Who is David Bowie?

At the Guardian UK, "As a blockbuster exhibition, David Bowie is, gets under way at the V&A, Sean O'Hagan dissects the pop icon's influences – and reveals the ideas behind four of his key alter egos":

"From the very beginning, I always saw David as a star in the way that James Dean or Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland were stars. He was an actor, essentially. He soaked up whatever was in the air to create his characters, then he became those characters in his songs and his performances, and even offstage. Sometimes, you'd have Ziggy Stardust in the taxi with you and you didn't know what to do with it and it was pretty powerful."

Mick "Woody" Woodmansey is recalling the heady and sometimes unsettling time when he had a brief supporting role in the making of pop history. From 1970 to 1973, he played drums in the Spiders for Mars, the band that helped David Bowie redefine what it was to be a pop star, what a pop song and a live performance could express. He was there behind his drum kit, dressed in a pink lamé top and matching trousers, when Bowie, in a multicoloured jumpsuit and red wrestling boots, sang Starman on Top of the Pops on a Thursday evening in July 1972. For a generation in waiting, the "starman" was David Bowie himself: alien, decadent and liberating.

The piece continues with a video from that performance.

Continue reading here.

I just love Bowie. He stopped touring for health reasons and I have no idea if he's planning any concerts. I can't help but thinking his new release is a swan song of some sort, although I hope not.

RELATED: At the Hollywood Reporter, "BBC to Screen Feature-Length David Bowie Doc."

David Bowie's New Album

An upbeat and positive review and commentary on Bowie's new album, "The Next Day," from Robert Dean Lurie, at National Review, "Throwing Shadows":

As 2013 rolled around, very few people could have reasonably expected anything new from David Bowie. Rumors of ill health had flitted about for years, and even many of his former associates had assumed he’d retired. Then, on January 8, a new single appeared on iTunes, along with an announcement of the imminent release of The Next Day. It was one of the most exquisite sneak attacks in the history of rock. And with the excitement came speculation: Which Bowie would we get this time?

David Bowie’s current image, as it turns out, is no image. He has refused all new interview requests. He has ruled out a tour. The album’s artwork consists simply of the cover of his earlier release Heroes with the singer’s face blocked out by an empty white square. At age 66, Bowie has made possibly his most outrageous move yet: He has finally gotten out of the way of his music, and in so doing has brought a little bit of mystery back into pop culture. While everybody else has a reality show, David Bowie has a white square where his head should be.

He can get away with this because The Next Day is an honest-to-God album, meant to be listened to as one piece rather than as a scattered collection of iTunes downloads. In this sense it is both archaic and forward-looking — its very existence is a sign, or a hopeful prediction, of some kind of return to craftsmanship in popular music. We’ve already seen harbingers of this in the success of Adele’s album 21 and the resurgent popularity of “roots” music among younger listeners; people are once again responding to music that sounds real. The Next Day, even with its freaked-out guitars and fuzzy synths, feels similarly authentic: It is refreshingly free of any discernible loops or electronic drums; the vocals have not been strangled by Auto-Tune; none of the musicians e-mailed their parts in from distant locales. It sounds like what it is: a small group of people working closely together in a studio, tracking much of the music live.

RTWT.

David Bowie Releases 27th Album 'Blackstar' on His 69th Birthday (VIDEO)

Happy birthday to David Bowie.

Interesting that he released "Lazarus" as one of the top singles from the new album, Blackstar.

Here's the review, at Telegraph UK, "David Bowie, Blackstar, review: 'extraordinary'."

And at London's Daily Telegraph, "At 69, birthday boy Bowie's funky, fun and fabulous: ADRIAN THRILLS says latest album Blackstar tears up the rulebook again."

Lazarus indeed.

More, at Vogue, "David Bowie’s Birthday Suit Is the Ultimate in British Gent Style."

David Bowie Spotted in New York

He quit touring in 2004 after having a heart attack during his final performance of the Ziggy Stardust encore. I saw him perform in Irvine for that tour. I'm glad he's taking it easy nowadays.

