Beijing, 2019-18: Bowie by Rock + 1000th Post!

TB and I made a return trip to 798 Art District in north-east Beijing specifically to see the Bowie by Rock exhibit I found on one of the Beijing expat what-to-do websites. At around 100 RMB (15 USD) it's a bit pricey but 798 has become quite trendy. Still, for a pair of big fans of arguably the most important figure in rock music, it was definitely worth it. And it didn't disappoint!


David Bowie asked Mick Rock, then a fledgling photographer who became "The Man Who Shot the Seventies"--including Lou Reed's iconic "Transformer" album cover, and the Debbie Harry "Madonna" shoot--to accompany his Ziggy Stardust tour with complete access. The exhibit includes 65 awesome photos curated by the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle that are an amazing document of the time as well of Bowie's mercurial personality and artistic transformations.


The exhibit was very well put together, with Bowie music playing constantly, though at a level that enhanced rather than distracted, and some other nice touches, such as a "universe" room playing "Space Oddity".


When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band...


I think my favorite photo from the exhibition is this one, even if black-and-white, three iconoclasts of glam-rock (or just rock) music, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.


The final gallery is just a wall containing all of Bowie's album releases--and I have owned the vast majority of them at some point in my life. Today you don't even own albums, you "have" them on iTunes or Spotify or whatever-that-is. You can tell I'm not really into the latest techno-stuff, I guess, because I'm still blogging. One thousand posts and exactly eleven years later.

I saw an interview once with Alanis Morissette, an unironic pop singer, who was asked by a rather stuffy host who her musical influences were. Her answer was "My older sister's record collection." I thought and think that is both a charming and insightful answer, because my own musical tastes were largely influenced by my brothers--Pink Floyd, The Who, Doobie Brothers, Edgar Winter, Jimi Hendrix, even Elton John.

I was only formally introduced to David Bowie by freshman year college roommate, Tracey G. One weekend in 1979, he brought Aladdin Sane from home and we went to the library (the only place we knew with a turntable) put on headsets and listened. Though just about every song on that album wowed me, "Panic in Detroit" was a tone poem to subversion that made my heart race. He's been my crack'd actor ever since.

That was, almost incredibly, forty years ago!