Real Life has interfered with my blogging. The good news is that I have 10 or so mixes ready to pop once I find the time to publish.
Real Life has included rebuilding our home server after the system drive and a drive in the storage pool failed, work, rebuilding my significant other’s PC after her system drive failed, work, a trip down south to attend my favourite auntie’s funeral, work, listening to music on my phone now that I have loaded it up with music appreciation apps (from Spotify, Grooveshark, Daytrotter, NPR’s All Songs Considered, KEXP, Hype! Machine, and my own tunes sych’ed from Itunes using Doubletwist) and organising my daughter’s trip to Paris and her minor ‘op.
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Meanwhile. On TV.
I am old enough to remember Station to Station and Heros coming out in 1977 and Lodger in 1978. The Stooges and punk to the left, Bowie to the right. I then climbed into Ziggy Stardust (1972) and Diamond Dogs (1974). I lost interest after that point, but once a Bowie fan, always a Bowie fan.
Channel Four has just aired a doco on Bowie’s early years (up to Ziggy Stardust). Bowie doesn’t appear to have cooperated, but it’s still good telly. The thin white duke comes across as staunch and focussed. He fired the Spiders from Mars without any prior warning.
I would like to know more of his time in Berlin, mixing it up with the Germans practicing Krautrock and his collaboration with Brian Eno. Perhaps next time.
David Bowie and the Story of Ziggy Stardust
Meanwhile, Julien Temple has made a sweet doco about the start of pub rock and Dr Feelgood, the band that laid the foundation for the punk bands that followed soon after. As with all good doco’s, the story works because of the focus on people and place; Wilko Johnson on guitar and the singer Lee Brilleaux and their hometown, Canvey Island. Temple uses UK films of the period to good effect.