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bowiesongs.bsky.social
Books (Rebel Rebel; Ashes to Ashes), blogs (64 Quartets; Pushing Ahead of the Dame; Locust St.)
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Back in 1991, David Bowie went to the Pixies/Pere Ubu show at Oberlin College. And the student newspaper the Oberlin Review interviewed him! So great.

submitted 10 hours ago • 6 comments

"Ringtones were a music-shaped collectable, sonic pogs...as a cultural phenomenon there’s not a lot to the rise and fall of the ringtone: people will pay for digital tat, & they will stop when different or perhaps even better tat comes along instead." popular-number1s.com/2025/04/25/c...

submitted 21 hours ago • 3 comments

a fascinating mix: you can really start seeing the effects that MTV airplay is having on radio playlists, with a few exceptions (did the Mendes single even have a video?)

submitted 22 hours ago • 2 comments

Outside world

submitted 22 hours ago • 3 comments

"bass (personified)": LP credit for James Jamerson on the Four Tops' last Motown album of the 70s, "Nature Planned It"

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

I'm currently reading 'Starting at Zero', a sort of Jimi Hendrix proxy-autobio compiled from a bunch of his profiles and interviews, and along with his smarts and his curiosity he really was one of the funniest rock stars of all time

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

RIP Peter McIan, who produced the first 2 Men at Work albums and had this single, which peaked at #52 but was really big on Virginia radio ca. 1980, for whatever reason---the chorus is still stuck in my brain. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksjk...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

thanks to @sotoalfred.bsky.social for reminding me of this one---Pere Ubu, with Debbie Harry & David Sanborn, performing "Waiting for Mary" on Night Music, 1989: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiK-...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

A toast to David Thomas, pastoral urbanist, purest product of America without going crazy. Pere Ubu still sounds like they created terrain in search of homes. My long obit. humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/h...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"That the record was made in Muscle Shoals, Ala., with the Swampers, & with Paul Simon, who’d met the sisters when they barged their way into his songwriting class at NYU, & with a cameo by the Oak Ridge Boys, only adds to this record’s peculiarities" www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/a...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

RIP David Thomas. Some early clips from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 1974; Aug 1975; Oct 1975; Dec 1976

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

RIP David Thomas aka (in the early days) Crocus Behemoth: those first four Pere Ubu singles were stunning in 1975-1977 (post punk before punk) leading up the The Modern Dance and Dub Housing. Born 1953, I salute you fellow Snake

submitted 2 days ago • 12 comments

RIP David Thomas of Pere Ubu. It’s hard to describe to young’uns the thrill of first encountering his genuinely confrontational music. youtu.be/-ULLfxtCMFE

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"Simon has had one foot in the next life for over a decade now, yet what his music has conspicuously lacked is dread. He seems curious about what comes next."

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

what a show! I also would happily watch a play about Andy Partridge meeting Michael Stipe in Georgia in 1981

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

“The theme of the album is the story of man torn apart in his heart between his need for what you call egotism & animalism & desire to be human. But when he indulges in human things he’s consistently disappointed. I got that from reading the lyrics on the back of the LP” Iggy Pop on The Idiot, 1977

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

RIP David Briggs, who played on seemingly every record made in Nashville in the 60s & 70s, from Joan Baez to Elvis to Waylon to JJ Cale and many more: www.discogs.com/artist/66914...

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Eno diary, 23 April 1995. One of his 21st Century predictions that seems to have panned out

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Spring at last

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

RIP Roy Thomas Baker. You could tell it was one of his productions from the first five seconds of a track---here's one of many. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ghK...

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

something related that's been in the back of my mind for a while: WaPo's* degradation of its actual archives in favor of AI,** and the implications for tech and media companies rewriting history. * Not just WaPo ** See, e.g., WaPo website search function

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Happy 88th birthday, Jack, who not only played Bill Rorish for scale — but specifically requested that he not appear in the “Broadcast News” trailer, opening credits or ads, so as not to take attention from Hurt, Hunter and Brooks. 🙏🏼

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments