Adios Ziggy Stardust.
For me a genius but what is his legacy ?
Is it more than a 'music' thing ?
Was Bowie a loner?
Even in has last months he kept his departure a secret.
He wanted his last memories to be planted like spring flowers all arriving at different
moments but not together with a chorus in a church with the world joining in.
In addition to being a groundbreaking musician, he was a painter, sculptor, and produced digital art. He also was an actor and certainly a fashion style setter. He was a philanthropist who was involved with many charities. I suppose his long term legacy will be that he had the confidence and interest to follow many paths while maintaining genuine decency as human being. He was 4 years older than me. I still own most of his early work on vinyl records. I am so sad he is gone.
Thank you Rachel!
What is left in life when you can not embrace those special things like music
and express your thoughts on here!
where is your heart Ian?
I agree totally Peter Bird & Barbara Deane :-)
A heck of a lot to me cos' I spend a lot of it listening to Bowie vynyls and cds. It's one big way of surviving France personally.
How do you pass the time when the weather is crap ?
He was seven years older than me, too. My friend Marilyn fell in love with him and his long, curly hair when he played at the Prospect Inn folk club --just him and his guitar. For me, Space Oddity was ground-breaking...
Thinking of you, David, up there in your tin can, far above the world xx
Just about everything!
Survival goes hand in hand with happiness, conversation and making
friends.
An intersting dialogue, but what has this got to do with Surviving France" ???
Yes indeed ....homage to Bowie but, at the same time keeping happiness alive!
Anyway, we are here to pay homage to David Bowie, but paths always seem to cross and perhaps it was the crossing of paths that made Bowie unique because Riot Squad were a duff group and The Laughing Gnome rubbish. A couple of years later Space Oddity was another story, but he did some really interesting things that never hit big time in between.
Oh, all sorts. Guitar (dobro, lap steel), Cajun accordion, fiddle, uke. Eclectic mix but I'm a crap player. Just foolin' myself I guess. Anyhow, it's all good fun and I might even be getting a bit better at playing, maybe. We'll have to see what 2016 brings.
Guesse I did! Just off Park Lane and Tiddy Dols.
I had a go at trying to manage the switch board during lunchtimes
for a while.....that was in the days when the plugs were pulled in and out.
I worked on ABC film review!
Mainly fan mail coming in for Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley.
Those were the days when I worked in offices rather than kitchens.
I had a great time at the other end of Marble arch at The Sundown club
which was owned by Rank.....I had a great time playing with PR!
I realised that I was able to put people together and make things work in the
form of entertainment. Those days were magical.....without any assistance of
any kind.
So Barbara you worked for George Rex Stewart. He was a big media man in his time and also mother's cousin. He invented the Rex bit according to her. When I graduated he offered me a job in Glasgow, but I decided to do postgraduate work instead. Had I taken his job I might have some money to my name. Oh well, bit late now.
London was a big place back then.
Around that time I managed a band called Skye Wine....Chicargo Blues....pretty good
but devoid of that special asset which Bowie had....GREAT personality and imagination.
Now living in France for just over 8 years with Clos de Chinon Olivers Travels with my other
half Jonathon who worked with me in our restaurants in London.
He probably loves music more than chefing but me cooks extremely well.
There are no musicians around for him to jam with as most of the music is 'wedding music'
and he likes progressive jazz and modern Flamenco. Together we admire Jeff Beck as he plays
now, Peter Green ....as he was, Garry Moore, lots of chill out music or many kinds.
What do you play?
In a way we have gone off topic!
Hi Barbara,
We've probably got a few friends in common! I used to write for Jackie - terrible stuff really - just biz gossip.
Busy most of the time nowadays, painting and playing music locally. What are you up to?
Glad to meet you Kitt. St Martins.....
Those were the days!
I worked at Rex Publicity and wrote a fortnightly column on the Chelsea
News.....office just off Kings Road.
I was pretty awful at grammar and even worse at spelling but the editor must
have seen something in me by allowing me to go all over London exploring music
and everything which young people loved.
And now Kitt.....what do you do now?
Sad day, isn’t it, when someone from your past dies, especially if they meant anything to you.
In the mid sixties I was a publicity agent with, mainly, pop stars as clients. I was renting some space in the office of Ken Pitt, David Bowie’s London agent, when Ken asked me to do some publicity for David. At that time David was managed by a guy called Ralph Horton, whom Ken Pitt took over from as manager.
When David arrived for an initial interview we hit it off straight away. We were both south London boys with a passion for art and music. He subsequently brought in some of the stories he’d written whilst at school for me to see as background for his public persona. The stories were in school exercise books, written in that bright blue ink, Quink I think it was called. The stories centred around creatures called ‘Spiders From Mars’. I had no idea what a huge influence this notion would become.
David was a gentle person but with a strong determination to let the world know his talent. I don’t suppose I helped much with furthering his career as I wasn’t a brilliant publicity man I have to admit. A few years afterwards I tired of telling lies for a living, got fed up with constant boozing and clubbing. I went for a complete life change and became a teacher for a few years before going into, mainly educational, television as a producer/director. That's my twopenn'orth anyway.
There was a particular 'cluster' of people who were always loosely connected in the sense that they never really did things together formally but were immensely influential: David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Andy Warhol. Of those Bowie and Pop are most closely associated. Andy Warhol is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for Hunky Dory. It is an acoustic song, of which he recorded very few, about one of his greatest inspirations although Warhol apparently didn't like the song. Personally they had little to do with each other, but the influence remained. Lou Reed's great album Transformer was produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, now that was a formidable team too.
Bowie and Pop had their Berlin period, 1976-78, collaboration which was fantastic for me because I spent about a third of my life there, even living within 1km of where both lived and recorded, occasionally playing impromptu gigs to rehearse that the word sometimes got round about. Together they wrote classics like China Girl, Tonight and Sister Midnight, all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on and are absolute favourites of mine. I too love Ziggy Stardust, in fact was listening to it with my daughters on Saturday as if knowing he was on the way out.
There is just Iggy left, questionably how much of him at that after the 'excesses' of years gone by, but with Bowie now gone, the most brilliantly creative group of people is gone and is probably never replaceable. Life moves on, we come and we go, but I really hope all of them as individuals and their influences on each other remain part of history that passes down the generations for all time.
Enjoy your trip through the stars Ziggy.
And we have just one life which should be full.
I hope that Bowie has left us to think about what we can do to
make our world more exciting.