Mentor, templar, template, exemplar

[imomus]

I've just arrived in London, where the papers are full of news of David Bowie's angioplasty. It seems like a good moment to mention what a huge impact David Bowie has had on my life. I doubt I would have chosen the career I did without his influence. He feels closer to me than any family member. His death or injury would distress me enormously. Like millions of other people, I am, in a sense, David Bowie.

I first heard him when I was at boarding school in Edinburgh in 1972. Mark Hughes, my best friend-enemy, kept singing the line 'So where were the spiders while the fly tried to break our balls?' I'd sit in the Senior Common Room at the top of McKenzie House, overlooking the grey, glowering rugby pitches of a north Edinburgh suburb, listening to 'Space Oddity', 'The Man Who Sold The World', 'Ziggy Stardust' and 'Hunky Dory'. My family was far away, I felt isolated, but Bowie became a new family, a guardian and protector. To this day he appears regularly in my dreams as a sort of kind and inspiring uncle figure, a mentor, templar, template, exemplar.

In the 70s there simply wasn't anyone more creative working in any medium. I listened only to Bowie, or people he recommended. My school essay about 'the most inspiring person' was inevitably about him. My life mapped to his. At around the time Bowie left Britain for America on the QE2, my family left Britain for Canada on the SS France. I bought 'Diamond Dogs' in Fairview shopping centre, out by Montreal's airport, and explored its dark Orwellian landscapes in a lakeside house in Beaconsfield. How much more anodyne that house and the thin blond kid in it would have been without those troubling visions! I still hold it against my parents that they refused to let me attend the opening concert of the Diamond Dogs tour, which started in Montreal. The pictures of the ticket line on the local TV news scared them; so many freaks in one place!

Liking Bowie was so much bigger than 'liking a music artist'. It was more than records, stories and sounds, extraordinary though those were. Bowie provided the then-definitive picture of what it was to be human (a somewhat extraterrestrial vision, as 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' proved), what it was to be an artist (changing, questing, adapting, synthesising, experimenting, breaking out of the narrow restrictions of one's medium, swinging between populism and 'elitism'), and what it was to be a man (macho yet feminine, a slutty Adonis, a 'gouster', a dandy). Bowie was the epitome of cool, but it wasn't cheap cool; he was restless, humanist, spiritual, intelligent. I remember sitting with my parents, breathless with excitement, through the BBC's 'Cracked Actor' documentary when it first aired. My mother couldn't stand the way Bowie sniffed, my father mocked his accent. But his spooky intelligence and creativity shone through -- the metaphors were from space. 'There's a fly in my milk, and it's getting a lot of milk. That's how I felt when I first came to America'.

Bowie, to the teen me, was a one-man crash course in culture. Thanks to his recommendations I discovered Eno, Kraftwerk, William Burroughs, Jean Genet, Kierkegaard, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. He lead somewhere. He was 'aspirational'. A pop song like 'Jean Genie' could lead me to the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre's 1981 season of Genet plays. The 'Lodger' album could instill permanent wanderlust, the Berlin trilogy was enough to make a man want to move to Berlin. My one interaction with Bowie -- an exchange during a chat on his website, in which he addressed me as 'Momus', the name I chose partly because its vowels sounded a bit like 'Bowie' -- was suitably extra-musical. I asked him about his choice of art magazines. He explained to me that since he loved painting, Modern Painters was his mag rather than Frieze.

Before my own albums defined what my years felt like, Bowie's albums marked and coloured my calendar. 'Low' is me wearing headphones, gazing out at nocturnal mist in Drummond Place Gardens, Edinburgh. 'A New Career In A New Town' is me heading up to Aberdeen in a blue Wolseley 1300 to start university. 'Joe The Lion' is me messing around with prepared piano, Kleenex-muted guitars and 2-track tape recorders, making inevitably Bowie-esque apocalyptic epics, composing and compiling the songs that will win me my first band (The Happy Family, a bunch of Edinburgh Bowie casualties from a local group called Josef K), my first gigs (supporting The Cure at the Edinburgh Cameo and Glasgow Pavillion) and my first record contract (with 4AD, an exciting enough breakthrough to make me quit university for two years).

