A Very Belated Tribute to Two Musical Heroes
There’s nothing like being topical and, as this post
demonstrates, NineFeetUnderground can’t be accused of being too topical. To be fair this was largely written at the
time however “real life” prevented its completion. As the post is mainly a
personal perspective I have decided to post as it was originally conceived –
with the appropriate amount of grunting, sweating and recriminations…
In the space of just
under two weeks music lost two of its greatest figures, first on the 28th
December a few days after his 70th birthday Lemmy died then on the
10th January, two days after his 69th birthday and the
release of what proved to be his final album, David Bowie died. A lot of media coverage followed both of
these sad events – both making the main TV and radio news – so I just thought
I’d write a few words about how they both touched my life though I met neither
of them (well, I "almost" met one of them - read on).
Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister to me was first and foremost the
bassist with Hawkwind and, in particular, the lead singer on one of the singles
from 1972, ‘Silver Machine’. Seeing
filmed footage of Hawkwind performing the song live on Top of the Pops with
Lemmy on lead vocals was a revelation. Lemmy played and occasionally wrote songs on a
significant chunk of Hawkwind’s best albums.
Motorhead embodied what he was all about – direct, no frills
rock music played with single-minded intensity and I guess this is why he is
such a great figure for me – he lived his life the way he wanted to and didn’t
change to suit anyone but himself. He was the living embodiment of rock music
for better or for worse. A great loss.
Here’s one of my favourite Motorhead tunes – ‘Capricorn’ – a
fitting tribute to the man: “My life, my heart, black
night, dark star, Capricorn”
Now to another dark star, David Bowie. I reckon ‘Space Oddity’ was the first song I heard by Bowie, though there is a chance it was ‘The Laughing Gnome’ (!!!). I certainly saw him perform both ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ on Top of the Pops but the performance that made the most impact was ‘Starman’ in 1972 (a great year in music!). This was an absolutely unforgettable performance and created shockwaves in the growing teenage brain…
Back in the early 1970s there was a bit of snobbery about
singles versus albums and being a ‘serious artist’ – serious artists released
albums and didn’t bother with the singles chart – Bowie proved how daft that
was.
Over the years I’ve followed Bowie’s music liking some a lot
(especially the Berlin era) and some not much at all (Tin Machine anyone?)
culminating in the recent release of ‘Blackstar’, which I love. Throughout that time Bowie has always been
interested in, and in influenced by, great art – in music as well as in literature
and other areas of the arts.
Mrs NineFeetUnderground and I share a love of Bowie’s music
and were both present at a Tricky gig (on the first ‘Maxinquaye’ tour) at the
Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London in 1997 that David Bowie attended – didn’t see
him but apparently he was in the audience. Guess he didn’t have time to stop
and say “Hi”...
Mrs NineFeetUnderground’s favourite Bowie song is from ‘Station
to Station’ (one of his “darker” albums) and is ‘Wild is the Wind’, so in
honour of both of them, here it is…
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