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'. . . Mr. Bowie stopped touring in 2004. He left New York only when work demanded, and during his stunning end-of-life creative burst, he found a way to never leave his neighborhood.
“Lazarus,” the show for which Mr. Bowie composed songs and resurrected the displaced alien he played in the 1976 film “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” was staged at New York Theater Workshop, on East Fourth Street, less than 10 blocks from his house.
Both his 2013 album, “The Next Day,” and the demos for his final record, “Blackstar” — which was released, incidentally, on his birthday and just two days before he died — were recorded at the Magic Shop recording studio on Crosby Street — 283 steps from his front door.
Mr. Bowie would have ridden the elevator down from his penthouse, exited his building, crossed Lafayette Street, slipped through the little alley called Jersey Street and walked on cobblestones until he came to the studio’s unmarked metal doors.
Brian Thorn, a recording engineer for the “Next Day” sessions, said Mr. Bowie worked “very humane hours,” as rock stars go. “We’d start by 10,” Mr. Thorn said. “He would get there with or before the musicians. The studio would have his coffee order ready,” a double macchiato from La Colombe.
Mr. Thorn remembered overhearing Mr. Bowie and his guitarist talking one day. The guitarist was going on about an art exhibit, and how much Mr. Bowie would love it. Then he caught himself, realizing whom he was talking to, and said, “Oh, you can never go there; there’s too many people.”
Mr. Bowie answered, slyly, “You’d be surprised the places I’m able to go.”
Have you seen the photo that’s been circulating on Twitter of Mr. Bowie out in the city in cargo shorts and sneakers and carrying Uncut magazine? He’s very normcore. You can see why nobody recognized him, why an international superstar was able to move through the city unseen.
He understood that in our minds we all held a picture of David Bowie, or Ziggy, or the Thin White Duke. It allowed him to walk among us disguised as himself, David Jones . . .'
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/fa...rker.html?_r=0
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Jean Genie
I'm tellin' ya --- the garbage that was on the radio Back Then . . .
This was the Bowie that I found . . . in '72 . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGQo6zpVzt8
And just look at what's going on, here --- got Glam, New Romantics, Metal/Hair, '50s/Rockabilly, and --- of course . . . Punk . . .
So, 5 years later --- when Sid + Johnny + The Clash came along? . . .
. . . I was SOOOO ready . . .
. . . + all I did? ----------------------------- was cut my hair
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Let's just hope Mr. West doesn't produce his "tribute" album...
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Last show here in Los Angeles was @ The Wiltern Theater, which capacity is 1900. Great show, and he was on !!
We were also present for one of his first LA shows @ The Santa Monica Civic when he
was still Ziggy....
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Cracked Actor . . .
Kinda deflating --- unsettling, almost . . . to read other people's comments --- about Bowie . . .
. . . I always considered his art as mine --- personal . . . never that-well known
His music was never 'Top 40' --- not really . . . surprising maybe, given as long as he was recording, + given his apparent following. One would've thought that he knew what 'sells' --- music is a business, after all . . . yet he never really tried --- or cared . . . it seems
I hadn't listened to him much since about the early 90's. And the Bowie that I 1st found/heard, 20 years before that, was something/someone . . . very different
I was prolly still in Jr High, still listening to KLOS + KKDJ --- Zepplin was already old, by then, so I had Black Sabbath to fall back on, and ELP, Deep Purple, . . .
. . . when I heard my sister's Bowie records
He wasn't followed by anyone
Had really-really terrible teeth
Weird, cross-dressy --- über-un-macho . . .
. . . but his music was . . . . . other-worldly
That's the Bowie that stuck w/ me. And ever since then? . . .
Movie roles, celebrity sightings, Iman, 'Thin White Duke' . . .
. . . hhhhhhhhhhhhh --- whatever
And so now --- with the artist gone? . . . the histories get written
And re-written
Then re-written, again
For TV, prolly = the 'wider audience' . . .
. . . summarized + sanitized + organized + categorized . . . and then everyone will say . . .
'. . . Bowie? --- oh-yes . . . Bowie . . .' and lower their heads . . . then repeat what they've been told
The man? ---- I don't know
For me? ---- it's the art that's still here . . .
. . . been where it's always been --- since the first time I heard him . . .
. . .
. . . here --- in my head . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkEvAvIGK-w
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1974
One of his 'popular' songs . . .
. . . but how much was cut-away --- to get to it . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GnQ3WuF7Dk
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I always thought it was so cool of him to support the up and coming acts - like Punk at CBGB's - he supported the local stuff even when he was a mega star - I must assume Yale knew him ?
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Aladdin Sane . . .
. . . redux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A0a1BWjFZI
Another genre-bending little ditty --- that you have to buy to hear . . .
Jazz sax, wailing violin, fusion piano, buzzing synthesizer, weird operatic vocals . . . . + w/ a (by turns) sad/ironic/menacing/then-playful finish
More haunt than song . . .
. . . and one of my favorites
Makes me wish I could play a piano
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One Year Ago . . .
. . . already
News said that he'd only received his diagnosis --- liver cancer . . . 3 months before
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An Olde Songe . . .
. . . TVC15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLl1MeOCeKI
'. . . "TVC 15" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie in 1975 and released in 1976. The track was inspired by an episode in which Iggy Pop, during a drug-fuelled period at Bowie's LA home, hallucinated and believed the television set was swallowing his girlfriend . . .'
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