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David Bowie talks about Technology and Music
nanuuq writes "Shift.com has got an interview with David Bowie.
" Bowie's a genius. Interesting perspectives on where art, music and technology collide with each other.
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Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
we know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out on heaven's high
Hitting an all time low....
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Cool site. Thanks muchly!
And no! I made first post? Well, I never thought I'd see the day.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
I don't think Bowie is a genius and don't feel that he has any special insight over the average slashdot reader.
His music may not be mainstream (Backstreet Boys, etc...) but he definitely is a very talented musician. He relies on his musical talent and not his looks to attract an audience. It's refreshing to know that such a good artist is also a computer geek. I dunno about the ISP venture though. I wish he would concentrate on starting his own digital label to help the acceptance of mp3s. Or I wish he'd turn is efforts to the design of a new distribution system for digital music. He definitely has enough influence to convince other musicians to contribute and fund such a possibility. Now that would be a pinnacle accomplishment... Well, at least the music is great.
Rangers Lead the Way!
I refuse to visit any site whose content was produced by MS' proprietary software which uses special characters which don't adhere to standard character sets.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Keynote speaker Thomas "She Blinded Me with Science" Dolby took stage in a black beret to discuss the relationship between Be and his company, Beatnik. Beatnik was formerly known as HeadSpace, and provided the original software synthesizer in BeOS.
Dolby also showed off a fully interactive Javascript/RMF mixer Beatnik had built for David Bowie's site, which lets users remix Bowie's hit "Fame" to their heart's content directly in browserspace. It was not entirely clear what the exact nature of Beatnik's relationship with Be is, but it's enough to know they're working together on making RMF a native component of BeOS. Hopefully we can get more details on this in a future report.
... but where did Bowie's son attend college?
To find out that David Bowie is a geek. I was always under the impression that being a popular musician and geekhood were mutually exclusive. I guess that's what I get for thinking. Fortunately, there are people like David Bowie taking the stigma out of geekdom and blowing the pocket-protector stereotype to pieces.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I like David Bowie and (most) of his incarnations. But to say that he got by purely on talent and not his looks is to do him a disservice. Ziggy Stardust was as much about visual representation as it was the music and it influenced a whole generation. (Hence the poor copycat in Marilyn Manson) Bowie's look may have been non-traditional, but it certainly was attractive.
I will agree with you, though, that his time would be better spent promoting digital music of his ISP.
Is it just me, or did anyone else get incredibly bored with the constant "I did that first, that was me, I was there before anyone else" line that just kept coming up during that interview?
That whole article just felt so AlGore'ish to me. I mean, sure, yeah, the man did some interesting and new and innovative things, but come on... he had a Rio last year, and that makes him feel like he was in on the MP3 scene before anyone else?
The man is clueless. Yay for his previous success, but just get over yourself, Bowie.
Your Pop Industry Schmuck Game Is Over.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
hmmm strange change of mind.. the last albume he put on the web was not available as mp3 but only in the propritary m$ audio and SDMI shit... the last concert was only broadcasted with the realmedia shit.. not mp3 there... and now he talks like he invented mp3...strange...
The man is the original pop chameleon.
Geek is cool, these days.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Has the so-called "MP3 revolution" had an impact on you?
Not even remotely. Revolution? I don't see it like that. It has been coming for a long time. I had a Rio last year! They've been taking my music and bootlegging my shows for ages. I know all the sites that have my bootlegs and all my MP3s. Actually, I don't give a flying fuck. I like the internet and I like the community. I think, to understand your presence on the net, you have to be a part of it and work within it. I thought it just looked so reactionary, for instance, of someone like Prince to clamp down on everything in terms of the lawsuits. You can't stop the sea from coming forward.
I think it's very cool that he is one (of the few) musicians who can embrace a technology, even though it has the potential to lower his profits (in this case, digital music formats like mp3) and use it to his advantage. I think Bowie is a smart guy, and he knows that one aspect of the music industry in the future is the internet. Instead of trying to delay the internet's role in music like other artists, he advances it's role, even going so far as to let his fans help him write a song. Now that is cool, and I hope that others (artists and labels alike) start to follow suit.
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"Insert witty quote here."
David Bowie is a publicly traded company. That's right David Bowie had his own IPO and like the rest of the public companies, he's got internet fever.
Why? Not because his 'digi-hip', not because he's ahead of his time, it's just the most cost efective way to reach the masses.
