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David Bowie

130 replies

paellaandpies · 03/08/2020 00:28

I’ve never really listened to him much, because my parents weren’t fans, and so he just wasn’t on my radar when growing up. But I was lucky enough to see him live at a festival once, and he was absolutely electric onstage, and I can see how loved he is. However, I have never got into any of his stuff, and I feel perhaps I am missing out... am I?

So, any Bowie fans, what would you recommend for someone just starting to listen to him? Anything in particular? Chronological or start with the famous hits?

Thank you!

OP posts:
DrCoconut · 03/08/2020 16:03

In the 90's I had two different friends who had sex with a friend of their dad while still in year 10. In one case the dad knew. We all thought it was grim but no one reported it. It was seen as their business and they had done it "voluntarily". Ideas about consent were not the same at all. I'm fairly sure people would report now as safeguarding is so much more prominent. Likewise on a youth club trip one of the girls had an encounter with a leader. That did end up with him being disciplined at work though but mainly because her parents played merry hell when they found out. I suspect it would have been hushed up if they had not pursued it. Even 25 years ago standards were different. It doesn't make those things ok, far from it, but it does make evaluating them through a modern lens difficult. I can guarantee that in another 20 or 50 years time some of our norms will be considered shocking.

Fluffybutter · 03/08/2020 16:07

They’re all brilliant but Lazarus gives me goosebumps

CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/08/2020 16:24

Not keen on how he treated Mick Ronson and the others during and after the Ziggy years. I thought that.. and then read a more recent piece, a publication of an 80s interview. Apparently Ronson and Bowie both had idea about leaving the Ziggy tour. Ronson wanted to start his own band, strike whilst his fame was hot enough to get a good solo deal but he was worried about telling Bowie. Bowie wanted to stop Ziggying as it had grown a life if its own. They were both worried about letting each other down.

Ronson's initial band included some of the others in the band. But he then hooked up with Ian Hunter and was a silent collaborator in some pretty amazing stuff - like Dylan's band and producing Morrisey - and wandered in and out of Bowie's recordings over the next decade or so! So it could be that the estrangement was them both having other things to be done.. and Bowie always moved on, shedding and collecting band members as he went!

But I still remain perplexed by Bowie not helping out when Rnson became ill and then died. Why Steve Harley?

As for the Baby Groupies (don't blame me for that stupid name) they were blighted by many things in their lives, mostly parents who didn't give a shit. That's why they were in nightclubs aged 13 or 14, looking for men their rich and uncaring parents would hate! With fake ID, outrageous glam outfits and an attitude that still shocks, they were active participants. It's hard to see why anyone would NOT be shocked, but looking at the pictures of the time, it's equally obvious that "The past is a very different country"!

Hingeandbracket · 03/08/2020 17:37

Of course I wasn't there, but, according to Trevor Bolder they got paid very little for all the work they did with Bowie. On the US tour Bowie travelled first class - they were in cattle. A bit mean for that stage of his career - at that point, in my estimation, they were very much helping to construct Bowie's career. The thing about Ronson having an idea to quit was apparently due to a producer's promise of a solo career that never happened - so not directly Bowie's fault, but he could have made up for it later.
As for the others, Trevor said they just found out suddenly they went from badly paid extras to out of work without any warning.

As for the Baby Groupies (don't blame me for that stupid name) they were blighted by many things in their lives, mostly parents who didn't give a shit. That's why they were in nightclubs aged 13 or 14, looking for men their rich and uncaring parents would hate! With fake ID

Er no, in those days (I am 58) we didn't carry "ID" fake or otherwise. Fake ID is a relatively recent idea imported from the USA.

fatgirlslimmer · 03/08/2020 18:51

Er no, in those days (I am 58) we didn't carry "ID" fake or otherwise. Fake ID is a relatively recent idea imported from the USA.

In those days I did carry fake ID, technology wasn’t what it is now and it wasn’t hard to fake it, plus it wasn’t scrutinised, I’m sure the gatekeepers knew it was fake.

I wasn’t neglected or a groupie and I didn’t shag rockstars but I did access places I was too young to be in.

Brefugee · 03/08/2020 19:34

what kind of ID did you have? the nearest thing we ever had was a provisional driving licence, without photo.

Generally if anyone wanted to check our age they asked us when we were born, so we all had fake birthdays pretty much memorised.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/08/2020 20:04

Er no, in those days (I am 58) we didn't carry "ID" fake or otherwise. Fake ID is a relatively recent idea imported from the USA. Maybe they lied in their autobiographies and later interviews then!

But, also in my 50s, carrying fake ID was nothing new to me in my mid teens and in America, where ID is more formal, even less unusual!

Tellmetruth4 · 03/08/2020 20:36

I’ll just leave this picture of him and Iman here. What a hot couple!

external-preview.redd.it/OaHKB6H1ByCoE2dlmTfNBDIr1xzFBYopYAdjRTapgY4.jpg?auto=webp&s=75ae8b879bed026183b2aac37730a1176cff3b62

speakout · 03/08/2020 21:06

I’ll just leave this picture of him and Iman here. What a hot couple!

What a grim and greasy photo- Bowie looks like he has a bag of veg down the front of his budgie smugglers.

Toiletrollbuyer · 03/08/2020 21:14

Download the labyrinth soundtrack. There are a few wonderful tracks on there. Aside from that, life on Mars is one of the finest songs ever written. Nik Kershaw did a brilliant cover version after Bowie’s death which is a ‘must listen’ you can find it on YouTube.

dayswithaY · 03/08/2020 21:35

That photo! He has definitely enhanced his "area" hasn't he!

HoppingPavlova · 04/08/2020 03:31

Er no, in those days (I am 58) we didn't carry "ID" fake or otherwise. Fake ID is a relatively recent idea imported from the USA.

I’m a similar vintage and we certainly had ID’s that we had to show here. Essentially it was a paper copy of a drivers permit, no photo. So people’s older siblings would just go down and say that they lost theirs/it went through the wash etc and would be issued a new one on the spot. You could do this as many times as you liked, reissuing was not even recorded (as nothing on computers back then). So as long as you organised it so no one in the group going out had the same fake ID it worked. You were either let through (they knew it was fake and didn’t give a shit) or they challenged you and asked name/dob/star sign/address/post code and what your neighbouring suburb was etc. So you did have to be across it but it was all very doable.

SilverOnToast · 04/08/2020 03:48

I loved Labyrinth as a teen, but if you get a chance, watch the film Troop Zero on Netflix. Set in rural Georgia, which feels like an unusual place to hear Bowie, but also oddly appropriate. We really loved it and it’s a great introduction and homage to Bowie‘s music, I think.

Nandakanda · 04/08/2020 10:41

@dayswithaY

That photo! He has definitely enhanced his "area" hasn't he!
If contemporary accounts are to be believed, no...
Brefugee · 04/08/2020 11:11

I’m a similar vintage and we certainly had ID’s that we had to show here.

where is "here"? We had absolutely nothing aside of maybe your bus pass (under 18s only mostly, for school) with a photo or anything with your dob on it.

Hingeandbracket · 04/08/2020 11:17

@HoppingPavlova

Er no, in those days (I am 58) we didn't carry "ID" fake or otherwise. Fake ID is a relatively recent idea imported from the USA.

I’m a similar vintage and we certainly had ID’s that we had to show here. Essentially it was a paper copy of a drivers permit, no photo. So people’s older siblings would just go down and say that they lost theirs/it went through the wash etc and would be issued a new one on the spot. You could do this as many times as you liked, reissuing was not even recorded (as nothing on computers back then). So as long as you organised it so no one in the group going out had the same fake ID it worked. You were either let through (they knew it was fake and didn’t give a shit) or they challenged you and asked name/dob/star sign/address/post code and what your neighbouring suburb was etc. So you did have to be across it but it was all very doable.

I assume this wasn't in the UK - there was no UK equivalent.

Growing up (as I did) in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the English Midlands there was no concept of "ID". As a PP said, bouncers etc would just ask for a date of birth.

As another PP mentioned - we didn't have photo driving licences at the time - we didn't get those in the UK until the late 1990s -

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/137238.stm

cnoccnoc · 05/08/2020 10:26

I've always liked Bowie music, almost anything from his 70s work. Such variety, change, etc.

It's horrible to look back on some of these stories of Bowie, Jagger, Page, etc. And as posters point out, it was also a lot of people in that larger circle too, promoters, press, etc.

I don't know if it is different now? I hope so...but...

I recently posted on another thread about my experiences with a GP many years ago in Cork Ireland. At the time I (or friends) did not think anything very strange about his behavior, it didn't feel creepy, but looking back now I am not happy.

Here is that thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/craicnet/3982581-elderly-alzheimer-patient-raped-in-care-home

HoppingPavlova · 05/08/2020 14:47

I assume this wasn't in the UK - there was no UK equivalent.

No, not the UK. Australia. Point being, maybe the UK may not have had a system where you had to go to the effort of getting a fake ID if you wanted to be in a place/situation with the likelihood of fucking a rock star, but a lot of other places in the world did back then.

TheUnquestionedAnswer · 09/08/2020 00:06

I'm a massive bowie fan, but have never heard/read about allegations of rape. I am sure if it happened we would have known about it.

Oh and as I teen, I definitely would have.

speakout · 09/08/2020 06:17

I am also late 50s.
There was no concept of ID for teenagers when I was growing up. It wasn't that common for teens ( you had to be 17 ) to have a provisional drivers licence either, driving was an expensive thing to do and not many families had cars. Not many people had passports either- sover unusual for teens to have ID.

CaptainMyCaptain · 09/08/2020 06:49

@Brefugee

what kind of ID did you have? the nearest thing we ever had was a provisional driving licence, without photo.

Generally if anyone wanted to check our age they asked us when we were born, so we all had fake birthdays pretty much memorised.

Agreed. There was no ID in the 70s. I didn't even have a driving licence until my 20s.

And I would probably have sagged Bowie when I was 15. It would have been a bad idea but we really did have different ideas in 1970.

CaptainMyCaptain · 09/08/2020 06:50

Shagged.

ScreamingBeans · 09/08/2020 07:31

"I must have missed the court case. "

Like the Jimmy Savile one?

That's the point isn't it, there were never any court cases and there never would have been because it simply never occurred to anyone that these young girls had a right to be protected and that these young men had any duty of care to not shag children.

Pixilicious · 09/08/2020 07:33

@Bongorave me too. Can’t listen to him at all knowing that.

speakout · 09/08/2020 07:52

Can’t listen to him at all knowing that.

Same here. If I hear him sing the first thing that pops into my head is the abuse- and it makes for unpleasant thoughts.

Same with Gary glitter or Freddie Mercury.
In fact the whole glam rock thing was very seedy, I grew up in that era and disliked it all then too.