Tag Archives: David Bowie

Telling Lies

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Last night Tricky played a show at Irving Plaza. I told Roda about it, and he set about trying to get on the guest list. Yesterday he called and let me know. Unfortunately I had to be in early this morning so I could not go. I told him around noon. I found out a little before that, that one of our subtenants was having a meeting early enough for the need for me to be in and help out.

Roda understood the need to make some dosh, and I wished him a good evening. Around 10:00 I get some texts from Roda. CD info on Tricky’s latest, and the fact he had just taken a consonant or perhaps a vowel. I’m supportive and slightly envious and wish him a good time and an ecstatic trip.

A half hour later I get a phone call, a blast of overloaded digital white noise from Irving Plaza. It lasted 44 seconds before the line went out. Roda did get backstage and spoke with Tricky and mentioned Central Park from a few years ago. (Written as The Ghost in You last month) They wound up hanging out, Roda even going to the after party at a club nearby. Roda didn’t get home until 3:00AM. Yikes.

I went to bed after watching Cotton Hill’s bland speech. I have to say that Sarah Palin’s screeching was more rousing for those republicans. Most attack dogs do command attention after all. But once again I only listened slightly to McCrazy, paid more attention to an early birthday present from Annemarie and Co., John Lennon Rock ‘n’ Roll.

His covers record, which came out in 1975 and the last record before retirement. Of course it has a history. Lawsuits, Morris Levy and Phil Spector and May Pang, John and Apple/Capitol Records, contracts, car crashes, missing tapes. It’s all in there. It did ok, made the top ten in the US charts. It was said that he had run out of material, hence it being a covers album, but at the time it was a fashion to do fifties and sixties songs, like David Bowie did with Pin Ups.

Speaking of the Dame, I watched a YouTube clip of David on the Dick Cavett Show from 1975. Young Americans, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn. I had that as a cassette. Only liked the title song and Fame. Young Americans opened the tape and Fame ended it.

I guess I played those 2 songs so much that the rest of the tape was reverse, leaving me able to only play those two songs. I didn’t much like Bowie then except for those songs. The ‘cool’ kids liked Bowie and they were all smoking pot at age 12. I wasn’t ‘cool’, not for another 8 years.

I starting liking him when he started to lose some popularity with Low. He was getting too far out there and that’s where I got it. Still wasn’t too fond of Ziggy et al. I saw him on Broadway in The Elephant Man though in 1980 I believe.

Had 1st row seats and of course he was mesmerizing. The people behind us gave him flowers at the end of the show and he thought they were from me and my friends and thanked us so graciously.

A lot of years pass and I find myself working at Right Track Recording on west 48th Street. David is one of our clients. He was super nice and extremely personable. Just one of the guys, sitting across from my desk chatting about whatever it was like we were mates. I did feel a little bit like Karen Lynn Gorney from Saturday Night Fever.

Then I saw him a few weeks later at Madison Square Garden. I had never seen Bowie live and of course he was amazing though he shared the stage with Lou Reed, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan and Dave Grohl among others.

It was a birthday celebration with the guests covering a Bowie song and then duets with the Dame. A wonderful evening but not really a David Bowie show I guess. A special event nonetheless.

The next time I saw him at the studio, I had changed my perception of him. He wasn’t David Bowie anymore. After seeing him live, I saw him as DAVID BOWIE. It was an odd thing that I had to get over, since being star struck is a no no in the recording studio world.

He thought enough of me to autograph an advance cassette of the record he was working on, Earthling, which of course is one of my favorite Bowie records. Actually he gave me his copy of the cassette, then took it back saying that he ought to autograph it for me. Awfully nice. Asking for autographs is also frowned upon by the way.

Still have it, in fact if I turn my head, it’s within eyesight. He finished Earthling soon after that. He did ask my opinion since he heard I was a DJ, who would I recommend from the DJ world to remix a track or two? I drew a blank and told him I would get back to him in a few.

I called Rand and asked him since he was wise in the world of remixes. He threw out a few names, Josh Wink and a few others. I went back to David and told him who might be good and he basically didn’t like most of the names. I gave up.

It wasn’t until maybe a month later, did I realize that I could have probably suggested myself. He wasn’t going to ask me, but perhaps thought I might have the edge, the nerve, the cojones to promote myself.
But no, I didn’t.

D’oh.

Sniffy Dame(video pulled by EMI)

Kooks

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As expected, going back to work after such a grand time on Saturday was dreary. The weather was great and I listened to some tracks that I bought for the wedding but never played. Songs like Never Let me Down Again by Depeche Mode and I Got A Man by Positive K. We rapped along to I Got A Man on the way up in a driving rainstorm.

I bought it not only because it’s a funny song, but Lois had written a song called I Got A Man and I initially thought it was the same song. It wasn’t. Lois’ song was just as funny and fitting the occasion perfectly.

The bus ride was fine, sat and talked with Casey. Great guy. Really a chatty guy too and I’m surprised I could keep up despite the fact that I usually don’t talk to anyone in the morning, on the bus. We chatted about death this morning. His wife’s mother as well as my mother. Who knows what the people crowded around us think of our little chats. A few weeks ago it was political, today was death.

We parted ways at the bus terminal, made some loose plan to have drinks with him and his wife at McSwells someday, and I journeyed across town listening to ‘Heroes’ by David Bowie, another song I could have played at the wedding.

Got to the office, right on time and no one else was in the office. I did my drudgery which I don’t mind since they pay me nicely to do such things. People came in in dribs and drabs and soon I was off running to the bank and returning some audio cables that I bought to DJ with which I didn’t use. Luckily I kept the receipt and was able to get a full refund. Yay!

Another bright and sunny day and me trying to find shadows to walk down the street in. The morning passed and I remembered I was going to have lunch with Christina, my assistant from my Wanker Banker days.

She’s been having a bad year, unemployed and made some bad decisions employment-wise leaving her and her son to live with her mother in the Bronx. She showed up around 1:00 and I actually had lunch outside of the office which I rarely do.

We walked over to Second Avenue and decided on pizza which I really don’t eat as much as I used. Bill was going to order Grimaldi’s last night. They make the best pizza in Hoboken, but they were closed for vacation. A few years ago I would have known that.

Christina and I sat and ate and caught up. I told her to email me her resume and I would do my best to clean it up and make it look better. Working at a few staffing agencies helps with the resume game. A little padding here, the right turn of phrase there. It’s a lot like cruising sans sock in the pants.

The afternoon flew by and I was soon listening to Bowie singing Fame with John Lennon on backing vocals while I enjoyed a Padron. Walked through Bryant Park and saw hundreds of people on the edges of the lawn waiting to be able to stake out a spot to watch Lifeboat by Alfred Hitchcock.

Julio and I tried going to the film series there a few years ago but found it too crowded and I was snubbed by a neckbone giving free stuff away from City Search.com so we left with me grumbling. Never tried to catch another film there again.

And why should I? You have to wait there for three hours for the sun to go down so the movie could begin. And I have better things to do with my time.

Like writing this blog.

Yesterday’s clouds

The crotch to car trick

Archeology Today