Rah Rah, root root, cheer cheer, boolah boolah, riot riot riot riot riot riot

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Moonage

Misunderstood lyrics are often misinterpreted to mean a lot more than the original intent. One of my absolute favoritest Bowie songs ever was most likely a toss-off song that ended Diamond Dogs on a slightly peppier note than Big Brother, which was kind of a downer. Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Familyhas one of the catchiest rythyms of all time by anyone. Disco, funk, r&b, hip hop, it don’t matter. This song’s beat blows them all away. However, since 1974, the lyrics have been rather hard to decipher. Now, I had my version:

Rah Rah

Root Root

Cheer Cheer

Boolah Boolah

Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..Bro..

Now, this dude who calls himself futurelegendfilms on youtube has his own interpretation. You have GOT to watch this full screen!

So his is:

Brother
Ooh Ooh
Shake it up Shake it op
Move it up move it up
RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..

Now, combining our two misinterpretations give you what I think is a very cool lyric:

Rah, Rah
Root, Root
Cheer, Cheer
Boolah Boolah
RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..RIOT..

Cool huh? Everyone loves a pep rally before they riot.

Well, that’s not how it goes apparently. Take away the best of both our misinterpretations and you get:

Brother
Ooh Ooh
Shake it up shake it up
Move it up move it up
BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..BRO..

I think I’m just gonna stick with me and futurelegendfilms‘ versions.

Lady Gaga

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Moonage

I read this story and it led me to a thought:

Drawing inspiration from both dance-pop kingpins like Madonna and Michael Jackson and glam practitioners like Queen and David Bowie, the fabulously flamboyant Lady GaGa — checking into Elements nightclub in Kitchener Thursday for a sold-out show — is tied with Katy Perry (I Kissed A Girl) as pop’s pre-eminent It Girl.

“I consider what I do to be more of an Andy Warhol concept: pop performance art, multimedia, fashion, technology, video, film,” the 23-year-old New Yorker, whose hit single Just Dance was nominated as best dance recording at this year’s Grammy awards, notes on the Universal Music Group web site.

OK, let’s get insightful here, shall we?

Lady Gaga for starters, maybe borrowed from Bowie’s Lady Stardust and Queen’s Radio Ga Ga?

Her hit, Just Dance, kinda reminds in name of Bowie’s Let’s Dance. And of course, her other song at the moment is Fashion, which is the same title of David Bowie’s Fashion. And, she considers herself an Andy Warhol concept. Bowie of course, sang of the Andy Warhol concept in his song titled, you guessed it, Andy Warhol. He later even acted as Andy Warhol in the movie Basquiat, probably his best performance. Of course, if you want all her newest stuff, you’d buy her CD, The Fame, remember Bowie’s Fame?

Then, there’s the matter of style:

A space cadet ala Ziggy Stardust.

So yeah, I see the Lady Gaga / David Bowie connection. There’s probably more, I just didn’t feel like digging any deeper.

Heath Ledger does Bowie

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Moonage

David Bowie and death seem to go hand in hand for a long time. From the tragedy of his brother, his association with John Lennon, Marc Bolan, Klaus Nomi, Freddie Mercury, and of course, Mick Ronson. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t stop there.

Shortly before his death, Heath Ledger directed two music videos. The first, “King Rat” by Modest Mouse. More importantly to me, the second in 2007, was a video for Grace Woodroofe. This was her remake of Bowie’s Quicksand. Now, Quicksand’s always been one of my personal favorite Bowie tunes. It’s haunting, insightful, and just flows perfectly. Early in Bowie’s career he had an ability to paint a picture with his lyrics, this was the classic example. He did that by using a very expanded, sometimes creative, use of the English language.

I haven’t heard Grace’s version of Quicksand yet, it’s not featured on any of her web pages that I am aware of. So, the best I can do right now is feature a video of Bowie performing Quicksand from about the same time Ledger was working with the same song.

Wii adds Moonage Daydream!

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Moonage

Harmonix and MTV have announced the newest songs to be added to Wii Rock Band:

David Bowie – Moonage Daydream
Drive By Truckers – 3 Dimes Down
Garbage – Why Do You Love Me
KISS – Calling Dr. Love
Lucinda Williams – Can’t Let Go
Metallica – Blackened, Ride The Lightning
Neko Case – People Got A Lotta Nerve
Old 97s – Time Bomb
Radiohead – My Iron Lung
Sonic Youth – Kool Thing
Steve Earle – Satellite Radio
The Clash – Train In Vain
Wolfmother – Joker And The Thief

Is that cool or what? Not only a Bowie song, but probably my all time fave! Only problem is I could do without pretty much every single one of the other ones. I mean, how exciting could playing Calling Doctor Love or Train in Vain be?

