Celebrity fatalities generally leave me cold and unresponsive but, as with the demises of Kurt Cobain and Freddie Mercury 22 and 25 years ago, David Bowie's death last week was one of the few that did impart a slight wrenching effect, in a breakfast radio switch-on moment that'll now be ingrained in my memory until my own end.
It was the abrupt nature of the news, following the unmentioned cancer, and because he was so enduring - I'd actually predicted he would headline Glastonbury this year following the new album release which turned out to be his final words, and was cursing my luck even more at being abroad and missing the tickets boat again.
However while last Monday began grimmer than most January weeks ever could, it actually became rosier as the day continued, with wall-to-wall Bowie tracks on BBC6, a monsoon of memories and commemoration online, and just going through all my albums, photos and video clips, all work plans shelved.
By the end of the week, however, I'd consumed so many similarly worded tribute pieces as to have reached saturation point, a feeling nailed by David Baddiel who tweeted on Friday:
It was the abrupt nature of the news, following the unmentioned cancer, and because he was so enduring - I'd actually predicted he would headline Glastonbury this year following the new album release which turned out to be his final words, and was cursing my luck even more at being abroad and missing the tickets boat again.
However while last Monday began grimmer than most January weeks ever could, it actually became rosier as the day continued, with wall-to-wall Bowie tracks on BBC6, a monsoon of memories and commemoration online, and just going through all my albums, photos and video clips, all work plans shelved.
By the end of the week, however, I'd consumed so many similarly worded tribute pieces as to have reached saturation point, a feeling nailed by David Baddiel who tweeted on Friday:
As someone commented beneath it: "the best description of him was the way Rick Wakeman enthused over his chord structures on Life On Mars". And I had to agree - we've all been well reminded of what a legend and game-changer he was; how about some more personal commentary of the actual music, of what that meant to people rather than the other things he stood for. Surely he'd appreciate that more.
So that's what I did this weekend, on life moments soundtracked by particular Bowie tracks - some obvious, some not so - and a small handful of photos of or related to him, one of which I framed and hung on my dining room wall on NYE, ten days before his death.
So that's what I did this weekend, on life moments soundtracked by particular Bowie tracks - some obvious, some not so - and a small handful of photos of or related to him, one of which I framed and hung on my dining room wall on NYE, ten days before his death.
FIRST MEMORY
Not born until 1978, with the Heroes album still in the chart, I missed out on the 70s & early 80s glory years, my first visual record of David being the evil goblin king Jareth in Jim Henson's Labyrinth in 1986, the scene I remember the most his threatening to hurl a dwarf into the bog of eternal stench.
My first musical memory wasn't to arrive until a year later, at the outset of my MTV-watching days in 1987: a song that remains in my top five despite not registering on many others' radars. It was the title track of his album Never Let Me Down released that year, and one I later found out was the least successful single from it, failing to enter the top 10 in any country (#34 its highest UK position).
To this day I'm not sure why it wasn't so well received, as it was one of David's personal favourites and the sepia video wasn't that bad. Ok, it's not the best Bowie song musically but the minor-key verse melody and chromatic chord sequence were always compelling to my ears, and entrenched by those early years of musical awakening.
Not born until 1978, with the Heroes album still in the chart, I missed out on the 70s & early 80s glory years, my first visual record of David being the evil goblin king Jareth in Jim Henson's Labyrinth in 1986, the scene I remember the most his threatening to hurl a dwarf into the bog of eternal stench.
My first musical memory wasn't to arrive until a year later, at the outset of my MTV-watching days in 1987: a song that remains in my top five despite not registering on many others' radars. It was the title track of his album Never Let Me Down released that year, and one I later found out was the least successful single from it, failing to enter the top 10 in any country (#34 its highest UK position).
To this day I'm not sure why it wasn't so well received, as it was one of David's personal favourites and the sepia video wasn't that bad. Ok, it's not the best Bowie song musically but the minor-key verse melody and chromatic chord sequence were always compelling to my ears, and entrenched by those early years of musical awakening.
It wasn't until a good few years later that I first heard Space Oddity, Changes et al, but being a young teenager my ears were more tuned in to modern production values so it was his contemporaneous releases that moved me more than the older stuff - Jump They Say, the 1993 single written about his brother's suicide, was one I remember making a beeline to HMV to buy, my first ever cassette single.
It remains in my top five to this day: its funked-up Nile Rodgers vibes, the chorus guitar wail and jazzy trumpet solo, all slightly at odds with the painful lyrical content, inspired me to create a mashup tribute video last year marrying it with the video for Pink Floyd's own obscurer single, Learning to Fly, after I noticed it fit Floyd's video thematically and narratively pretty much frame for frame.
It remains in my top five to this day: its funked-up Nile Rodgers vibes, the chorus guitar wail and jazzy trumpet solo, all slightly at odds with the painful lyrical content, inspired me to create a mashup tribute video last year marrying it with the video for Pink Floyd's own obscurer single, Learning to Fly, after I noticed it fit Floyd's video thematically and narratively pretty much frame for frame.
It wasn't until later teens and getting into The Beatles that I started to properly appreciate older sounds and Bowie's earlier back catalogue. One of the catalysts was one of my best mates Chris, an already dyed-in-the-wool Bowie fan, playing me Hunky Dory for the first time in his bedroom. I'll never forget hearing the track Kooks that first time - one of the few I instantly 'got' upon first listen and knew was a keeper. An ode to his newborn son, it contains one of my favourite lyrical couplets:
Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads, cos I'm not much cop at punching other people's dads
And if the homework brings you down then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown
Also on the album was Andy Warhol, and being a big metal fan I instantly recognised its opening acoustic riff, nicked by James Hetfield for Metallica's Master of Puppets (+ their album track title Leper Messiah lifted from Ziggy Stardust). It was a phenomenon that occurred in reverse the more of Bowie's older material I listened to, something verified by his 70s bassist in the BBC documentary Five Years - Dave wasn't afraid of nicking stuff for his own songs, the most flagrant example to my ears being Queen Bitch's purloining of Eddie Cochran's Three Steps To Heaven. Despite this, however, his flawless rendition of the track on Old Grey Whistle Test is one of the best I've ever seen, he and Mick Ronson absolutely smashing it:
Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads, cos I'm not much cop at punching other people's dads
And if the homework brings you down then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown
Also on the album was Andy Warhol, and being a big metal fan I instantly recognised its opening acoustic riff, nicked by James Hetfield for Metallica's Master of Puppets (+ their album track title Leper Messiah lifted from Ziggy Stardust). It was a phenomenon that occurred in reverse the more of Bowie's older material I listened to, something verified by his 70s bassist in the BBC documentary Five Years - Dave wasn't afraid of nicking stuff for his own songs, the most flagrant example to my ears being Queen Bitch's purloining of Eddie Cochran's Three Steps To Heaven. Despite this, however, his flawless rendition of the track on Old Grey Whistle Test is one of the best I've ever seen, he and Mick Ronson absolutely smashing it:
As an obsessive CD & vinyl collector there was suddenly a lot of ground to make up after Hunky Dory day, and within a year or two I had acquired most of his album releases to date, from the London Boy 60s anthology to 1997's drum&bass-inspired Earthling.
Those two LPs alone highlighted for me the epic range in his output, evolving from the jaunty music-hall of Did You Ever Have a Dream to the industrial rock-out of Dead Man Walking, another two of my favourites (and I stand by Bowie's biographer David Buckley in finding The Laughing Gnome "a supremely catchy children's song" rather than NME's "embarrassing example of Bowie juvenalia" write-off).
Those two LPs alone highlighted for me the epic range in his output, evolving from the jaunty music-hall of Did You Ever Have a Dream to the industrial rock-out of Dead Man Walking, another two of my favourites (and I stand by Bowie's biographer David Buckley in finding The Laughing Gnome "a supremely catchy children's song" rather than NME's "embarrassing example of Bowie juvenalia" write-off).
There was one significant TV moment during that period - I'm usually reluctant to say mind-blowing but it's a fitting adjective in this case. At the turn of 1996, twenty years ago, David appeared on Jools Holland, alongside Oasis and Aztec Camera, an episode I watched with some sixth-form chums in the living room of my family home while the parents were away. All I remember is our collective jaw dropping in a stoned trance as he and his band of music wizards launched into the sci-fi rock juggernaut of Hallo Spaceboy from his then latest album Outside: a five-minute blitzkreig of guitar feedback and distortion, pounding drums and lyrics about moondust and chaos, bisected by a virtuoso piano solo.
For me it was an apotheosis, his effortless nailing of that track followed by a characteristically insouciant interview with Jools as if that were an average performance, and then he played an equally spellbinding reworked version of The Man Who Sold the World which appeared as a B-side to previous single Strangers When We Meet. I just remember feeling slightly sorry for Oasis who had to follow all that with their stock rock, which shrivelled in comparison.
For me it was an apotheosis, his effortless nailing of that track followed by a characteristically insouciant interview with Jools as if that were an average performance, and then he played an equally spellbinding reworked version of The Man Who Sold the World which appeared as a B-side to previous single Strangers When We Meet. I just remember feeling slightly sorry for Oasis who had to follow all that with their stock rock, which shrivelled in comparison.
When I rewatch this clip now it hammers home two points for me: 1) how useful YouTube would eventually prove, because for years I despaired that I'd never see it again; and 2) the lingering despair that I never saw Bowie live - missing the boat on the couple of opportunities that arose, something that remains probably my biggest life regret, and why I'd convinced myself he would this year tour again or headline a festival before last week's hammer blow smashed that to pieces.
