Category: David Bowie

My best mate Jacques is a tremendous writer who keeps his talents far too well hidden for my liking. Occasionally, he will leave behind a nugget of a comment but more often his best stuff comes in texts and e-mails.

This morning he posted a comment in response to the original piece on David Bowie that I typed up as I heard the news yesterday morning. It is far too good to be left there in the hope that some readers may stumble on it and so I’m reproducing it is a stand-alone piece. I think it will resonate with many.

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I found it tough to write anything sensible about the passing of DB yesterday. I was truly stunned by the suddenness of it, just as we’d been discussing elsewhere his 69th birthday and the merits of another new album. As with everything the great man did, he moved on to some other cosmos with both style and dignity.

Musically he touched me deeply over the years and he was responsible for a, probably the, genuinely seminal event in my musical education. Starman truly was a magical moment that night it appeared on TOTP. So weird and wonderful that it had many of us kids arguing about it as we played in Primary School the next day. (So memorable, this is one of only 3 or 4 moments I can vividly recall from school in those early years). Of course it wasn’t so much the music we analysed, it was essentially the acceptability of a man looking a bit like a woman, the bending of gender. Fair to say that the argument split along the line of me and the girls versus the farmer boys. The die was cast for me – being a bit weird was okay. (And for the record, if ever I really was doing a Desert Island Discs, Starman is in there first, because that’s where the music began for me.)

It was a formative moment, but I’m not going to pretend that I totally “got” the music then or suddenly became a devotee. Hey, I was seven. But it had made a big impression and I always looked out for that weirdo over the next few years, buying the odd single and wishing the north of Scotland of the time was just a bit (well, a lot) more cosmopolitan.

During the punk years, I made a new friend, let’s call him Graham. He was a music collector the likes of which I had never known before, and he had copies of all the Bowie albums. For the first time, I could enjoy the full breadth of his back catalogue. And what breadth. Genuine pop majesty.

Again though, I still wasn’t a devotee. Loved pretty much all that he’d done at that point, but was ever keen to broaden my musical knowledge and experience, and wasn’t going to waste my life listening to the same old stuff over and over. It’s only now that I look back that I realise just how much of my record/cd collection is influenced directly and indirectly by Bowie. Without whom and all that. He’s always been there – a friendly uncle to turn to in times when you need something reliable, something you can trust to still be the friend you always knew. Something, let’s be honest, brilliant.

I never saw him live. I’m not sad about that. By the time I could, he was mostly playing to massive barns or stadia. Not for me.

And I’ll happily stand by the fact that, FOR ME, he hasn’t made a decent album in 30 years. But those 1970s ones are pretty much perfect. And for that I will always truly love him.

The Queen is dead, long live the Queen.

 

It was a stunning and wholly unexpected start to the morning to wake up to the news that David Bowie had passed away at the age of 69.  There will be many more people better qualified than I am to pen an appropriate tribute including many of those whose blogs are listed on the right hand side of this corner of the internet but I want to give it a go.

I was a fan, but not a devoted one. As a teenager, I liked his music….as I got older I came to realise that what I had liked I should have loved.  The first album of his that I was musically mature enough in my own development to appreciate was Scary Monsters and that LP remains my favourite to this day.

I did get to see him play live once in the 90s when he was touring the release of a greatest hits effort. It was in a dreadful venue at Ingliston in Edinburgh – a barn of a place with dreadful acoustics – but it did mean that another musical ambition had been realised.  Mrs V was with me, but by then she was a veteran of seeing the cracked actor, with her first being as a mere 14 year-old back in 1972 at the old Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow.  Between the great tours of the 70s and the stadium/arena things she went to in later years (not forgetting she was also at Live Aid) she was in his presence on maybe eight or so occasions and she remained a fan for life.  Indeed, we were only talking some 48 hours ago about her being at the Ziggy Stardust tour and how the memories of that gig were still so fresh in her mind.  She’s pretty shaken up today.

His was a body of work that surpassed just about everyone who is/was part of the modern music industry.  Of course it is not without flaw – no-one who makes music for almost 50 years will be any different – but right now it is much much easier to recall the great songs rather than the few clunkers.  The fact that in the first few hours since the announcement that so many different tributes on social media have highlighted so many different songs is testament to the quality of his work.

It is a very sad day.

PS : BBC Radio 6 is a doing a tremendous job with the tributes being paid.

PPS : I mentioned that many other members of the blogging fraternity would likely make their own personal tributes…here’s some links (which I will endeavour to update as and when I can)

Drew : http://acrossthekitchentable.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/and-scattered-stardust-trails-between.html
Swiss Adam : https://baggingarea.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/freak-out-in-a-moonage-daydream/
CC : http://www.charitychicmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/starman.html
The Robster : http://isthis-thelife.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/bowie.html
Kaggsy : https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/goodbye-david/
Post Punk Monk : https://postpunkmonk.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-1947-2016/
The Swede : http://unthoughtofthoughsomehow.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/nothing-to-say-blue-blue.html
Alex G : https://wewillhavesalad.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/dave-bowie-the-chameleon-of-rock/
Rol : http://histopten.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/my-top-ten-david-bowie-songs_23.html
Jonny G : https://myvinyldreams.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-1947-2016/
Phil Spector : http://plainorpan.com/2016/01/11/a-crack-in-the-sky-and-a-hand-reaching-down-to-me/
GBU : http://goodbadunknown.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-111-best-dreams-by-david-bowie.html
Jamie : https://formalcontentsonly.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/goodbye-david-bowie/
singing bear : http://flyingdownzedalley.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/david-bowie-rip.html
Andrea : https://conventionalrecords.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/david-bowie-1969-2016/
Ed : http://17seconds.co.uk/blog/2016/01/12/david-bowie-remembered/
Andrew : http://www.armagideon-time.com/?p=11165
London Lee : http://www.londonlee.com/2016/01/goodbye-spaceboy.html

And a special mention to Echorich, a really dear friend of this and many other blogs who is one of the biggest Bowie fans there is and for whom today must have been awful and difficult to get through. He wasn’t alone mind you…Mrs Villain ended up working from home today so that she could shed tears as and when she needed. She tells me that BBC Radio 6 continued to surpass itself all day.

