Celebrity Deaths of 2016

Hi.  It's been a long time since I've last posted, which is mostly to do with finding the time around a job that is, for the most part, driving.

This year there have been a lot of iconic people that have passed away, as I'm sure that everybody is well aware of, and I know that I have been affected by a few of them, and know that some people have been peeved with my responses to these deaths.

I've always hated the word "death", and what that signifies.  No matter how many of my family or friends pass away, it still affects me, and especially so when one of my grandfathers died, who I was especially close to. My grandad, Tom Mountney, was, and still is, one of my heroes xxx

When it comes to celebrities that I don't personally know, I'm almost embarrassed in a way, because I didn't actually "know" them, but they made an impression on me in some way or another.

Not that he died this year, but rather a year ago today (as I'm writing this part), the bassist/singer Lemmy of Motörhead, embodied what I saw as a pure rock n roll lifestyle.  Whenever I saw a picture of him, he was impressive in the fact that he quite literally was what you could see - he didn't beat around the bush with what he thought.  I wish that I could be more like that!

David Bowie I wrote about back in January, but a great memory I have is of the incredible way that he changed from the Let's Dance/Tonight era guy into the immaculately smart (I loved that black suit) rock star of Tin Machine, and very quickly he then went from that to a great experimenter around the time that I started performing, and he would always impress me with his frequently unpredictable output.

I think that the actor Alan Rickman died around that time as well, and that was a big shock at the time.

The earliest memory of Alan Rickman was of him playing the very British sounding German man Hans Gruber in the famous Christmas film Die Hard, and I've since seen him in a heck of a lot more - the Harry Potter films, a few Shakespearean films, Love Actually, and more. A real presence in every film that he was in, even when he wasn't the main part - he was incredibly brilliant as the Sherrif of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves! 

The death of Prince was a really big surprise too, and more so in my opinion because he was, to my mind, making a comeback to the larger world with more commercially available material than he had in a long time - he'd actually been issuing material privately to fans through his website, and through free albums with newspapers here in the U.K. I was always fascinated with his musical flitting, in that he didn't particularly think of genre in his music, but just went where the songs took him to, and where he felt inspired to go. That kind of musical experimentation was of course a huge influence to me, and one of my bands did cover the song Controversy back in the day!

George Martin had famously been the main producer for The Beatles, and everyone knows how much I love The Beatles, but then I love other productions of his for artists such as Ultravox, Jeff Beck, America, and many others.

Victoria Wood was a great writer, comedienne, actress, musician, and all round good egg. I remember the Acorn Antiques sketches with her great friend Julie Walters constantly getting the best lines, all written by Victoria, as well as Victoria's funny songs from the piano, and so much more.

The radio presenter Terry Wogan was a funny guy to my mind, where I remember him from the radio (radio two breakfast), the game show Blankety Blank, and his television chat show where I saw him interview Paul McCartney, George Best, and many others. 

Muhammad Ali was the greatest boxer of all time, and so much more!  He was an incredibly smart, wise, and funny guy from what I saw of him on television.  I'm trying to think of how to word this, but I can also completely understand how inspirational he was to everyone, no matter about their skin colour!  He had an incredible charisma about him, that you had to take notice of him, in my opinion.

Ronnie Corbett was an entertainer that I mainly remembered from the wonderful comedy series The Two Ronnies that he did with Ronnie Barker.  That show was something that I remember so much of when I was younger, and at times it was watched by audiences of around eighteen and a half million.  Something that is unlikely to happen nowadays in the U.K.  

Gene Wilder I wrote about in a specific blog at the time, and I have great memories of his films!

Robert Vaughn was from one of my favourite shows as a kid, which was The Man From Uncle (as repeats I think).

The songwriter/singer/bassist/guitarist Greg Lake and keyboard player/composer Keith Emerson, both of Emerson Lake & Palmer died in 2016, and they were a group that were incredibly important in the history of progressive rock.  Through them I was introduced to some fantastic classical pieces as well.  Their performances of pieces like Fanfare For The Common Man, Hoedown, etc, shaped my love for a wider range of music.

