bigger Bowie fans I knew, but it's like he was someone I hoped would always be around, giving us his take on each decade, guiding us through postmodernity.

I feel like popular culture just needs a Bowie, and there isn't another Bowie.

Alex In NYC said in a Facebook post "Honestly, how’s this all supposed to work without Bowie?" and I can't think of anything better to say.

I listened to the rebroadcasted Terry Gross interview with him, where he talked about "trying to create the 21st Century in 1971" with Ziggy Stardust, and about making music for the "post-culture era." I feel like there was a subset of his generation, but especially him more than anyone else, who really consciously, deliberately tried to design new ways of living and being in that "post-culture era." And maybe this is something particularly American, but I feel like we are losing some of that deliberateness, that meta-consciousness of the shit we are in and our power to shape the shit. Something something social media, IDK, maybe I'm just depressed.

PLAYBOY: You claim you like to work all the time, yet you release only one album a year. What exactly do you do between recording sessions?

'only'

I want a timemachine so I can go back & re-appreciate the 38 years of Bowie that I had, it doesn't seem right going on without him now

and who else is going to look THAT dapper always jfc

I know. When I think about our rock royalty (as such), Paul is too goofy, Mick is too cynical, Dylan is too weird. For dapper we'll have Bryan Ferry and Leonard Cohen for a few more years.

C'mon, if we're talking dapper Ferry has no competition.

'Dapper' seems too condescending a word to use on either Bowie or Ferry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgmhF0XV8uA