David Bowie turned 66 this week and released his first single in a decade. I haven’t paid much attention to his career for the last twenty years. Scary Monsters seemed to be the last great disc. I gave every record a listen a moved on fairly quickly. Looking for these videos last night I watched a bunch of live footage from across the years and he always puts on an awesome show. I don’t hate the new song. It has a groove and seems reminiscent of late Scott Walker someone I love and that Bowie was highly influenced by.
I didn’t get crazy into Bowie until I was working at The Bottom Line,in Greenwich Village, when I was eighteen. A fellow employee turned me on to Station to Station at exactly the right moment and it accompanied me on some of my wildest forays. You can hear in the opening of Station to Station exactly where my head was head in 1980-81. Adrian Belew, one of my favorite guitarists, is going mental in the introduction.
I figured to put up one song from each side and the second video is from a rehearsal of an earlier tour and just amazing. I know I am a fan of hyperbole and all but he was/is the coolest. Everything about him worked for me at that time, the clothes, the makeup, the androgyny. I was in love with my first girlfriend and I was in love with David Bowie at a time when confusion was the order of the day.
http://youtu.be/EEWgIzm7F2U?t=1s