And these children that you spit on as they try to change there world, are a imune to your consultations, they're quite aware what they're going through . .
awwww wham bam thank you mame'
I've never been a big fan of David Bowie's music, but I've always been impressed by him. Labyrinth was a neat movie, (and the music there was very cool, too, IMO) he's managed to change with the times, he's rich, and he's got a pretty cool record label. (I've always liked Virgin, as big companies go. Virgin Radio is neat too, they broadcast on RealAudio...)
So, let's compare. Most rock stars, whether or not you like their music, end up broke, fading into the past, and often screwed by their record labels. So Bowie's got something going for him.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Most industry icons tend to favor the status quo. It's very difficult to find anyone in the music industry who openly says they don't give a fuck about people dishing out their MP3s. Just look at the way most music labels try to clamp down instead of trying to understand how the net works.
In that light, what's surprising is how in-tune with the whole trading/dl'ing/mp3 culture bowie is, especially given the fact that he's from an older generation. I know *programmers* his age who have difficulty understanding the whole net culture and dismiss the internet as a fad.
Also, you need to keep in mind that celebrities are not particularly intelligent, smart people. When asked what she wished her computer could do, Jennifer Anniston wanted it to do her workouts. Scary Spice is known to have pointed to a monitor and ask if that was the internet. So....it's all the more admirable that Bowie is in touch with the whole net culture and actually grasps it much more than the industry executives. Even the frigging teletubby people have unleashed lawyers prohibiting fan sites from showing an image of Tinky Winky. Oh well.
w/m.
-- I'm not a freak show, I'm a mammal. --
Not to be too offtopic, but I found this article at the end to be more interesting.
9 9/7.1/html/jamaica.html
http://www.shift.com/shiftstd/html/onlineTOC/19
Stuff about kids and the spread of internet in jamaica.
Leave it to an AC to find complaint-generator output /.
amusing enough to barf it up on
-- $SIGNATURE
and why does he keep saying it?
Tired of being another body in the flock? Linux ! We are not sheep anymore.
Reeves is a superb musician; I still listen to a funky recording Ichiro Tatsuhara made at Boston's Ratskeller in Kenmore Square in the 80's. Ichiro was the drummer, Reeves was the guitarist, the band was Pleasure Pointe, put together by Ron R.
Recording was made with a Sony Walkman on analog cassette (!). The sound quality is somewhat lacking, but the band's energy is electric and Reeves' guitar solos are quite possibly his best (Black English Woman -- How about it Mr. Bowie? You should consider performing/recording some of Pleasure Pointe's old material; it rocks).
I've yet to convert that recording to mp3 and post it on the web.... Reeves, when was the last time you heard that recording, eh?
Admiral Yamamoto
P.S. And what's with those lame-ass non-conformance HTML character entities for em dashes in the interview? Geesh. (You Windows weenies won't see the problem because your OS is subverting the standard and insidiously hiding the problem from you.)
I'll trade in my Martha Stewarts for some David Bowies!!!
;)
Just kidding, I don't (and won't) own either
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
...I find Bowie scary.
I totally disagree with this post. But disagreeing is NOT a reason to mark down. This person obviously has some emotionaly feelings against Mr. Bowie, but It was interesting to read.
Like I stated earlier, I completely disagree with this poster, but it was interesting (and quite amusing) to read. So I say moderate it up to 2, as interesting, if nothing else.
Remember, moderation is not about agreeing with someones statement. But to show interesting, funny, insightful, statements.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Actually, there are genres that are completely full of computer geeks. Mainly industrial and electronica.
;-)
Sure, they're not mainstream (as much as the record labels recently tried to push electronica as The Next Big Thing - they're still trying to find the next grunge), but they are a fairly significant music market, and are way over-represented online largely because they're created by geeks.
I dare anyone to say that Kraftwerk aren't perceived as computer geeks.
[TMB]
As much as I have respect for Bowie as an artist, this sounds like a Jon Katz article. At least Katz doesn't usually screw up his html (yes, I realize Bowie isn't likely to be responsible for the html)
Speaking of Reeves Gabrels, I've burned up 2 or 3 copies of the first Tin Machine album he and DB did with the Sales brothers (those are Soupy's boys, for you 60s/70s TV rerun fans). He plays guitar like a freakin' chainsaw. Thoroughly awesome.
