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BrufordFreak 
Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator Joined: January 25 2008 Location: Wisconsin Status: Offline Points: 8213 |
 Topic: David Bowie memoriesPosted: January 11 2016 at 20:34 |
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I thought it appropriate to start a journalistic thread of personal vignettes of the various ways in which David Bowie touched our each of lives, individually.
I personally was not a big fan of his music, but the timeless classic "Space Oddity" touched me as few songs have ever: eerie yet ethereal, human and yet spiritual, so unusual and unique for pop music. My favorite Bowie memory was when he introduced "my good friend, Jeff Beck" on one of those late night "Midnight Special"-type shows in the early seventies whereupon David left the stage and Jeff strummed his guitar once and went into a left-hand solo for what seemed like minutes. I was at a party but that viruoso guitar exhibition is all I can remember from that party. Otherwise, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" was incredibly powerful....
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Drew Fisher
https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |
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ClemofNazareth
Special Collaborator 
Prog Folk Researcher Joined: August 17 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 4659 |
Posted: January 11 2016 at 22:03 |
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I had a friend when I was in college in the early 80s who was a DJ. He got tickets to an outdoor Bowie concert and invited me (probably because I had a car and it was a 200 mile road trip). There was a really bad rainstorm on the way there and we wrecked my car, I'm guessing the weed and wine might have been a factor too. Anyway I heard the concert got called off early so I suppose we didn't miss much, but it took about two weeks for the car to be rebuilt.
Good times. |
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"Peace is the only battle worth waging."
Albert Camus |
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65268 |
Posted: January 11 2016 at 22:45 |
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Bowie was the personification of what it was to be young in the mid- to late-70s; the whole alienated, androgynous, Rocky Horror thing found a home with the disassociated kids of the post-Hippie era, and Bowie was the definitive rebel of his time.
You don't realize what you have until it's gone. |
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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cstack3
Forum Senior Member 
VIP Member Joined: July 20 2009 Location: Tucson, AZ USA Status: Offline Points: 7272 |
Posted: January 11 2016 at 23:57 |
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I only saw Bowie perform once, in the play "The Elephant Man." He was a brilliant actor of course.
Bowie's Berlin era is some of my favorite, I was walking into a bank a few weeks ago and heard the Robert Fripp opening of "Heroes" on the radio, it was startling and breathtaking. RIP David, I didn't know your material as well as Yes or Genesis, but you certainly had a huge impact upon me, dating back to the very early 1970s!
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Komandant Shamal
Forum Senior Member
Joined: February 02 2015 Location: Yugoslavia Status: Offline Points: 954 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 00:24 |
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i was one of cca 50 000 spectators at Maksimir football stadium in Zagreb, Croatia, ex-Yugoslavia, where David Bowie was playing a fantastic gig as a part of his Sound & Vision The Greatest Hits Tour, 1990.
Edited by Komandant Shamal - January 12 2016 at 00:28 |
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Rivertree
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Band Submissions Joined: March 22 2006 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 17628 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 02:30 |
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On vacation I once could follow a Bowie gig in Sardinia, it was in 1997, 11th of July exactly, Rocce Rosse Festival at Arbatax.
the setlist a nice warm evening, millions of stars above, we were sitting on the terrace, having wine and snacks, not far away, two or three kilometers across the bay, I'll never forget that ... Edited by Rivertree - January 12 2016 at 02:40 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 04:48 |
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During the 70s my kid sister Alison was the big Bowie fan in our house, she'd first seen him perform Starman on Top Of The Pops in 1972 when she was 13 and that began an obsession that persists to this day. She collected all his albums, had scrapbooks full of pictures and press cuttings, and even wrote to the Japanese Embassy to ask if they would translate all his song titles into Japanese kanjii so she could embroider them onto a Bowie themed kimono-style dressing gown she made for herself. I would occasionally borrow a few of her albums (Space Oddity, Hunky Dory and Man Who Sold The World) as they were closer to the heavier, progressive artists I truly loved, but Ziggy and Aladdin held no fascination for me.
