David Bowie R.I.P

Fripp is an odd duck and I noted the tone of that comment as well. But you shouldn't let it obscure his underlying point: Bowie allowed his players to play things that no other star of his magnitude would – and was comfortable bringing avant garde performers to light that might otherwise have toiled in obscurity.

Fripp's sister has had a horrifying influence on his manner of speaking publicly, but he's still an interesting guy. And still the the country lounge jazz guitarist he started as, occasionally amazed at what he's gotten away with over the years.

fripp was hilarious in that doc xD

Fripp also often refers to himself as Fripp, which is very funny, too. But yes, he does have a point. Remember, by the late '70s King Crimson had been disbanded for several years, and he was mostly working as this peripatetic session man dipping his toes in punk and new wave: Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Blondie, Roches, that Daryl Hall record. But Bowie was a huge superstar, filling arenas, so the idea of letting him cut loose on stuff like "Fashion" is pretty cool, though yeah, also a tad disingenuous on Fripp's part to claim it as particularly outre, given he was all over "Heroes" (the album and song) already.

Speaking of which, I just learned this existed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEqQKlWLC0
Featuring Fripp playing off-stage.

Fripp also often refers to himself as Fripp, which is very funny, too.

I don't think he's done the "this Fripp" thing in 30 years. Still uses the 3rd person, but usually referring to himself as the Old Goat or RHVL (ruthless heartless venal leader or something like that). It's interesting that he pretty much stopped updating his online diary about the time the current KC revival got going -- I hope he's channeling that writing time into something that sees print someday.

I think his point tho is that "Fashion" represents a particularly outre performance on a single. Most of his particularly angular work on "Heroes" is on album cuts like "Beauty and the Beast" and "Blackout" which weren't going to be on anybody's idea of Top 40 radio.

xpost oof, Harry unsure about if/how to dial down her dryness. Not a good choice.

Beauty and the Beast was a single. Sense of Doubt on the B-side, I think. Played it to death on my brother's stereo.

sounds like a pretty killer 7" too

apologies if this has been posted before but this is so good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF1Y7BzWbUs

Coldplay is totally going to cover Bowie at halftime, aren't they?

with Kanye as surprise guest prob

Shit I wish Beyonce wld

http://www.hitfix.com/news/heres-a-list-of-everything-david-bowie-turned-down-from-american-idol-to-james-bond?ModPagespeed=noscript

So we managed to have Bowie as the theme for last night's record club and still only listen to one Bowie album. And that one's only been out a month.

We did get to listen to Iggy's The Idiot, though, which I've wanted to hear for a while, and which is basically a Bowie in Berlin album, obviously. But Tom chose Here Come The Warm Jets which has nothing to do with Bowie other than it being by Brian Eno (but from before they even met, I think?).

Perhaps you drifted into the parallel universe of the film Velvet Goldmine, where there is no Bowie music, but there is Roxy and Eno, the first song heard being "Needle In The Camel's Eye," iirc.

Perhaps there are more important things to worry about.

No doubt. Please to enlighten as to what they are

"The Idiot" is wonderful, been listening to that a lot over the past few weeks.

"Last night I was down in the lab, hanging with Dracula and his crew!"

^pure gold

Beauty Pill did an excellent cover of "Jump They Say" a few years ago, and put it online for a few hours today: https://octave.is/beautypill/jump-they-say

i was just coming to post that, omg

From his son.

https://twitter.com/ManMadeMoon/status/697489975261016064

awww

;_; but also <3

Oof. Sorry, I've got nothing more than that.

I finally saw the "Five Years" doc last night. Really nice! Loved the outtakes from the "Life on Mars" and "Ashes to Ashes" videos. Kind of hoping a massive Bowie DVD release comes out w this extra material on it.

It was a thrill to watch Carlos Alomar use a loop pedal to create on-the-spot versions of "Fame" etc. I was kind of surprised by how much the doc interviewed the actual musicians that played on it, which I loved. Fripp was hilarious as well!

THIS is how you do a music doc.

just discovered that a few tracks on 'bowie at the beeb' were recorded the day i was born

i found my thrift store copy of the "Pin Ups" LP w the initials "JS" in the corner and a few skips on it. i love this album. it feels like a precursor to both the Philly funk and Berlin eras. the arrangements are usually pretty interesting and i like all the buzzy synth and pitch-shifted vocals. he uses them a lot on "Pin Ups"! "See Emily Play" in particular is cool and alien and futuristic, maybe something that could be "The Lodger". his cover of The Who's "I Can't Explain" is incredible Thin White Duke-style morphine-drip plastic soul.

"Shapes of Things to Come" feels a LOT like "Roxy Music"

the vocals are a bit uneven on the record though, on some songs it sounds like they were trying for rock n roll and failing, him pushing for a more theatrical approach with his vocals, maybe it clashes on one or two songs. "Fridays on My Mind" felt a little awkward? at any rate it's a cool transition album and i think highly underrated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwOQ5UQJ1dQ

"Anyway Anywhere Anyhow" is him doing his Iggy Pop isn't it? lovely!

I never truly understood that joke about "the living will envy the dead" until I saw Lady Gaga's "tribute" to Bowie on the Grammys last night. Holy fuck, that was awful. I know everything on the Grammys is aimed at 65-year-olds, but this was a special kind of clueless Vegas horror.

it would have been better if they had played 1 or 2 songs in full instead of an awkwardly slapped-together medley

B-b-but better is not always better.

yeah the mistake was shoving all of those songs in there, too cheesy, awful. should have done 2 and been done with it.

she should've restaged "Sweet Thing/Candidate" like on the 1974 tour.

The mistake was: no Laughing Gnome, no credibility.
Unless I blinked and missed it.

Gawd that was wretched.

OK, the door is open for the Noel Gallagher, Damon Albarn and Bono tribute band..

This was like what a David Bowie Super Bowl halftime show would've been, if Bowie had been asked, and if he was an idiot.

Not sure where this came from but it's kinda interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEr3t1FggFI

Weirdly, posted on the same day by a different YT username:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tJlv-9-PVg

If she would have just done the Vegas arrangement of Heroes it would have been almost passable in a fun but terrible way. That was just terrible without being fun.

Bowie's live performances (that I've watched) seem to be about wit and charisma just as much as the music, whereas the 2 minutes of the Gaga thing I was able to stand, seemed like a grim, joyless slog through as many references and snippets as possible. Kind of antithetical to the idea of a "tribute".

I dunno, impossible task?

On the other hand, if she'd have just done a version of "Suffragette City", that might have worked.

I'll give her a pass after the national anthem at the Super Bowl.

Ned shared this via Facebook yesterday and it was a nuanced and intelligent read, so I thought I'd put it here. This topic has been, if not bugging me, then floating at the periphery of my consciousness. Since the Saville furor broke I've been waiting for 'pop' 'stars' (rather than DJs and TV presenters) to start being named, shamed, and charged in the same way, but it hasn't happened. And it hasn't happened because it's incredibly complicated.

http://jezebel.com/what-should-we-say-about-david-bowie-and-lori-maddox-1754533894

That was very good

yeah i really like that piece. i like how deep it goes in expressing how much the 70's *was* another planet without letting Bowie off the hook