31

Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Madonna, Debbie Harry & more write tributes to David Bowie

photo: Arcade Fire & David Bowie at Summerstage in 2005 (more)
David Bowie Arcade Fire

Yesterday, tons of artists shared tributes to the late David Bowie, and there are more still coming in today.

Arcade Fire, who have collaborated with Bowie more than once, wrote:

David Bowie was one of the band’s earliest supporters and champions. He not only created the world that made it possible for our band to exist, he welcomed us into it with grace and warmth. We will take to the grave the moments we shared; talking, playing music and collaborating as some of the most profound and memorable moments of our lives. A true artist even in his passing, the world is more bright and mysterious because of him, and we will continue to shout prayers into the atmosphere he created.

In a statement to Pitchfork, Deerhunter and Atlas Sound frontman Bradford Cox said:

First of all, who cares what I have to say about David Bowie? I’ve been reading all of these amazing tributes written by people who actually knew him and I feel kind of weird talking about it, but I’m very honored to be asked. Honestly, I got more texts and phone calls about Bowie’s death than I did back when I got hit by a car, which is oddly flattering because it just means that people that know me also know how much I loved him.

There’s no question. There’s nobody that’s had a bigger influence on my entire life–not just on the way I make music, but also the way I think and feel about things–than David Bowie. I literally wouldn’t do what I do if it weren’t for him…and looking back, there’s honestly not a part of my life that can’t be somehow defined by whatever David Bowie record I was listening to at the time. I can’t really say that about any other artist. I mean, if I want to relive my childhood and young adulthood I can basically just listen to the Sound + Vision box set.

Read the rest of Bradford’s lengthy tribute here.

We already posted Kim Gordon’s, and here’s one from her Sonic Youth bandmate Lee Ranaldo (via The Talkhouse):

In 1997, we in Sonic Youth were amazed when we got word from David Bowie, inviting us to perform with him onstage at Madison Square Garden in celebration of his 50th birthday. That he even knew who we were was amazing to us! We had been so inspired and influenced by his music for so long, and it was a huge thrill to join him in performance. Hanging out with him leading up to the concert, it was clear that he was still fully engaged and informed about all kinds of music and art going on around him, curious and open to new influences. Not many of his generation were tuned in to the kind of thing that we were doing, but he certainly was.

A few days before the show, we all trooped up to Connecticut for rehearsal. David had rented the Hartford Civic Center arena for the day so we could rehearse and get comfortable in a venue with a stage the same size as Madison Square Garden! He had asked our friend Tony Oursler to do some of his video projections as the stage set for the concert. Tony was a fellow artist-traveller who had directed our “Tunic” video a few years prior. David impressed us with his focus and his friendly and positive demeanor throughout a long day. He was excited, and certainly we were! We were only halfway thru our thirty-year career as a band at that time, while he was already past that mark, and obviously still going strong. A Radical Adult.

This morning, for some reason I woke unexpectedly at 6:00 AM and couldn’t sleep. I reached for my phone to check the New York Times, and was completely shocked — devastated! — to read the news. A new album, new theatre production, new musical directions — he was so active this last year. To realize that he was accomplishing all this while knowing his fate makes his recent accomplishments all the more inspiring.

In a statement to Pitchfork, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore says:

David Bowie’s energy was charged with light. His love and passion for art, in all its intrigue and interplay with nature, was manifest in his smile, his charm. He loved to experiment while honoring the grace of tradition and subsequently informed and inspired anyone lucky enough to be there when Ziggy Stardust took the stage and hit the racks. When punk rode into town and every rock n’ roller pre-1976 was denounced as a dinosaur, there were few exceptions. Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Captain Beefheart, Yoko Ono, Neil Young, Marc Bolan, Eno, Bryan Ferry and definitely Bowie.

He was the one gentleman who excitedly applauded Devo and Suicide and in the 80s was rumored to have been checking out Pixies, Sonic Youth, et al. He asked Sonic Youth to play “I’m Afraid of Americans” with his band at his 50th birthday party at Madison Square Garden in 1997. We met and rehearsed a couple of times and played the gig and it was all amazing, another realm of experience from where we traversed, but the one thing I always remember is him coming into the communal dressing room area where all the other artists were to say hello and have some photos taken. As he was leaving he turned and shouted, “Hi Coco, I’m so happy you’re here! Have a great time!” to my three-year-old daughter Coco, who I was holding in my arms. She was the only person unaware of any hierarchy of celebrity in the room.

