In this interview, I speak with author, journalist, and essayist Adam Steiner about CHANGESTWOBOWIE, the 1981 compilation album that followed the highly successful CHANGESONEBOWIE. Adam is the author of Silhouettes and Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) as well as books on Nick Cave and Nine Inch Nails. Our conversation focuses on how CHANGESTWOBOWIE…

Tomorrow I will be joined by Adam Steiner, author of Silhouettes and Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), to discuss Bowie’s somewhat strange compilation album ChangesTwoBowie. Adam and I talked about ChangesOneBowie, which I posted as a video several weeks ago, and ChangesTwoBowie, originally intended to be a single video, however, really there were…

I was recently reminded that Tin Machine II is absent from major streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music due to rights and masters issues originating from its original 1991 label, Victory Music, and its subsequent corporate acquisitions. In that it is a complete David Bowie (well, Tin Machine) album that had been widely available in the past and no…

This cover of “I’m Afraid of Americans” brings together producer Liiiminal, vocalist Murfila, and guitarist Alex Guitar Dude for a modern industrial-rock interpretation of Bowie’s late-1990s warning about nationalism, manipulation and manufactured identity. According to the creators, the video is intended both as a tribute to Bowie and as a reminder to think critically in an age of AI, politics,…

In this interview, I speak with Susan Compo, author of Earthbound: David Bowie and The Man Who Fell to Earth, about the origins, production, reception, and legacy of the 1976 film. Rather than approaching the movie solely as a Bowie project, Susan explains how her book traces what she describes as the “life cycle” of a film, beginning with Walter…

Ya know, I don’t necessarily need to make all of my posts in this blog about David Bowie. I recently saw Wynona Judd, Melissa Etheridge and Maggie Rose at the Chautauqua Institution and enjoyed it so much that I want to write about it. None of them covered Bowie that night, but I’m gonna make the Bowie connection anyway. Melissa…

I don't really have much information on Thibaut Gad, which appears to be a two-member band that records covers on its YouTube channel. There's not much more information than that there, and I can't find any external references. That said, they posted this well-made cover of "Space Oddity" this past week, which was the Bowie cover I liked most from…

In this interview, I speak with Arsalan Mohammad, creator and host of the Album to Album podcast, about his long-running project documenting David Bowie’s work through in-depth conversations with writers, musicians, scholars, and other guests. Much of our discussion centers on the origins of the podcast, how Arsalan developed the format, and the process of building a body of work…

I had the great pleasure last week of seeing James Taylor play at Bethel Woods, which is a performing arts center at the site of the 1969 Woodstock festival (and, coincidentally, near the Catskills house of Bowie and Iman). Other than that their careers overlapped and they are both generally considered classic rock artists, Bowie and Taylor don’t have a…

Well, my streak inevitably couldn’t last— I didn’t go to the drive-in this past weekend, so there’s no new Drive-in Saturday Tuesday movie review this week. I want to go to the drive-in every week I can, but this week the local theaters were either showing movies I already saw this year or a few that even I wouldn’t see…

Volador G is apparently an Argentinian band and they are apparently performing “Loving the Alien” here in Spanish. Though I took Spanish for many years, I so don’t recognize the language, I thought this was Italian. So, if that tells you anything, don’t ask me how well the band translated the song! Regardless, I think it sounds great. What’s so…

In this conversation, I spoke with Peter Bebergal about the ideas explored in his book Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll and their connection to David Bowie’s lifelong interest in spirituality, mysticism, and the search for meaning. Much of our discussion focused on defining terms that are often used loosely, including the occult, magic, divination,…

Kevin Armstrong is a guitarist, singer-songwriter, and producer whose long association with David Bowie began in 1984. Armstrong played on the song “Absolute Beginners,” performed in Bowie’s band at the Live Aid concert in 1985, recorded “Dancing in the Street” with Bowie and Mick Jagger, was the unofficial fifth member of the original Tin Machine lineup, and co-wrote songs with…

I didn’t like the options I had to choose from this week, so I thought I’d check one last time before I sat down to write, and I’m glad I did because I found this nifty cover of “Fascination,” originally from Young Americans. The artist here, 18-year-old Jasmine Phillips, characterized this as “completely re-recorded” by her and some of her…

Daniel Rachel returned to my show for a second discussion of his book, This Ain’t Rock ’n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich. Whereas our first conversation focused largely on David Bowie’s role within the book, this discussion examined the book’s broader themes and arguments. A major topic was Rachel’s explanation of why he wrote the book…

Saxophonist Donny McCaslin is best known to many Bowie fans for his work on Blackstar, where his expressive and adventurous playing helped shape the sound of Bowie’s final studio album. Over the course of a distinguished career, however, McCaslin has established himself as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary jazz, consistently pushing beyond traditional genre boundaries. In this…