R.I.P David Bowie: 8th January 1947 - 10th January 2016

From Chris Frantz, http://nypost.com/2016/01/11/from-one-hall-of-famer-to-another-thank-you-david-bowie/

 

I think he looks close to death there, with his colour. Not well looking at all. Difficult to say of course as its only a picture and the colour may be different. But from what I see there he knew the end was very near - which makes him a real hero to be still out and supporting the show right to the end.
I think the director said after he appeared there Bowie went backstage and collapsed for a quarter of an hour, that's how poorly he was.

 

Best line:"That got up his nose a bit!"
THAT'S NOT THE ONLY THING!!!!!!!
(cue trombone):Mwha, wha, mwhaaaaaaaa!

 

I have been a huge fan of both Bowie and Elton since 1971 and have followed their careers closely and read almost everything they have to say. In those 45 years I have never once heard Elton mention David. Not once. Until now that he has died.

 

I recall vaguely Bowie was a little miffed when Rocket Man came out
too close to Space Oddity in focus

 

I have to say I honestly thought that Bowie looked amazing in that picture, and as always incredibly stylish. It was only when I saw the full non cropped picture and I noticed just how thin he was,especially his legs. I didn't really notice the colour because that could just be the lighting.

 

What's really telling are the looks on the faces of his friends around him: solemn and a little bit frightened. Bowie collapsed for 15 minutes once he got backstage.

 

Well . . . it's tomorrow?

 

Alomar too, really funny guy.

 

Lennon's death was a shock, a completely unexpected shock. As he was a member of The Beatles, his death also had major newsworthy appeal--and the fact that he was still in the prime of life just added to it.
David Bowie died as a man on the cusp of old age, and even though it was unexpected, it wasn't a "shock."
Nevertheless, I feel Bowie's death more because to put it simply, his music meant a lot more to me that Lennon's solo work. Like many here, I've been listening to a lot of Bowie's music since his death and I'm reminded again and again how diverse his catalog is --and how challenging and yet accessible. Stylistically, he was all over the map, and yet he put his indelible stamp on all of it--piano ballads, glam rock, disco, dance, electronic; sometimes it doesn't even seem that the young singer-songwriter who wrote "Life on Mars?" is the same thoroughly debauched rock star behind Station to Station just a few years later--let alone the MTV superstar he was for a fleeting moment a few years after that is the same guy behind Tin Machine or the eminence he became in later years.
Listening to Blackstar over the weekend I allowed myself to daydream about what Bowie might come up with next , so it was a pretty cold slap on the face when I woke to the news on Monday.

I also wonder if the fact that I'm closer to Bowie's age at death than I was to Lennon's has something to do with it.....

 

And at exactly the right time too. Before the bottom fell out of the market in the early 00's.

 

I was dreaming about a one-off gig, which just featured material from the last two albums, and the new band. I was imagining the first song, with the audience going hysterical as Blackstar comes to life and our man is lit as he sings the first lines (what an uncompromising and brilliant openning that would've been, second only to Warszawa...), That's about as far as I got, though I was reckoning 'Tis a Pity....' as the second song, changing gear dynamically but keeping with the new album.

 

Bowie's comment was quoted in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock, and went something like this:

"I consider myself to be responsible for a whole new school of pretensions. You know who you are. Don't you, Elton? Just kidding. No, I'm not."

I can't vouch for the accuracy of Bowie's dig, but he apparently did say it, and as I said, it's a kind of gentle ribbing, not the language of a mortal feud.


EDIT: Note cungar's #1648 (which sounds like a fine whiskey), it's more of the story, what little there is.

 

Now I feel like I was harsh on John yesterday, This report sounds like a genuine tribute no matter what their relationship. The way it was reported yesterday was a cheap sales ploy.

 

I don't know if this has been posted before but David secretly visited London as a tourist in 2014:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...y-loved-summer-diagnosed-terminal-cancer.html

 

Oh Thin white duke rest in peace thou shalt be missed!

 

Forgive me if this has been discussed here or elsewhere.... What was/is Dylan's take on Bowie? He's one of a few from that generation that hasn't commented, and come to think of it I can't recall a single time i've seen them linked up.

 

i second that emotion,
and also wonder if bowie ever met kubrick...
given 2001's impact on bowie,
it's hard to imagine they never crossed each other's path.

 

Well they have at least two guitarists in common. Ronson and Charlie Sexton.

 

It was actually 2013 before he was even diagnosed.

 

They met a few times. There's a picture somewhere of them laughing toogether in 1986, around the time of Labyrinth. What Dylan's take was on Bowie is something we will probably never know, much like his take on most things.

 

And Robert Fox (producer of Lazarus) even mentioned that Bowie had snuck into the 'David Bowie is....' exhibtion at the V & A:

'At the time of the Bowie exhibition at the V&A I got a call out of the blue saying he was in London and would I come for tea at his hotel. He was over to attend the exhibition incognito and was thrilled that he had been able to do that with his wife and daughter. It says so much about him that he spent a week in London and managed to go unnoticed, despite going to many tourist attractions that he wanted to show his daughter- with no disguise he was just David the father, not Bowie the rock god.'

http://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lif...-robert-fox-lazarus-new-york-stage-production

 

I was reflecting on why David Bowie was/is such a big deal to me - from my teens to the present.

There is more to it but I think this is the number one reason and everything else results from this:

Of course, everything that we experience is experienced in our heads. But there is something about music that seems more vividly "in my head" than maybe anything else. And a singer that I particularily connect to seems to live in my head while I am listening - like he is in there with me.

For whatever reason, starting in 1972, David Bowie was welcome in there. He had that something that made it a pleasure, a connection and an intimate experience.

There are very few vocal artists that rival David Bowie but I cannot think of one that surpasses him in this regard.

(My reflections did give me a glimpse of how I may feel when Ray Davies time comes, if he passes before I do.)

 

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

 

Years apart and both great songs. So what. The Beatles and Stones had a friendly rivalry for the most part. The cover of Satanic Majesties is closer to Sgt Pepper than Rocket Man is to Space Oddity There's also a 70s Tom Rapp (Pearls Before Swine) song called Roicket Man but not many have heard it.