It brings to mind Bowie’s early connection with Buddhist philosophy, practice and meditation, studying with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Lama Chime RInpoche. Legend has it that David had considered a life as a monk but his teachers saw his light was needed beyond the monastery and advised him to follow it. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in later years, became the Buddhist teacher to Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman and so many others who employ kindness and contemplative thought as activism towards peace. Bowie, fabulous Capricorn, touched each of us in a remarkable and personal way, sharing not only his genuine brilliance for songwriting, but his joy for life, his rock n’ roll love. Now we see, the Starman who’d “love to blow our minds” was indeed the man himself, dignified in his devotion to creative bliss, light and love.

Also via The Talkhouse, Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio:

I was coming back to California from France on January 9th, had bought and downloaded Blackstar right before I got on the plane, listened to it a bunch, passed out at home and woke up to all of this very sad news. Still seems like a dream. I was working on some music with a friend the day before I’d left and we talked about how excited we were to hear Blackstar after hearing the singles and how great it was to be alive and able to say, “Hey, the new Bowie’s coming out tomorrow.” Talked about how many millions of people had said that, had thought that, over the course of four-plus decades, and every time with the sincere question attached, “Well, what is it going to BE?” “What is it going to be LIKE?” “WHO is he now?” Listening to the record, reading the lyrics, it seems like maybe he had the same questions about living and leaving.

I feel insanely lucky that he took an interest and was so incredibly supportive of anything we were doing with TV on the Radio, and the fact that he was kind enough to record a song with us is something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully process. In the very, very little time he spent with the band he was so humble it was eerie. He was incredibly funny, and chatting casually about bands like Lightning Bolt and Black Dice, and how into them he was, pushed me out of the deep shock of “I’m talking to him” and into the even deeper shock of “I love these bands completely, but why would YOU know or care about… oh right… you’re… David Bowie. You probably know and care a bit about everything… which maybe no one can, but maybe… you’re… no one? Who ARE you?” Then he sang on the song and we, as a band, shat our collective pants. And still, afterwards…Who WAS that? Which one was that? Who was that person who had, and had lived so many ideas that he’d actually become an idea himself?

Huge artist lessons from that idea: Change is the law. Get to it. Get lost. Try it out. Don’t get scared of your pain. Sit with it. Maybe it matters so much because it doesn’t. Don’t get stuck. Freak yourself out. Crack up. Stay interested. Make something. If you recognize it too well, mess up its face, bend it, make it something else. Make THAT something else. Stay on top of it. Drop it. Get magic. Build ways in, build ways out. Be disciplined. Make it count, be kind and stay true to yourself, whichever one you happen to be at the time.

The news, like this beautiful man, this art and artist, fills and empties and refills your heart and just keeps going. I don’t know that he ever was, or could be fixed in one place, but now I think he’s just everywhere, in a fine mist, every single one of him, all of them love.

Blondie Bowie

Blondie singer Debbie Harry, in a statement to Dazed, said:

In NYC there is a yearly Bowie Ball when local musicians all perform a Bowie song. It happens every year and this next one will be a sad and extremely heartfelt evening for everyone. Who doesn’t love Bowie? A visionary artist, musician, actor, a completely renaissance man who has given us a long list of songs like “Heroes”, “Rebel Rebel”, “Young Americans”, “Diamond Dogs”, “The Jean Genie” and many, many more, and some memorable film performances like The Man Who Fell to Earth, Basquiat, Labyrinth, The Hunger.

