David Bowie

Sad to hear David Bowie passed away, especially since his sickness was unknown to almost everybody. What a great talent.

Years ago (1982) I worked with the Editor of "Films On Screen & Video" magazine - Robin Bean.
He claimed to have known David Jones way back in the day, before he became 'Bowie'.
Robin had a load of B&W Photos to prove it - photos that I do believe have never been published.
The thing is  - Robin was bent as a bottle of crisps.
And I strongly suspect that he 'knew' David Jones...
...and he tried (but failed!!) to 'know' me in that way too.
Robin died (according to t'interweb) back in the early 2000's from "complications surrounding pneumonia" (aka AIDS).
I'm amazed that David Bowie lived as long as he did, if I'm honest: AIDS (Freddie?) was never gonna be far from his lifestyle...
Still doesn't detract from his immense contribution to art - and to my musical education.
RIP.

Perhaps not for the same reasons, but I am always amazed that Keith Richards is still alive...

Bowie will be missed though, but the music lives on.

Great talent, will be sadly missed. Kept his illness to himself and came back to England to die surrounded by his friends and family, a true gentlemen and a nice person.

Danny Boy wrote:a true gentlemen and a nice person.

That is the impression I have of him too from all the footage I've seen.  Never saw a concert live in person unfortunately.

Gelert, an interesting story!

I'm sure you've all seen Lazarus from his last album, the film clip is somewhat eerie given he is essentially singing to us from beyond the grave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8

I quite like the song Blackstar too.

At school, I got heavily involved in "Amateur Dramatics", specialising in Sound and Lighting.
This was a Public School btw, and each 'House' had to produce an AmDram Production once every three years.
Usually something really boring and safe like "The Importance Of Being Earnest" or the equivalent...

But one particularly entrepreneurial pupil thought "sod this - lets do a money-no-object Independent Production".
So he staged "Dracula"...
...complete with 'borrowed' West-End Sets, a FULL lighting rig, REAL Wolves (x2), a REAL Tarantula (x1 - introduced to the Front Row audience with predictably comic results), and, er, me on Sound.

During the initial pre-Production Meetings, this lad and I discussed the 'Soundtrack' to the play.
I had carte blanche with everything, BUT - I had to get Bowie's 'Warszawa' into the Dracula production - non-negotiable!

Long story short: 'Night On A Bare Mountain' (Mussorgsky) featured at the top-of-the-show, and 'Warszawa' later-on in the play.
The first 'OMD' single 'Electricity' was also mooted, but rejected.
Although that gives a great time-stamp to the moment (1978?)

Having listened to 'Low' from a completely different perspective (i.e. how to get ANY music to fit to a real-world play), I can honestly say that I regularly return to listen to two Bowie tracks to this day:
'Always Crashing In The Same Car' (Low) and 'Station-To-Station' (from 'Stage' - a live recording).

Of course, 'Time' was THE lyric to quote from, back in the EARLY 70's...