See Telegraph UK, "Reclusive David Bowie spotted on rare public outing":

The reclusive singer David Bowie has been pictured in New York on a rare public outing dressed in cap, shades and hooded top, bearing little resemblance to the fashion icon of the 1970s.

The reclusive singer David Bowie has been pictured in New York on a rare public outing dressed in cap, shades and hooded top, bearing little resemblance to the fashion icon of the 1970s.

Bowie lives in a large Lower-Manhattan apartment with his ex-model wife Iman and daughter Lexi and has been almost invisible since suffering a major heart attack during a jinxed 2004 tour.

'Cause You Can Never Really Tell When Somebody...

As much as I'm enjoying 100.3 The Sound (especially D.J. Larry Morgan), other than "Golden Years," I don't recall the playlist featuring anything from David Bowie's Station to Station. That recording includes songs from what's probably my favorite Bowie era, i.e., the Thin White Duke (I say probably because I'm torn between the late-'70s and the earlier Ziggy Stardust moment - a toss-up perhaps). I was thinking about what I'd write here, because I was into this album when I was a senior in high school and just after (1979), and of course we were all big partiers back then. Bowie fought some of his most intense personal demons at the time, and paradoxically produced some of his greatest work. Wikipedia's entry for Station to Station says it better than I can:

Station to Station is the tenth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1976. Commonly regarded as one of his most significant works, Station to Station is also notable as the vehicle for Bowie's last great 'character', The Thin White Duke. The album was recorded after he completed shooting Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, and the cover featured a still from the movie. During the sessions Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs, especially cocaine, and recalls almost nothing of the production.

I've included two videos, primarily so that folks can listen to the studio production of "Stay." If you're a guitar lover, sink yourself into the sounds of Carlos Alomar, whose riffs here are as classic as anything from the likes of that other "Carlos," Carlos Santana. Plus, the funky - almost techno-Carribean sound -- is perhaps the hippest punk-pop-dance beats of the era. I was absolutely in heaven listening to the entire LP.

Anyway, get a kick here as well at Dinah Shore's introduction in 1976. Who's that with her and Henry Winkler? Not Ruth Buzzi or Jo Anne Worley or ...?

David Bowie Releases New Single, 'Where Are We Now?'

At Telegraph UK, "David Bowie releases first single in decade."

Bowie's press handlers deny the singer's had health problems. Bowie's not played live since 2006. I saw Bowie most recently, with Moby, Busta Rhymes and Blue Man Group, (way) back in 2002, at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater. Seems so long ago now.

Deal of the Day: More Than 25% Off Select Bandolino Women's Boots

At Amazon, Bandolino Women's Boots.

Also, from David Bowie, Blackstar and Best of Bowie.

Plus, David Bowie Black Book.

BONUS: From Wendy Leigh, Bowie: The Biography.

You Must Feed the Never-Ending Demands of the Multi-Media Beast!

Yep, just like blogging!

At LAT, "Pop culture dominance is a fickle thing, even for Bowie and Kanye":

On Jan. 8, his 66th birthday, David Bowie surprised music fans around the world with the announcement that he'd secretly completed a new studio album.

This was a big deal — the first record in a decade from a legendary rock star more or less thought to have retired — and wall-to-wall media coverage over the months to come reflected a pent-up desire to have Bowie back in our lives. When "The Next Day" hit stores on March 8, many critics called the album one of the singer's best, helping it along to an impressive debut at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The man once known as Ziggy Stardust, it seemed, had risen once again.

Or had he?

Less than six months after its release, "The Next Day" — with a title that suggests moving ever forward into the future — seems almost to have disappeared.

Last week the record was nowhere to be found on the iTunes album chart. It hasn't really taken hold on the radio. And though a music video for the album's lead single, "Where Are We Now?," quickly racked up millions of views online, more recent clips from the record have made smaller impressions.

For the week ending Aug. 3, Google Trends rated Bowie's worldwide search interest at 19 on a scale of 0 to 100, well below youngsters like Miley Cyrus and Skrillex as well as peers such as Bruce Springsteen.

But Bowie isn't alone. This year a number of high-profile albums, movies and songs — pop-cultural properties that each appeared with the fanfare of an event — have had trouble gaining the kind of long-term traction that artists and their backers crave.

Well, you gotta keep feeding the beast, just like blogging!

Keep Your 'Lectric Eye On Me Babe...

Well, Bob Belvedere left a comment at my Bowie post from the other night, but if I've still got fence-sitters, this clip of "Moonage Daydream" should be decisive. I don't know exactly, but when I reached rock musical sophistication in my mid-20s, I just had a thing for David Bowie. He's British, for one thing. And Americans have always had a soft spot for at least a couple of British bands, whether it was the Beatles, the Who, Elton John, or the Sex Pistols. We love 'em. I think Bowie was such a huge influence on the later rage of the "New Romantic" genre, and of course gothic rock and some punk, that I glommed onto to him (with one of my best friends, Steve Stone, who's now dead, sadly, from a heroin OD sometime back). And of course I mentioned previously I saw Bowie in concert at the US Festival in 1983 (see, "'Jesus Christ! Where'd You Get that Cadillac?'"), so that was something of a pinnacle of experience at the time. When you feel like you've reached the mountaintop there's much less urgency to later experiences.

Anyway, Bowie is cool as Ziggy Stardust here. Something about his early vocals that had an extra "Cockney" clang to them. But it's Mick Ronson who ultimately steals the show at the clip. This is Jimmy Page spaced-out (or Jeff Beck, Ronson's hero). And perhaps even better if you prefer your rock all glammed up. When Rolling Stone does those periodic fluff pieces on the greatest guitar songs of all time, you can discount it if Ronson's gig on "Moonage Daydream's" not included (as he is here, but can't find him here). Look at the women screaming and crying for Mick in the audience. Not since the boys from Liverpool toured the U.S. had you seen that kind of emotion.

And sorry for holding out on the babe blogging of late. Check Theo Spark and Washington Rebel for some of the hot stuff. Plus, check my good friend Anton's post, "Australia Day – January 26th 2010, with a little music there as well.

More From 'The Top 100 Albums of All Time' — David Bowie 'Ziggy Stardust' at No. 79

"Star."

Heard it yesterday while out to the skatepark, "No. 79: David Bowie | Ziggy Stardust (Side 2)":

PREVIOUSLY: "The Sound L.A., 'Top 100 Rock Albums of All Time' — J.T.'s 'Sweet Baby James' at No. 83'."

David Bowie Live on Dick Cavett Show in 1974

Via William Jacobson, who's running David Bowie clips this week for his daily videos.

'Diamond Dogs'

Okay, back on the grid.

I laughed when I hopped in the van for the round trip back home. Stevie Ray Vaughan popped on the radio, at The Sound L.A. I had SRV posted this morning for my placeholder entry, so I'll pick it up for some evening blogging with the next in the queue, David Bowie in 2004. My wife and I caught this show at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater:

4:22 - Crossfire by Stevie Ray Vaughan

4:26 - Diamond Dogs by David Bowie

4:32 - American Girl by Tom Petty

4:36 - Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix

4:39 - Bad Company by Bad Company

4:49 - Band On The Run by Paul Mccartney And Wings

4:55 - Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy

5:02 - You Might Think by Cars

5:05 - You Can't Always Get What You Want by Rolling Stones

5:18 - Black Friday by Steely Dan

5:21 - Rock And Roll Band by Boston

5:25 - You Really Got Me by Kinks

5:27 - Baby Hold On by Eddie Money

5:30 - Have A Cigar by Pink Floyd

'Jesus Christ! Where'd You Get that Cadillac?'

