Mike Garson – Bowie Speaks, Plus Much More

Ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no hair… *

Apart from touring with David Bowie at the moment, Mike Garson, (DB’s longest-serving band member) has been a busy boy indeed. Firstly he has the front cover of the January issue of Keyboard magazine. Stephen Fortner reviews Mike’s “inspiring career from his early beginnings at the age of seven through his solo works of today, the article captures the essence of Mike’s creative aptitude and humanistic attitude.”

That’s according to the Garson Gazette, Mike’s latest, and very informative online news service, which you can subscribe to by going here. If you haven’t already subscribed, here’s the table of contents from the first edition:

1. WHAT IS THE GARSON GAZETTE?
2. MIKE HAS THE JANUARY 2004 ‘KEYBOARD MAGAZINE’ COVERED!
3. ‘REALITY’ SETS IN AS MIKE JOINS BOWIE’S NORTH AMERICAN TOUR.
4. EXPERIENCE MIKE’S AVANTE-GARDE ART IN YOUR HOME.
5. MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: TECHNICAL INFORMATION
6. LAST BUT NOT LEAST…NEW NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

There’s also tons of reasons to visit mikegarson.com, too many to go into here, but check it out for audio and video contributions form Mike, loads of stuff to purchase, and a gallery with examples of his beautiful artworks and a photo gallery that includes two shots taken by yours truly, but which are credited to Mark Plati. Bloody Cheek! };-)

As if all this isn’t enough, Mike has a new album, Homage To My Heroes, which is available now through cdbaby.com. Really looking forward to hearing that one.

Finally we’ll leave you with a few words from David Bowie on the subject of MG, taken from aforementioned issue of Keyboard magazine:

Mike has been working with me, on and off, since 1972. I was looking for a pianist to flesh out the Spiders stage sound, as there were a number of songs that we wanted to do that required keyboard and as Ronno and myself didn’t feel we could cut it on things like Life On Mars, we went searching. Annette Peacock, the avant-garde jazz writer/performer, recommended Mike to Ronno so we gave him a super fast audition at a recording studio in New York. Within ten or twenty notes we knew he was the guy.

He was quite astounding. Because of his varied background I will often throw a composers name at him mid-recording and he’ll pick up on it immediately and respond with something that touches that area. He is so fast to respond in that way. It is pointless to talk about his ability as a pianist; he is exceptional. However, there are very, very few musicians, let alone pianists, who naturally understand the movement and free thinking necessary to hurl themselves into experimental or traditional areas of music, sometimes, ironically, at the same time. Mike does this with such enthusiasm that it makes my heart glad just to be in the same room with him.

* One of these statements is possibly false in regard to Mr Mike Garson… Everybody knows he has a fine head of hair under that bald wig!