Fucking brilliant. 🌈🧑🏻🎤
Fucking brilliant. 🌈🧑🏻🎤
"Whether he fell to Earth or not, Bowie deeply loved people. He wasn't cold but, in his relations with others, he gave the impression that he followed a sort of code: something basic that should exist between all human beings, but that they've had a tendency to forget. On a personal level, that's what gave him a better grasp of fame. When they become stars, many artists lose their humanity, but that never happened to him!"
- Hazel O'Connor (2017)
I've just finished the chapter on one of my favourite Bowie albums, "Heroes", learning about yet another of David's influences from the art world. The cover itself references Dali examining his hand for ants in "Un Chien Andalou", Heckel's painting "Roquairol" (which also inspired the cover for Iggy Pop's "The Idiot"), and Schiele's stylised hand gestures. The title song was famously inspired by David seeing two lovers ⬇️
"When Bowie was on the road in those days [1976], the convoy was made up of several vehicles, including a Ford Transit that carried his gear and a trunk containing the dozens of books he refused to be parted from." ???
#BooksAndBowie
I'm up to David's 1973 album, Pin Ups, in which he glams up some of his favourite songs by bands from the '60s, some of which had played the same circuit of pubs and community centres he emerged from himself. There's a couple of bonus tracks on this disc, including Bruce Springsteen's Growing Up, which David had seen him play at Max's Kansas City a few months earlier. I love that David respects the songs while infusing them with his own energy ⚡
"Kate Moss recently [2003] did a photo shoot with Nick Knight for British Vogue and she's wearing several of my outfits from the Ziggy years... She even called me afterwards to tell me I must have been really skinny at the time! When Kate Moss phones to tell you she can't get into your clothes, you know you can't have weighed very much." ✏️
#BooksAndBowie
Write the following 100 times:
"I am a responsible adult with control of his finances who is not easily influenced to make rash purchases based on the books he is reading!"
? This is Ground Control to Major Tom??
? You've really made the grade ???
#BooksAndBowie ?
#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
Given my main reading matter this week, no surprise that I'm even more heavily into listening to David than usual (which is, in any event, a lot). I'm up to the chapter on David's 1970 album, The Man Who Sold the World, which is gloriously heavy, dark, dystopian and apocalyptic.
Reference to Khalil Gibran in the opening track put him on my literary radar, and the album's sci fi themes were totally on my 10 year-old ⬇️
I can't help but think that author, Jérôme Soligny (pictured), has been influenced by the style of his subject.
I'm 10% into the book, which states at the outset that it will focus on the making of Bowie's music and albums rather than the fine details of his private life, which is all good as far as I'm concerned.
The opening section covers David's career up to the recording of his first album, the following chapters being named for each ⬇️
Oops! I had a #bookcident when I went for a browse and came out with this 700-page monster! (Though, I mean, when did "a browse" ever not result in a purchase!)
It focuses on my favourite Bowie period, and is a compilation of scores of interviews with the musicians, producers, engineers, etc., who Bowie worked with, as well as the author's interviews with David over many years as a rock journalist. ????
#BooksAndBowie