❚ THERE’S A BREATHLESS FOUR-PARAGRAPH teaser online at Rolling Stone magazine’s website in an attempt to sell the February 2 issue. It’s headlined How David Bowie Changed The World. Yet it promises nothing we haven’t read a million times before. Instead, try our own tribute on Bowie’s 65th birthday, linked further down this post.
➢ Here’s the best Rolling Stone can find to say about Bowie:
“ He phoned Angela in London, asking for her help: witches intended for him to impregnate one during Walpurgis Night. He later said Satan was living in his indoor swimming pool. David needed an exorcism (“I really walked into other worlds,” he later said), and Angela got him one – though it was by way of a long-distance phone call. “David was never insane,” Angela wrote. “The really crazy stuff coincided precisely with his ingestion of enormous amounts of cocaine, alcohol and whatever other drugs.” In any event, the rite may have helped break Bowie’s fear of a fiend possessing him. “It was time to get out of this terrible lifestyle I’d put myself into, and get healthy,” he later said. “It was time to pull myself together ” … / Continued online at Rolling Stone
❏ Update Feb 8: Now this Bowie issue has reached the UK, Mikal Gilmore’s account of the Ziggy phenomenon proves a workmanlike retelling of the familiar, but is oh-so relentlessly downbeat. He even cites an alleged quotation from 1998: Bowie is supposed to have said that, “Without Iman, I’d have put my head in the oven by now”. It’s a cheap shot because the quote has never been attributed, so counts for nothing more than hearsay. Rolling Stone claims a circulation of 1.45m.
➢ Here’s what Shapersofthe80s had to say on his recent birthday:
“ As a cultural lightning rod Bowie has bequeathed insights into the realm of the imagination. As a performer he has delivered a repertoire of life-skills through a cast of mythical personalities invented for himself as a popstar, from the self-destructive Ziggy Stardust and the amoral Thin White Duke, to his romanticised “Heroes” (his own quote marks added to emphasise self-awareness). Through their formative years, Bowie invited his acolytes to do A…. and B…. and C…. ” / Read on to discover what
➢ Try also Strange Fascination by David Buckley (2005) — “One of the most authoritative Bowie books you’re ever likely to read” (Mojo)
➢ The Complete David Bowie, by Nicholas Pegg (2011) — “I can’t imagine how this book could be better… the definitive read for Bowiephiles” (Uncut)
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 