David Bowie

Book review: Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

I came to this book as many did, I suspect, because it featured on that list of David Bowie’s 100 favourite books which circulated a couple of years ago. (The list also is explored in a podcast, if you’re interested.)

It makes sense that Bowie would be a fan of this work, given that it’s an enthusiastic, bitchy exploration of early rock. After all, the work is titled for Little Richard’s protean good-time yawp from ‘Tutti Fruitti’, the song that made Bowie “see God”.

And a lot of cocaine, I guess.

After a couple of years of looking, I found a copy replete with terrifying cover. It was written in 1968 and revised in 1972. Kit Lambert, erstwhile manager of The Who introduces the work and sets things rolling: the text covers a brief period in music, but one of supreme importance for everything rock-related that came afterwards. All that’s covered is the period from Bill Haley’s initial popularity until 1966 – that’s it.

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Book review: Ricochet: David Bowie 1983: An Intimate Portrait

Ricochet: David Bowie 1983: An Intimate Portrait.Ricochet: David Bowie 1983: An Intimate Portrait by Denis O’Regan.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.

This is probably going to be quite a short review, because there’s not a whole lot that can be said about the book in question.

It’s a book of photos.

Of David Bowie. (more…)

Book review: David Bowie: A Life

David Bowie: A LifeDavid Bowie: A Life by Dylan Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the wake of Bowie’s death, I bought a bunch of biographies of the man, wanting to know more. Hell, I guess we all did, ’round then – after all, how do you account for a single version of the life of one guy who lived so many variants, and was held close by so many for such a multiplicity of reasons? I figured I’d get around to ’em all in time, and then the idea of there being no more David Bowie caused me to chuck the brakes on the whole read-the-biog thing.

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Until now. David Bowie: A Life, the most recent Bowie biog to surface, takes a conversational approach over the standard facts-times-sawdust take on the format, and works winningly well, though not without caveats. (more…)

Loving the alien (per album)

A little while ago my friend Andy made a fairly lengthy Facebook thread detailing his favourite David Bowie songs from each of Bowie’s albums. It sparked a bit of conversation, and I figured I’d like to do the same, as it would give me – if nothing else – an excuse to play all the albums again. (You know, as if I needed one.)

What I learned from this endeavour is: 1) post-anaesthesia listening is weird (I did most of the thinking in the days after a brief hospital trip) and 2) that fucker makes it difficult to choose one song on an album. Let alone articulate why you like the bloody thing in the first place

Let’s go. (more…)

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision

Today is the day I learned that David Bowie had died. So I’m writing some thoughts down to try and make sense of it. This probably seems strange, as I am normally averse to displays of grief over public figures. It’s always seemed a little – I don’t know, a bit weird. Almost unnecessary. But now, perhaps for the first time, I feel it.

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And now he’s gone home.

I was at drinks and the news flashed on my phone; could it be a hoax, a hacked status update? Later, as I rode a train to meet friends, it was confirmed: Duncan Jones and the Beeb showed that this wasn’t the perennial internet jape of proclaiming someone dead. This was the real thing. And I felt teary, and weird, and like I didn’t want to be anywhere because this was, as stupid as it sounds, about someone very important to me, who I had never, would never meet. Dear, strong friends were lamenting; I’d not felt the tyranny of distance so keenly as when one suggested that we should all be together tonight, with a case of wine and music. But we’re in Los Angeles, Boston, Sydney, Helsinki, Amsterdam… all over the world.

I know, this probably will read as something rather indulgent – no different from the torrent of thinkpieces and reminiscences the coming weeks will bring – but this is my blog, so this is mine. There’s a bunch of obituaries you can read. The NY Times. The BBC. The Guardian. Vanity Fair. Mine is a bit different. It’s me processing this feeling of loss, which is strange. I know nobody’s ever an arsehole just after they’ve died, but it’s weird – I realise today I’d never really entertained the idea of Bowie dying. Because, like the sun, I felt he’d always be there. He always had been, right? (more…)