Instruments Make Play

Instruments Make Play.
Kunstenlab Deventer
Tot en met 3 november 2024                      

CD ‘exended loudspeakers’ van Pierre Berthet (Sub Rosa).
O.a. te koop bij Kunstenlab.

 

 

 

Tradities ontstaan waar je bij staat. Astrid en ik zijn een keer na een dagje Pieterpad terechtgekomen bij ‘Brasserie de Biester’ in Holten. Heerlijk ijs en lekker eten voor een redelijke prijs. En de persoonlijke sfeer van een dorpscafé. Voor herhaling vatbaar. Dat deden we dan ook. Maar ja, het Pieterpad gaat maar door en als je op een gegeven moment al in Noord-Limburg loopt ga je niet eten in Holten…

Maar, we zitten in een intervisiegroep die om de twee maanden op vrijdag bij elkaar komt in Deventer. En Deventer-Holten is te doen, dus gaan we altijd na afloop naar Holten. Maar ja, we hebben dan wat tijd over. De Keuken gaat pas om 17.00 open!

Dus is de traditie ontstaan dat we na de intervisie een museum in de buurt bezoeken. Traditie nummer twee. Zo kwamen we afgelopen vrijdag terecht bij het Kunstenlab in het havenkwartier van Deventer. Nooit van gehoord. Een prachtige industriële locatie. Een intrigerend gebouw. Is dit de ingang? Wat zit er achter die deur? Het was noodweer buiten. Binnen was het warm en wit.

We werden welkom geheten door een allervriendelijkste jonge dame die gelijk vroeg of ze even koffie voor ons zou zetten. Die bleek gratis, net als de toegang. We kregen een toelichting op de tentoonstelling: kunstenaars hadden de vrije hand gekregen in het maken van installaties en muziekinstrumenten. Alles maakte geluid en/of bewoog op geluid. In interactie met ons. Waar je ook keek of luisterde. Drie zalen. Een witte, een zwarte en een waarvan ik me de kleur niet meer herinner.

Ik was gelijk weer helemaal terug in mijn jeugd. Ik was vaak aan het experimenteren met elektronica, geluid en muziek. Twee bandrecorders naast elkaar. De linker stond op opname, de rechter op weergave. De band had ik doorgelust: hij rolde van de linkerspoel van de linkerrecorder naar de rechterspoel van de rechterrecorder. Dus wat de linker recorder had opgenomen gaf de rechter vertraagd weer. Dat werd dan weer opgenomen door de linker, samen met het live geluid enz. enz. Wat je dan krijgt na een minuut of tien is met geen pen te beschrijven. Dat vonden mijn ouders in ieder geval. Ik vond het prachtig. Ook werkte ik met motortjes die ik liet voeden door een geluidssignaal. Die motortjes werkten dan als een soort zoemende luidsprekers. En ik liet ze allerlei constructies aandrijven die dan ook weer geluid maakten. En ik sloopte luidsprekers uit elkaar om de -op muziek bewegende- spoel te verbinden met allerlei voorwerpen die dan geluid gingen maken. Dat soort werk. En omdat ik niet heel handig was, zat alles met plakband aan elkaar. En dat maakte ook geluid. Spelen met geluid, of zoals neef Hans een keer zei: gepiel met geluid. Dat was geloof ik niet echt bedoeld als aanmoediging om ermee door te gaan.

Instruments Make Play is eigenlijk drie zalen vol met Winootjes. Maar dan kunstzinnig uitgevoerd. Is dit een aanbeveling? Ik vind van wel, Hans waarschijnlijk van niet. Maar ik zou zeggen, luister af en toe naar Kairos en wat ik daarin doe met soundscapes. En verder, ik vind dat kunst dingen los moet maken, mensen moet bewegen. Het hoeft niet altijd mooi te zijn, het moet raken. En dat doet deze expositie zeker. Bij mij raakte het een gevoelige snaar, bij jou misschien een open zenuw. Maar dan kun je in ieder geval zeggen dat je je hebt laten raken.

En nu gebeurt het dus weer. Terwijl ik dit stukje zit te typen heb ik de cd ‘extended loudspeakers’ opstaan die ik bij Kunstenlab heb gekocht. Eén lange soundcape. En het tikken van mijn toetsenbord resoneert met de geluiden van de cd en veroorzaakt schitterende wervelingen en echo's in mijn hoortoestellen. Een unieke, persoonlijke dimensie, die jij helaas niet kunt horen. Of gelukkig niet.

