JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum What's your favorite Bowie song or album or moment?

Hi all,

Like Mark K, I've been thinking a lot about David Bowie, and realize I won't be getting much work done unless I post about him, and release some of this emotion I'm feeling..and who knows..maybe you feel the same and just need a little nudge.

He, more than any other artist in recent memory made me understand what being an artist could potentially mean, and he helped me feel like it was okay to be a bit of an outsider, and embrace my differences rather than feel outcast.

He also made some damn great music, and wasn't too shabby an actor either--but with him, those things went together, didn't they? --him putting on personas, one after the other, throughout his career..but in the end he was a family man, a New Yorker, and very very mortal, this man who seemed to fall to earth.

I'd like to share my favorite David Bowie moment..it still affects me..I remember watching (on VH1 wassit?) the "Concert For New York City," after 9/11, and I think Bowie opened, and he did a version of Simon and Garfunkel's "America," and he was playing a toy piano! --and it was beautiful and sad and very apropos. It was that performance that made me realize he was a New Yorker, and had been for some time, and that here he was, stripped bare of persona and giving us..every bit of himself..I'm still very moved when I watch this video..

This link is from the actual concert, though very low quality:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8s3su_david-bowie-simon-and-garfunkel-ame_music

This link is the musical performance with pictures a collage of NYC pictures, but higher quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaHcjjkOk6E

Anyway, I'd love to hear from other Bowie fans..what song or album or moment for you?

Mike

I swear, I never liked anything by Bowie. The closest I came was "Young Americans."

yes Michael,i've been playing the heck out of my Bowie music more than ever lately.I was the biggest Alice Cooper fan around but when i experienced David Bowie i even got deeper into the theatrics of rock and roll.The glam scene was so different from what i was used to.It was Ziggy Stardust album when i first heard him,i went and bought Ziggy,Space Oddity Hunky Dory and The Man Who Sold The World albums which i still have.Of course the next albums were soon in my collection.If i had to choose a favorite album,it would be Ziggy,it's just awesome in every way.I didn't see him live until 1978 then again on the Glass Spider Tour.Both concerts seemed surreal to me.I also still have the Ziggy poster in my music room from high school along with some magazines from back then.Had a dog named Ziggy of course.It was exciting to buy his latest album as i never knew what it was going to be like,however,there a few i didn't care for as much as the others.I bought my first 35mm camera for the first concert about a week before.I didn't know how to use it that well but i lucked up and got a few okie dokie photos.Since his passing i discovered a lot of new stuff i never seen on youtube.Lots of interviews and late night show gigs.All in all,David Bowie still plays a huge part of my life through his sound and vision.I can only hope for a lot of unreleased material to hit the market before i pass.I want more!Thank you David Bowie!Mike

Without a doubt the moment I first heard 5 Years...and it was through head phones.

The copy of Ziggy Stardust was owned by my life long friend's cousin's brother, and I swear we all fought over those headphones that night. The stuff going on in the music was amazing.

Watched the video you posted before responding. The connection was there. Thank you for putting that up.

And I just got back from a band practice. We have a gig in a few weeks and we're opening with Heroes. That'll be fun too.

Hi Jim,

Too theatrical? Young Americans was great--a spit in the face of all his theatrics, and a record recorded and produced in Philadelphia, with the cream of soul session players, there, including a young Luther Vandross.

You'd probably like his early folkie stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yM5A6krLsc


..The Space Oddity album is my favorite 60/early 70's album by him. I love hearing acoustic guitars in the mix--and there's a quaintness in his voice, for the most part, that would get lost in later albums.

Thanks for posting!

Mike

Hi Michael,

"The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.." was an amazing concept album, which I can appreciate more now than I did then. I played "Thick As A Brick" more back then..and now Jethro Tull just gives me a headache, lol..

I had a good friend who was as into Bowie as you were, back then..I remember he even bought the solo "Spiders From Mars" album in '76 from the bass player and drummer from "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy.."

It was "Space Oddity" I played to death, and then as glam came and went Bowie was in my collection, but honestly, I think I played those early T Rex albums more..until the late seventies and Low and Heroes and Lodger..It was because of his involvement with Fripp and Eno and Krautrock that I got me back into him in a bigger way..

Correct me if I'm wrong..wasn't that RCA vinyl, back then really cheap and flimsy? ..I seem to remember making strange UFO sounds with my worn out first copy of Space Oddity, (how apropos!) by simply flapping it a bit in the air.

But my fandom pales big time to yours. It's great that music and artists can move us so. Life would be pretty dull otherwise.

Thanks for a great post, and maybe scan a picture or two if you're feelin' it!

Mike

yeah Michael,those RCA vinyls were pretty flimsy.He sure had some amazing guitarist besides Ronson,Eno and Fripp,there was Alamor,Stevie Ray Vaughn,the Sales brothers and Peter Frampton played with him on the Glass Spider Tour when i saw him then too.I sent you a few pics over on the Photography Forum from the '78 tour. The stars look very different today! Mike

Alomar and Ronson were both amazing guitarists..can't recall when Stevie Ray played with...okay..googled..Let's Dance//that's right!

Cool beans! Gonna go check out the photos--thanks!

Mike

Hi John,

5 Years is a great opening number--I think it and most of 'Ziggy Stardust was recorded right after Space Oddity, yet there's no confusing these two distinct records.

You and LeBlanc are not alone in your praise. Rolling Stone has it at 35th all time best..I must revisit this..and soon!

Mike

"Pinups", a cover album of Pre-British invasion songs. Introduced me to real British rock and roll.

oh man,that Pinups album rocks!Drop the needle and crank that sucker up!

I remember listening to "Pinups" at my friend Jerry Ray's apartment in Alameda, CA. in late '73--he literally bought everything British, and was a big Moody Blues fan as well--(even had those awful solo Mike Pinder albums, Ray Thomas' too), and ended up managing a few record stores before I lost touch with him.

Also in the same sitting, we heard Dark Side of the Moon which I wasn't as impressed with (I would be later, once hearing it in headphones)--I still prefer Bowie's "See Emily Play" to 'Floyd's..blasphemy, I know..

Mike

hey Michael,i really like T Rex "The Slider" album,just fantastic!Mike

I felt the same way about "Dark Side Of The Moon" at first, but started buying their older albums later, reading their history, then got it. British pop music. I think I read that Syd didn't mind Bowie's version of "See Emily Play". He may have liked it. I don't know. Maybe Nigel can chime in on that.

hey Ben,it was too bad about Syd,he was pretty burned out.But another Pink Floyd song Bowie did was Arnold Layne which he performs with David Gilmour and Richard Wright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90DxiYH1WOc

Thanks Mike. "Arnold Layne", if I remember right without Googling was their first hit in the UK. Gilmour played in the band when Syd was there, but wasn't recognized as a member until after Syd left. I never heard the link but will check it out.

Hey Mike and John and Ben..

Well last night I listened to 'Ziggy Stardust (Remastered version) all the way through, start to finish, three times--first time since in my early twenties, probably..here are my impressions.

This album deserves the praise it's gotten over the years. It's musically adventurous..maybe not as much as Abbey Road, but in the ball park, and I wasn't prepared for so much acoustic guitar, and prominent in the mix.

Sure, most of these songs I've heard, over the years, half of these should be in his greatest hits, but I found one thing curious..I had an almost total blank on the "verses" of most of these..like a TV series with a kind of forgetful B plot--I think of Homeland, Season Two, where Dana and her teen angst was just so forgettable--and you're wishing they'd focus more on Brody and Carrie. I was startled especially by Starman. I had no idea, from the opening salvo, that I was listening to Starman! Not until the chorus.

The two exception are "Suffragette City" and "Ziggy Stardust," Both launch into musical bliss from the opening moments, and have verses that are burnt into memory. Ronson reminds my of Keith Richards a bit with his "Jumpin Jack Flash" sounding riffs in "Suffragette City."

But it's Bowie's singing that I've grown accustomed to, other the years, but initially as a youngster, I was very turned off when he got all theatrical in the early and mid-seventies.

That's probably why I spun T Rex more, until Lodger and Low, etc..I was a "progger" --listened to ELP and Yes and King Crimson, and Mike Oldfield was the first artist that I wanted to BE..

But the thing about Bowie is..no matter what you're into..sooner or later, the road will lead to David Bowie. His voracious musical appetite and willingness to experiment wore me down over the years. I am especially fond of "Black Tie White Noise" despite the dismal reviews--love his covers of "I Feel Free" and "Nite Fight" and loved that he was reunited with Ronson one more time on "I Feel Free."

Yeah I spun T Rex/The Slider more that "Ziggy, and it was cuz Bowie's theatrical singing was initially a turn off. But he was "In character" and I didn't really get it. The Ziggy voices, I would soon learn from later albums, were just a few in a toolbox of dozens. There's newly found vids of him doing impersonations of people like Springsteen, Waits, Marc Bolan, Lou Reed and Tony Newley! :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu0Eukwx5WE

These are so much fun!--It's great knowing he was goofing about in the studio, at times, loosening up.

Mike

Hi Ben,

Me too! Finally "got it" and then bought all the prior albums. Meddle and Ummagumma are still things I break out, now and then..On "Ummagumma" there's a classic of early sampling art--I'm sure you remember "Several Species of Furry Animals.." which was both hilarious and frightening and absolutely brilliant.

Never was big on the Floyd/Barrett stuff. I'd really get a contact high listening, though. Barrett's writing was too strange for me, at the time. Since, though, I've fallen in love with artists clearly influenced by him, like Robyn Hitchcock, and so been gradually breaking out the early 'Floyd..

Mike

hey Michael,a funny story,i came home one night and went to sleep with Ummagumma 8 track on and when it got to the Several Species Of Furry Animals...,it woke my dad up in the next room and he thought that it was some crazy animals outside and he got out of bed looking around,he did think it was funny the next morning when he told me about it.I wondered who pulled the 8 track out.

Hey Mike, I am laughing just imaging this scenerio..and wonder what your dad might have thought at the end of the piece when the pict started "grooving" and chatting, lol..

hey Michael,i think that's when he figured out it was coming from my room.He also couldn't believe the production of Dark Side Of The Moon,how loud and clean even the softer sounds were on it.Mike

Another Pink Floyd story then

We had a large shared house in University, and two guys were musicians with great sound equipment that included Marshall Stacks.

So parties were awesome with the sound system coming through these amps and speakers 4 or so feet high.

We had a main stairway and a back stairway that led into our kitchen, and before one party, getting ready for the guests, a wave of sound came down that narrow stairwell into the kitchen...at top volume.

It was the alarms from DSOTM. Doug had placed the stack on top of the stairs and just blew us away as the sound waves were channeled through the narrow, essentially enclosed stairway, ...came on at the right moment with no warning at all, crystal clear and it shook everything around us...including all the dishes in cabinets.

Took a moment or two before we realized what was happening...our senses were that overwhelmed

would've liked to been there John!