At a young age I found I liked to listen to David Bowie ... I was always drawn to flamboyant sorts. I was at secondary school age 12 listening to Bowie , southern Death Cult ,cure , Velvet Underground ,Blondie Marillion. So was considered a right weirdo as the other girls liked boy bands.. I do still enjoy Bowies early stuff .. Obviously Ziggy and Diamond Dogs is my fav album . I watched the documentary on him (1974)tonight Cracked Actor and for someone who has such vision and flamboyance and reinvented himself over and over .. I've never really looked beyond the music. I was left quite dis enchanted . I couldn't warm to him Love the music ( not newer stuff have to say ) but the man came across really cold.... He was one of my if you had 5 you'd like to sit at your dinner table not now. But still love that early stuff
Very true ..... And actually someone I probably would have warmed to... Very very underrated musician . I still listen to Nirvana today .. Another Piscean who felt too much ..and battled with themself I can relate to that ....
I got involved in a bit of security work with Bowie and his Tin Machine project around 1990, until I smashed my bike up and ended up in hospital. To be honest I found him to be a grade A twat, although I quite liked the music. Seems no-one else did, though.
I like his later stuff too, Earthling, Outside and Reality are all really good. Favourite album though is Man Who Sold The World. His latest album The Next Day is good but the sleeve design is a real cop out. Haven't watched Cracked Actor yet, perhaps I won't.
Meanwhile, back at the "musical genius" bit of thr thread... John Otway - massively under-rated as a lyric writer ( apart from "Beware of the flowers" which came 7th in a poll of all time favourite songs in the UK, only one place behind John Lennon's "Imagine" ). I have always thought that Ian Francis Killminster is also vastly under-rated as a songwriter... And as far as musical geniuses go - I don't care that Slash is a poodle-haired, top hat wearing weirdo from Stoke, anyone who wrote guitar lines to "Sweet child of mine" is fine by me !
Otway is great ... Mr Killminster .... Is genius I'd love to have a drink with him as he is what he is and what you see is what you get . He takes no crap and just lives as he wants to live ... I'm reading " white lines " at the mo
Interesting, I've been fortunate enough to see Bowie a couple of times live, and found him to be truly scary, his 'presence' is really in the league of 'fuck me you're a scary bastard' great showman, great performer, enormous onstage persona. Would I want to meet him in real life? Yeah, only to be proved wrong really. The only other person who I've seen live with that sort of truly larger than life persona was BB King. But for totally different reasons. The man just exuded warmth, love and fluffy bunnies. Wonderful Human Being. It's strange how over the years and the literally hundreds of bands I've seen, those two still stick out as something otherworldly, both truly remarkable.
Two David Bowie anecdotes: In the early 80s, he had a house in Lausanne. My wife spotted him in town, went up and suggested they had a coffee in a nearby café. He accepted and they had a coffee and a chat and he was charming. I attended French classes at Lausanne Uni and there was a Scottish vicar in the class (rather older than the rest of us), who looked after the Presbyterian church in Lausanne. He found out that Bowie was almost a neighbour of his, so "as they were both Brits, wouldn't Bowie like to pop over for a cup of tea some time?" Amazingly, Bowie took him up on the offer and came round to his kitchen for a cuppa, a short time later. It should be said that maybe Bowie was often at a loose end in Lausanne. He sold his house there because he found it a bit quiet. Well, it's not exactly Berlin, NYC or London. A good deal more interesting than Leicester or Northampton, but then Bowie never bought a house there to the best of my knowledge. I would have thought that Mel would have voted for Robert Smith as a musical genius. He's closer to it in my book. Bowie is a showman genius.
I think figaro's comments neatly illustrate the fact that "you never get a second chance to make a first impression"...
