Some cat was laying down some rock ‘n roll…
Following on from Shammy’s piece, (12.03.2008 NEWS: BOWIENETTER SHAMMY REPORTS ON BOWIE AT MoMA) we’ve had a couple more BowieNetter reviews of last Monday night’s presentation of David Bowie’s videos at
Both gmoney and daligala have sent us their thoughts, which we’ve pasted below…
Pictures are again by Jimmy King, including the one above of a busking type chap on the New York subway who was apparently making a jolly good fist of Starman…seems like he chose an appropriate spot for his performance!
Anyway, here follows gmoney and daligala’s reviews respectively…
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Hey, Blammo. Here are my thoughts on the show the other night.
It definitely felt like the lunatics had taken over the asylum, when all these artistically clad (if not decked out in full-on glitter) David Bowie fans descended the escalators of New York’s usually stuffy beacon of contemporary art. There was a huge line of people hoping to get into the sold out show from no-shows and cancellations.
But even though the crowd was rowdy and excited, they were well-mannered. The elderly ticket taker ripped our stubs with a smile and the playful admonition, “No dancing!”
Barbara London, the Associate Curator for MoMA, took the podium a little bit after 7pm. She thanked everyone for coming and gave a couple of shout outs to Mick Rock, Mark Romanek, and Sam Bayer who were in the audience. I’m sure she’s a lovely lady, and obviously has great taste having come up with the idea for this event, but public speaking is not necessarily her strong point as evidenced by her tripping over a couple of names and seeming generally flustered. Perhaps it was all the excitement of the evening and the rowdy (but polite), expectant crowd.
She then introduced Thurston Moore. Bowienetter Shammy has already given a great description of Thurston’s opening remarks. The Sonic Youth emigre also referenced the artistically challenged years of the 1980s and how during that time he had become out of touch with David Bowie’s music of that era. But he had heard through the grapevine that Bowie was a big fan of Sonic Youth’s DAYDREAM NATION album, which was a terrific honor to Moore and the band.
In reference to Bowie’s JUMP THEY SAY video, Moore also talked about how Mark Romanek, the director of that video, also directed Sonic Youth’s LITTLE TROUBLE GIRL video. Moore said it was his favorite kind of video to shoot — one in which he didn’t have to show up. (The video features only Sonic Youth member Kim Gordon and The Breeder’s Kim Deal).
At one point, there was a little technical glitch. The house lights went out, and Thurston Moore soldiered on in just a spotlight. Then the house lights faded back up, but no one seemed to mind. Everyone was really into what Thurston was saying.
Then the show started.
It was great. I agree with Shammy that maybe I would have picked some other vids. Or at least explained what the deal was with that Blue Jean video (for the people who don’t know it’s extracted from a larger piece). I was struck with the early videos’ ability to just marry image and music. While the ones that were made after 1981 (after MTV, as Thurston Moore pointed out) felt like they had to fit into some kind of narrative structure, which actually seemed to dummy down the video. And weirdly, later on, in the mid to late 1990s, the videos took that narrative structure and seemed to handle it in a way that wasn’t so dunderheaded, for instance in the JUMP THEY SAY video and the I’M AFRAID OF AMERICANS vid, two great pieces. On a personal note, in regards to JUMP THEY SAY, I was quite innocent if I do say, and had not caught all the references to Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetée. The film’s title obviously translates to The Jump, and a lot of the images refer to the film, giving the video more of an optimistic tone than I had first thought. (If you’ve never seen this amazing film, check it out. It was also a major influence on Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys.)
The program ended with The Survive video, which is not my favorite. It’s more about a concept, that ends up giving all it’s going to give as soon as Mr. Bowie leaves the ground. Bowie is again the front and center star, not having to do anything but sit and float. (Major Tom anyone?) And, other than a quick promo for the song SLOW BURN, Bowie hasn’t made any other videos since. I think an argument could be made that the songs of the Heathen and Reality albums are, in a way, a lot denser and richer than could be translated to video. Is it possible that David Bowie, the winner of the first MTV Video Achievement Award, has developed into an artist whose music transcends the medium which he was so instrumental in establishing? I think we would be foolish to have expected differently.
Another highlight of the evening was seeing Tony Visconti and Mick Rock in the audience afterward as the lights came up. Sharing the air space of two geniuses of their respective fields who had such an important contribution to such an influential man.
Gibson Frazier – December 2008
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As my husband and I walked down a cold 53rd street night towards the MoMA we noticed a group of people decorated in rock n roll drab. All of them were turned away by a sign advising “This Event is SOLD OUT”. Thanks to Bowienet/TotalBlamBlam, we both had tickets placed in our hands. It was then that I realized not only had we arrived at the MoMA but a generation of avante-garde artistic contributors which constructed the phantasmagorical vision and visualization of images of a post modern artistic/subversive punk iconography had arrived! The legitimization and respectability with which the luster of an institution such as the Museum of Modern Art would engender on the likes of David Bowie, did not seem to archive him as merely an “ism” or pop culture extravaganza. On the contrary, they seem to get it.
Reclining comfortably into the containment of our theater seats, we ready ourselves for Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore’s opening statements. His comments seem to so closely correlate with ante-dotes from our past, that the words seemed laced with sincerity and intimacy. Immediately following his words the theater plummeted into absolute darkness. This dark abyss was interrupted by the spectacularly filtered white washed, dazzling glam rock executions of the slim, pixie, thin, authoritative and in a cosmic ecstasy delivered: DAVID BOWIE. Compliments of Mick Rock’s visionary cinematographic endeavors. With the unfolding of each video, one sensed an almost voyeuristic handling of a visual diary.
Once again, thank you for the tickets……daligala
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Thanks again to shammy, gmoney and daligala for their observations, very much appreciated.