I can’t say enough things about David Bowie to show how much I love him. When the Low album was out and Iggy Pop was about to tour, David played keyboards in Iggy’s band. They asked Blondie to open for them, and as they say, the rest is history. Without this visionary and his friend Iggy Pop, where would Blondie be today? Silly question and one that can’t be answered really, but there is no doubt in my mind that Bowie played a big part in our future successes. As for now, love you David Bowie. Xx

Madonna wrote:

I’m devastated.
David Bowie changed the course of my life forever. I never felt like I fit in growing up in Michigan. Like an oddball or a freak. I went to see him in concert at Cobo Arena in Detroit. It was the first concert I’d ever been too. I snuck out of the house with my girlfriend wearing a cape.
We got caught after and I was grounded for the summer. I didn’t care.
I already had many of his records and was so inspired by the way he played with gender confusion .
Was both masculine and feminine.
Funny and serious.
Clever and wise.
His lyrics were witty ironic and mysterious.
At the time he was the thin white Duke and he had mime artists on stage with him and very specific choreography
And I saw how he created a persona and used different art forms within the arena of rock and Roll to create entertainment.
I found him so inspiring and innovative.
Unique and provocative. A real Genius.
his music was always inspiring but seeing him live set me off on a journey that for me I hope will never end.
His photographs are hanging all over my house today.
He was so chic and beautiful and elegant.
So ahead of his time.
Thank you David Bowie.
I owe you a lot. .
The world will miss you.
Love
M

Madonna also covered “Rebel Rebel” at her show on Tuesday in honor of him. Video below.

Ozzy Osbourne said “It knocked the shit out of me.” Read his interview with Rolling Stone about it.

Billy Bragg talked about his love of Bowie…

All of the artists that me and my mates at school listened to were reassuringly heterosexual: Slade, Rod Stewart, Status Quo. Bowie was something else. As 14-year-olds in 1972, if we knew anything about him it was that he was a ‘bender’ – in the spiteful parlance of the playground – and so best avoided. Then I heard ‘The Jean Genie’. With no foreknowledge of the Velvet Underground, this just sounded to me like a thumping great dose of bootboy pop that beat Slade at their own game. I was hooked.

When ‘Aladdin Sane’ came out a few months later, the open gatefold sleeve was displayed in the window of the local record store: Bowie standing, hands on hips, naked except for the red/blue lightening bolt across his face. The fact that he had no discernable genitalia seemed only to confirm that he was not as other men.

Coming out as a Bowie fan would leave me open to jibes about my own sexuality, but I couldn’t resist the sock hop pop of ‘The Prettiest Star’ and the fretful grandeur of ‘Drive-In Saturday’. I took the record into school and found that, rather than being called names, it made me more popular with the smart girls in our class who got together in the lunch break to listen to ‘Hunky Dory’. Bowie’s androgyny – making him popular with both boys and girls – had created a bridge across what had been, for me, an unfathomable chasm.
After he played Romford Odeon on the last leg of the Ziggy Stardust tour in April 1973, the whole of the 4th year seemed to go Bowie mad. My parents wouldn’t buy me anything androgynous to wear, but I did take the cover of ‘Aladdin Sane’ to the local barber’s to get the ‘Bowie cut’.

I remained a huge fan of his work as he has moved effortlessly forward, engaging with new ideas and media. I ended up spending my life with a girl who saw the Ziggy Stardust tour and we take great delight in the fact that our son has grown up to be a huge Bowie fan.
But whenever I hear his music, I’m a teenager again, taking my first taste of something ungendered, transgressive. At a crucial moment in my adolescence, David Bowie showed me that masculinity wasn’t the only way to attract girls and, for that, I thank him.

Britt Daniel of Spoon uploaded a cover of Bowie’s “Never Let Me Down” and wrote:

I went to bed early last night. Woke up at 3 and glanced at my phone. It’s 515 now and I’m realizing there’ll be no more sleep tonight. I was just saying last week isn’t it amazing how Bowie is still with us and we get another album from him? No other artist has meant as much to me personally or inspired my own songs as much. What a spirit. What an inspiration. What a shining example of the beauty that humanity can create. Bless him.

Head HERE to read tributes by Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Brian May, Jarvis Cocker, Brian Eno, Devo, Nile Rodgers, J Mascis, Jimmy Page and more. Head here for Iggy Pop.

Listen to Britt’s cover and TV on the Radio’s (not new) cover of “Heroes” below…