'Rebel Rebel'

I miss him so much, David Bowie.

'Stay'

I've probably posted this video before, but not this version, featuring famed session guitarist Andrian Belew. (Yep. Searching the blog brings up this ten-year-old post, "'Cause You Can Never Really Tell When Somebody...", where I discuss my music blogging at the time.)

Well, I don't commute to work anymore (during the continuing state school lock-down), so my normal "drive-time" music blogging is all messed up, lol. 

I probably just hang out in my Challenger now more nowadays, and I'll just listen to songs on YouTube. (I don't have satellite radio, which my wife reminds me about constantly.) I was also listening to music on Pandora over the summer (my sister, Chris, up in Boise, plays it while she's cooking). I'm not into subscription music services, though, so if I can get fine classic rock radio, I'm good. I've been recently sampling 95.5 KLOS Los Angeles. It's been around for decades, but I never liked it as much as KMET (the "Mighty Met"), but that station's ancient history. 

In any case, more on Bowie at the Guardian U.K., "My favourite album: Our writers are picking their favourite albums. Here, Alex Needham takes a journey through 'Station to Station'."

Celebrate David Bowie's Birthday

At Boing Boing, "Happy Bowiemas! Celebrate by listening to Bowie yucking it up impersonating other singers."

I miss him.

'Under Pressure'

From Tuesday's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, Queen and David Bowie:

Sweet Dreams
EURYTHMICS
6:31am

Small Town
John Mellencamp
6:20am

Just Like Heaven
Cure
6:17am

Jane Says
Jane's Addiction
6:12am

Start Me Up
Rolling Stones
6:09am

Under Pressure
Queen & David Bowie
6:05am

The Middle
Jimmy Eat World
6:02am

Crazy Train
Ozzy Osbourne
5:55am

'Little Drummer Boy (Peace on Earth)'

Sweet Christmas music, via Blazing Cat Fur:

Deal of the Day: More Than 25% Off Select Bandolino Women's Boots

At Amazon, Bandolino Women's Boots.

Also, from David Bowie, Blackstar and Best of Bowie.

Plus, David Bowie Black Book.

BONUS: From Wendy Leigh, Bowie: The Biography.

David Bowie Releases 27th Album 'Blackstar' on His 69th Birthday (VIDEO)

Happy birthday to David Bowie.

Interesting that he released "Lazarus" as one of the top singles from the new album, Blackstar.

Here's the review, at Telegraph UK, "David Bowie, Blackstar, review: 'extraordinary'."

And at London's Daily Telegraph, "At 69, birthday boy Bowie's funky, fun and fabulous: ADRIAN THRILLS says latest album Blackstar tears up the rulebook again."

Lazarus indeed.

More, at Vogue, "David Bowie’s Birthday Suit Is the Ultimate in British Gent Style."

"'Cause you can never really tell when somebody..."

The Sound L.A. recently launched "Mark in the Morning," which features Mark Thompson, formerly of "The Mark & Brian Show" on KLOS. It's a talk show. He doesn't play a lot of music. So I've been listening to CDs in my van. I've got some that have been sitting in the glove box for at least a decade. I don't use them that much. But I pulled out Bowie's greatest hits album "Best of Bowie," and looking for "Stay" on the B-side I was shocked to recall that it wasn't included. So I listened around for a few versions on YouTube. They're all good (the Dinah Shore show performance is a classic). But this clip below showcasing Earl Slick's phenomenal guitar work is simply spectacular.

I'm off for my long teaching Thursday. Enjoy. I'll be back to blogging tonight.



Also at Gibson's website, "Heroes: A History of David Bowie’s Amazing Guitarists."

David Bowie Promises: 'More Music Soon'

At the Independent UK, "David Bowie has promised new music 'soon'."

He's back... http://t.co/sgiciT5XnC pic.twitter.com/WF5of4fOY2

— The Independent (@Independent) July 17, 2014

David Bowie's New Album

An upbeat and positive review and commentary on Bowie's new album, "The Next Day," from Robert Dean Lurie, at National Review, "Throwing Shadows":

As 2013 rolled around, very few people could have reasonably expected anything new from David Bowie. Rumors of ill health had flitted about for years, and even many of his former associates had assumed he’d retired. Then, on January 8, a new single appeared on iTunes, along with an announcement of the imminent release of The Next Day. It was one of the most exquisite sneak attacks in the history of rock. And with the excitement came speculation: Which Bowie would we get this time?

