Freddie Mercury
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
From the “official” Freddie Mercury website:
Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara on September 5th 1946 in Zanzibar, to parents Bomi & Jer Bulsara. Freddie moved to India in 1947. He attended boarding school in Panchgani, just outside Bombay. Whilst there he began his piano lessons, reaching Grade 4 in practical and theory. The family, with the addition now of younger sister Kashmira, moved to England in 1963.
Freddie left Isleworth school in 1964 with three “O” levels and one “A” level in Art. He went to Ealing College of Art to study Graphic Illustration. He left college in 1969 with a Diploma in Graphic Art & Design (the equivalent of a Degree). Freddie joined his first serious band in 1969, the were called IBEX.
Freddie stood 5ft 9 inches tall with black hair and dark brown eyes. He was single and shared his large house and garden with several cats, creatures he adored. He loved opera and ballet, Marilyn Monroe was his favourite actress and Aretha Franklin just one of his many favourite singers. He liked to drink either Champagne or iced Vodka and Indian food was one of his favourites. He sadly died on November 24th 1991.
Now, what this incredibly brief bio leaves out really, is how a young quite gay Zanzibarian living in India being trained in classical piano would wind up being a huge rock star in the United States. Queen sort of faded towards the end, but when I was a teen, they ruled. A much better bio is on The Biography Channel. However, it’s a lot easier to just state the obvious. Queen was getting a little airplay, and very little critical acclaim, until they released one song that changed everything both for them, but for music video and rock in general as well, Bohemian Rhapsody
From that point on, Freddie had the resources to do whatever he pleased. Although never quite as wild as say, Bowie or Elton John, Freddie developed a reputation for putting hellacious shows that were, let’s say, extravagant. And, quite frankly, in very short order, it became rather obvious that Freddie was quite gay. Not your closet gay, but your extremely flaming gay. He didn’t come right out and admit it, but like George Michael, you just knew it. Mercury was quite private. Not in a denial sort of way, but just very quiet about everything. He espoused no political views, he was firm in his religious faith but never spoke of it, and was extremely gay and never said anything about it. Even in the homophobic rural area I live, Queen rocked. You just sort of ignored how he acted.
In 1981 Queen teamed up with Bowie, their first collaboration outside of their own group. The result was a monster favorite of mine during a period where Bowie teamed up with several other performers. I had no idea it was coming, and the song hit me like a ton of bricks as it was by far the most powerful song he had done in a few years. Without any reason to babble on more about “Under Pressure”, here it is performed by Freddie and Queen in 1986 or so:
In 1990 Vanilla Ice exposed what rap was all about by blatantly ripping the bass line from Under Pressure. The criticism he got over that pretty much ended his career ( that and the fact he basically sucked ).
In 1992, a decade after Bohemian Rhapsody burned up the charts and made Queen famous, Mike Myers would give it an entirely newl life of it’s when it was featured in Wayne’s World
Things were going just fine for Freddie Mercury, except for one problem. He had AIDS. Like the rest of his life, he kept this issue very private. People speculated as his physical health very obviously deteriorated. Finally on November 23, 1991, Freddie announced publicly his situation:
“Following enormous conjecture in the press, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private in order to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has now come for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth, and I hope everyone will join me, my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease.”
The next day, he died.
In April 1992, a benefit for Freddie Mercury was performed with a rather incredible line-up. However, a couple of Bowie performances stood out:
And, more importantly, Bowie was about to lose yet another person he had performed magically with for years. Mick Ronson would die almost a year to the date later of cancer. This would be the last time they ever played together:
The main legacy Freddie gave to rock was opera. With their promo video for “Bohemian Rhapsody”, artists suddenly were no longer restricted to touring and toying with songs to test their marketability. Bohemian Rhapsody pre-dated MTV. But, what it did was set the stage FOR MTV. With David Bowie, Queen, Gary Numan, and a hand full of others, rock became more than just music. Because it became more than just music, a venue other than radio had to exist. That new venue was music TV. Now, for us older rockers, every time I see a well made music video ( which is getting kinda rare these days ), I either think of Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes, or, more appropriately, the four faces opening Bohemian Rhapsody.
Tags: AIDS, annie-lennox, bohemian-rhapsody, daivd-bowie, freddie-mercury, mick ronson, MTV, queen, The World Of David Bowie, under-pressure
Klaus Nomi
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
On December 19, 1979, Bowie was featured on Saturday Night Live. Quite frankly, at this point, Bowie had been in a bit of a creative funk. He had done some shows and such, but his performances were becoming “normal”. I didn’t like it either. However, that changed on that evening. Bowie pulled out all the creative juices and put together one of my favorite performances he would ever do. The description of that show is summed up best by teenagewildlife.com:
Three songs were performed, The Man Who Sold The World, with Bowie carried to the front of the stage by Nomi and Arias, while wearing a man’s evening dress and a large bow tie (emulating the poet Tristan Tzara).
Next was Boys Keep Swinging. For this Bowie emulated a puppet trick (with the help of television) he had seen in German fairs. A small puppet’s trunk and limbs were situated just beneath Bowie’s head, giving the appearance of a marionette with a huge human head. In a trick he sneaked past the censors, the puppet took a look down Bowie’s trousers right at the end of the song.
Finally, for TVC15, Bowie wore a uniform that gave the impression of a Chinese airline stewardesses outfit. In addition, stage designer Mark Ravitz created a pink poodle with a small tv monitor in its mouth, broadcasting the song as it was performed
Although Bowie was at his oddest, what sold the entire event was Arias and Nomi. They were two Kooks who looked serious. Their robotic movements and semi-simultaneous jerks and twitches were a riot. Bowie did not acknowledge who they were on the show ( he had no speaking parts ). So, people were just kind of left in the lurch.
Klaus Nomi would later gather a certain amount of fame not from that show, but for another reason, he was one of the first star casualties of AIDS. Nomi was truly one of the oddest characters to ever grace the music scene. Be sure to visit that link up there, it’s a riot!
Here’s the songs from that show. Check out the pup. Enjoy it while you can, I doubt SNL will appreciate me posting this.
Tags: AIDS, boys-keep-swinging, david bowie, klaus-nomi, The World Of David Bowie, the-man-who-sold-the-world, tvc15