Voila, my embarrassing tribute to David Bowie, my art uncle. Get well soon, David! I'm secretly hoping this health-related hiatus will see you retiring from your incessant touring to make some rather more experimental art. Live long and live strange! Without you I'd be someone else.

Comments

[ohnefuehlen.livejournal.com]

The fact alone that he continues to create sets him apart. I think we all owe a cultural debt to Bowie.

Oh, and welcome to London! Haven't seen the papers yet...

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

How funny, last night I was thinking how much your work and persona reminds me of Bowie run through a post modern filter. So it makes sense to me that you'd be his spiritual heir musically (not in the sense that he's in anyway dead, but the passing down of a legacy thru generations...) More so, at any rate than a lot of glam pop knock off bands that seek to outrightly imitate his image his music and style.
Margaret Cho has a great tribute to Bowie somewhere in her blog-it always makes me warm and fuzzy to read these damn things, that I can relate to many of my favorite cultural icons through an unabashedly geeky love for Bowie.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm...Reading all the current tributes/pseudo-obituaries makes me think more than ever that Bowie is like some kind of blank canvas on which people projected their most innermost fantasies and feelings during the 70s (e.g. visual and sexual identity).

Stella Street captured the essence of Bowie best - with the nature of a frustrated stand up comedian."'Ere -now I'm the Thin White Duke"

Try to look objectively back at Bowie in the 70s and it feels a bit like - as someone once put it- "a wife regarding her wedding dress which, twenty years ago, was a splendid costume".

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

I wasn't alive in the 70's. All my "projecting" went down in the 90's, which probably makes it another can of worms altogether.

[giggomachine.livejournal.com]

what you just wrote is very close to what i feel for you.
you have seriously changed my life for the best, directed me to literature, visual art and music that has very much made me the person i am today.
most of the relevant moments in my life are soundtracked by your songs.
xoxo

[imomus.livejournal.com]

70s Bowie is the first uncle.
80s Bowie is the second uncle.
90s Bowie is the third uncle.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wooo... that honestly is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me!

[orlog.livejournal.com]

That is a beautiful tribute to Bowie. Amazing that I could feel the love and admiration so strongly. Raising a glass... cheers to the well being of Bowie.

[giggomachine.livejournal.com]

well, it's completely true, and moer of an understatement than an exaggeration.
cheers.

[neurasthenic.livejournal.com]

It's fascinating how artists and creative people (what's the difference?) find other spiritual parents whose wings they'll sit beneath while they grow. Inevitably this sort of thing leads to story trade, but I particularly liked your tribute because it reminded me of my relationship with Morrissey, who owes a lot of himself to Bowie as well. His marvelous interviews, his permanent strangeness, his endlessly related obsessions and fascinations that I too grew to like. Your work and personality, also very influential, sort of form the opposite end of the spectrum: the creativity of asexuality versus the creativity of sexuality, emotional gravity versus play (or romanticism versus classicism), working class versus intellectual er, class ("keeping it real" versus masks), and wit on both sides. Certainly you two weren't the only musicians influenced by Bowie but I think you've had an odd relationship throughout your career (wasn't there a gallery show of yourself, Morrissey, and Melville? and I recall many early comparisons) and a parallel look at your careers could be fruitful. Thanks for the essay!
-Robyn

[(Anonymous)]

I suppose it's like apprenticeship, really...
-R

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

So where does that leave Brian Eno? ;)

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

I was very much into the 1976/1977 period. When I saw "the man who fell to earth" as a kid I was a bit embarrassed on Bowie's behalf, but I thought he seemed to have a way with women that was beautiful.
I was also confused and, oddly enough, impressed by the film footage of Bowie at Victoria station when he came out, elegantly dressed, greeting the press with a nazi salute and at the same time releasing an album of the finest ambient electronic music including "Warszawa". Of course the salute was a tragic mistake but combined with the "Warsawa" tribute it all made sense. It was estrangement, I guess...and in that context it made sense.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember when "Low" came out. I think it was that record which began to lead me away from Rock orthodoxy.

m.

[scythrop.livejournal.com]

His death or injury would distress me enormously.

That's how I feel too. I was quite shocked by the news. David Bowie can't have human frailties! He was so vibrant, so perfect, so Bowie when I saw him perform this spring. I'm sure he will be fine, but it's agonizing nonetheless. Knocking on wood.

Yesterday at work my boss asked me "what's wrong?" so I told him about the angioplasty, which led to an extremely amusing (and revealing) story on his part concerning a stint in the Peace Corps in Kenya, drugs, and Ziggy Stardust. Not exactly what one expects from a mild-mannered librarian, but then again David Bowie knows all our secrets. Long live the king!

little wonder

[sylvia101.livejournal.com]

it is incredible to hear you expressing these emotions so articulately. david bowie has had an unexpectedly significant place in my life, for pretty much all my life (i'm 31). all i can say is that when he dies, i will mourn in a way that i can't imagine for any other icon.

[dingodonkey.livejournal.com]

I have lived the last three years of my life vicariously through David Bowie. Somehow, I thought he was immune to our low earthly medical conditions. But, alas, apparently this is not so.

That's an interesting bit about Bowie influencing the name Momus. What is the full story behind this name? I've been wondering for quite some time now...

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

"Bowie is like some kind of blank canvas on which people projected their most innermost fantasies and feelings"

I've always thought that was his aim.

[whatgloom.livejournal.com]

I know so litte of Bowie. I discovered him through the song Young Americans at the end of the Dogville! Though I enjoyed his performance as Warhol in "Basquiat". Is there a quitessential album I should listen to in order to get acquainted with his style?

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

I notice you've mainly mentioned the Bowie of the past...what do you think about his most recent work?

[Also, on the topic of songs leading the way, I have 'London 1888' to thank for getting me to read Mishima.]

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Momus is the Roman version of a minor Greek god, he was god of criticism and mockery, a sort of professional carper or satirist. He got kicked off Mount Olympus for his nagging -- saying, for instance, that Aphrodite, goddess of love, had an okay body but made too much noise with her feet when she walked. I sort of identified. For me, in the context of pop music, he makes criticisms of pop which take the form of pop themselves -- metapop. He's also exiled from pop's own Mount Olympus (the MTV awards, perhaps?).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The thing is, he has no fixed style. He's an encyclopaedia of styles. So each album has its own flavour. My personal favourite is 'Lodger', I think, for its eclectic experimental pop feel. I also like the really early Deram stuff collected on the 'Images' album (or various 'Early' bootlegs and compilations). And 'Hunky Dory' for the more singer-songwriterly side of his work. Or 'Scary Monsters' for its fluent, direct, emotional quality. Or...

[wertz.livejournal.com]

Excellent piece. Like you, I have a lot of associations with Bowie: the release of "Station to Station" coincided with my move from New York to San Francisco, "Low" with my return to New York, "Scary Monsters" was the album of the summer I met my partner (and "Fashion" one of our anthems), "Golden Years" marked the founding of our theatre company in Dublin, etc.

Sadly, the music industry hasn't really seen the like of that whole milieu since: Bowie, Eno, Fripp, Reed, Ferry, Pop, Cale, Byrne. They remain the masters.

Thanks for the tribute - I wish him all the best.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid my very high opinion of David Bowie makes it impossible for me to hear his more recent work without thinking 'Could do better'. I think he has an unfortunate tendency to seek out the people he worked with before (Visconti, Eno, Nile Rogers) when he should be forging ahead, synthesising new styles, going into new areas. I don't believe it's a question of age, or money, or even that he's too happy in his personal life. Those shouldn't be obstacles. He could break out of old habits and make a new kind of art music. Perhaps this heart scare will be the thing to propel him to the artistic forefront again. It does really matter to him to be known and remembered as an artist, and there's no reason why he shouldn't, like Picasso, have an extraordinarily vital late period.

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

the aunt.

[fortglacial.livejournal.com]

thanks for writing this little tribute to him, I've also been grossly under-educated on Bowie's early music (it overwhelms me), but reading this gives me a good place to begin.

also, you make a good point that perhaps the positive outcome of this surgery will be more time devoted to rest and creating something exciting.

[psychicmongoose.livejournal.com]

If you and Bowie collaborated, what would the result be like?

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

In the late 90s, I was belatedly persuaded by some friends that I had better give Bowie a listen. As it happened, most of his albums were unavailable to me in a small Florida town at the time because the re-issues had been held up for some reason.

Nevertheless, by providence I happened upon a cassette tape of Ziggy Stardust at a truck stop on I-75, improbably nestled like a bomb between Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ray Stevens, Alabama, Menudo. Giddy, I popped it in my car stereo, and its heroic, gravity-warping density of pop cliches changed my life forever. The stripped-down drum beat at the beginning of "Five Years" will always induce a Proustian torrent of memory, which is partly what the song is about. Very few artists' work have been so integral to my life.

There is nothing embarassing about your encomium. He is worthy to be praised.

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

More importantly, would the collaboration be sampled by a lousy white rapper fifteen years hence?

moving momus.

[(Anonymous)]

uncanny.

take care, bowie, for close-namesake's sake, take care.

get well, soon.

angels,
cozen

[(Anonymous)]

bowie is NOT an artist.

he is a tricky singer, writer, actor...

his "art" is a collage. there is no bowie-idea. he always followed the trend pretending he was inventing one. even ziggy (remember iggy?).

and now, as usual for the people like him, is happily married with a model, producing bad music, being a shadow of what he convinced to be.

[sheppardzo-14.livejournal.com]

I too admire Bowie and his artistry. Speedy recovery, DB.

In my over-aerobicized, slightly anorexic 20s, people frequently noted i resemble him.

[kalephunk.livejournal.com]

Have you ever used Bowienet?

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

Hi Sean. (You have no idea who I am probably, but I grew up in Berkeley and I dated Katie's exgirlfriend in highschool and I'm friends with fishboy so I know who you are)

I was gonna say Aunt. Maybe Roxy Music era with the long hair and old lady shirts?

Come back to Montréal!

[(Anonymous)]

You missed Bowie when he was in Montréal. Now we in Montréal miss you, Nick. You haven't visited this city since the 1970s. Please grace us with your presence. I'm sure you'll find the mood, both culturally and politically, will ride in your favour.

-Elsa

ha ha ha.

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

eno with the thinning hair and lots of makeup always had a bit of the strange aunt look to them... yes, but who are you? i do indeed have no idea, and neither does katie!

Re: Come back to Montréal!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, Elsa, I have been back to Montreal since the 70s. I played there once in 1999 with Kahimi Karie and Toog and once in 2001 with Stereo Total. I also recorded a track with Bran Van 3000 which you can hear on their 'Discosis' album. Would love to come back.

Re: Come back to Montréal!

[gea.livejournal.com]

well then...come back to NY!

what someone said upthread

[rroland.livejournal.com]

i echo, without Nick I'd be someone else. And it doesn't stop, I'm still learning and writing.

[(Anonymous)]

someone talked about imitation.

momus, can you tell stephen merritt to stop stealing a.r. kane album's titles (first "69", now "i")?

look back in pictures

[(Anonymous)]

where's the left bowie-picture from?...he seems very young...very beautiful

erik
rotterdam

Re: look back in pictures

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's from the mime film 'The Image', 1969 (he was 22). Yahoo movies explains:

'In 1969, Bowie even formed his own mime troupe, Feathers, as well as an experimental art ensemble, the Beckenham Arts Lab. Neither was a sure moneymaker by any stretch of the imagination, so Bowie signed a deal to record another album, which included an offbeat number called "Space Odyssey."Around the same time, Bowie made his screen-acting debut with a very small part in the film The Virgin Soldiers; that same year, he also appeared in an obscure experimental film called The Image, as well a promotional reel called David Bowie: Love You Till Tuesday, which remained unseen until the early 1970s; the film includes footage of Bowie playing his music and performing with the Feathers group.'

Yahoo Movies (http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800012382&cf=biog&intl=us)

Secondhand Daylight

[(Anonymous)]

I think your very touching tribute revealed a lot about you and your core values.

Bowie was the cataylst for many careers although I think his influence with today's young pretenders has diminished somewhat . In my case I think his effect has been somewhat second-hand as I never quite connected with Bowie (as I wasn't quite ready for him in my 70's teen years). For me it was with those that came later such as Josef K, Devoto, The Cabs, The Associates etc a second hand 'new wave'. It's interesting to see you as a 'fan' on the other side of the popstar coin. Bowie certainly, made the whole notion of the 'popstar' iconic, ironic and more pop art than pop. The good thing with Momus is that the Bowie influence resonates more as an artistic awakening than as an obvious musical influence .

Bowie has taken some musical twists and turns recently, but I admire that he listens to what is new but perhaps lacks the passion to innovate the 'new' on his own. Surely he has created enough and we cannot expect more but then a fan always wants to consume more of the artist. Some might say that you are making some twists and turns yourself. DB has been playing it safe, thankfully you are not.

I guess Bowie's mortality has touched our own sense of self. Perhaps this is why this event has resonated so strongly with you. I feel that this same feeling is also keying into something which is evident in your new material: the binaries of life and death, impotence and fertility, the universal and the international.. if that does not sound pompous.

As someone our generation identifies with so strongly, it would be a seismic shock to lose someone of his stature. Hope he recovers soon.

Richard G

[hyman.livejournal.com]

Dear Mr. Currie,

I'm sure it has already been said, but you are my one-man crash course in culture. When I feel like a creep for being so touched by the music I listen to, it's really comforting to think that those artists have had similar experiences. I used to get a kick out of imagining a teenage Morrissey writing compulsively to fanzines, but man, it was even better to read this, because it's current and I felt every word. Thank you so much for what you do - I can't think of another artist or band that seems as accessible as you, what with the essays and downloads. It's such a privilege to be able to read things by you on a regular basis. Keep rocking.

Love,
Anita

P.S. I'm sorry I took those mp3s from your LiveJournal without paying. I haven't got a way to pay online yet. I promise I will either keep track of what I downloaded and pay you back when I'm older. Unless you'd get more money if I bought two copies of the album?

P.P.S. If I'm as awesome as you when I grow up, will you collaborate with me?

Steamship to Canada

[(Anonymous)]

Were all Scottish intellectuals fleeing to Canada on steamships in the late 60's and early 70's?

One of my earliest memories is sailing into Montreal harbor on a sunny August afternoon in 1967, cloudless blue skies and views
of exotic modernist architecture at the Expo'67 site, with
John Lennon singing "All you need is love" from an Expo PA.

I bought my first Bowie album ("Low") at Fairview shopping center.
The presence of Fripp & Eno attracted me to "Low".
"Scary Monsters" is another favorite.

I took guitar lessons in the late 70's at a place near
the lake in Pte. Claire.

- M (von Kyoto)

....

[pixiemouse.livejournal.com]

bowie:momus::momus:myself

[rearwindow.livejournal.com]

what a heartbreaking entry.
i have been very sad about his health problems the last couple of days.
sad about him cancelling the show in vienna, will i ever get to see him?

i even forgave the man modelling for hilfiger!

[jabberjocky.livejournal.com]

Heh , one thing i remember from Edinburgh was the inscription 'Bowie is god' on the 4th floor window of the co-op store on bread street , it was there for years and years until David Murray turned the place into a hotel.
It wasn't you that wrote it , was it ?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes.