Archive for david bowie

Five Years

Posted in Family, Music with tags , , , , on January 7, 2021 by David McInerny

My last blog post was in January of 2016. I was in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and wrote it moments after I saw on the TV that David Bowie had just died. This blog had been about traveling, cooking and, most of all, music. Bowie’s death sucked the life out of my creative will to continue here. Now, five years later, I’ve written a travel memoir and the juices are flowing again. It’s been a long and exciting five years, and I’m anxious to tell you about it. More to come. Thanks for hanging with me.

“We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that’s all we’ve got.”

David Bowie, Five Years

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Farewell To The Thin White Duke

Posted in Music, Travel with tags , , , on January 11, 2016 by David McInerny

david_bowieAs I write, I’m conducting business in Kuala Lumpur, and the death of David Bowie is front page news in the Asian morning papers. Like many artists his age (69), he didn’t have to die to get his due as the icon of popular culture he cultivated for himself for nearly five decades. The adulation of Bowie rarely waned through his career – adulation he carefully and skillfully cultivated. This from a young man who began his musical career recording insipid child-like tunes for Decca Records in the mid-sixties until one day he decided to reinvent himself (over and over again) and set the rules for pop stardom all the way up to his most recent album, Blackstar, released just this past Friday. Ironically, the initial single of the same name has Bowie crooning, “I’m not a pop star…” Ever the master of sleight of hand.

Just when we thought we understood his current persona, it disappeared and was replaced by a new one that pointed us toward the next phase of his vision, which legions of artists followed, many without knowing he was the vanguard. That said, it was always about songwriting first, and surrounding himself with great players (John Lennon, Carlos Alomar, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp), some of whom he put on the map (Stevie Ray Vaughn). Bowie’s music has many phases, folk, arena, funk, electronica and, in the past few years, a genre of his own creation of which Blackstar is the apex. Dark moods with lovelorn lyrics using a slowed-down groove that somehow keeps the listener aloft.

One day in the summer of 1979 I went to the record store (The Record Joint in South Bend, IN) with the specific intent of buying some albums of music I was not familiar with. One record I came home with was David Bowie’s 1977 “Heroes” and I listened to its raw, slinky crunch over and over. Within a year, I had purchased everything he had recorded to date and was a FAN. To this day, I’ve anticipated new music from Bowie with the eagerness of a teen, and listening to Blackstar straight through last night with the knowledge that he was gone was an agony of mixed emotions.

There are very few artists about whom I’m convinced I could spend an hour with talking about life and not be disappointed, but David Bowie is at the top of the that list. Because as much as he put himself out there in so many formats, I believe that when the album was finished, or the show was over, Bowie shed his personae to reveal a self only the closest to him truly know.

“Life’s still a dream
Your love’s amazing
Since I found you
My life’s amazing

I pledge you
Never be blue
There’s too much at stake to be down

My nightmare
Rooted here watching you go
Divine in both, our lives”

David Bowie, “Amazing”

 

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David Bowie – The Next Day

Posted in Music with tags , , , , on March 12, 2013 by David McInerny

David-Bowie-The-Next-Day1What artist would use as a cover for a new album a defaced version of his most iconic cover from the peak of his popularity? Why, only David Bowie of course. The cover of his 1977 “Heroes” release has an ugly white square covering his face, with the words The Next Day placed in the box. The word “Heroes” is crudely blocked out. What an attention-getter, much like a fly in your ice cream, much like the lyrics he wrote some thirty-five years ago: “Baby, I’ve been breaking glass in your room again. Listen. Don’t look at the carpet, I wrote something awful on it. See?”

Bowie has never been formulaic. He created the otherworldly shock of Ziggy Stardust and promptly killed him off, leaving glam rock to carry on with Roxy Music and The New York Dolls. Then emerged the Thin White Duke, whose excesses nearly consumed Bowie, leaving him to craft a tango with heroin in the stark and frightening beauty of “Heroes.” He toyed with disco beats before the Bee Gees ever met John Travolta, and showed the punks how to raise emotions with a 4/4 beat, three chords and no reverb while Johnny Rotten was still learning to ride a bike. Even now, ten years after the release of Reality, Bowie’s willing to set fire to his musical past to get our attention. Even after the heart attack that the world assumed ended his career. Apparently David Bowie has something to say again, and he really wants us to listen.

