Moondust will cover you

[gwyn]

Friday I was in the car a lot, and listening to a radio station here in Seattle called KEXP, which is listener supported and plays the most amazing music. People are always asking me how I find such cool stuff for vids, and a lot of it came from KEXP (they stream online, and I highly recommend the station). Friday was Bowie day, in honor of his birthday and the release of his new album. They had dug up such rare treasures, and cuts you usually don't hear, and talked facts, a lot of which I'd never even heard about in the stuff I bought at the V&A Bowie exhibit a couple years ago. I was happy to be trapped in the car, for once. (And it reminded me of listening a few years ago, when that DJ played "Life on Mars" followed by Flight of the Conchords' "Bowie," and I nearly lost it at the sheer genius of that.)

For me, Bowie will always be a memory that's still so crystal in my mind it's like it was yesterday: a bunch of us kids downstairs in our terrible basement in our house at the end of the airport runway, three white kids and two black kids and one black-Samoan kid playing pool on our broken table, and a song comes on the radio. It doesn't sound like anything else I've ever heard, and everyone's talking and playing, but I stand there with my cue stick frozen in the air, listening, and the guy on the song is singing about "these children that you spit on as they try to change their world" and I'm looking at my friends, my little multicultural group of friends and feeling like someone was singing about us, and knowing, "Yes, this. This is that."

Comments

[alchemise]

I think the thing I'll always love most about Bowie is that his music touched so many different people. We all found something in him that spoke to us and that's truly extraordinary. ♥

[gwyn]

Yes, this. <3

[sperrywink]

That's an awesome memory of Bowie! Different experience, but your captivation reminds me of the first time I heard the Beatles as a kid. I was blown away.

[gwyn]

Yeah, one of the things about being an Old is that much of my life was actually spent with Bowie in it, discovering all his new things for the first time with other people. You never new what could happen next!

[kore]

KEXP is still pretty awesome. And that's a great memory, I think he would have loved it.

[gwyn]

I saw something tonight that said something like "whatever that weird thing is you like to do, you should do it, because he would have liked that." And I think, yeah, he would have. He would like knowing that millions of people were walking out into the water to that spot just where they couldn't feel their feet touch bottom, and go out past that edge.

[kore]

That's a beautiful way to put it. Yes.

[sakana17]

I wish I had a crystal clear memory of my first exposure to Bowie, but I don't, sadly. I had seen photos of him for a long time before I heard his music. My older sister had posters of the "Low" and "Young Americans" album covers, but I probably heard his music -- through the door to my sister's room -- before that. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I think she had a poster of that famous photo of David and Angie in Ziggy Stardust make-up.

I read your comment to ranalore and I had a similar reaction. While I was waiting for the train today, I couldn't understand why everyone on the platform wasn't hugging and sharing Bowie memories, or why the train wasn't filled with Bowie's music. It just didn't make sense.

[gwyn]

I think it helped that it was contemporary, you know? That thing where something comes bursting out of the gate, and it's SO DIFFERENT that you can't help really noticing the world around you. I mean, there was kind of a set sort of style with music at the time, in spite of the experimentation going on with people like the Who and the Kinks. But Changes--that was just...there was nothing else like it. I think people just don't get the level of influence he had. they just have no idea how much stuff they like wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Mr. Jones.

[monanotlisa]

<3

I listened to Bowie all day long on Spotify; it made me both sad and happy.

My youth memories of him aren't that clear -- Under Pressure; This Is Not America; Modern Love -- but later on, from the end of the nineties into the early millennium...yeah.

[gwyn]

I might do that tomorrow, myself.

I think part of the reason my memory of that is so clear is that I'm sort of a contemporary (obviously younger, but still around)--there was a lot of experimentation in music in the early '70s, but nothing, nothing like that. So it crystalizes in your mind, because you're hearing something for the first time with the whole rest of the world, rather than later when there's some history for it. I just knew that it was utterly unique and I wanted more.

[alba17]

What a sweet story. I had a Bowie period when I was a teenager (long ago).

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

{{{{hugs you and cries}}}}

I remember where I was and who I was with the first time I saw David Bowie and heard him sing. It was "Blue Jean," because I didn't have a real radio station (or cable) where I grew up and had to wait for MTV at a friend's house. We just kind of stared, mesmerized, and I went and bought the 45 that weekend.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I also remembered this time I was at a college party, and someone had a TV on in some room, and a bunch of us were just standing there staring, unbelieving, at him performing in a skirt or a WAC uniform or something. I didn't even know you could DO that. Amazing.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

♥

[vagabondage.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Thank you for sharing that beautiful memory.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

{{{hugs you back}}}