Everything changed in 1976 when he released Station to Station, that album literally blew me away, for me it seemed like Bowie had suddenly become a serious musician and was creating music that had a momentum and direction that went against the grain of everything else that was being made at that time. While many highly regard his Berlin trilogy, for me that era began with the title track Station to Station with its relentless motorik drive and the dense dual guitars of Alomar and Slick. Low and Heroes were a natural progression from that and I loved them to bits. So accompanying Alison to London to see his 1978 tour was no chore and the set appeared to be designed to appeal to both of us, with her freaking-out during the 'Ziggy' half while I was enthralled by the 'Berlin' half. At that time I was into mimicing Roger Dean's painting style using car touch-up aerosol paints, spraying the paint onto water-covered sheets of glass to create his trade-mark marbling effect and scratching away some of the dried paint to form the image. She asked if I would to do one of David Bowie for her and I chose to copy the Low cover. Intrigued by the technique I was using she asked if she could do one too so between us we made another based upon the movie-poster for The Man Who Fell To Earth (both resulting paintings she still owns, naturally). I don't have photographs of either of them but back then I took a photograph of a slide the Low painting projected onto her face:  (sorry for the horrible scan, the original is much more vibrant and intense than this) Forward fast many decades... A few years back I was stumped for what to buy her for birthday so thought I make another Bowie picture. Remembering the kanjii dressing gown she'd made in the 70s I thought I'd use his song titles in some way and ended up creating this image in Photoshop that I then had printed onto canvas:  [side anecdote: when we were adding Bowie into Prog Related I ran a draft of the biography Daniel (Zowie Ziggy), Micky and I had written past her for her comments. While all of her comments were constructive and helped in the final edit, one passing remark at the time made me laugh out loud - 'you got it wrong, he's not Prog Related, he should be in Symphonic Prog'... So was she right, is it really 'symphonic'? There are undoubtedly 'symphonic' elements to some of his work, though not in the Symphonic Prog sense we apply here, and there is an undeniable musical theatricality (as opposed to the more obvious stage theatricality) that we would call Art Rock in the same way we would describe the theatrical Prog of Genesis, ELP and Yes also as Art Rock. So in a sense she was partially correct, he's not Related to Prog, he was, and forever will be, a Progressive Artitst, just one that doesn't neatly slot into the categories we have here. And that's the enigmatic attraction and appeal of Bowie and why we have seen the unprecedented reaction to his untimely death here on the PA - his music transcends classification yet fits-in everywhere.] Last week Alison texted me: "New Bowie album out on Friday... hope it's good. I watched the Reality tour DVD while I was ironing and that was brilliant... took me back"...
Edited by Dean - January 12 2016 at 05:15 |
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What?
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65268 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 04:54 |
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He left us with extreme dignity, and I admire his desire for privacy during what must've been a very hard time.
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Manuel
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 09 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13365 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 07:09 |
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I Remember hearing from my best friend about David Bowie, and when he play his music, was quite an experience for me. He was able to evolve and adapt his music and persona to the changing times, and while remaining relevant to the times, he always preserved the quality of his music intact. A great loss to the world of music. May he rest in peace.
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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams Joined: October 31 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 14122 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 10:10 |
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I went to know Bowie initially for his passion for SciFi. I was a fan of the genre as well and obviously my first approaches to his music were songs like Space Oddity, Life On Mars and Starman. I loved him as actor. The Man Who Fell On Earth is a great movie.
Glass Spider is the first concert I went to with my future wife, with the Alien Peter Frampton blowing into his guitar's magnets. I have watched Labyrinth dozen of times with my daughters, one is 22 and the other 7 years old. I like thinking of Jareth moving a crystal sphere between his fingers telling Death "You don't have any power over me".
Edited by octopus-4 - January 12 2016 at 10:11 |
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I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution
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Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group
Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 35940 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 12:53 |
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I have nothing interesting to say, but...
My first experience with Bowie that I can remember was when I was a little kid and my brother bought the Changesonebowie compilation album- -- I just loved it. That and Gary Numan's Replicas were my favourite albums. Over the last few months I have been mostly listening to David Bowie as I have been delving into more of his stuff and revisiting his classic albums. Also, several of his films had a big impact on me, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and The Hunger. The Hunger was my favourite movie when I was a teen, which was partially a hormonal thing. I have one negative Bowie-related memory from when I was 12. Was left camping alone with a man who tried to get me drunk and molest me. He asked me if I liked David Bowie earlier in the evening. I said yes, and he said, you know he's bisexual, don't you? |
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gr8dane
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 11 2005 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 1127 |
Posted: January 12 2016 at 15:01 |
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My memories : Bowie in concert
Diamond Dogs tour Madison Square Garden NY US 1974 Low tour Copenhagen Denmark 1978 Let's Dance tour in Berlin Germany and Toronto Canada 1983.
Edited by gr8dane - January 12 2016 at 15:06 |
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Shake & bake.
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Warthur
Prog Reviewer
Joined: January 06 2008 Location: London, UK Status: Offline Points: 617 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 05:37 |
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I'd heard bits and pieces of his stuff growing up, but the first time I got deep into him was when I picked up the Best of Bowie 1969-1974 CD when it emerged in 1997 - I'd have been 15 at the time. |
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The Dark Elf
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member Joined: February 01 2011 Location: Michigan Status: Online Points: 13064 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 07:23 |
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If I had an Eternal High School Soundtrack endlessly looping through my head (which often occurs, but might be after effects of teenage mescaline overuse), Bowie would be on the playlist, particularly the albums Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs - I still love those albums.
Dean had mentioned the Bowie Effect on his sister in the 70s, and I would say that same feeling was shared by teenage girls over here in the states. The girls in my high school loved him; in fact, to show you how pervasive Bowieism was in the mid-70s, I remember my school's cheerleaders doing a routine to Bowie's "1984" at football games. Obviously, the parents paid little attention to the lyrics, which made it even cooler.
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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someone_else
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member Joined: May 02 2008 Location: Going Bananas Status: Offline Points: 24302 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 07:58 |
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The first time I heard of David Bowie was in the last days of 1969. I remember watching a television program in which about a dozen of hits from that year passed the scene. Ekseption's Air and David Bowie's Space Oddity (reached #8 in the charts) were two of these (the ones I liked most); I cannot recall which the others were. I was 10 years old at the time and not very interested in popular music.