Well, I've been so busy with the heavy political blogging and grassroots activism, I've neglected the "Lightening Up" entries on rock music and more. So, not wanting to let down my good friend Anton over at PA Pundits International, as well as my regular reader, Kreiz, please enjoy The Clash, "Brand New Cadillac":

The first video at top features The Clash live in 1983, from Devore, California. The event was the US Festival (commemorative website here). The Clash headlined the first night of a three-day gig. Opening bands that day, on May 28th, included INXS, Flock of Seagulls, and the Stray Cats. The second day, May 29th, was the hard-rock concert featuring lots of big acts, like Judas Priest, Ozzy Osborne, and Van Halen. I attended the third day of events, May 30th. What a rock spectacular! The lineup included U2, Missing Persons, Joe Walsh, Stevie Nicks, and David Bowie. (Also playing in the beer gardens was Los Lobos, just when they started to hit it big in Los Angeles.)

I was a Bowie freak at the time. "Let's Dance" had just come out and Bowie's career was in something of the "grand statesman's mode." Reaching a commercial pinnacle, he was happy and settling down after his sensational 1970s gender-bending turns ("Ziggy Stardust", etc.), and the drug-addled European-esque episodes of the 1980s ("Heroes," etc.). Some may recall that Stevie Ray Vaughn had played lead guitar on the studio album for "Let's Dance", but Vaughn didn't tour (there was a falling out with David, if I recall).

Anyway, I couldn't afford to attend all three days, although I'm still kicking myself for never having seen The Clash in concert - one of my favorite bands, and "Brand New Cadillac" one of my favorite songs. The studio version is at the second video above, an excellent homemade picture and video-clip collage.

Back online later tonight!

I gotta help my little one with his homework and do some MORE house cleaning - or my wife will have my neck for too much blogging! In the meanwhile, check out my good friends at Grandpa John's, Midnight Blue, Pat in Shreveport, Pelican Marsh, and Three Bears Later.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield Sings David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' in Space

A wonderful video:

Background at the Next Web, "Commander Chris Hadfield signs off from space with epic cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’."

David Bowie Promises: 'More Music Soon'

At the Independent UK, "David Bowie has promised new music 'soon'."

He's back... http://t.co/sgiciT5XnC pic.twitter.com/WF5of4fOY2

— The Independent (@Independent) July 17, 2014

'Under Pressure'

From Tuesday's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, Queen and David Bowie:

Sweet Dreams
EURYTHMICS
6:31am

Small Town
John Mellencamp
6:20am

Just Like Heaven
Cure
6:17am

Jane Says
Jane's Addiction
6:12am

Start Me Up
Rolling Stones
6:09am

Under Pressure
Queen & David Bowie
6:05am

The Middle
Jimmy Eat World
6:02am

Crazy Train
Ozzy Osbourne
5:55am

Review of the 58th Annual Grammy Awards

Interesting.

At the New York Times, "At the Grammys, Big Voices, Pretty Faces and Bitter Truths":

It was a big night for Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar at the Grammys https://t.co/QTHHywynkU pic.twitter.com/HqBxBIOLHM

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 16, 2016

Taylor Swift's speech "will go down as one of the essential kiss-off moments in Grammy history" https://t.co/mfKJE0NwBd

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 16, 2016

The Grammys is an awards show that has all but eliminated giving awards https://t.co/ZINqd3wGi4

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 16, 2016

The show was also atoning for the 2014 snub of Kendrick Lamar, who lost best rap album to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at the time. Mr. Lamar’s 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly” swept this year’s hip-hop categories, and he gave the show’s central performance — although “To Pimp a Butterfly” lost to Taylor Swift’s “1989” as album of the year. (Ms. Swift and Mr. Lamar also shared a Grammy this year for the video of her single that features him, “Bad Blood.”)

Mr. Lamar’s live segment drew on “The Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” from “To Pimp a Butterfly,” with Mr. Lamar sidestepping their profanities; it also mentioned Feb. 26, 2012, the date Trayvon Martin was killed. The performance was a vehement, multilevel blast against “modern day slavery” that’s bound for extensive Internet exegesis. It was staged with prisoners breaking chains and African-style drummers and dancers against a bonfire backdrop, ending with the name of Mr. Lamar’s hometown, Compton, superimposed on a silhouette of Africa.

The other flagship Grammys performance was Lady Gaga’s tribute to David Bowie. Orange-haired and seemingly changing a costume a minute, splashed with video effects, Lady Gaga raced through snippets of Mr. Bowie’s hits, mixed a vocal impression of him with her own delivery and hit her marks with dance moves that echoed some of Mr. Bowie’s. She got close to guitarist Nile Rodgers, the co-producer of “Let’s Dance,” who was prominent in the backup band...

More.

"'Cause you can never really tell when somebody..."

The Sound L.A. recently launched "Mark in the Morning," which features Mark Thompson, formerly of "The Mark & Brian Show" on KLOS. It's a talk show. He doesn't play a lot of music. So I've been listening to CDs in my van. I've got some that have been sitting in the glove box for at least a decade. I don't use them that much. But I pulled out Bowie's greatest hits album "Best of Bowie," and looking for "Stay" on the B-side I was shocked to recall that it wasn't included. So I listened around for a few versions on YouTube. They're all good (the Dinah Shore show performance is a classic). But this clip below showcasing Earl Slick's phenomenal guitar work is simply spectacular.

I'm off for my long teaching Thursday. Enjoy. I'll be back to blogging tonight.



Also at Gibson's website, "Heroes: A History of David Bowie’s Amazing Guitarists."

Monday Drive Time

I got in the car in time for Bowie. Yesterday's drive-time at The Sound L.A.:

9:01 - Walk This Way by Aerosmith

9:05 - Bennie And The Jets by Elton John

9:10 - Peace Of Mind by Boston

9:15 - Feeling Stronger Everyday by Chicago

9:20 - Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol

9:30 - Riders On The Storm by Doors

9:37 - Young Americans by David Bowie

9:42 - Wrapped Around Your Finger by Police

9:47 - Lucky Man by Emerson Lake And Palmer

9:52 - Burning Love by Elvis Presley

Never Ever Learned to Read or Write So Well...

The new Rolling Stone's cover feature is "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time."

These "greatest hits" compilations are completely arbitrary, but they can still be fun. The #1 guitar song is Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," so let's let it roll:

Here's Rolling Stone's summary of Berry's classic:

"If you want to play rock & roll," Joe Perry told Rolling Stone in 2004, "you have to start here." Recorded 50 years ago, on January 6th, 1958, at the Chess Records studio in Chicago, Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was the first great record about the joys and rewards of playing rock & roll guitar. It also has the single greatest rock & roll intro: a thrilling blast of high twang driven by Berry's spearing notes, followed by a rhythm part that translates a boogie-woogie piano riff for the guitar. "He could play the guitar just like a-ringing a bell," Berry sings in the first verse — a perfect description of his sound and the reverberations still running through every style of rock guitar, from the Beatles and the Stones on down. "It was beautiful, effortless, and his timing was perfection," Keith Richards has said of Berry's playing. "He is rhythm man supreme." Berry wrote often about rock & roll and why it's good for you — "Roll Over Beethoven" in 1956, "Rock and Roll Music" in '57 — but never better than in "Johnny B. Goode," a true story about how playing music on a guitar can change your life forever.

I've actually been mulling the question of history's greatest rock-and-roll hits, especially guitar anthems, since I've been writing my "lightening up" series.

It turn's out that #7 on the list is "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," one of the initial songs I wrote about here.

Not included among the "100 greatest songs" are any of Mick Ronson's power hits when he was David Bowie's sideman in the early 1970s. I've been planning a couple of posts on Bowie soon, but I'm not the only one who took exception to Ronson's exclusion:

OK, let me get this straight. No Mick Ronson, like "Moonage Daydream." A guy who did so many unbelivable things with the guitar...

The comment thread's got a few more folks getting much more animated.

The issues's also got interviews with guitar heroes like Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. Here's Van Halen on some of the classic bands, like the Kinks:

I just like songs. I don't mean to sound like a prick or nothin', but I've never really been that much of a fan of bands outside of Cream. And I don't really listen to anything nowadays. The last record I might've bought was Peter Gabriel's So. With Cream, I was more a fan of their interaction live. You know, they were an example of "What's the difference between jazz and rock & roll? We just play louder." That's all. We get 12 notes. Do what the f**k you want with 'em, you know.

I'll have more, so have a great night!