David Bowie’s current image, as it turns out, is no image. He has refused all new interview requests. He has ruled out a tour. The album’s artwork consists simply of the cover of his earlier release Heroes with the singer’s face blocked out by an empty white square. At age 66, Bowie has made possibly his most outrageous move yet: He has finally gotten out of the way of his music, and in so doing has brought a little bit of mystery back into pop culture. While everybody else has a reality show, David Bowie has a white square where his head should be.

He can get away with this because The Next Day is an honest-to-God album, meant to be listened to as one piece rather than as a scattered collection of iTunes downloads. In this sense it is both archaic and forward-looking — its very existence is a sign, or a hopeful prediction, of some kind of return to craftsmanship in popular music. We’ve already seen harbingers of this in the success of Adele’s album 21 and the resurgent popularity of “roots” music among younger listeners; people are once again responding to music that sounds real. The Next Day, even with its freaked-out guitars and fuzzy synths, feels similarly authentic: It is refreshingly free of any discernible loops or electronic drums; the vocals have not been strangled by Auto-Tune; none of the musicians e-mailed their parts in from distant locales. It sounds like what it is: a small group of people working closely together in a studio, tracking much of the music live.

RTWT.

Who is David Bowie?

At the Guardian UK, "As a blockbuster exhibition, David Bowie is, gets under way at the V&A, Sean O'Hagan dissects the pop icon's influences – and reveals the ideas behind four of his key alter egos":

"From the very beginning, I always saw David as a star in the way that James Dean or Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland were stars. He was an actor, essentially. He soaked up whatever was in the air to create his characters, then he became those characters in his songs and his performances, and even offstage. Sometimes, you'd have Ziggy Stardust in the taxi with you and you didn't know what to do with it and it was pretty powerful."

Mick "Woody" Woodmansey is recalling the heady and sometimes unsettling time when he had a brief supporting role in the making of pop history. From 1970 to 1973, he played drums in the Spiders for Mars, the band that helped David Bowie redefine what it was to be a pop star, what a pop song and a live performance could express. He was there behind his drum kit, dressed in a pink lamé top and matching trousers, when Bowie, in a multicoloured jumpsuit and red wrestling boots, sang Starman on Top of the Pops on a Thursday evening in July 1972. For a generation in waiting, the "starman" was David Bowie himself: alien, decadent and liberating.

The piece continues with a video from that performance.

Continue reading here.

I just love Bowie. He stopped touring for health reasons and I have no idea if he's planning any concerts. I can't help but thinking his new release is a swan song of some sort, although I hope not.

RELATED: At the Hollywood Reporter, "BBC to Screen Feature-Length David Bowie Doc."

David Bowie Releases New Single, 'Where Are We Now?'

At Telegraph UK, "David Bowie releases first single in decade."

Bowie's press handlers deny the singer's had health problems. Bowie's not played live since 2006. I saw Bowie most recently, with Moby, Busta Rhymes and Blue Man Group, (way) back in 2002, at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater. Seems so long ago now.

Café Royal's Reopening

At the Los Angeles Times, "Where Oscar Wilde hallucinated and Bowie partied, a hotel is born":

London’s Café Royal, born in 1865 and reborn through the decades as a party place where Oscar Wilde hallucinated on absinthe and David Bowie celebrated the “retirement” of his alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust, is about to be reborn again. In its new life, the Café Royal will be a luxury hotel that mingles historical gravitas with contemporary interior design.

The new Café Royal, due to open Dec. 1 after a four-year closure for revamping, includes 159 guest rooms, two fancy restaurants, a brasserie, an indoor pool and a spa. Oh yes, and a café.

Continue reading.

David Bowie Spotted in New York

He quit touring in 2004 after having a heart attack during his final performance of the Ziggy Stardust encore. I saw him perform in Irvine for that tour. I'm glad he's taking it easy nowadays.

See Telegraph UK, "Reclusive David Bowie spotted on rare public outing":

The reclusive singer David Bowie has been pictured in New York on a rare public outing dressed in cap, shades and hooded top, bearing little resemblance to the fashion icon of the 1970s.

The reclusive singer David Bowie has been pictured in New York on a rare public outing dressed in cap, shades and hooded top, bearing little resemblance to the fashion icon of the 1970s.

Bowie lives in a large Lower-Manhattan apartment with his ex-model wife Iman and daughter Lexi and has been almost invisible since suffering a major heart attack during a jinxed 2004 tour.