The December madness of hysterical shopping overwhelmed me as I tried to browse for something special in the movie and music store Head (Great store with good stock and people who seem to enjoy what they sell.) and as I was leaving I chanced upon the most recent issue of Mojo and felt as though some-one had literally thrown me a lifeline. A stunning Bowie cover with a shot from the photo session for Ashes to Ashes along with sizeable article on the Album Scary Monsters And Super Creeps as well as the new album Blackstar. Boy has that song haunted me the last couple of weeks along with that mesmerising video . The Blackstar music video is one of my favorite short films of 2015.
It has been decades since I picked up my copy of Scary Monsters in Caroline music.It seems like an age and is indeed for some a lifetime but it was an electrifying album for myself. It felt like the end of something old and also the beginning of something new. Apart from the glittering thing of beauty that is Ashes To Ashes I had a particular fondness for the title track itself with its demented opening. It was around this time I got into a scrap with a drunken pal who drew black heads onto Bowie's nose on my copy of Low. What an act of vandalism. One that struck at my very heart. My revenge was to stuff dairy lee cheese triangles into his Oxford Brogues. Cheesy feet. Yes, I know that is cold, even savage but such was the brutal world we moved through. Bowie would understand.
"Ashes to Ashes flunk to flunky. We know Bowies hung like a donkey.", the words of my old school song
(Saint Sabastiannes For The Hopelessly Mercurial.) Major Tom has fallen from the heavens, fallen to an earth that is not Earth. His sparkling bejewelled bones are the subject of a new religion. Alien and mysterious, as all religions are. The song is genius and the visuals are startling. A couple of Saturdays past I watched Doctor Who Heaven Sent and The video for Blackstar back to back. Just about two of the most mentally exciting set pieces I have had the pleasure to enjoy this year. One about the trials and nightmares of a much loved imaginary being and a man who dares to imagine being someone other than who he is. Big finish studios have released a PaulMcGann adventure that features a time lord whose previous incarnations occupy his head at the same time. He is off course a bit of a nightmare. imagine how many of Bowie's previous incarnations still exist inside his current persona. That is one crowded room.
