So for the past couple of weeks I've been reading Paul Trynka's biography on David Bowie and I enjoyed it immensely.
The book itself is very front loaded, with a lot of information on his earlier life, especially detailing his failures with his first few bands, the long forgotten "Dream" album, "Space Oddity" and it's fallout, etc. However, once it hits the 80's (completely skipping over the movie "Labyrinth"), the pace quickens up significantly, which in a way makes sense, since as the years went by, he started producing less and less. Still, the past two decades made for interesting reading, as he still managed to keep up with the times doing electronic music, starting up an internet provider, and predicting streaming music. Anything it missed is something relatively minor in the search for a complete summary of the man itself.
Interesting enough though, is that a few people regarded him as kind of a dick. A talented one, but not above a couple petty moments.
Overall, I think what I loved most about the book was the general message Bowie doted on all of us: It's OK to be weird. There's all these little tricks Bowie used to encouraged creativity amongst himself and his bandmates like a "cut-up" technique to form lyrics and assigning each of his bandmates a character like "You're on the third moon on Jupiter and you're the house band" that I don't think you hear often enough. As much as I was thinking of Lady Gaga through some of the book, I couldn't help but think that the weirdness that affected Bowie doesn't run as deep with Gaga.
Still, the man is an inspiration, and I'd recommend it to any curious parties.
Fun fact: The first Bowie song I ever heard? "Everyone Says Hi" from Amplitude. Wednesday will bring the "real" version, but for now, here's the best video I could find on YouTube.
'Nother fun fact: Lego Rock Band makes sense now. Starman details his friendship with Iggy Pop and his work with Freddie Mercury of Queen and how bands such as Blur were influenced by Bowie. I had my little "OOOOOH!" moment last night booting up RB3.
Big news tomorrow!
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