Review: 'David Bowie-Rainbowman: 1967-1980'

Originally published in French in 2019, David Bowie-Rainbowman: 1967-1980 took a rather Bowie-esque approach to telling the David Bowie story. Chronicling the career of a guy who refused to ever remain one thing, Jérôme Soligny's book was part biography, part track-by-track album guide, and part oral history. And just as Bowie compartmentalized his ch-ch-changes (sorry) via calculated character switches, Soligny's multi-faceted tome is very neatly organized. Each LP-focused chapter begins with a period-appropriate retrospective quote from the artist, himself, before moving on to the author's history of the period and track-by-track notes and finishing with retrospective comments from Bowie's acquaintances, co-workers, peers, and fans. That's a lot of material, and you really get the sense of the book's expansiveness when you lift it: Rainbowman is a 650-plus page hulking beast. 

Review: Lynne Goldsmith's 'Music in the '80s'

If you paid any attention to rock music during the eighties, you've seen a bunch of Lynn Goldsmith's pictures. She shot all of the decade's biggest stars from the coolest (Prince, The B-52s, The Ramones, Siouxsie) to the squarest (Barry Manilow). The variety of her photos is as eclectic as the people she photographed. She took glossy posed pics and candid back-stage ones that could be Polaroids. She took black and whites and colors and electrifying live shots and casual al fresco ones. My personal faves are the weird after-party pics featuring unlikely gatherings of stars. You want to see John Mellencamp beaming alongside Jayne County and David Johansen? You want to see Nile Rogers, Chrissie Hynde, Dexter Gordon, and Paul Shaffer sharing a table? You want to see Darlene Love in a clutch with Joan Jett and Elton John, who's wearing a huge, fake mohawk? Then Music in the '80s is the book for you. 

Review: 'Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust'

David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust is as notable for the look of the glammed-out alien as it is for the spectacular music Bowie made during the Ziggy years. That would be irritating if Bowie hadn't brought such high artistry to the bizarre makeup, outfits, and hair dyes he donned while in character. Bowie believed that no photographer was nearly as qualified to capture his Zigginess as Mick Rock was. Bowie paid Rock the highest compliment an artist of such visual audacity could pay a photographer when he said of Rock "[he] sees [me] the way [I] see [myself]... [he sees me] through [my] own eyes."

Bowie freaks with cash to burn could see Rock seeing Bowie through his own eyes to their hearts' content when the duo published Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust in 2002. A luxurious volume with text by Bowie and images by Rock, Moonage Daydream was a remarkable insiders' view of the alien, although its limited edition release made it extremely hard to come by. It sold out in just months.

For Moonage's twentieth anniversary, and Ziggy's fiftieth, Genesis Publications is reprinting the book in a larger format and in larger quantities. It's a beautiful package full of great pictures from studio shoots, candid ones, live shots, and even music videos stills. Bowie appears with Lou Reed and Jagger and Lulu and Marianne Faithfull (in her nun's habit, of course), and Rock includes some stray shots of compatriots such as Iggy Pop and Roxy Music to illustrate the narrative. Bowie discusses how Daniella Parmar, Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, Kabuki, Lindsay Kemp, and Bewitched (yes, Bewitched) influenced the look the book celebrates. There is also a comically high number of shots showing Bowie fellating Mick Ronson's guitar. But my favorite bit is a short anecdote about a potentially disastrous, underpopulated gig in St. Louis that turned out to be what sounds like a magically intimate affair shared between artist and audience. In some ways, that's what Moonage Daydream is too.

Review: ''Sukita: Eternity"

The covers of albums such as Wish You Were Here and Nevermind are regarded as art because of their provocative and unusual compositions. However, with a photographer as focused as Masayoshi Sukita behind the camera, the simplest shot can become iconic. Take his work on the sleeve of David Bowie’s “Heroes”, which features nothing more than the artist chest up against a featureless backdrop. Yet the striking clarity of Sukita’s black and white and Bowie’s unnatural pose are as powerful and unforgettable as any flaming businessman or money-grubbing water baby.

Eternity presents the breadth of Sukita’s work in a halting package. Though they haven’t crossed into the culture the way his photos on the covers of “Heroes” and Iggy Pop’s The Idiot have, Sukita’s portraits of Marc Bolan (who, like Bowie and Pop, is the subject of an entire chapter), Klaus Nomi, Bryan Ferry, David Byrne, The B-52’s, Ray Charles and Quincy Jones, Joe Strummer, and Elvis Costello punching himself in the face are also potent. Sukita may be at his most arresting when working with Yellow Magic Orchestra, who were up for having their faces painted or plastered with newsprint or propelled through the air amidst a flurry of cassette tapes. Such photos deliver all the striking character of Sukita’s work with Bowie and Iggy and the conceptual ingenuity of those Pink Floyd and Nirvana covers. 

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 344

The Date: September 8

The Movie: Repo Man (1984)

What Is It?: Glue-sniffing cult classic from director Alex Cox and producer Mike Nesmith in which Harry Dean Stanton mentors punk Emilio Estevez in the ways of repossessing cars. They do some drugs, tussle with a few aliens, and eat cans of “food” to a soundtrack of Iggy Pop, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, and other snappy favorites.

Why Today?: On this day in 1984, the film premiers at the Venice Film Festival.

Review: 'David Bowie Treasures'

Ignorant critics have regularly accused David Bowie of being an artist of greater style than substance. Truth is, he is has both in spades. Mike Evans's David Bowie Treasures, has no aspirations of substance, but it pulls off the style pretty well. Like all books in the Treasures series, this slip-cased installment is light on biography, heavier on photos, and augmented with pockets containing removable reproductions of posters, concert adverts, tickets, and contracts. The interesting thing about Evans's book is that so many of the photos capture the primary artist with others famous people: Jagger, Dylan, Lennon, McCartney, Mercury, Townshend, Tina, Iggy, Lou, Bing. One almost gets the sense that the author (assuming he was the one who chose the photos) wasn't sure if his subject was a big enough star to carry the book on his own (obviously, he is). Nevertheless, we get some pretty neat shots, my favorite being one of Bowie and Liz Taylor, who looks like she just finished raiding his closet. 

Review: 'White Trash: Uncut'

Try as they did to puke forth the impression they didn’t give two shits about the sentimentality of pop past, the punks started documenting themselves almost from the very start. 1977 saw the release of Wolfgang Büld’s Punk in London, likely the first punk documentary. That same year photographer Christopher Makos published White Trash, a collection of stark, B&W images of such scene staples as Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, John Waters, Divine, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, and the New York Dolls, as well as key influences Warhol, Jagger, and Bowie. A collaborator of Warhol’s, Makos wasn’t necessarily looking to eulogize punk. He’d just snapped some photos of his friends in LA and NYC over a week in 1976. It just happened his friends would all become punk icons.

As originally published, White Trash was not purely Makos’s baby. Art director Fred Meyer had his way with the images, cropping them in angular, punk style. Glitterati’s new edition of White Trash affixes Uncut to the title because Makos’s photos are finally allowed to breathe full frame without Meyer’s crops. Yet we still get a very cropped series of images. Makos favored close ups, not just of faces (and he really forces you to appreciate the lush beauty of Hell’s lips), but of other body parts. A pair of tits here. A crotch bulge there. Patti Smith and Sylvan Sylvan’s dancing feet. Debbie Harry’s thigh on the cover. The approach de-eroticizes the erotic, makes the normal odd. The photographer’s knack for catching people like Grace Jones, John Waters, and Divine at their most disarmingly casual normalizes the odd. That’s pretty punk.