Rick Parfitt of Status Quo... Well, Status Quo were a band that I always enjoyed listening to, all the way from their Pictures of Matchstick Men phase, through the fabulously dirty twelve-bar rock of the seventies, some of the poppier eighties (In The Army Now, etc), and I thoroughly lapped up the recent acoustic interpretations of their music, but then I'd enjoyed their previous acoustic songs (Rock 'n Roll, Living On An Island).

George Michael died on Christmas Day, and that really did shock me.

I remember when his band Wham first came out that I thought they were sort of cheesy with songs like Bad Boys, Young Guns Go For It, etc.  As they continued they got more interesting.  Edge Of Heaven was a great song!  I've reevaluated my opinion of them recently as well, and think there's some great stuff there!

His solo career though is what grabbed my attention!  Faith was a wonderful reinvention, followed by the beautiful Listening Without Prejudice Vol 1 ( I think he maybe started Vol 2 perhaps, but shelved it due to his record label disagreements perhaps).

His next album, Older, is possibly my favourite of his, which contains Fastlove, Jesus To A Child, Star People, and more.

When I heard about the passing of the actress/writer Carrie Fisher I was really shocked!

I'll admit that my first experience of Carrie was watching her play Princess Leia in the Star Wars films!

Unlike a lot of my friends of a similar age to me, I didn't see the first Star Wars film at the cinema in 1977, but rather on a pirate video in 1981!

By that point I'd seen the television series Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, which featured the very beautiful actress Erin Gray, who, as a very young whipppersnapper under the age of ten, I sort of loved. Not in the way of fancying, because it was too early for all that. 

Carrie as Princess Leia was probably my next crush shall we say.

I also remember Carrie very well from The Blues Brothers, which is one of my favourite films.  I was surprised by her performance in that, and have seen her in a few other things.

Her fight against mental health issues is incredibly inspiring, and I regret that I never met her, although I'd feel difficult broaching the Star Wars subject because I know that there was more to her, but there's no denying it's importance in my life!

Me and Andrew Dexter at school learnt the entire dialogue of the original Star Wars film, and we would piss off the rest of our school by doing scenes where we would take a role each (I was Luke Skywalker and he was Han Solo).

I suppose that what I'm getting at here is that these people were terribly important to my history in one way or another.

In a way, we have lost a lot of "iconic" people this year and, unfortunately, we will carry on doing so.

A lot of these people have come from something that's incredibly important, such as the phenomenon of Star Wars (both Carrie and the actor Kenny Baker), David Bowie's long and constantly evolving career, the inspirational Muhammad Ali...

Others over the year have also included singer/guitarist Glen Frey, writers Harper Lee and Richard Adams, Caroline Aherne...

I'm sure that everyone could shout out more!

What I'm trying to say is that these sorts of people are cut from a different cloth to a lot of today's celebrities.  There are very few now with that specialness about them.

As I've said to someone recently, there is very little that has the cultural importance of Star Wars, Bowie, Prince, and a lot of these people.  I doubt that anyone will get to that level again, and I know that some will argue with that opinion, but no one will take the risks required these days to bring about such radical cultural changes as these!  

There are others still around with the cultural importance (Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise...).

However, these will, as with everyone of us, eventuallly pass away, and that too will bring an outpouring, because of that cultural significance.

I hope that all of this makes sense, and I apologise for the length of this piece.  It's a big subject, and I could possibly have gone into more detail in fact, but I decided to rein myself in a little!

Thank you for reading.  Please take care.

December 28th 2016 (46 years, 1 month, and 2 days old).

Anxiously waiting

Hi, it's been a long time hasn't it!

Change is afoot...

We've thought about moving from where we are for a long long while, for various reasons.

We weren't seriously looking though, because to do that you need to have money put aside, because it's incredibly expensive.

While I was out doing my mobile security job though, I drove past a place that I saw a "To Let" sign on it, and was immediately struck by it, but thought that it would be well out of our price range - nice village location, detached apart from a shop front and their back room (presently unoccupied as well), and nicely situated.

I looked online, and found that it was similar to what's paid for living here.

