Apocalyptica Heroes
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations
I made a post a few days ago featuring Till Lindemann fronting Apocalyptica doing ‘Helden’. That got me fascinated. That led me to stumbling on this gem:
FOUR CELLOS?
Okay, so these guys are sitting around the garage wondering how they’re going to make it in the music industry. It’s pretty cut-throat and unforgiving. So, one of the guys says “Hey! I got it! We’ll do industrial metal with ONLY CELLOS!” Apparently the other guys thought this was so brilliant they jumped right on board.
Genius! I LOVE THEIR SOUND! Will definitely be checking out more of their stuff. However, it may be a while. I just can’t seem to tear myself from the Till version.
Now you may be getting a sample of what I DO like. I love creativity. This, folks, is way up there!
Tags: apocalyptica, bowie, cellos, helden, heroes, industrial metal, live
Dang upgrades
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Uncategorized
Apparently the new Wordpress update is kinda harsh on the theme I”m using here. Bear with me while I update the theme to something more compatible.
Give up the funk?
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations
This is just mind-blowing to me:
“I remember there was a rock and roll band in Las Vegas that was supposed to be playing the blues and they came in there with jeans on playing funk,” Clinton says about seeing David Bowie in the 1970s. “I remember they were up there singing, ‘Fame, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh duh. ‘Weeks later I wanted that shit back, and that’s when I wrote “We Want the Funk.””
Man, I LOVE that era P/Funk! Bowie’s version of it I was never too keen on. I would much have preferred to have had two more years of the glam stuff than the two years he spent doing Young Americans. Once he returned to being the Thin White Duke, things started getting better. Quite frankly, he just wasn’t truly funked. However, George Clinton most definitely is all funked up. Tear the Roof off the Sucker is great, Flashilight even greater, and Atomic Dog even greatest. And, to think some skinny white boy with red hair got all George Clinton all funked up is pretty amazing to me! Yeah, that’s taking it too far, but hey!
Tags: 1970s, atomic-dog, david bowie, flashlight, funkadelic, george clinton, parliament, pin ups, tear-the-roof-off, thin white duke, young-americans
Greatest, gayest, album of all time?
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations
A while back I did a post on “Bands that make you gay“. It was a fairly all-reaching list that included pretty much anyone that ever recorded a song. Bowie didn’t fair too well on that list. However, once one of those bands has made you gay, Bowie apparently fairs much better. According to Out magazine, the greatest, gayest, album of all time is Ziggy Stardust. Bowie gets later mentions for Hunky Dory and Diamond Dogs as well.
As with any list, I find this one rather conspicuous. For me, the gayest album of all time, bar none, had to be Village People’s Macho Man and Cruisin. Before that point, it was one thing for people to think someone was gay, after that point, EVERYONE had to be gay. Otherwise normal teen boys were suddenly running around doing dances and moves that they learned from extremely open gay guys. What everyone thought meant the Young Men’s Christian Association suddenly meant a place to get hit on by old gay guys. No longer was it suggested that a singer was gay, they tossed it at you as part of their marketing. Village People busted down the doors the Elton John and others would strut through poudly and loudly. YMCA’s not even on this list.
A close second would be Frankie Goes To Hollyood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Ziggy Startdust on the other hand I never interpreted as being about being gay. It was a story about the moral decline of civilization right about the time it finds out it has only a few years left to survive and how some of the indivual characters responded. It wasn’t sending the message that it was OK to be confused about your sexual orientation, it was painting the picture that they just were confused. Elton John was sending that message at about the same time, but Bowie really didn’t on Ziggy. There were all kinds of people illustrated on Ziggy, gays faired no better or worse than cops, priests, robots, or anything else. They faired a lot better a few years later with YMCA.
As far as the individual effect of Ziggy went, I think it meant different things to different people. Sure, “you’re not alone” might appeal to the sexually confused young teen struggling to find their identity. But, it appealed equally to the thoroughly straight teen who couldn’t grasp how to relate to members of the opposite sex. Moonage Daydream wasn’t about sticking a penis shaped object close to one’s face, to others it was a fubar drug trip with sexual overtones. And, I always felt it was about mechanical sex devices, like in robots. Another great, gay, musician that was totally omitted from the list, Gary Numan, would take that trip even farther with “Are Friends Electric?“. His “friend” was “a man outside”. There was no ambiguity.
The beauty of Bowie’s early stuff, especially in the three albums Out mentions, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, and Diamond Dogs, is the ambiguity. They can be interpreted so differently by anone listening to them that you almost wouldn’t recognize what people are comparing. The fact that Out seems to think Ziggy is the greatest, gayest album of all time I think is simply a statement to how incredibly masterful Bowie was with that ambiguity in 1972.
Tags: are-friends-electric, cruisin, david bowie, diamond dogs, elton john, frankie-goes-to-hollywood, gary-numan, goodbye-yellow-brick-road, hunky-dory, lady-stardust, macho man, moonage daydream, pleasuredome, relax, rock-n-roll-suicide, village people, ymca, Ziggy-Stardust
Cat Power sing Space Oddity, sorta
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations, The World Of David Bowie
I’m kinda stumped here. I stumbled upon this video of Space Oddity as performed by a band called Cat Power:
Now, it’s only thirty seconds long.
What’s that you say? It’s a COMMERCIAL?
Sung by a girl band?
For a car?
That’s so tacky. So cheap. So, commercial.
I’d like to hear the full version tho. They actually accentuate my favorite part musically of the song. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone else do it that way.
Tags: cat power, david bowie, lincoln, mks, space-oddity
