David Bowie is the optimiy of what an artist should be. He taught us all to throw away the rule books and do whatever we wanted in the name of art. To name all the the artists he influenced is nearly impossible. He always had glamour and a unique style that can never be duplicated.
I think his album Low is indeed one of the most truly admired albums by my circle of friends. Nonetheless, for me, it is virtually impossible to find fault with much of his work.
His collaborators were vast and the output always noteworthy.
David Bowie with ARP String Synthesizer on Iggy Pop Tour
I think the words said about him today and always will resonate with us forever.
Until the last moment of his life he was still giving us art. This video for Lazarus was his parting gift.
David Bowie, thank you for influencing me so very much. And thank you for influencing all the artists I so greatly admire.
I was saddened to hear about the passing of Martin Rushent earlier this morning. He was a great producer, involved with some great bands from the 1970’s-1980’s. Rushent passed away at the age of 63. You will be missed Mr. Rushent. Rest in peace.
Martin Rushent producing Then Jerico – 1985
Check him out on the Synclavier, the Linn Drum & sampling David Bowie drums from Let’s Dance.
Excerpt from Sound On Sound
Martin Rushent began the ’80s as a wealthy, in-demand producer and studio owner. Having helped the Stranglers, the Buzzcocks, Generation X, Altered Images and the Human League all achieve massive chart hits.
It was while working on the Human League’s ‘Fascination’ that Martin Rushent invented one of the most popular studio tricks of the ’80s: using the ‘loop triggering’ facility on the AMS DMX1580 digital delay as a primitive sampler. “I used it for the bass, snare and bass riff,” he says. “I knew AMS reasonably well by the time they brought out this very high-quality digital delay line, so I asked if they could adapt it so that it wouldn’t erase its sample. I’d been working with the Linn Drum and realised that it was just a memory of drum sounds, but I wanted to make my own sounds. So they put in four seconds of delay for me. All you had to do was feed in the signal and it would start sampling the moment it saw a rise in voltage. Then you could edit it a bit. After that you’d set it to Fire mode and trigger it via a click fed into the audio input, so I used the Micro Composer to send it a pulse. AMS asked me to show them what I wanted it for so I did a demo by feeding in a bass drum sound and triggering it via the Roland. After that, they made it standard on their products, sold it to the Japanese, and I made fuck-all out of it!”
For the rest of this great interview with the producer visit Sound On Sound magazine.
The Human League – (Keep Feeling) Fascination
This was one of the first 7 inch records I ever bought.
Androgyny is back. Maybe it never really went away. Either way, John O’Regan may have stumbled on to a winning formula with his synthesizer, guitar and drum machine based pop songs. I’m sure you could make the David Bowie comparisons. You’ll probably see the words glam rock come up too. Maybe that time he spent in the hospital was all he needed to get this Diamond Rings thing going. In the end, it’s the songs that made me take notice. Check out Diamond Rings, Special Affections LP.
Diamond Rings Tuning Up
Diamond Rings Live Set
From The Weekly LP & Singles Platter, Please!…
Diamond Rings-Special Affections
I saw Diamond Rings perform on Friday night at the Biltmore Cabaret, which has easily become one of my favorite places to watch a show. But, would someone please raise that stage a few inches? Good friends of mine got me a ticket. They new I would like it. I think they might know me well. I was also given the album and was quite impressed with this album. I was very excited to see him perform. I didn’t know much about him then. Actually, I still don’t know much about this artist. Except that I would highly recommend you get to a club, bar or festival where he is playing and check him out. His set features a MIDI controller, Mac laptop running Ableton Live, a Roland drum pad and his guitar. Doesn’t sound like much, but even with all his silly Hipster regalia and makeup, I was floored. I was impressed at the screaming women. I was inspired by the vibe at the Biltmore that night. The fine folks at Speakerboxxx.com mentioned something about the mixed crowd as evidence that he is making a deep impact across many genres, and I couldn’t agree more. Thanks Jenny for the ticket and thank you Jake for this album. Very good stuff, friends. Have fun in Portland.
The Synthesizer Book 