War Child: Heroes

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Moonage

I got an email from Bowie letting me know that a project he was working on is now ready for consumption. The project is called War Child: Heroes. It’s a benefit for child victims of war. Now, I’m all for the charity. But, this is a Bowie-influence blog, so I just want to look at what it is that we’re getting.

In keeping with the theme of this blog, I’ll start off with what is not the first song on the album. And, it shouldn’t be. ‘Heroes’ is covered by a band called TV on the Radio. I knew nothing about them before this, I know nothing now. The War Child site goes into great detail about the stars lending their songs, but little to nothing about the talent playing them. That strikes me as some kind of ego trip by the stars, but I doubt they had that much to do with it. Anyways, their version I really don’t like. The song builds to a climax and then lets you back down as do the lyrics. It’s also supposed to sound harsh, reflecting the realities of a seperated Berlin. Then amidst the harsh rhythym is an uplifting melody that wafts throughout the song. That is the hope inferred by the narrator. TV on the Radio just plays it like some elevator music. There is no harshness. There is no melody. There is no hope or betrayal of that hope. Promising to bring relief to children affected by war in the most unimaginably horrific environment anyone can imagine I would think would be more than enough inspiration to bring out some emotion for this song. But, these guys don’t get it. They sound like a bored Kraftwerk. This sucks. It really does. I think Bowie’s contribution to this effort would have been much better served getting Till Lindemann fronting Apocalyptica to do a full version of the song. Till gets it vocally, Apocalyptica gets it musically.

Beck doing Dylan was pretty decent. But, then it starts getting weird. Scissor Sisters do one of my favorite bands, Roxy Music. Out of my top 10 favorite Roxy songs, they do none of the above. They do the horrible “Do the Strand”. And, they do it as horriby as Roxy did. Why they picked this song is beyond me. Lily Allen does a fairly obscure The Clash song. I was sort of a Clash fan back in the day. I didn’t know this one. She does it ok. Duffy then does a watered down jazz sounding version of Live and Let Die. It just keeps getting weirder and weirder as it goes. It does however, finish off with an excellent, fun version of Call Me by Franz Ferdinand. That I think is definitely the hilite of this CD. I’m clueless how the performers were picked for the songs. I’m clueless to how the songs were picked. It’s like no one other than Bowie, Blondie, or McCartney even wanted this thing to succeed.

I’m so harsh on this thing because it could have done so much for so many people that need it. But, I don’t think it’s going to do much of anything due to the weak selection of songs and inappropriate mix of performers for the songs selected.

totallylookslike

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Moonage

Totallylookslike.com is a kind of fun site for a few minutes. I figured since Bowie has taken on so many oddball personnas and looks, he’d be all over it. Well, he’s not all over it, but they did have three pretty good ones:

see famous look-a-like faces

see famous look-a-like faces

see famous look-a-like faces

The ones I figured would be there weren’t. Early Richard Butler for example:

If this post serves no other purpose, it’s a good reason to post one of my favorite bands of the 80′s.

Truly Scary Monsters

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Moonage

A couple of weeks ago I did a post on something that was strangely perfect. This post is not one of those. First, you have to watch the video. All of it.

Now, if you’ve made it this far. I have to wonder myself, what motivates a man to put on a wig, white body paint, a glittery tutu, and perform ballet. Which leads another to think “That belongs to Scary Monsters!”.

Well, after watching it a second time, I do see the Scary Monster angle. But, the discussion with Mrs. Moon over what motivates a man to do such odd things went really nowhere. First she suggested money, I don’t think anyone got paid to do this. Second, she mentioned love. Somehow I don’t think this is an expression of love either. May be, but I’m quite certain if I did this to Mrs. Moon, she wouldn’t feel the love. So, I’m still clueless. That’s probably a good thing.

Apocalyptica Heroes

Posted on September 11, 2008 by Moonage

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!

Give up the funk?

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Moonage

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!

Greatest, gayest, album of all time?

Posted on September 9, 2008 by Moonage

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. Relax was a huge hit as well that celebrated gayness, perversion, you name it. The video was so racy the initialy version got banned on MTV. That was hard to do in 1984 even it if is impossible now. That one merited #51 on the list at least.

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.