Maar. Mocht je in Deventer zijn en wat tijd over hebben, Loop er in ieder geval even binnen. De koffie was sowieso heerlijk. En ik kan me bijna niet voorstellen dat het -wellicht heel diep weggestopte- kind in jou niet op zijn minst heel even een klein sprongetje maakt. En wie weet word jij er dan net zo blij van als Astrid en ik.

En dan ga je daarna naar De Biester. Voor een ijsje.

 

Wino Penris

 

 

 

 

Unzipped, Groninger Museum

Unzipped returned to Groningen, as the pandemic prevented most people to go and see it a few years ago. The idea seems a bit odd, to go and see a band in a museum. As David Bowie had already shown, the link between rock, art and fashion is totally interlinked and if anything came across in the Unzipped exhibition, it was just that. It is not enough to write, record and play a nice song. To become a superstar it takes a package. The final, unmentioned element is marketing.

The Rolling Stones is a band that does not need an introduction. For over 60 years today it is in the news and when a new record is released or a new tour announced, it's headline news. Still breaking boundaries, with its last remaining colleagues, McCartney, Dylan and The Who.

Unzipped, after the Warhol sleeve of 'Sticky Fingers', starts with the very first photo taken of the band and leads the visitor through the messy house most of the band members lived in in 1962-63, where they learned their chops. Anyone who has lived in student house or youth-infested spot, will recognise most of it. Edith Grove 102 was the start of the journey that lasts right up to today.

That journey takes the visitor through time. From a band playing R&B songs, it is transformed slowly but surely. Manager Andrew "Loog" Oldham markets the band as the anti-Beatles. They stop dressing as Beatles, grow their hair just a bit longer and become the band every parent has to hate. A band for boys more than girls. And boys riot given half the chance.

What happens next is extraordinary as the band started to cross-dress, ever more extravagant and getting away with it, with these boys, remember. Swinging London and the Stones certainly were a match made in heaven. And they kept it all, it turns out.

Step further in time and you'll notice how it all started to intertwine. Album covers and art blend, high fashion and rockshows blend, photoshoots become art, design and rockshows blend, construction and rockshows blend, video art and rock blend, commerce/marketing and rock blend and finally accountancy and rock blend. The Rolling Stones became a multi-million dollar industry and organised in such a way the product was placed in the right way. All band members played their individual role. Not much was left to chance. Not even with the ultimate rockstar: Keith Richards.

For Unzipped two eyes and two ears were not enough, I found. There's so much to see, so much to digest, so much to listen to. The important thing remains the music. Standing in front of multiple screens, with six 'Sympathy For The Devil' suits worn by Mick Jagger over the years, a mix of the DVDs over time showing them as well and one live version of the song playing the whole time, it is like being at that show, easy to dance along to. In 2019 when Unzipped was created, The Stones were just four people: Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie and that is rammed home alright.

I have one point of criticism. The early Stones were with Brian Jones and for thirty years Bill Wyman. Especially Jones' role ought to have been a little bigger. He was the most extravagant Stone for a few years and certainly a driver in their first successes. Mick Taylor is just a footnote, but then in 2023 he is of course. The glory shone on the most important sidekicks is well-deserved. As a comment. What was better organised at the Bowie exhibition, was that all was one because of the headphones every visitor was given. I became one with the exhibition. That was missing with Unzipped.

With 'Hackney Diamonds' the band is totally back as a relevant, albeit older rockband. "Old Gods, Almost Dead', a book title, I think from the 1990s, read. It couldn't have been more beside the point in turns out. Taken literally, by now it is undeniably true but there's still a lot of life in this band and its legacy will live on for quite some time. In a few years they will be rock gods forever.

Wout de Natris

A Wizard A True Star. Todd Rundgren + Meat Loaf/The Beatles/Jimi Hendrix/The Analogues

On a day in February an email arrived. From it a wide ranging discussion developed that is more than interesting to follow. It all started with an album by Todd Rundgren that I personally had never heard of, but that had made a lasting impression on two British, then late teenagers. A digital conversation started under the title "Hot Todd-y"

8 February, Mark

Guess what is No.1 on Uncut magazine's list of "101 weirdest albums of all time"!  A Wizard, a True Star! Described as "....whimsical and depraved, polished and crude, lush and abrasive, hard rock and showtunes" which pretty much captures its tremendous scope I guess!

This prompted me to pull out my copy which I see I noted on the lyric insert I bought on the last day of my teenage years on 25 October 1974 - after its merits had been extolled by a fellow student at University College London who was studying............psychology! 25 October is the date on the watch illustrated on the insert. AWATS has been, um, periodically exhumed over the last 42 years. Some of it predicts Purple Rain Prince in its dense echo-y fearsome ballads and guitar histrionics. Have to play these loud. He got a bit carried away with the synth histrionics. I didn't realise "Cool Jerk" is in 7/4 time: maybe you did if you tried to air-drum along to it.

Copying to Wout in case he is a fan of classic Runt and also wishes to celebrate AWATS. 

"We were on our way to a better day
And the spirit was in us all....."*

* From "Sons of 1984" on the other Runt masterpiece "Todd" - it all makes sense now

8 February, Gary 
Thanks Mark,

As you know I am a huge Rundgren fan, the man was/is a genius and albums like AWATS will seem weird in the same sense Dali or Piccaso  were first perceived by Jo Public, like them it takes just a little effort to see what Todd is trying convey.

I get AWATS out to play at least once a month either on vinyl or digital.... Todd can write or cover many styles with supreme mastery, I really believe he does not differentiate between styles of music, he just plays what he likes and what inspires him.

I read an interview with TR many years ago where the interviewer praised his amazing guitar technique and just how fast he was, his reply was so typically thoughtful. "Making a reputation as a heavy guitarist is too much of a hassle, like being a gunfighter in the Old West, everybody always trying to cut you. I envision myself developing into … something else."

TR is of course a multi instrumentalist, composer, song writer, lead and backing vocalist (amazing harmony skills) and producer. He is also one of the first innovators of digital art, both musical, visual and performance.

Always searching for spiritual meanings in his life, he doesn't suffer fools easily! Always principled and looking for the good in everyone. He adopted the baby Liv Tyler when her mother broke up with Steve Tyler, in a TV interview Liv Tyler said that she always thinks of TR as being her real dad even if Steve Tyler was biologically her father. Touchingly she said that a cuddle with TR when she was unhappy always made her feel safe again. I think that gives some insight into the humanity of the man.

Listen to his albums over the years, they are always striving for something new and innovative, sometimes they do not work (at least for me), eg 'With a Twist' and 'Disco Jets', but most are just pure genius.....

A new TR album is like getting a present at Christmas time, so exciting to open, but just a tiny worry that it just might be a ghastly pair of socks!

9 February, Gary

Wo.: I do not want to withhold this sub-text in the email: "Sent from a manifestation of Steve Jobs' vision!"

10 February, Wo.

Hello Gentlemen,

Unfortunately I have to totally abstain here, as the phenomenon Todd Rundgren has totally passed me by. I will go to Spotify and try the album out soon. I have never even heard of it I'm afraid. Something to catch up on.

10 February, Gary provides Wo. with a lesson in late 70s rock 
If you know Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell, then you would have heard him as he not only produced the album but he also played all the best guitar parts and took part in the backing vocals!

Check:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/13/todd-rundgren-classic-interview?CMP=share_btn_link 

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/may/01/todd-rundgren-interview?CMP=share_btn_link

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Rundgren

Also checkout TR's band Utopia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(American_band)

I envy you, you have some great times ahead listening for the first time to the 'Runt'!

Enjoy! 

12 February, Wo.

I had forgotten that, actually, that Rundgren produced Meat Loaf. In those days I wasn't really a fan of the most famous song from the album, but from the 80s in my student days, we sang and danced to it right up to today. Loads of fun. Of the guitar parts I was totally unaware though. 

12 February, Gary

I forgot to mention that the original by the Capitols and other covers were in 4:4   TR decide to give the "Jerk" a 'jerkier' feel by playing it in 7:4! 

12 February, Mark, who also sidetracks the discussion to an exhibition he visited in in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London

As for checking out Todd's own albums, I don't recommend starting with "A Wizard A True Star". It is a non-stop 50 minute assault on the brain: an unrelenting, at times heavily synthed, wall of sound, roller-coaster ride through many genres of music: that is why it is no.1 in the weirdness stakes, a notch ahead even of Captain Beefheart (but I hasten to add more melodic). The record's more sublime, subtle and soulful moments do not start to shine through until after a few plays.

So it's better to start with the next album he did which is a double l.p. meisterwerk called simply "Todd." This has a more conventional approach to song sequencing and the slower ballads like "The Last Ride" and the anthemic "Sons of 1984"  take your breath away - and they haven't dated in the 40 odd years since they were recorded . Like the dyed hair sported on the cover, he was quite ahead of his time and inspired Bowie and Prince who both sought him out at that time before they hit the big time. However, while diehard fans like Gary have rightly stood by him, he rarely reached that mid-70s peak again and was later written-off by many as an irascible American prog ego-maniac who did not really understand new wave, was no longer bankable on the global concert circuit and fell out with the younger artists he was asked by the record labels to produce.

That reminds me that Todd Rundgren had a much publicised spat with John Lennon via correspondence in the Melody Maker who he accused of trying to change the world "with an elpee's worth of toons" as the song on "Todd" goes. This at a time when Lennon was getting a lot of flak for singing "Imagine no possessions" while living at his Ascot mansion in (which he left for a very modest Bank Street apartment on south Manhattan during his pre-Dakota agit-prop "Some Time in New York" days).  Lennon called him Sodd Runtlestuntle - that was funny, but the exchange is grim reading about and losing trust  in heroes and the crash-landing of dreams of youth. (If you want the dirt, read  http://trconnection.com/trconn.php/article=lennon.arte ).

Yesterday at an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum I saw the jacket that Lennon wore when singing All You Need Is Love on what I think was the first (and only?) global satellite-linked up TV show called "Our World"  Each country had to produce a cultural highlight: Spain offered Picasso, and for us well, J, P, G & R were up for it - and, amazingly after only one rehearsal of the song, stole the show. They were told to come up with something positive: a pity not enough people around the world listened hard enough to the lyrics. The Soviet bloc pulled out of the show at the last moment of course otherwise the Fabs might have had the Red Army Choir for competition. I don't know what the Dutch came up with: hope it wasn't Father Abraham.

Intermission by Wo.
(According to this source (http://www.fransmensonides.nl/fhm162.html) the answer is none. NL broadcasted the show between 20.00 and 22.00 hours on 25 June 1967, without its own submission. Father Abraham scored his first hit in 1971 with his Seven Sons (Zeven Zonen), after having penned/produced a few for others before that.)

The V&A  exhibition was "You say you want a revolution?" (from another Beatles lyric you'll instantly recognise of course) which was an intense trip though sixties culture and counter-culture via Carnaby Street, Haight-Ashbury, Itchycoo Park and Expo 67, hand-in-hand with Sgt.Pepper (John and George's suits for the album photo shoot were also on show), Godard, Ginsberg, Greer, Quant, Twiggy, early Scorcese, and assorted draft dodging, merry pranksters, listening to pirate radio, clutching well-worn copies of Tolkien and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and ending up sprawled out on fake grass (green variety) with Jimi at Woodstock on a giant screen (yes, we're still in the museum). They also had on show a couple of Jimi's guitars (and what was left of one), Jagger's jumpsuit, Keith Moon's much-bashed drum-kit and Roger Daltrey's tasseled top. You can now visit Hendrix's London apartment by the way: now restored as a time capsule of an era when musicians dreamed they could change the world - which brings me back to another quite poignant song on "Todd:" actually:

"A million old soldiers will fade away 

But a dream goes on forever

I'm left standing here, I've got nothing to say

All is silent within my dream".

So I'll shut up for now, except to say: best regards

It did not stop here. The discussion continued under the title "Revolutionary photographs".

12 February, Mark

Photo: Mark Carvell

Photo: Mark Carvell

A couple of photos I took (furtively) at the V&A exhibition yesterday : Jimi's jacket and 2.5 of his guitars; and......"it was fifty years ago today"..... 





12 February, Gary

I note that the Les Paul is not stringed up for a left hander (unlike the Fender Stratocaster)! 

12 February, Mark

Very sharp-eyed! The Gibson is definitely Hendrix's which you can check from this article:

http://uniqueguitar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-many-guitars-of-jimi-hendrix.html  - he had at least two Les Paul's and you'll see it's the 1955 model: click on the link for a photo of of him playing it, upside down of course. Though he was "mix-handed" using his right hand for some things like the phone, he always played guitar left-handed. Maybe this Gibson is played by the current right-handed owner so it is not always a static museum piece strung as Jimi would have had it.

Have you been to his flat in Brook Street (near Bond St tube)? Quite an experience (ahem....). Everybody who was anybody would come round to hang out with him. There is a story George Harrison crashed out on the stairs one night. There are a couple of his guitars on display - and his records: lots of Dylan and blues stuff - Elmore James, Muddy Waters, - and jazz and classical: he used to buy his records at HMV in Oxford Street. The main room is all refurbished exactly as you see it in the original photos of him there. 

12 February, Gary

No I haven't been, maybe we should meet up in London a visit it later in the year? Maybe Wout can join us if he is London? And of course the same building was inhabited by Fredrick Handel a few hundred years before!

Regarding Jimi playing right hand guitars upside down, I understand he used to play right hand bass as was made! 

