Manchester's Factory Club FAC 251 with a lad quite sane and hero to many.
ABC Wednesday where D is for David Bowie whose death is probably the biggest in the western world of pop/rock/indie music since Zappa in 1994 or John Lennon’s in 1980? Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse died too young to have enough of a back catalogue and personally I thought little of Michael Jackson's music, nor Freddie Mercury's Queen post-1975. Richard Wright’s death was huge for me but as he was in a group rather than being known as a solo artist somehow it seemed to be slightly diluted in its wider impact? Contentious?
When all those musicians/artists/artistes/people in general say that they were influenced by Bowie, (generations have been saying this since about 1970 and still do) they’re referring of course to the multi-faceted, multi-persona 1970s’ works. From Space Oddity and the man who sold the world through Ziggy and the Thin White Duke to the Berlin era via Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs. They’re the influential ones- little in the decades after Heroes could match what came before- but that nine or ten year spell produced an astounding array of atmospheres and ground-breaking music matched by very few others.
For me, Heroes and Low are the best works of art that Bowie made - the Eno (and Fripp) collaborations created new sounds (and visions) and both albums are going with me along with 98 others when I depart this planet with my top 100 albums.
But two earlier tracks, Life on Mars and Space Oddity sum up that alienation, and alien nation, perfectly for me. We felt it then, we feel it now. “Oh man look at those cavemen go… Is there life on Mars?” = cos there sure as hell ain’t life of any quality on earth when you look around at the police and state brutality and submissive public acceptance of mundane living. And that was following on from cutting yourself free to float off into space rather than return to the drudgery of earth, in Space Oddity.
Ziggy played guitar - and the world was a better place for it.