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And from what Bowie said I don't think he is a real geek, not saying that he considers himself one either. There is certainly a gray area. For example someone who can use their computer and for the most part understands it but doesn't care about programming, hardware, etc isn't really a geek. Nothing wrong with that, they're just not a geek. Myself, I play the bass, I enjoy it but I'm not that good and I don't think I'm a musician.
I have always liked bowie, from china girl to magic dance (labyrinth). It is refreshing to see someone who understands the net. Only time will tell if this is real or staged, but I hope it is real since I would hate to think of bowie as a executive looser.
FYI, it was produced by Adobe's GoLive software, not a MS product.
Just because there are a few HTML errors, who cares?
First of all,..Just so we're clear here.. No, my parents didn't name me after David Bowie. They actually picked my name out of a baby book. Lucky me, a transvestite pop star makes it big a few months after I was born in '74.
Secondly, i'm not a fan of David Bowie's music. I just felt the need to point out that he's basically full of shit. Bands that got their start in the early 70's like Neu, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Devo (and individuals *prior* to 1970 such as Oskar Sala, Raymond Scott, Bob Moog) were already heavilly involved in using elements of electronic music in their work upwards of 10-20 years before David Bowie and Brian Eno even began toying with the idea. The assertion that David Bowie is some sort of legendary pioneer of electronic music is absolutely laughable.
The whole concept of producing electronic music with machines stems back as far as the late 1890's, believe it or not. Go to Yahoo and look up "Telharmonium" if you dont believe me.
To make a very long and complicated story short, the first real application of electronic music popped up around the mid 1920's, with the introduction of instruments such as the Theremin, and the Clavavox (among others)
David Bowie's "contribution" to the popularization of electronic music stems from seeing bands like Kraftwerk and Devo in 1977-79 and doing his best to reinvent himself and base his gimmick around the same idea. Neither band owes their existance to him in any way.. In Kraftwerk's case, they'de been doing it since 1969. in Devo's case, 1972.
Read books. Everything else is a sales pitch.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
This guy's not a troll, read the article, the guy's head's so fucking big i'm suprised he continues to live.
I refuse to visit any site whose content was produced by MS' proprietary software which uses special characters which don't adhere to standard character sets.
Actually, if you look at the source, the mdash crap is HTML compliant. For whatever reason, they coded the ampersand (&) character to appear in the displayed text, rather then using it to code HTML. Real brain-dead on their part.
My post here (#64) has more info.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
This is the same guy that when asked about how lengthy his Hours download was he replied something like, "But it only takes a few minutes at my house." Bowie's perspective is always going to be a rich man looking in regardless of how hard he tries to get in touch with the common bloke.
Now Bowie has reinvented himself as something like a modern philospher. Heh, its kinda cute, he talks about the inevitable tide of change while making pro-god and pro-religious appeals in the same breath.
The only really interesting and thought provoking part of his career was his SF themed songs from the last 60's. Which were quickly replace with his free sex/dj culture songs of the 70's, which of course were replaced by his yuppie culure songs of the 80's, *deep breath* which were replace by his techo stuff of late. Now he's going back and talking about his SF stuff in a Townshendesque 'I was geek before geek was hip.' Who would have thought the internet would bring dinosaurs back to life...
The entire Bowie mystique was partially SF based and partially occult based. For a little while in the 60's, psychedelic rock and SF had a fling going which a lot of musicians participated in. So I don't buy this 'I was the first guy to see the Mothership' mentality. Everyone was doing it, SF was ALL Jimi Hendrix read.
Now that he's older and his PR is wiser I'm sure he'll continue to pull an Al Gore, while showing us that, yes, he's a good vocalist/writer but a flake and opportunist.
But to me he'll always be the only walking corporation in the world!
Someone was clever and realized that the character needed to be HTML-encoded, but didn't realize that GoLive does it for you. So he typed in the encoded character, and GoLive dutifully encoded his ampersand.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Pfft...
P.S. And what's with those lame-ass non-conformance HTML character entities for em dashes in the interview?
The 4.0 DTD includes an `mdash' entity, defined in the file "HTMLspecial.ent"--see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/*.dtd and *.ent.
The problem is that, as we all should know by now, Netscape is not capable of understanding HTML 4.0. Mozilla M10 seems to understand things better than Netscape 4.7. It would be nice to see fleshy support for the standards before seeing `extension', wouldn't it?
-rozzin.
How very 'indie musician' of you..since he's a highly visible person, every move is scrutinized. He's been doing the ISP thing for a few years now, and is active in the mp3 movement.. christ...go write a hit record & then come back to us, okay?