Tomorrow will be another difficult day for many.  I’ve decided however, to make it business as usual and to stick with the post as I had scheduled and to do likewise for the rest of the week and beyond.  Will understand if folk can’t be bothered to read and/or comment.

JC

Following my less than flattering words of yesterday, it would be remiss of me not to allow an opposite point of view to be articulated. In this case, the words are supplied by Friend of Rachel Worth:-

Okay case for the defence – I think you’ve missed some great stuff.

There seems to have been before the last LP a bit of view of Bowie that echoed the “What have the Romans Ever done for Us”, but in his case it is “He’s been shit since Lets Dance and in fact that wasn’t that good anyway”. Admittedly there have been some misfires and glass spiders , duets with Tina Turner , gurning with Mick Jagger , Tin Machine , stabs at Techno were all pretty horrendous. However, there have been moments of magic which , whilst not up there with the best of his 70s output still knocks socks off a lot of what else was around at the time. So here are my 10 for you to give a go or revisit without the ghosts of Ziggy, Aladdin etc.

1) Absolute Beginners – a fantastic song ruined by an awful film. Sinatra crossed with his own Heroes (I didn’t read Heroes at Live Aid at all like you did, I saw it as being much more universal – but then I still maybe naively view the whole thing as magical , flawed yes but magical still). Among lots of stuff that sounds like he was treading water for once a vocal that sounded like he meant it

2) Loving the Alien – I was so disappointed with the LP this came from. The awful Police-lite type reggae on a couple of tracks, a going-through-the- motions Beach Boys cover and that awful Tina Turner duet of the title track Tonight. However the opening track is majestic, hypnotic and epic. Starting the LP off with it only made what was to follow even more of a disappointment.

3) Thursdays Child – He has a habit with later LPs to include one lush ballad on each of them and here is another one from 1999’s Hours (another recording that was referenced as a return to form) . The best song Morrissey never wrote. The rest of the LP is okay even if a bit stodgy in its backing but this is one long melancholic sigh.

4) Pablo Picasso – he can spot a good cover and this is a bit of a mess , but it is a fun mess. The album it came from (2003 Reality his last before the new one) is a mixed bag of sounds and styles from buzzing guitars to jazzy piano.

5) Everyone Says ‘Hi’ – Heathen is probably the best of his later records and if you were going to give one a go it would be this one. Whereas Reality is a an interesting mess, Heathen is one of those proper grown up LPs – adult without ever being AOR. The one bit of light is Everyone Say Hi, a song to his son and the older brother of Kooks.

6) Buddha of Suburbia – I’m sure the BBC couldn’t believe it when he agreed to do the soundtrack for the tv adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s novel. Often overlooked and little heard it is the sound of someone rediscovering his mojo.

7) Outside – first thing you have to strip away the annoying concept dialogue tracks – wonder how many people who bought the CD have recut it on their mp3 players. There is a sense that in the 90s Bowie has been looking back , seeking out old collaborators to rediscover something. This was Brian Eno’s turn. It has some great songs on it (the industrial slab of Heart’s Filthy Lesson , the jittery We Prick You , the straight forward Strangers When We Meet, the pre-Pet Shop Boys Hello Spaceboy , the frankly- odd Have Not Been To Oxford Town, all of which can hold their heads high in the company of his 70s output) all with interesting backing.

8) Jump They Say – Nile Rogers is all over this slab of polished pop

9) This is Not America – it’s with a jazz fusion guitarist , its got one of those naff pointless key changes to keep things going – but I love it

10) The new LP is a strange one.  It has some great moments (Stars Are Out , Dirty Boys , Where Are We Now especially). Maybe not one of the best 12 LPs of the year ( but then not sure any of the nominations can give claim to that any year). What was odd was the complete lack of hype has led to it being over-hyped.  I love the fact that relatively no one knew it was coming, an announcement just appeared.

The press then had 2 choices.  Having been caught out they could either slag it or praise it hell.  Whichever choice they made the column inches and airtime grew and grew. It’s pretty good, runs out of steam a bit  – no better than Heathen , but much better than what most other pensioner pop stars have been churning out, and if it had come from a bunch of skinny white boys playing guitars then they would be being hailed as the next big thing.

The best thing are his lyrics and his voice , both of which are dark enough to feel dangerous , well as dangerous as a 66 year old can make you feel.  Listen to the LP and you do start to worry about his state of mind… ever the frustrated actor

So there you go , trying not to and failing to damn with the faint praise of “its good but not as good as his old stuff”. There is enough here for a mighty fine spotify playlist, and re-listening to these songs has been much more enjoyable than the work I should be doing.

FoTR

Note from JC

It was unfair of me to dismiss Absolute Beginners as it’s one of the 6,000 odd tracks on the i-phone.  Of the others mentioned, I’m only familiar with a handful – none of Loving The Alien, Buddha of Suburbia and Jump They Say do anything for me.

However FoTR, as much as you had me thinking you had made a decent case you make a very bad error of judgement with the inclusion of This Is Not America.  Next thing you’ll be saying Under Pressure is a work of genius!!

Have tracked down some of the tracks you mention:-

mp3 : David Bowie – Everyone Says ‘Hi’

mp3 : David Bowie – Thursday’s Child

mp3 : David Bowie – I Have Not Been To Oxford Town

Enjoy.