We went to look, and found it to be more than we initially thought. Great storage, nice sized rooms, beautifully new kitchen, little cubby holes here and there, and a separate area that would make for a great recording space!

We applied for it, but on the proviso that we'd move in on January the 3rd.

I know, a fairly long time for property...

I didn't tell them that I needed time to make up the £1260 needed up front, but did tell them quite rightly that there was no way that in December I could have enough time off to move, because it's an incredibly busy period in the security industry - places close for the Christmas break, so more security is needed, and I'm not allowed to book time off in December!

We waited to hear about the security checks, including the unfortunate need for a guarantor...

I got edgy, hardly slept (because I love the place), and it's caused me to be ratty and my skin has gone to shit as a consequence too - lines and blackened eyes, etc.

They called yesterday, and said that if we were adamant about January, that it would possibly cause us to not be in the running for it, as they've accepted our potential tenancy.

I went to the estate agents at about 2pm, and explained the problems with finding time, and the financial situation...

They said that they would call the landlord and get back to me...

It's nearly midday of the following day, and still nothing.

Worried... Nervous...

I only had about an hour's sleep when I got in from work yesterday morning.  Last night I couldn't stay awake, so went to bed at about 11pm - unheard of, because I'm a night worker!

I woke up twice in the night...

Woke up at 6.30am with a headache...

Fell back to sleep at about eight, and woke up again at 8.45... 

Working tonight. I hope I'll be okay.

Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry to trouble people with this.  I'm just trying to pull myself together.

Catch you again soon.

November 2nd 2016 - I've lived here seven years today! (45 years, 11 months, and seven days old).

PS - stubble due to me being indecisive if I'm doing Movember or not.  If I'm not going to raise awareness or donations, then what is the point?

Gene Wilder

The actor Gene Wilder passed away the other day.

I can't say that I knew much about Gene Wilder "the person", but I've seen a fair bit of his work over the years.

In the film Bonnie & Clyde as the neurotic Eugene Grizzard, he easily implanted himself into a film that wasn't actually a comedy, but with a very believable real world character, based on a true person!

Throughout the years since then, there were films that were benchmarks that he was a part of - The Producers (Mel Brooks' take on Broadway), Blazing Saddles (a great parody heralding a new style), Young Frankenstein, Stir Crazy (the start of films where real life situations were looked at from a comedic point of view, that brought films like 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, etc), and the still amazing Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.

The latter is an absolute classic family film on my opinion! Beautiful songs, gorgeous sets, brilliant acting, and great writing that wonderfully captures the magic of the Roald Dahl novel Charlie & The Chocolate Factory! 

I've seen the Tim Burton version, which is okay I suppose, but that version with Gene Wilder had magic, and perfectly matched the book that I read as a kid!

Gene himself was a delight in the film, wonderfully capturing the eccentricity of the character.

Apparently, he kept his problem with Alzheimer's a secret, because he liked that children knew him as Willy Wonka, and he wanted the world "to smile with him," instead of feeling sorry for him. When children would call out "it's Willy Wonka," he would go into character and be that character for them!

A lovely man, and a loss to the world.

Rest in peace Gene, and thank you for the smiles and laughter xx 

Interview with a future Rock Star

Hi, I hope you're all okay...

As a change to the normal sort of thing, I thought that I would interview the lead singer of a band I am friends with (in the real sense as opposed to the virtual online "friends" thing), and who I think should be bigger!

They have a really big following already, but deserve more in my opinion, because their music has some great use of melody, harmony, and some great archive footage inter-cut, that adds to the already incredibly dramatic rock riffage, and great meaningful lyrics that wonderfully capture the times.

So, welcome to the lead singer of the band Servers, Lee Storrar -

1. Was there any pressure to come up with a new album, or are you left to decide when new material is released?

Absolute no pressure from anywhere apart from our selves to try deliver an album that was as good, or better than Leave with us.


2. As a follow up to that question, was it a conscious decision to look at a possible progression in the band musically and stylistically from the previous work?

I think because the reviews and feedback were so positive for Leave With Us, yet we as a band, things didn’t really move forward, it was a challenge to deliver something special. I think there’s a lot more work gone into building sonically on EIOK


3. Are the songs fully formed with arrangements before going into the studio, or is it an ongoing process even through recording?

They’re fully formed at the pre production stage prior to recording. At that, we still struggle for time to meet the targets in the studio


4. I love the use of "footage" on the album, and how it adds to the drama of the songs. How do you go about getting that, and who is responsible for it?

I (Lee S) tend to try to find something that is in keeping with what§ the song is about. Then Lee W will often chop up the snippets to make them fit while still making sense.


5. One thing I love about your music is the melodic/harmonic side of it. Is that an instinctive thing, or do you go all theory on it, working out the intervals, etc?

There’s no theory apart from to try to get a strong chorus then make sure the rest of the song is interesting for the listener.


6. Is the music a result of just coming up with something on the spot, or do individuals come in with bits?

Tends to be me who writes the initial ideas on the computer then send them to the others who in turn feed back in with their thoughts and ideas or sometimes even a straight ‘no’ that’s not doing anything for me.


7. How did the band's initial image come about?

it was because all of the songs were about cults and cult leaders…we wanted to have some fun with it and create our own cult/religion. As people becoming imageless or unimportant looking (the hoods) as if servers, with ‘Zero’, being the one we all answer to. The idea is to give people Server numbers (that aren’t necessarily permanent) and the harder you worked for the cause you could gain promotion to a higher or ‘special’, number. The lower your number, the closer you are to zero. Who by the way has still to give us his manifesto every religion has an imaginary friend right? ours is Zero


8. Are there any bands/artists that inspire your sound, and if so, who?

Mastodon, Killing Joke, Baroness, The Doors


9. Important question here - Marvel, DC, or a rebellious Dark Horse?

Judge Dredd might very well be Zero …so Marvel


10. What would you like to do in the future that you haven't already?

tour America


Thank you Lee :-)

Thank you everyone for reading, and you can get their fantastic second album from all over the place right now!

21st August 2016 (45 years, eight months, and 26 days old)


Everything Is Okay album on Amazon UK
Their first album, Leave With Us, on Amazon UK

Cinema trip

A quick blog...

On Tuesday night I went out with some friends to the cinema.

Being the geek that I am, we went to see Star Trek Beyond, the new film in the massive Star Trek franchise, which in itself is in enjoying it's fiftieth anniversary.

It's another of those films that I've been really looking forward to, which is quite the list at the moment!

Films that I'm looking forward to at the moment include Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Rogue One, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, and plenty more.

Suicide Squad and Justice League look potentially great, but I've always been more if a Marvel comics person - they were a fun read as a kid, whereas DC was a bit serious.  I read friends' Batman comics and enjoyed them, but they were very serious!

Anyway, I went to see the new Star Trek film with Gareth & Russell, along with Russell's "adopted daughter" and her boyfriend. Mine and Russell old school buddy Rob couldn't come, as he was away with his family.  We missed him!

The film was fantastic, and much better than the previous two films!

The film did a great job of returning the films to the spirit of the originals, whilst also making it relevant to today's audiences.  The late Anton Yelchin was great as Chekov in the film, who was pivotal, as were all of the main characters.

There was something about the ending that irked at me, but I'll leave that be without spoiling it for anyone! 

It made a nice change to go out with friends, and it's something that I think I need to do, and look forward to doing more of.

Great film, great friends, great time...  Great!

Thanks guys, we'll do it again soon!

Sunday 31st of July 2016 (45 years, 8 months, and 5 days old).

Out but don't want to be

Hi there from Rufford Abbey Country Park near Ollerton in Nottinghamshire.

Here I am sat blogging on my phone, while my sweetheart, Louise, is photographing whatever it is that she is photographing.

I'm sat sort of watching, but wishing I was elsewhere. Yes, that joke of "it looks like I'm interested, but really I'm thinking of playing guitar" is exactly what's happening at this exact moment!

I have a variety of musical things that I need to get done on this day off work - Tuesday doesn't count as a day off, as that's dead man walking territory for the most part right there - a symptom of the something I read about, where people who work shifts, particularly those who only work nights (me for instance), suffer from tiredness, lack of concentration, short attention span (no change there for a light sufferer of ADD anyway - ADHD without the hyperactivity essentially), irritability, mood swings, erm, and other stuff. Back to that in a bit, eh!

Anyway, we are a couple of weeks into the 50:90 songwriting challenge, and I've had close to no time to do anything.

My work for the most part consists of driving for thirteen hours checking numerous sites, responding to alarms and all that, and that's a lot of hours five days a week.

I know that I'm not the only person that does that, but I'm just pointing out that as much as I love, live, and breathe music, I just don't have the time or energy to do it.

I'm letting so many down as well, because I'm a part of a few multi-contributor pieces where they are waiting for me, but I don't have the time that they do.

I hope that I'll get to it all, because the longer I go not getting it done, the more pissed off I get with everything.  Also, the more my anger builds at having to go out so that we get some time together.

I love Louise so much, but after over sixty hours a week of driving, sometimes the last thing I want to do is drive somewhere!

I also have a tendency to nod off while I'm driving when we are out, and I'm sick of how I keep explaining that for five days a week I'm in bed until about four in the afternoon after getting into bed at 9am.

People who don't have this night shift life will never understand it, and I am envious of them!

All of this was written on Wednesday the 27th of July 2016, and now it's Sunday the 31st, and I'm thinking of just posting whatever's here to see if a conversation starts...

Yep, I'm lazy and can't be bothered to read through and finish it off!

Thanks for reading.

Sunday 31st of July, 2016 (45 years, 8 months, and 5 days old.

The Purple Reign

Hi.

This year is turning into such an awful year, with so many celebrities passing away, including some who are big influences on me, and I'm sure a large number of people of my generation.

Rather than wax lyrical and repeat all of the information that you can find on Wikipedia, and all of those other places, I thought that I might look at this from a different angle...

Back in the nineties I was a bassist for a few bands.  One of the bands I was in, who at that time were named Jewel, but we split before the singer named Jewel came about, luckily for her ;-)

A lot of our material was made up of cover versions, which was a bit of a sore point for me back then, as I was always a very prolific writer.  Nowadays my opinion on cover versions has changed slightly.  Back then though I thought that we should have had more than six cover versions in our twenty four song set!  Yes, twenty four songs when we were the only group on the bill!  We did the set in two halves...

Now, by this time I was into the music of Prince.  I enjoyed a lot of his music when I was younger, but mainly from seeing videos on television, and hearing his music on the radio.  I thought that Purple Rain was a beautiful song, and liked When Doves Cry, Kiss, Raspberry Beret, and a good few others, and intended to get some of his music into my collection.

While I was working at the old Bandwagon Studios in Mansfield as an admin assistant, I made friends with everyone there, most of whom are still among my greatest friends.  The manager at the time, and again now, was Andy Dawson (an absolutely awesome guitarist), who I ended getting into a conversation with about Prince.  He suggested that I get hold of the New Power Generation albums, which I did, and I was automatically hooked from then on!

It feels bad that it took that long for it to happen, but there was something incredible about his music.

It was a style all of his own in a way, which was inspired by so very many genres, that it was unbelievable to even try and fathom where all of his influences originally came from!

Anyway, the other two members suggested that we do a Prince song as a cover version, and that I sing it...

I went away and learnt about twenty songs I think, I'm not sure - I'm getting on y'know! ;-)

So we were together again rehearsing and that, and I was there with songs such as Purple Rain, Little Red Corvette, and even Cream (I just wanted to learn it because it's so damn funky).  I'd learnt the lyrics and bass parts, as well as guitar for some of them.

The guys said that they were thinking of the song Controversy.  An incredibly high vocal range piece with my "get by" vocals.

We learnt it, played it a few times in sets, and just about got away with it.  It seemed to go down okay, just as the vocal melody also went down a little bit - same key, different pitch!

My love for Prince's music grew over the years, and I became very much a collector of his records, and someone who finds beauty in places where others don't even look...

The Rainbow Children is a wonderfully jazzy album.  3121 has some great gems on that people don't even think about - "Guitar" has some absolutely mind-blowing guitar work.

He's incredibly well known for his prolific nature, and he could play 27 instruments at the last count.  His ex-wife Mayte has said on occasion that he would suddenly have an idea, go into the recording studio at home in Paisley Park, and then come out of the studio an hour later having completely written and recorded the whole song complete.  According to one rumour, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World was written, recorded, and mixed in a hour and a half!  One and a half hours!  WOW!

When Prince wrote great songs, he wrote some absolutely incredible songs.

Rumours have been abound for years about there being an incredibly large vault of unreleased material that is stored at Paisley Park, and according to a documentary that I watched once, it is true that there is a wealth of material there, although whether it agrees with what people said in the late nineties that he had enough to release an album every year for fifty years without having to record another song, is debatable.

Whatever the truth behind the archive rumours, it is still a fact that he was wrote an amazing amount of material, and that there were three or four albums that he wanted to release in the period of a year between two albums that were released, that the record company said would be a bad idea!  That would have made five or six albums in the space of sixteen months apparently.  One of those albums did eventually get released a while later as The Black Album.

His music was the soundtrack to so many people's lives, and will continue to be played far into the future.  His influence is undeniable, and his ability was staggering.

His music wasn't easily available for a period of time, which had a lot to do with disputes with record companies over royalties and the rights for artists to own their own music, which actually led to him for many years releasing his material online through his website - people joined the website for a fee, and albums were issued to those members.  Eventually he went back into the corporate realm, but with an undisclosed contract that was no doubt an incredibly good one!

His profile rose again over the last couple of years, and he was once more starting to reach that great position known as "Iconic".

Over the coming years his legend will be mythologized, much like other artists are, but it doesn't detract from the point that he still made an impact on me and others.

He will be missed, but we will continue to play his music.

Rest in peace Prince Rogers Nelson.

April 21st 2016

PS - I thought I would try and record Purple Rain live at work on my travel guitar (that is in the car boot), with only my memory from almost twenty years ago performing it a few times.  I should have reminded myself of the lyrics first - https://soundcloud.com/projectmarv/purple-rain-cover

FILM REVIEW - HERO (2002)

Here I am, I am the master of your...
Sorry, wrong film! She's definitely
doing a Freddie though, right?

Hi.  I hope you're okay.

"I'll have a chicken chow mein , and could you hold
off on the prawn crackers please."

A couple of Christmases ago, Louise bought me a couple of films as part of the presents she gave me that year.  The two films, on DVD, were Watchmen and Hero, the former of which I watched for the first time the other night.

At long last I watched the Jet Li film Hero, which was from 2002.

I told you it was "epic"

The film has an incredible cast, which includes Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Dao Ming, and Donnie Yen, and the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous!

The film tells a wonderfully epic tale that is based at an incredibly pivotal time in Chinese history - during the Qin era.  The story looks into Qin's desire to unite the seven warring nations that will come to make up what we know as China, which was not something that was easily attained.

I had to screen capture the Koto player!

The story is beautifully twisting, incredibly filmed, and has such great acting in it.

Yes, I know that it has that fantastical side to it with the "flying people" and all of that, but there is so much beauty within that mythology, legend, and the fables of traditional Chinese stories that to some is so wonderfully enchanting, and I am one such person.

Epic!

I am so glad that I finally got to see the film, and am pleased to have it as a part of my expansive film collection!

"Ooh baby, you couldn't have done a worse thing to me,
If you had taken an arrow and run it right through me"

A great film in my book.  In a similar league to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but it wouldn't take the place of that film in my list!  Crouching will always be up there in my favourite Chinese films of all time alongside films such as Enter The Dragon (my favourite), but this film is up in my top, erm, twenty I suppose!

Thank you for reading, please take care.

Monday March the 14th, 2016 (45 years, 3 months, and 17 days old).

I think Dulux might have run out of red paint perhaps?

Epic!

Zhang Ziyi shows beautifully how to put across something without words!

Look at how beautiful this is!

Epic!

The queue for Batman Vs Superman is already getting silly!

Epic!

FETCH ME THE HOLIDAY BROCHURE!!!

David Bowie, rest in peace Starman x

Hi.

It's been a while, and I've noticed an unpublished blog that I forgot about as well, which I will get to soon...

I've been waiting to do this because I just couldn't find the words and, in fact, this started as a Facebook response that I suddenly realised was the basis for the blog post that I had been waiting to write.

So, here goes -

When someone makes a big mark upon the world through their art or any other way, those affected by it will always respond.

In times gone by there were those who would show up on mass at specific places to do with that person, as people have done at the place where the famous Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars album cover was taken!

Some artists create things that are divisive, such as Dali & Picasso in their paintings.

This divisive boundary pushing creativity exists in many art forms, and David Bowie was one of those who made their music this way.

Like many musical artists like this, occasionally their material makes it through to the mainstream, such as Let's Dance, Space Oddity (itself an oddity musically in fact), Fame, and others.

If, like me, you were attracted to their entire catalogue, then it can affect you.

I understand those people who are irritated by the outpouring of emotion for Mr Bowie (who turned down a knighthood by the way), but in my case I'm responding to losing someone whose music touched them, and I'm not talking necessarily about the big mainstream hits, but about his entire catalogue!

Well, what I own of it!

I will be honest and admit that I don't own everything, but I own the majority of his material!

I am missing four albums that I know of, of which I have two of them on cassettes that I recorded onto using CDs that I'd borrowed from the library - Earthling and Lodger - I know!  I just never got around to getting everything yet! I always intended to, and I will do!

The first song I remember hearing from David was Ashes To Ashes, alongside the video on Top Of The Pops!  I was only nine years old at the time (August 1980), but there was something about it even back then that I liked!

I didn't understand the lyrics at all, but the music and melody grabbed my attention, as well as the ever so slightly creepy music video!  It's still creepy in some ways, but the music is damn funky and very different at the same time!

Over the years there were moments that grabbed me in his music, and over time I collected a fair bit of his catalogue.

I can understand people being drawn to the "classic" albums, such as The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars, Hunky Dory, et al, and I think they're fabulous as well.

I remember in 1989 that the album Tin Machine came out.  The idea he had was that he wanted to try and put a band together to take him somewhere else, as he was underwhelmed by his own output at that point!

So, with brothers Hunt & Tony sales on drums and bass respectively, and Reeves Gabrels on guitar, as well as himself on vocal and guitar, and occasional member Kevin Armstrong on guitar and keyboards, the rock band Tin Machine was born!

He was already aware of these musicians abilities.  Hunt, Tony & Reeves had been Iggy Pop's backing musicians on the classic Lust For Life album, and other work.  The album absolutely rocked, and the material was edgier as well.  Songs such as the title track, Under The God, Sacrifice Yourself, and Heaven's In Here (great riff) showed a reinvigorated Bowie in so many ways, and footage of the band live at that time show him happier in his music than he had been in a long time!

In 1993 David released the album Black Tie White Noise, the title track of which I thought was fabulously funky, unsurprising considering that like the Let's Dance album, it too was produced the wonderful Nile Rodgers of Chic fame!

The 1995 album 1. Outside really jumped out at me!

Seen as "the one that got away" by Bowie himself, as well as the album's producer and co-writer Brian Eno, I thought the whole thing was fabulous, with the way that it told a story throughout the 19 titles on the album, and there was all sorts of additional bits in the packaging - wonderful artwork, a story that David wrote to go with the songs, and it was just an incredible experience in my opinion.

Sure, the whole thing is dark, but then I think that music and art have to look at all aspects of emotion and life, including the darker side therein!

The album has some wonderful work on there, a lot of which I can see as being obviously influential on artists such as Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who remixed the incredible song The Heart's Filthy Lesson from the album!

Another factor in the album hitting me like that is that I was in a really bad way at that time, and in a way the darkness of the album actually helped me in a lot of ways - sort of like a catharsis in a way!  I won't go into that, but trust me that I wasn't the me that people know now!

I really liked the song Little Wonder from the Earthling album, which I, ahem, copied onto tape from a CD I borrowed from the local library!  I will have a proper copy soon!

Late on in the 90's, I got the game The Nomad Soul for the PC, on which there were songs taken from the forthcoming album Hours.  In the case of the song New Angels Of Promise, the lyrics were slightly different to fit the game, but I was stoked by the new music on there, and the music could be played separately on a normal CD player as well, since the were actual music files - MP3's were still being worked on at that time to how we know them today!

The eventual album the songs came from is one of my favourites to be honest!

I know, that might seem strange considering, but I really like a lot of the material on there!  As I do the Outside album too!  There is something about the two albums that really grabs onto me - I can't put my finger on it, but they really do resonate with me in a lot of ways, much like all of his music seems to!

Actually, in a career like David's, it's difficult to pin down exactly which is my actual favourite album of his!

His career has seen him experiment with different styles, musicians, producers...  Hell, a lot of the time you can't even say that one of his albums is like any other one of his albums - Aladdin Sane is different to The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, as they are different to Pin-Ups, and Hunky Dory!  All fabulous albums!

Even the albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger, are so different from each other - similarities appear, but they have there own distinctive character!

His surprise release in 2013, The Next Day, is an amazing piece of work, especially the Extended Edition of it!  I was once again blown away by the album, although I never actually understood the whole aesthetic of the artwork, whereby it was basically the Heroes album cover with stickers replacing the album details for the new album, and the new album's title strewn over the top of the Heroes album cover - just me I suppose?

No matter - the album has a number of gems on that I loved to this day, and will continue to love - I'd Rather Be High, the title track, Valentine's Day, If You Can See Me, Boss Of Me (with that lovely Tony Levin stick bass work)...  I could go on forever.

On the 8th of January this year, David release what would become his last album, Blackstar.

It is a wonderful album that, even though it is just seven songs, has so much going on!

The title track is just under ten minutes of amazing musical experimentalism at it's very best!  Lazarus is a beautiful and sad piece of work, that has a music video that matches the song wonderfully - it makes me cry actually now when I watch it!  Other songs that jump out at me are Tis A Pity She Was A Whore, Girl Loves Me, and I Can't Give Everything Away.

That's just on my first couple of listens!  I intend to listen to it more, because it's a great album, especially considering what he must have been going through while putting it together!

On the morning of Monday the 11th of January, 2016 I woke up to the news that David had died...

I was actually in shock, and in a way I was surprised that I had responded that way!  When I told Louise about it, she couldn't believe it either, and was also affected in a way.  She like a good few of his hit songs - Let's Dance, Modern Love, China Girl, Absolute Beginners, and a few more.  She understood my response to it.

I am still shocked by it, and I have heard other people say the same thing about it!

I think that his legacy is more than many of us realised to be honest!

As I posted the other day on my instagram account - "singer, songwriter, musician, actor, artist, icon, legend."  He was all that and more!  I know that that sounds cliched, but I don't think that can be denied or be seen as being over the top?

He tried to push the boundaries of so many things - music, film, art, fashion, and even in electronics.  He was very known for his charitable contributions and there is no dark side there, other than his dalliances with drugs in the seventies.

I for one will miss him, but will continue to listen to his music, and watch films that he was in.  He will live on through that, and through those he has influenced.

His son Duncan Jones is a remarkable filmmaker, with his film Moon being one of my favourite films - if you like science fiction and haven't seen it, then I would suggest it as a must-see film.  Sam Rockwell's performance in it is astonishing!

I didn't initially put the two together when I saw the film initially, and that's probably to Duncan's favour really.

Anyway, if like me you are still missing him and feeling that sense of loss, take out his music and keep listening - it's there for us to enjoy and to keep finding something new that we love in there, because there was always so much going on in his songs that we couldn't find everything in the first listen.

Tomorrow, the film Labyrinth is coming out.  I've been listening to lots of his music, and I really want to watch that film!

Rest in peace David Bowie, I was lucky to be here at the same time as you were.  I just wish that I had met you in person!

Yes, the stars don't seem the same now!