He's a talented musician, and a thoughtful guy, but you are totally devaluing the word "genius". Words should mean something. We shouldn't need to be impressed with breathless exaggeration.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
"Andy Walking! Andy tired.
:)
Andy take a little snooze-
Tie him up when he's fast asleep
Send him on a pleasant cruise.
When he wake up on the sea
He's sure to think of me and you
And to think about paint, and to think about glue
And a jolly boring thing to do."
*grin* if you hear it, you hear the contempt in it. Andy Warhol, what a plastic fellow.
Actually, he'd been reading Nietzsche as early as the 60s. He wrote a song about the Superman (NOT the DC comics character). I personally think the song sucked compared to his other songs, but he _did_ write it :)
eeeek....please dont use the media-coined term "electronica".
Well, I gotta say, I'm both a Bowie and and Numan fan.
I've seen them both live in the last couple of years, and they both rocked!.
Numan's original Beggar's Banquet is an impressive body of work, not just up to Telekon. "We Take Mysteries To Bed" anyone?
Replicasand Pleasure Principle are the two to get, if anyone's interested. The guy was making 2 albums a year, changing his sound and instrumentation with each one. Talk about progress.
I honestly thought when I heard some tracks off 1989's New Anger that it was going to be his biggest breakthrough since "Cars."
Alas, IRS did nothing to promote it. *sigh*
PpoE
PS. Why the heck would "We Have A Downstat" have transcription errors when the lyrics are printed in the double-CD reissues? Someone should update those pages! Thanks for the link!
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
You're one of those Jerry Falwell republicans, aren't you? :)
:-) Might get old after a while, though.
No, one of those Jerry Falwell Republicans would have screamed "BOWIE'S A FAG! HE'S AN ENEMY OF CHRIST! BUTCHER HIM! BUTCHER THEM ALL! SLAUGHTER THEM FOR THE LORD!"
This particular AC is simply posting the output of an automated complaint generator. It's actually pretty funny.
.
This is freaky.
.. truly an awesome disc.)
:-)
I just got done throwing in "Children of the Night", a Nine Inch Nails bootleg that was recorded at a NIN/David Bowie concert. (It's got Trent Reznor and David Bowie doing duets of Reptile, Scary Monsters, and Hurt
So then I bring up Slashdot, and who's at the top of the list? David Bowie. Freaky.
Actually, it was pretty refreshing to see Bowie say that he doesn't give a "flying fuck" about the bootleggers. Bootleg CDs are a great way for fans of a particular artist or group to expand their collection. And if you think about it, concert bootleggers don't really take anything away from the artist. Who is hurt by somebody who's recording a concert, regardless of whether they're plugged into the soundboard or if they've just got some low-quality tape recorder near a loudspeaker? The artist(s) have already made their money off the concert; the bootleggers are simply providing a "permanent record" of the concert, so to speak. Seems like Bowie knows this, and is okay with it.
Interesting stuff.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Geeze must have been a really sssllloooowww day everywhere.... SLASHDOT LITE...all the hype half the content
If you ever read an emulation group on Usenet, you'll know about this site. It has brought an unending flow of spam to the groups. Just today, I read their spam, disguised as a check-this-out-I-just-found-a-great-site post, in alt.binaries.emulators.gameboy...
--
indeed.
Ensuring a third of the world has access to knowledge is a pretty good ratio - in the past very few people (less than 1% at times) had access to books and knowledge.
However, disparity of technology access is of concern - how are developing nations goig to progress without access to technology and knowledge ?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
don't shoot me igor stole that quote from pablo picasso - frank zapazzol
Well since this has probably been said many many times before but here goes..
/. is set up ! With help to a little thing called posts, if you see this post about david bowie and you dont like it, dont post a waste of space comment like many have in this article and many others
People Slashdot motto is simple "news for nerds, stuff that matters"
What matters to one person may be totally uninteresting to the next, thats the beauty of the way
well thats my 2cents anyway
Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.
If I had moderator status you would be moderated as either troll, flamebait, or offtopic. Your post is unnecessary, and has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. "Oh! SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAT LINUX@!$! LET'S FLAME IT!#!". You are only showing poor advocacy.
Now look what you've done, you've gotten me to post offtopic as well. At least I have the dignity to attach a name to my post, even if I expect it to get moderated down.
Well, us superfreaks think you're scary too. Now, my dress is falling off...pardon me.
Looking out on the crowd last year at the SF show...I could see a tear in every nerds eye...
Chris Randall of SMG is a geek if I've ever seen one - in the best sense, of course. He's got a thing going on with the BeOS and can discuss Moore's Law with the best of 'em.
:>
http://www.smg.org
He's also, oddly enough, quite anti-Mac (odd for an industrial/electronica musician). I don't agree with him in that respect, but I've found that most non-geeks give a damn either way.
Makes damn good music though.
Also, Trent Reznor has a history with electronics. I believe he majored in EE in college (?). Either way, he's definately more pro-Mac than Chris is.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
Laurie Anderson is a "performance artist", which means she can make noise about as irritating as Yoko Ono in full screech mode, and still have people fawn over her just because she's peculiar.
That woman is about as ridiculous as Andy Warhol.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The guy made an _ISP_, and not particulary noticeable one except that it's completely Microsoft-based. Who cares?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
A subject on slashdot that I know a little about.
First of all I would like to give out thanks to some people:
Thank you Elisha Gray for early work if not the first electronic ocillator, you started it all!
Thank you Lev Sergievitch Termen for inventing the theremen. Waveing hands of physics!
Thank you Wendy Carlos. He (now SHE) did the work on clockwork orange. Now remeber the Beethoven music done on synths? Well that was done on MONOPHONIC synths (one note at a time) and a LOT of recording, re-takes, and tape splicing. This hard working individual said that more than background toons could be hacked out of these spacy, modular beasts.
Thank you Rober Moog. Inventer of a lot of good sounds, inspiration of a lot of good bands, a smart man, a good teacher. What is MOOG you ask? oh pleeeeze. heh (by the way bob, if you read slashdot, email me.. been forever). Moogs will never go out of fasion.
Thank you Devo, Kraftwork, and Brian Eno. Household names for the electronic muscian, and all around cutting edge people. Half the stuff that came from Devo is STILL taboo in some states (heh).
Thank you roland for mass production of some decent gear (no thanks to the people who ruined the sound of the 303).
Now there are a lot of other people who deserve credit. A lot of work was put into early disco, early techno, and even rock and roll (hammond co and Rhodes too). One final note.
Thank you David Bowie for nothing. You made some good tunes, but over all, thank you for jack shit. Thank you for another useless bland ISP with a theme, and riding on the coat-tails of great men.
Tis all i have to say.
Bortbox
I knew that some of the music in the game was bowies but that it was integrated in this way, and that bowie was also playing a character I didn't knew. It reminded me of the Labyrinth film I watched in the eighties. There was definately a theme: another world, and a nomad soul.
People can say what they want, but I think this integration of 'art' and computers is the heart of the matter. Why is the internet so popular? Because people are 'breathing' themselves and meaning into cold and lifeless matter. Creation.
Well it's starting now, the technology is arriving, "The Wheel of Time": a computer game based on the fantasy world of Robert Jordan, "The Real Neverending Story"
Although Bowie borrows/steals other material: it's is the way he combines it into something new that indicates the quality of his work (and not all his work i find of quality, and others may disagree). If this philosopher Rorty says that integrity doesn't fit in our culture, I disagree: integrity is not something that points to one point of view and sticking with it. It is more a sincerity in what you do, and doing it in a right way. Empty spaces, surfaces filled with sincerity, art and meaning.
Another interesting story I found the experiences of the Omikron developers with Bowie. The story of Bowie's involvement with the game can be found here.
I agree very much with this....although I think that in my experience the artists are very much in support of the whole internet thing - what they want above all else is to get their music heard. Where it all stops is the labels - they want profit and can't figure out a good way of getting that from mp3.
Anyway, I promised a plug so here it is....I run a fan site for a british band called Sunscreem, you may (or may not) have heard of them. They've had a fair few hits in the UK, Europe and the US over the last 10 years, and until recently were signed to $ony. Like a certain famous George they have not parted company with them and are now signed to a variety of specalist labels around the world. The point is, they are running a project called "Music for the Screemillenium" which is providing a different mp3 file each week from my site, until Jan 2000. These are rare mixes, classic tracks and album tracks, all professionally produced (most have been released in the past on CD) and are all posted 100% legally. Check it out if you are interested at this site. Their official page is here and my fan site is here.
A second "interactive" part of the project is about to go online...they will be posting a midi file and a collection of samples (vocals, bass, percussion etc) from one of their unreleased tracks and inviting everyone to do their own remixes! The best may be released commercially, and some pretty cool prizes are up for grabs.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
There are two other cool stories on Shift:
g 7.1.asp?searchfor=7.1hannah
a tures.asp?searchfor=artmark
Fourteen-year-old Makonnen Hannah is wiring his nation and leading it into the twenty-first century.
http://www.shift.com/shiftstd/SiteMap/frames/ma
Remember the folks who replaced Barbie's chirp with GI Joe's macho grunt? If you don't, It's because no one ever learned their true identity.
Now ®(TM)ark's back with a new strike against the corporate empire.
http://www.shift.com/shiftstd/SiteMap/frames/fe
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yes, I'm a huge fan of Bowie... probably guess that if you keep reading.
/. But being a fan, I sucked it up and read the interview.
I was surprised to see HIM of all people mentioned at
Yes, there were some html problems.
Yes, Bowie may seem arrogant at times, of course who wouldn't if he was worth $900 million dollars as is Bowie.
From reading the interview, I got no impressions that he was trying to "claim" being "First on the mp3 scene". I merely concluded he didn't give a damn about bootlegs and is all for the idea of MP3...whether or not he was going to kiss mp3 users' asses.
And if the usage of "genius" was too much for some readers... perhaps you should think in terms of "Musical Genius"... That's what Bowie is, afterall.
ongoing fan...
He seems very interested in creating an online community and my company was one of the several asked to bid on creating it. We're a "bland" ISP (by his definition) and I would probably be the one chosen to implement the site if we got the job. We're probably going to be turned up in favor of all of the other big names that are partnering with them, but we gots to start somewhere, no?
I'm not supposed to talk about this, but, hell, he just told everything to an interviewer and we're not under NDA or anything. :)
The design goals for his online community are similar to BlackPlanet and AsianAvenue
I'm still hopeful. It'd be a cool project.
Ask Scott Pakin for his source.
LouZiffer
..
the comments in this article seem strange since all the David Bowie mp3 sites were told to go real audio or get their butts sued. I wonder if this article will prompt them to return to mp3. Bowie has also been quoted as saying, "mp3 will give you warts" As far as I can tell, he is against mp3 and for downloadable music.
I hate webmasters who can?t be bothered to check their damned HTML for accuracy You know — the one?s who use bogus entities and like can?t be bothered to strip those stupid ?Microsoft Smart Quotes I?d like to £ them...
David Bowie also has his own private label web bank at http://www.bowiebanc.com
:-)
go figure
My favorite rock star geek has always been Todd Rundgren.
He has been a known computer hacker since the 70's, fiddling with all manner of kit computers and so forth, especially those that had some musical or "media" orented accessories.
He was one of the very first beta testers of the "Newtek Video Toaster" (the coolest Amiga accessory card ever, IMHO), as well as numerous other computer based media orented products.
As for David Bowie, the interview certianly seems to indicate that he is more technologically hip than the average pop music star. Good for him!
But he dropped out of grad school after a couple of years and is now in film school in London.
Like most musicians, Bowie is a Macintosh user through and through.
I doubt he's ever touched BeOS in his life, although the Fame remix did use Beatnik technology (just a browser plugin for Netscape or IE).
Bowie has always been known as a name-dropper. He is reported to read voraciously, but whether he actually fully understands what he's read or whether it's just a game he likes to play with stupid interviewers who know no better is still up for debate.
Personally, I'm of the former school. I think if you put him in a room with actual philosophers and well-read debaters, he would look very silly. When put up against your average pop-music reviewer, he looks very smart.
BLOW IT OUT YEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR MOTHERFUCKING ASSSSS!~!!
Linux might handle audio well also, I don't really know. But hey that's why they have boot managers, and Linux is free so why not use it along with BeOS.
Odd that this comes up just as I've been going on a Bowie jag! I brought "Earthling" a few weeks ago, and picked up "Hours. . ." and "Scary Monsters" just last week. Fascinating interview as well, btw; and his web site looks fab. That's all I wanted to say. Ta!
Yes, Yes....I agree...Sadly, most "artist" sites just jump on the technology bandwagon, merely to look "cool"...rather than actually having anything to do with the cause
And what is it with the relatively "famous" brits and the Macintoshes? David Bowie, Stephen Fry, Rowan Atkinson Hugh Laurie...the list goes on.........
Thank You and Sod off..........