h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And that doesn't happen often.

Everything was fine with the world. Got off the bus, walked to the office.

Checked my phone and David Bowie has died.

I don't know what to say.

Same here.

It's weird. I love Bowie, have done since I can remember, but I rarely talk about his music here at work.

And still, they all realised as soon as it filtered out and are comisserating. Even though most of them are too young to know most of his really brilliantly influential work.

But still. Stunned.

Well, that knocked me sideways! He was only 69, which is way too young to lose such a talent. I was never a huge fan, but even I can feel the loss.

RIP

I was never really a David Bowie fan, but I did buy the single of both Starman and Life on Mars when they came out. My daughters went through a phase of listening to everything he ever produced and I then realised that I knew most of his really good stuff rather well.

I saw him live back in 2004, yet somehow only have two of his albums ('Greatest Hits' and 'Labyrinth').

<BB<

I also bought 'The Laughing Gnome' when it was re-released in 1973.

I was 13 and should have scorned such rubbish. But I never did care what other people thought of me.

This really was a sad thing for me to wake up to. He was an artistic genius, and the world will be a less interesting place without him in it. And he'd released a new album only last week.

We went to his "David Bowie Is" exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art here last year. There were lots of items (costumes, set lists, etc.) from his personal collection, a really intimate look at such a fascinating artist.

So sad to lose him at such a relatively young age.

http://vimeo.com/21478424

This was the first time I saw David Bowie, _Saturday Night Live_, 1979. I was fascinated and that fascinated remains to this day.

I think the first time I saw him acting was in _The Hunger_ - 1983 opposite Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon, which remains one of my favorite vampire films if not the one I judge others by. But I think his best role was in _Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence_ that same year. If you haven't seen it, find it.

Cool old Guy impressed
"Not really a fan, though I was completely amazed by the castle in Labyrinth.
He also performed some trick with living glass balls in his hand.

Running his Greatest hits on the main sound system "

I just mentioned elsewhere that The Hunger was possibly a bit too sexy for me. But it is a fantastic vampire film.

We often (chez Sho) say "ere, what's that ticking noise?" "that's Fred - he's a metrognome" apropos of nothing at all. Well, it makes us laugh.

my uncle was heavily into Bowie and Cockney Rebel in the early 70s, I was about 8 or 9 when I had an absolute hissy fit because we were at my grandma's for a visit and I had to sleep in his room (while he bunked up with his older brother). He's only 5 years older than me and was most put out when my grandma told him to take all the posters down. But when I went in to drop my stuff off he told me off for being a pain in the neck and played Starman for me. So the posters stayed up and I got into glam rock at an early age.

I have lots of albums on vinyl - then I had a few that were recorded off friends' albums onto cassette (yes, I know) that I don't have any more. and haven't replaced all of them with CDs. I didn't like Tin Machine at all and haven't tried much of his recent stuff. Although I was chatting with about Blackstar yesterday and we decided to buy it on vinyl next month.

Just... Stunned, really. It's a very weird feeling - and in a lot of ways worse than John Lennon's death (which affected by hugely, and not only because it was my 17th birthday)

Bowie's been very hit-and-miss with me over the decades. I never got either Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane (in both senses of the word), but later on I decided that Hunky Dory was worth buying and I liked it a lot, then (not so much now).

A few years later he released Low during the height of punk rock (he was one of the few existing rock stars who wasn't derided by the punks), and I was all over it like a rash. That was a period when I played a handful of LPs almost every day. Low, The Rotters Club (Hatfield and the North) and Rattus Norvegicus (The Stranglers) were three of those. But, after all that time and all the content he's put out, Station to Station is the only Bowie I like to listen to these days.

But, y'know, three-score-years-and-ten. We should expect a lot more of the biggest, and original, rock stars to start dropping off the twig soon. They're about that age.

Speaking of Low, I really wish I'd bought Nick Lowe's riposte to it - the Bowi EP

I love Low - in fact I probably play that the most after Hunky Dory which is just... there's a lot in that and it has a lot of memories and so on (it was, with Dark Side of the Moon and Making Movies one of the most played records in our 6th form common room)

I really liked Lodger too.

Ah, the sixth form common room record player. What memories that holds But for a conversation other than this.

so the uncle who got me into Bowie, still plays in a band (weddings and bar mitzvahs...) and they're going to do Suffragette City. I'm going to play that later, if I can find the record.

Suffragette City should go down well at a Bat Mitzvah. I'm sure Bowie will be pleased