Thats such a bitter sweet pill to swallow, but yes there is some peace to be found in that.
He was an integral part of my youth, adolescence and adulthood. Immense talent, understated innovator of music and art.
But it marks a passing of my life that I didn’t want to happen just now.
Absolute huge intellect also.
Can’t believe how this inevitable end to us all has affected me so much.
Am getting out of the light polution of Manila cause Mars will be visible in an hour or so.
Oh wow, I noticed tons of documentaries and specials on him this weekend and binge-watched most of them, I’d never watched the Ziggy Stardust concert before and it was stunning… I just thought it was album-release hype and didn’t know until a DJ this morning mentioned it.
Posting an amazing live performance version of my favorite of his, Five Years. “I never thought I’d need so many people…”
This was a shocking hit to the solar plexus. I had heard nothing about him being ill, and had noted with pleasure that he had just released a new album. Mr. Bowie was the ultimate musical chameleon. He’d have a string of hits, disappear for a bit, and reappear with an entirely new sound and a new ‘character’. I didn’t always fully appreciate all of his iterations, but flat out admired his ability to not only craft them, but make them believable. I never doubted he was exactly who he purported to be - no matter how many ch-ch-ch-ch-changes he made to himself.
My band, back in the late '70s kept Rebel, Rebel and Suffragette City in pretty constant rotation. Always crowd favorites.
God’s house band just got a whole lot more creative.
I’m gutted. He’s been the biggest part of my musical DNA since I was 8 years old. I feel like I got punched in the heart. Like a family member died. He almost had me believing he was immortal.
I learned today that Bowie didn’t hold it against the guy who punched him, injured his eye and changed its color: George Underwood (artist) - Wikipedia
This morning, NPR played part of an interview with Bowie from a few years back where he laughed and mentioned that the two of them were still very good friends.
I’m not typically shocked by celebrity deaths, but this one oddly comes as a bolt out of the blue :(. I guess I just never thought of him as being elderly and like everyone else I never heard of his illness. Kudos to him and to his family for maintaining a level of privacy, really. Have to respect that.
Another thing I really appreciated about Bowie is how he always kept a pulse on the music scene and appreciated new sounds and acts that came around. I just recently saw an interview where he was praising the impact of the Pixies and it seems I’m always seeing him pop up in such a fashion. He produced or participated on a number of great albums outside his own and continuously re-invented his own sound. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but at least he kept plugging away. And of course he was an unusually successful businessman for a rock musician and a better actor than most. Truly not that far from a renaissance talent.
A full show on Bowie on Q today. A little CanCon with a clip from a Peter Gzowski show, Laurie Brown and Chris Hadfield. It was pretty hard to find the whole episode, so I hope this works.