A few years later he became big. In the days of his next hit, The Jean Genie, I was nicknamed "Bowie" by my classmates because my hairstyle looked very similar to his when I had walked against the direction of the wind.
Edited by someone_else - January 13 2016 at 07:59 |
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hellogoodbye
Forum Senior Member
VIP member Joined: August 29 2011 Location: Troy Status: Offline Points: 7251 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 08:06 |
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My first girl friend bought me the lp of Heroes, the french version with these famous words "Les dauphins savent nager"(Dolphins can swim). Heroes, with Low, Lodger, The man who sold the world, Ziggy, Hunky Dory, A lad insane, Station to station, Young Americans, Scary Monsters, Outside & Blackstar are among my favorite albums of all time.
I was listening yesterday to that song from his first album, B side of The Laughing Gnome. Great song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0BM-5E3J3c Goodbye friend.   |
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Intruder
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 13 2005 Status: Offline Points: 2195 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 11:56 |
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Does anybody remember Bowie's appearance on an American TV show, maybe the Dick Clark Show, in the late 70s in which David was carried out in this one piece legless space suit? He deadpanned Space Oddity making no pretentions of not lip synching; during the whole of the 4 minute piece, I could not keep my eyes off the screen - totally mesmerized by this alien freak. I also remember the Cher show much earlier in the 70s where Bowie did this campy medley with Cher of his more danceable singles, but that memory is a bit foggier. Of course, everyone has seen him with Bing doing White Xmas, but what we don't remember is how well he sang without an ounce of irony.....he did have a beautiful voice when he crooned. And then there was the Dick Cavett show - if you haven't seen this interview, Bowie comes off as a bit shy and unassuming, but when the music began (the best version of Young Americans I've ever heard), that persona was washed away.....no more Ziggy, he was a rotten toothed, frazzle eyed r&b singer doing American soul to a whitewashed audience.
Bowie - the guy wore many hats in his time.....some fit better than others, but he never shied away from taking a trend and making it his own.
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I like to feel the suspense when you're certain you know I am there.....
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Intruder
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 13 2005 Status: Offline Points: 2195 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 12:05 |
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Bowie's Serious Moonlight tour was my first major concert.....I'd been to shows at county fairs and hootenannies with my folks, mainly Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Statler Brothers, Merle and Waylon.....back in the late 70s when their collective stars were well-faded and their shows sparsely attended; in fact, I remember at one gig Johnny Cash coming out to shake hands with the small crowd after his set was over. Anyway, Bowie - 1983 - greatest hits tour with Alomar and Slick on guitars and Ansley Dunbar on drums....bright yellow suit with mint green tie.....four rows back being fed wine from a flask and making out with a Bowie mom perhaps twenty years my senior.....got to second base for the first time in my life right there among 20,000 fans at the Hershey Park Stadium.....best concert ever.
Cut to a few years later when Bowie brought this monstrosity of a stage to the RFK Stadium in south Philly; got ticketed for underage drinking in the parking lot, then lost my girlfriend in a sea of 100,000 fans, then sat thru the most excruciating 90 minutes of my concert-going life. The Glass Spider tour put me off of Bowie for nearly a decade. It wasn't until the 2004 Reality Tour that I gave him another shot.....and I'm glad I did.
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I like to feel the suspense when you're certain you know I am there.....
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AEProgman
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2012 Location: Toadstool Status: Offline Points: 1787 |
Posted: January 13 2016 at 12:18 |
I always loved Diamond Dogs, it had that darker apocalyptic feel to it as it was meant to be. It was also my first exposure to Bowie and was fascinated by it. The album does not seem to get as much attention as some of his albums of that period other than the song Rebel Rebel. Very cool indeed, cheerleaders doing "1984"
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17524 |
Posted: January 14 2016 at 11:36 |
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Hi, When I heard ... "gound control to major tom ... " I was intrigued and it took me almost over a year to find who this was and finally was able to find it in California after we moved to Santa Barbara. By that time, I was already tired of the "space" theme, and was specially tired of Kubrick fans, telling us what "space" was, and hearing this was kinda nice, and I enjoyed it. And, that song was a big ... as in BIG ... FM standard in the early days ... you can even ask Jim Ladd about that! Have not been a "fan" per se, but have always enjoyed a lot of his music, and my roomate one time, had fun playing 3 different versions of "Heroes" back to back ... in different languages, of course, and this was definitly a treat ... and a great laugh for many of us. All in all, a lot of this is not considered "progressive", because in the end we have created a definition that only fits one or two groups and not a musical process and vision, and in the end, this hurts the ability to identify folks properly and correctly, when one is but the next one with the same thing, is not. Or my favorite, the same information fits, but the music has no electricity in it! RIP and wish the best to Iman and family ... for one of the very good and true artists in our lifetime. PS: Very nice art work, Dean
Edited by moshkito - January 15 2016 at 08:56 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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David Bowie memories
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The Dark Elf wrote: