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David Bowie dies at 69
- Thread starter bradl
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This.... is completely apropos.
From HuffPo, via IO9/Gizmodo:
From this:
To this:
The constellation is linked to Google Sky's "Stardust for Bowie" initiative, which lets fans pay tribute by naming their favorite songs or leaving messages.
And just as fitting, the top middle star around the 11:00 position above the bolt... is Mars.
BL.
From HuffPo, via IO9/Gizmodo:
From this:
To this:
The constellation is linked to Google Sky's "Stardust for Bowie" initiative, which lets fans pay tribute by naming their favorite songs or leaving messages.
And just as fitting, the top middle star around the 11:00 position above the bolt... is Mars.
BL.
Two of my favourite songs. Taken from the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. A year later, Mick Ronson (Bowie's guitarist from Spiders From Mars) was dead from cancer.
I've read some amazing anecdotes about Bowie but this one is great (censorship will take out a word but it is the "c" word):
"One part of my job is to keep the talent close while we make small changes to lighting and camera positions. While shooting the video for David Bowie's Miracle goodnight we had a change that was gonna take 10-15 mins to complete. I decided to strike up a conversation to kill the time. Let face i was talking to my childhood hero.
I asked Mr Bowie what was the biggest moment in his career. His reply was EPIC. and It went like this
David..... "Well let me tell you about it. I had quite the attitude as a young pop star, its easy to get caught up in the hype. It changes you. So i was on the set of the music video Ashes to ashes, do you know the one."
Me.........Yes i do. (thinking boy if only he knew)
Bowie... "So we're on the beach shooting this scene with a giant bulldozer. The camera was on a very long lens. (Camera is along way away, but the artist fills the frame) In this video i'm dressed from head to toe in a clown suit. Why not.I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walk right between me and the camera."
Me.........Laugh (seeing this video in my head and what that must of been like on the set)
Bowie...."Well knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera the director said, "excuse me Mr, do you know who this is?"
The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said....
" Of course i do!!!! its some **** in a clown suit"
That was a huge moment for me, It put me back in my place and made me realize, yes i'm just a **** in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time."
"One part of my job is to keep the talent close while we make small changes to lighting and camera positions. While shooting the video for David Bowie's Miracle goodnight we had a change that was gonna take 10-15 mins to complete. I decided to strike up a conversation to kill the time. Let face i was talking to my childhood hero.
I asked Mr Bowie what was the biggest moment in his career. His reply was EPIC. and It went like this
David..... "Well let me tell you about it. I had quite the attitude as a young pop star, its easy to get caught up in the hype. It changes you. So i was on the set of the music video Ashes to ashes, do you know the one."
Me.........Yes i do. (thinking boy if only he knew)
Bowie... "So we're on the beach shooting this scene with a giant bulldozer. The camera was on a very long lens. (Camera is along way away, but the artist fills the frame) In this video i'm dressed from head to toe in a clown suit. Why not.I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walk right between me and the camera."
Me.........Laugh (seeing this video in my head and what that must of been like on the set)
Bowie...."Well knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera the director said, "excuse me Mr, do you know who this is?"
The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said....
" Of course i do!!!! its some **** in a clown suit"
That was a huge moment for me, It put me back in my place and made me realize, yes i'm just a **** in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time."
As a good friend of mine, with whom I had coffee yesterday while waiting for my Mother's eye examination to take place, remarked, gloomily in a pained and horrified tone: "An awful lot of people are dying", name-checkng Lemmy, David Bowie, - I added Alan Rickman - and now Glenn Fry.
Lovely story @Peterkro. Thanks for sharing.
Lovely story @Peterkro. Thanks for sharing.
We can silently add the guy that played Grizzly Adams. Died the same day as Rickman; also succumed to cancer.
BL.
…and add John Bradbury and Dale Griffin, drummers for the Specials and Mott, respectively.
Sighhh
John Bradbury, jeez, I used to love The Specials even though I was only 7 or 8 at the time, the song and film clip for Ghost Town was fantastic, the song encapsulates the era perfectly.
There is still quite an active memorial site outside his apartment building in SoHo, Lower Manhattan. I vaguely knew he lived in the area, but had no idea I was walking past his front door every day for years. There were a lot of great stories about how he just blended in to the fabric of New York City, and this from a man who became a legend for standing out so vividly.
Over a week later and I've still not come to terms with his passing. Celebrity deaths don't usually affect me so much, but the man's work enriched and expanded my life so much. Leaving this earth with such strong statements as Blackstar and the "Lazarus" video, man — he even turned his own death into transcendent art.
Amen. I've walked past his place on Lafayette a hundred times, and now I will think about him every time I pass.
I'm 47. He came on the scene pretty much the year after I was born. I probably heard Space Oddity in the womb. He was always such a constant in my life. Maybe not someone I listened to regularly, but who was always there whenever the mood struck, and always with some new album or cameo to remind me of his presence.
There are only a handful music artists I can map my entire life to. People who were there around the time I was born or before, and remain intact, active and vital today. Stevie Wonder. The Stones. Dylan.
I'm sad to scratch Bowie off that list.
Oddly enough, to a lesser extent, I feel pretty much the same way.
This is because I liked and respected Bowie the man, and admired and respected his work as an artist.
Indeed, I very much got the sense that this was a man who respected himself, and who met the world on his terms, but - unusually for a creative artist who was able to do that - he still managed to meet the world on his terms in a way which conveyed respect, a respect which was amply returned and was augmented by genuine affection, too.
Moreover, I had an enormous respect for (as well as liking for) his body of work, some of which was superb, and all of which was original and much of which was a constant attempt to challenge and stretch himself creatively.
Most celebrities I do not like much, and some I do not like at all, and - a personal point of principle - I refuse to mourn the death of someone I neither like nor respect, irrespective of how talented they were or how much I care for their work. The work will remain.
But, with Bowie, I feel an odd, genuine grief. The body of wonderful work will remain, but I will admit to missing the wonderfully other-worldly man.
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My wife found this clip last night, which I had to do a triple-take. I mean..
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllll Train!
Like Hall and Oates, that's a brother right there!
BL.
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllll Train!
Like Hall and Oates, that's a brother right there!
BL.
in case BBC iPlayer continues to work outside UK for radio programmes, you may find some programmes of interest here:http://bbc.in/1Pb8qB9
The clips from Soul Train are classic. "Fame" and "Golden Years". Quality. That show did book a pretty decent variety of artists, more than one might expect — they even had Yellow Magic Orchestra on.
Sadly, it looks like the memorial in front of Bowie's building on Lafayette Street got cleared out yesterday.
Sadly, it looks like the memorial in front of Bowie's building on Lafayette Street got cleared out yesterday.
But the "vandalism" on the street sign in Austin looks like it is actually going to stay. The mayor gave his stamp of approval on it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/david-bowie-street-austin_us_56972214e4b0ce49642347b8
BL.