It’s as if Major Tom emerged from his space capsule after a decade in the void and saw with horror that sections of the globe are still trying to annihilate each other.  He’s clearly not happy, but the tone of Bowie’s message is not dejected, or angry. It’s earnest and pleading, with the benefit of sixty-six years of experience and wisdom. He’s not asking anyone to agree, but simply stating what he clearly needs to say. “I’d rather be high, I’d rather be flying, I’d rather be dead, or out of my head, than training these guns on those men in the sand.”

But, and this is so “Bowie,” there is no lecturing or sacrifice of music for the sake of the “message.” One could ignore the lyrics and never know that “The Next Day”  is anything but an amazingly fresh and hip set of butt-wigglers from the master of edgy pop. As usual, the big drum beat is forward in the mix, the guitars cut and soar, and Bowie’s voice still has the range and power of Rebel Rebel. We have become accustomed to our ’70’s icons issuing endless greatest hits packages and launching one more “final” tour, but would we ever expect David Bowie to present anything other than a template for the path of pop music for the next few years? The Next Day, indeed.

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My Top 10 All-Time Favorite Concerts (so far)

Posted in Music, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2012 by David McInerny

No preamble necessary:

1. BOSTON, March 28, 1979, Notre Dame, IN – My second concert. Boston played their first two albums straight through – without a flaw.

2. PETER GABRIEL, November 20, 1982, Ann Arbor, MI – Peter sang his encore, “Biko,” on his back being passed hand over hand by the audience.

3. R.E.M., September 29, 1989, Notre Dame, IN – Michael Stipe was able to face the audience and sing, unlike when I saw them in 1982.

4. TODD RUNDGREN, April 16, 1992, Chicago, IL – Todd played with his new “band,” a Mac computer – pretty revolutionary for the time.

5. RADIOHEAD, August 1, 2001, Chicago, IL – The first of many shows for me, this one on the shore of Lake Michigan.

6. DAVID BOWIE, August 8, 2002, Chicago, IL – Bowie played most of Low on this tour, as well as the new and excellent Heathen album.

7. ROBERT PLANT, November 25, 2005, Munich, Germany – Told the kids they would grow up proud that they saw this show. They are.

8. MORRISSEY, May 23, 2007, Kansas City, MO – Front row thanks to my neighbor, Jenn. He’s one talented kook.

9. ROLLING STONES, August 26, 2007, London, England – Flew to see the show, then flew home. Their final concert? Hope not.

10. THE DEAD, May 10, 2009, San Jose, CA – Last show of a run I followed that summer. Three and a-half hours of ecstasy.

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David Bowie – Low and Heroes

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2012 by David McInerny

In 1977 David Bowie and Brian Eno escaped London for Berlin, ostensibly to try and kick their heroin addictions. Legend has it that Bowie barely remembered the making of 1976’s Station to Station – hard to believe considering how excellent it still is. Regardless, the two collaborated on what became the Berlin Trilogy – Low, Heroes and Lodger. These notes will comment on the first two albums, since I argue that, while the songs for Lodger where written during this period, they embarked on a new direction that culminated in my favorite Bowie album, Scary Monsters.

Low and Heroes are seminal gems of what was two years away from being new wave music, just as Diamond Dogs anticipated disco by four years. The difference in the Bowie efforts is that his albums are still infused with depth and feeling. Each album has an upbeat first side, with a second side of instrumentals strongly influenced by Eno’s ambient music. The songs are gripping, and Bowie has never written more soul-stirring lyrics. This is epitomized in the title track, “Heroes,” which describes a loving couple embracing while shots are fired over the Berlin Wall. The story has it that Bowie came upon his producer, Tony Visconti, and a studio girl kissing near the wall one night, and developed the lyrics from there.

You’ll also notice on both albums how the drum beat “pops.” Bowie claims to be the first to run the downbeat tape backwards, a trick used by endless numbers of punk and new wave bands over the following decade.

Let me provide a few kudos other than mine. Philip Glass, the famous classical composer, was so impressed by the Berlin Trilogy that he wrote a symphony based on the music lines of Low. In addition, this past week New Music Express (London’s Rolling Stone), named the song “Heroes” the #3 best song of the last sixty years. Now go out and discover!

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