David Bowie

[rick81]

Music video director Johan Renck was already thrilled to be working with his childhood hero last July on the title track of the diamond heist TV drama The Last Panthers that he had directed in England, when the British pop icon told him there was more to the tune they had just recorded. A lot more – a version that turned out to be Blackstar, the towering single from the album Bowie had been writing.

“I flew from London to New York and met with him at his office in Soho to listen to the full track. He put his hand on my shoulder and said with a grin – ‘I must warn you, it’s 10 minutes long’. There was no way I could say no. He had this warmth and this infectious smile and I knew it would be an interesting journey,” Renck said.

The two began a fiercely intense and, as it turned out, all too short collaboration.

“Over Skype he said ‘I feel I have to tell you this. I’m very ill and I may not make it’. I had been in this playful mood, pitching ideas back and forth with him like giddy 12-year-olds and I was absolutely shocked. He said: ‘I don’t even know if by the time we shoot this video you will have to have a replacement for me to perform in it’,” Renck said.

Bowie gave Renck no details of his cancer, only that he would be in cycles of treatment that meant he would have “my good periods and bad periods”, the director said. Bowie asked Renck not to tell a soul – this is the first time he has spoken publicly since Bowie’s death.

When Bowie and Renck came to shoot the video for Blackstar in September and, in November, the next single Lazarus, the mood was exuberant.

They shot Bowie performing for one day for each video and just five hours on those days in a studio in Brooklyn. That was all his health would take, Renck said.

Bowie wanted it to feature an isolated village, then Renck came up with the idea of rituals that mixed the occult with a celebration of life. Bowie also wanted a scarecrow in the video, Renck said, and sent Renck his sketch for the macabre character Button Eyes that he plays in both videos. The sketch showed a bandaged head, buttons for eyes and just a small strip of a Mohawk for hair.

“Bowie didn’t know if he would have hair left by the time of the shoot,” said Renck.

In fact he did, a splendid shock of silvery grey hair – though he had to be careful or it came out in tufts because of his cancer treatment.

Unlike the sweeping anthem Blackstar, Renck described Lazarus as a little gem. Bowie reappears as Button Eyes, tormented on a hospital bed.

“I just thought of it as the Biblical tale of Lazarus rising from the bed. In hindsight, he obviously saw it as the tale of a person in his last nights,” said Renck.

While working, Bowie talked of his family but kept himself quite private, while being very easygoing and friendly with the small crew that worked on the intimate shoot.

He would arrive so suave in suit and fedora and sip cups of tea, Renck said, Despite the warning, he did not realise the star was so gravely ill because he seemed so spritely while shooting. He would get tired and take breaks, Renck said, but he seemed so happy.

[Odradek]

Aladdin Sane consideratelo di più...

concordo su Alladdin Sane, un disco di una raffinatezza unica.

[Biascica]

A questo punto: a quando una retrospettiva bowie? Lavorone ma farebbe bene a molti; tipo me che non sono mai riuscito a farmelo "mio" negli ascolti.

[mark esitation]

Il periodo di Station to Station era noto per questa sua ossessione per le cose occulte e segrete, non è una novità

Here are we
One magical movement
from Kether to Malkuth
There are you
You drive like a demon
from station to station

comunque Station to Station > Heroes che abbiamo in classifica, propongo la sostituzione

no, non diciamo che la canzone Heroes è la peggiore perché non è così... Beauty and the Beast è urenda. Anche The Secret Life of Arabia è truzza.

Station to Station invece spacca tutto.

Ha perfettamente ragione AFX
Station to Station va rivalutato; per me può tranquillamente fare "compagnia" ai dischi della trilogia berlinese..e cmq. Da young americans a scary monsters si prende tutto in blocco.
spero in un box del periodo 1975-80 analogo a five years dello scorso.
Che dire sono scosso ed enormemente dispiaciuto per la sua morte...con l'uscita di un disco impossibile come ★... Dollar days non riesco ad ascoltarla mi fa commuovere

[rick81]

se volete il numero del NME speciale su Bowie GRATIS, si paga solo la spedizione che sono 2 sterline....io l'ho preso

http://www.banquetrecords.com/nme15jan

[rick81]

"...è andato tutto storto, ma avanti ancora ed ancora
Bere l'amaro calice fino alla fine che non finisce
Sto cadendo giù
Non crediate nemmeno per un secondo che vi abbia dimenticato
Sto morendo dalla voglia di...
Sto provando a...."
Dollar Days


un disco per noi

[AFX]

A questo punto: a quando una retrospettiva bowie? Lavorone ma farebbe bene a molti; tipo me che non sono mai riuscito a farmelo "mio" negli ascolti.

white stripes e R.E.M. dovrebbero venire prima, per i secondi abbiamo già qualcosa pronto.
Bowie... è dura perché tutti lo conoscono, e rischiamo di essere banali. Magari fra un un paio d'anni una ns. versione andrebbe fatta

[Starn]

se volete il numero del NME speciale su Bowie GRATIS, si paga solo la spedizione che sono 2 sterline....io l'ho preso

http://www.banquetrecords.com/nme15jan

Sold out! peccato.
Per quanto riguarda Outside anche nell'articolo di QUARTZ ne parlano in modo particolare:

[spoiler]“His exact words to me when we reconnected were, ‘Mike, I wasn’t happy with a lot of the commercial things I did in the ’80s. I was being pressured by the record company, and I ended up compromising my integrity. So what I would like to do now is this wild, improvised kind of album where I pick all the people who have been my strongest influences, to take me out of my comfort zone,’” says Garson. “He chose me, Reeves Gabrels, and he chose Brian Eno, and we went over to Montreux and we improved for hours a day. We just played and played and played. We could do whatever we wanted. Day after day it was the wildest kind of creativity you could ask for. That became the album Outside, which most people don’t know. He left us a lot of great music, and some of it people have never heard. Maybe now people will start looking at his back catalog. I sure hope so.”[/spoiler]

[Starn]

Un buon riassunto anche la recensione di Anthony Fantano che a volte ci prende pure:

[Decades]

Elegantissimo l'artwork di Blackstar