Loving the Alien

The Bowie-lage was compiled from 1983-1996

"I'm bustin up my brains for the words..." Moonage Daydream, David Bowie

In the early 80s David Bowie was like my life.  He was the reason I dyed my hair, wore black lipstick and created some of my earliest (and bizarre) costumes.  Bowie was like the patron saint of the beautiful and strange and as an artist, as a creative person he was, for me, like a god.  I think he was the second greatest influence in my life as an artist, the first being my Mom.  

Over the years I've drifted in my interests in actors or art or music but he was always there in the back of my head. Musicians that I liked and artists that I admired almost always listed Bowie as an influence of theirs. He had this amazing ability to figure out what was going to be cool and do it before anyone else even got an inkling. 

The first LP I ever owned was Station to Station.  When CDs became the next thing I purposely bought Station to Station again.  When iTunes came out I think 'Let's Dance' was the first song I downloaded.  Or it may have been 'Suffragette City'  I remember holding my cassette recorder up to the radio speaker, my finger hovering at the ready over the record button to tape that song. 

When a famous person dies people say trite things like: "His light has gone from the world" This is not so with David Bowie his light will shine even brighter now.  He was the first, the coolest of the cool. The one who came before and switched it all on for everybody else.

I'll Never forget you, Ziggy.  The Gift of Sound and Vision indeed.