For the rest of my days I'll have to content myself with live footage and memories of televised performances, my favourite of each (barring the Jools clip) being these airings of Ashes To Ashes & Ziggy Stardust, both adding a new magic to the originals, something many other artists struggle to emulate with theirs.
For the rest of my days I'll have to content myself with live footage and memories of televised performances, my favourite of each (barring the Jools clip) being these airings of Ashes To Ashes & Ziggy Stardust, both adding a new magic to the originals, something many other artists struggle to emulate with theirs.
I just love the former's funky slap-bass which comes to the fore on stage, while the brawny rendering of Ziggy on Jonathan Ross re-emphasises its qualities as a balls-out rock song, especially in the "where were the spiders?" breakdown.
It was also funny being reminded last week of Dave's stance on Nirvana's unplugged cover of TMWSTW: "kids that come up afterwards and say, 'It's cool you're doing a Nirvana song'. And I think, 'Fuck you, you little tosser!'". I at first thought it was unbecoming of him to say something like that, but then I remembered Kurt explicitly mentioning after the final note, "That was a David Bowie song", which people still managed to miss or forget so the reaction's a bit more understandable.
It was also funny being reminded last week of Dave's stance on Nirvana's unplugged cover of TMWSTW: "kids that come up afterwards and say, 'It's cool you're doing a Nirvana song'. And I think, 'Fuck you, you little tosser!'". I at first thought it was unbecoming of him to say something like that, but then I remembered Kurt explicitly mentioning after the final note, "That was a David Bowie song", which people still managed to miss or forget so the reaction's a bit more understandable.
My only proper live experience of Bowie's music would be covers by other artists, one of the more memorable ones being The Polyphonic Spree, who'd later support David on his Reality tour - I watched their uplifting choral version of Five Years at Reading Festival in 2002 and resolved to buy their album afterwards, which funnily enough never quite lived up to that live moment.
And then there was 'Ultimate Bowie', the tribute act who appeared on Stars in Their Eyes no less - I saw them at Latitude 2013, funnily enough with my Australian mate Bryce who I started hanging out with only because he looked a bit like Bowie, an attribute he later grew weary of being reminded about:
And then there was 'Ultimate Bowie', the tribute act who appeared on Stars in Their Eyes no less - I saw them at Latitude 2013, funnily enough with my Australian mate Bryce who I started hanging out with only because he looked a bit like Bowie, an attribute he later grew weary of being reminded about:
Bryce not happy with latest Bowie comment
Ultimate Bowie, Latitude 2013 (c) Kris Griffiths
Which leads me onto my concluding pair of images, both taken last year: the first a themed wedding table decoration, and the second a photo I found hanging in Margate's Turner Contemporary Gallery which I had to snap as it nicely encapsulated David's early superstardom, arriving at Hammersmith Odeon in 1973 - had never seen the image before and there's only one copy of it online.
There are many other memories I've recalled while writing this, from his random cameo in the Twin Peaks movie to my GCSE English teacher being visibly impressed that one of his pupils was getting onto the Bowie scene at 16, told me he loved the song Sorrow. Sometimes there's just too much to write about.
From now on I'll be diversifying my Bowie range when DJing: dropped the obligatory Let's Dance on NYE, and have customarily veered towards the collaborations at other times - Under Pressure & Dancing in the Street - which often go down better. Haven't yet listened to all of Blackstar - something to look forward to - but still return to 2013's The Next Day, my favourite number from that release being the stonking bonus track I'll Take You There, available only on the collector's edition:
From now on I'll be diversifying my Bowie range when DJing: dropped the obligatory Let's Dance on NYE, and have customarily veered towards the collaborations at other times - Under Pressure & Dancing in the Street - which often go down better. Haven't yet listened to all of Blackstar - something to look forward to - but still return to 2013's The Next Day, my favourite number from that release being the stonking bonus track I'll Take You There, available only on the collector's edition:
It's the sheer breadth and length of Bowie's canon that will sustain his music not just for the rest of my life but for countless generations to come, and that's the most important thing in my eyes (and ears): the tunes. It's the be-all and end-all.
As tempting as it is to find another way of reiterating what other tributes have concluded with - end of an era, the ultimate singer-songwriter, won't be another, etc - I'd prefer to leave it on that note.
Liked this? Read this: A Reflection on Britpop or My Abiding David Bowie Memory
As tempting as it is to find another way of reiterating what other tributes have concluded with - end of an era, the ultimate singer-songwriter, won't be another, etc - I'd prefer to leave it on that note.
Liked this? Read this: A Reflection on Britpop or My Abiding David Bowie Memory
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