HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMES BROWN!
WOO! CELEBRATE THE GODFATHER!! He gave us so much…
SOUL BROTHER NUMBER ONE!
MR. DYNAMITE!
LET…
Happy Birthday, Jimi Hendrix!
You’ve seen the still shot a kajillion times, you gotta peep how it went down…
Jimi sacrifices the thing he loves most and the people knew it was real…
Happy Birthday, Jimi! You can play any axe you want now, bruh. Thanks for leaving us with all this great stuff that continues to pay off all these years later.
I can’t imagine what you woulda been doing now, at 70 (wow), and I am so thankful for everything you did in your short time here. You’re a blessing.
I love ya, Jimi.
RR
OH, FACK YESSSSSS…! #STOOGES #IGGY #VINYL #ICONS #RAWK #PunkRockThisShit. (Taken with instagram)
Talk to me about “doing it big” when your name stays on the side of the jet.
HAIL ZEPPELIN.
If you don’t know about the greatness of Jeff Buckley, click the pic, get hip and holler at me later.
Happy to do that for you.
#Warhol
There’s no question in my mind that Andy’s aesthetic and vision has influenced my work over the past two years.
#Kubrick
One of my goals is to make albums that sound like his movies look and feel.
#ATFU #Lower #MattSaysBOWIE
I been telling you guys about how David Bowie has taken over all the stereos I have access to. It’s been kinda crazy; for the last two months I really haven’t listened to anyone else’s work other than his, my own, and that of friends and people I consider my peers. I haven’t had time to check on a lotta recent releases because I was working so hard on my music…and listening to David Bowie.
I had a gang of catching up to do. All I had from Bowie before this was a singles collection…and I didn’t really listen to that that much. Obviously, the dude has had some major hits that I am very familiar with, but I never checked for his albums, despite having friends that I trust tell me to do so. I just waited on it, man. My pal, Matt, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in October of last year used to give me the BLUES about that.
When Matt and I would work together at Northside News, I’d take a grip of CD’s in for him to check out while he was making soups and stuff in the kitchen. He’d sweat me to bring in David Bowie albums and I was like, “Man, I really don’t have anything by him other than a ‘Greatest Hits’ thang.”, then Matt would give me the BLUES…”Bring in some Bowie, man. He’s got some great stuff…stuff you could sample, dude. And aside from that, he’s cool as fuck. Go get some Bowie. Get this crap outta here.” We’d laugh and he’d take off with whatever he thought was worth checking out from the pile of music I brought in. I turned him onto music, he turned me onto all KINDS of stuff, man. The dude was one of the best conversationalists I’ve ever known and an absolutely AWESOME friend.
Anyway, every time I didn’t show up with some Bowie for the homey, which was every day, he blew me shit. I would blow him shit about not liking The Beatles (smh, he meant it. He ain’t like them dudes.) and he would tell me what a tool I was for not having any Bowie albums but buying The Beatles’ albums every time they remastered, remixed, or repackaged them (he was kiiiinda right about that too. I stand by the last remasters though. Whatever…) It kinda became another one of our running jokes. “NAW…AND I AIN’T BUYING NO BOWIE TIL YOU ADMIT THAT ‘ABBEY ROAD’ IS THE SHIT, MAN. C’MON, DUDE!”…
(I just thought of this…if Mattie was still here, I probably never woulda bought a SINGLE Bowie album, just so we could continue having that to talk about, amongst the gang of memories we had and new ones were making every day. I mean, we played this ‘Naw…NAW!’ game for years. LMAOOOOOO!!)
When I got the call that my friend was gone, I obviously couldn’t believe it. You never can. They just ain’t supposed to go out like that. It happens though, man. His Mama, whom I love, asked me to speak at the memorial service. I had to, man, and I am glad I did. I was honored to be asked to pay tribute to my dear friend. I have been onstage in front of thousands of people and never felt the pressure to deliver that I felt when I was asked to speak at Matt’s funeral. It was a good pressure though. I wanted to make sure that people understood the man I knew and what he meant to us, to me…
Now, back to this Bowie thing and what this is all about and what is happening now. The day Matt died, after we all got together and started figuring out what the fuck was going on, I knew I had a new mission. My dude never steered me wrong, so it was time to pay homage to the dude. I knew to go to what God has always used to speak to me…music.
I headed to Luna Music and saw my guy, todd (his lowercase, y’all. That’s how he swags it out. #swag.) I asked him what the best Bowie albums were. I also had to let him know about Matt. We’re a neighborhood over here, man. We’re connected and we stay that way. We talked and todd offered his condolences (such a great dude, man.) and we went to the Bowie section where he put me up on ‘Low’, which was co-signed by everyone working. I copped that and ‘Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’. I had to do it. It was my way of being able to think about Matt without freaking out..and not only that, Matt was right; Bowie gotta TON of jams.
I just started putting together that my buying every Bowie album started cuz my dude, Matt made the push for Bowie, man. It’s like the last thing he taught me. Matt had a way of smacking you in the face with stuff on the cool. If he was gonna make a point, it WOULD get made. Hey, man…you have no idea how hard I fought the Bowie thing. Matt was Bowie’s last chance with me, dawg. My homeboy, Mark, tried. Chaz tried (that dude even did it the same way I’m doing it, buying an album a week. He was already hip to em though), nobody could get me to get into Bowie, man. I guess I figured it was time to stop being stubborn. Maybe it was ‘record-store guy pride’ (record-store guys sometimes wanna put YOU up on stuff so bad, they can’t let YOU be right about something they weren’t already up on. That. Is. Real. It’s part of the breed.), I dunno, but I’m glad I got over it…and now his music is always gonna be connected to good memories of a great friend.
Well, I wanted to talk about this ‘Bowie Thang’ and where it came from and where it’s going. I made this track that accompanies this post, ‘A Game I Made Up’, two days ago. I guess I’m already working on a follow-up of sorts to the album I have coming out on Tuesday. hehe. It never stops, man. I think it feels kinda like some ‘Berlin Bowie’ stuff with a bit of The Tinkerer’s special brand of whatzit and funk. I was just listening to it on the way home and thought I’d share it with y’all.
Alright, peace to all of you. Tell your friends you love em. Rock to the track. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s show.
This is how you ‘rockstar’, son.
#BOWIE!!
Happy Birthday, David Bowie!
Hey, man…I ain’t been listening to much else other than your music for the last six weeks and it’s been AWESOME. I been talking to the people about it. Yeah, I was a bit ‘late’, but I always say great music is timeless, so I can’t REALLY be late and I’m here now,. so whatever…
Happy Birthday, man. #Swag The Thin White Duke out.