13 February, Mark

I went last year: I was recommending it to you guys really. 

13 February, Wo.

The Jimi flat is certainly on my list for when I'm in London (long enough). I did have the chance to go to ESP in Seattle, a sci-fi building that houses what remained of the plan to build a Jimi museum there, in 2003. It became a part of a history of pop music for north western U.S. Dresses of the Wilson sisters of Heart, that sort of thing. The highlight was a letter by J. Edgar Hoover asking his people to find out what the lyrics to Louie Louie by The Kingsman were, as he couldn't understand the singer and the message just had to be subversive.

I was walking around in my The Walkabouts t-shirt of a tour a few years previous, now over 20 years. One of the stewards spoke to me that he used to be a musician to and had lost in a local contest to The Walkabouts somewhere mid 80s. Great little, irrelevant stories.

Jimi's grave in Renton is a hideous monument paid for by the family after they finally got hold of the rights to his music.

So far my small contribution on things Jimi.

@Mark, thank you for your advice. I think I'm going of the deep end anyway, as that is where this conversation started. 

Comment Wo.:

That left me with only one thing to do really, jump off the deep end and listen to 'A Wizard A True Star'. Man, there isn't a lot that prepares a person for an aural trip like this album. Zappian madness taken to the extremes, soul, strange musical experiments and beautiful music. It all come by and more, much, much more. Impossible to take in in one listen session. Does the album deserve more sessions, definitely. Does it invite to do so? That question is a lot harder to answer.

13 February, Wo.

As to The Beatles.

Two weeks ago I went to see The Analogues again. Doing 'Sgt. Peppers...' integrally in a phenomenal way. They talked about touring England in the near future. Believe me, a must see. My review is on the blog ca. 4 February, should you need convincing. http://wonomagazine.blogspot.nl/2017/02/the-analogues-plays-sgt-pepper.html 

They also mentioned that on 1 June there is worldwide "it was 50 years ago today" fest planned. The Analogues will play in Amsterdam they said, although there's nothing announced formally yet. Something to keep an eye out for also.

And so a fascinating conversation ended. With interesting tips for exhibitions, albums, live shows and a great love for music in general.

I thought. Two P.S.s arrived:

22 February, Mark 
Back to the music: for the one stop shop CD fans in your audience there is a 2cd anthology provocatively entitled following his meteoric decline "Go Ahead Ignore Me" which I bought in 1999 when I was still curious about how cds sounded. It does the business and seems to be still available: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Todd-Rundgren-Ignore-Anthology/dp/B00000IBEK .

23 February, Gary
Enjoy listening to TR…. Coincidently I am playing every TR/Utopia album via Spotify whilst I do my housework chores… a much more pleasurable experience! 

Gary Hunt
Mark Carvell
Wo.

For those who can't wait to learn what started all this: AWATS is on Spotify.

David Bowie Is

Photo: Wo.

Should I go or not? That question went through my head for several weeks, before I decided to go. I wasn't disappointed for one second. What an all-over, total sort of experience. But let us first go back a little in time.

1969 is the year I was exposed to David Bowie for the first time, like most of the rest of the world, by that wonder of 1960s music called 'Space Oddity'. After that I was totally dependent on hitsingles in The Netherlands. "Hunky Dory', Ziggy Stardust'? I did not have a clue as they past this country more or less by. 'The Jean Genie' in early 1973 was his next hit, although I found a copy of 'John, I'm Only Dancing', in a sale. My personal first Bowie record in 1972. My first real show? David Bowie in May 1976 in Ahoy, Rotterdam. Sunday 21-02-2016. A local train going to the football stadium. Three of the four persons sitting together were present in the same stadium in 1983 for the Bowie show, so we found out by coincidence. And all three had been or were about to go to Groningen.

Back to the winter 1973. A total extravagant person came on tv, far, extremely far away from the young teenage kid I was in a rural village. Bowie in his most interesting personae past me largely by. I wasn't influenced by him in any way. It was the music that caught up with me. Each time he was years ahead of my taste. Usually I caught up some time after the release of a new album, unless they just weren't good enough, certainly his 80s output after 'Let's Dance' was not good. It seems like I even caught up with 'Earthling' 19 years after its release. What I was totally ready for was 'Blackstar'. That album caught me straight where music can catch me: heart, mind and soul all at once, a sort of total experience, bought on his birthday, 8 January.

So David Bowie's music is with me for 46,5 years at this point in time. It is a part of my DNA as I found out in the Groninger Museum, once again. The music moved me in several ways, but, except for 'DJ', a song I still don't really like, all the songs grabbed me, shook me, moved me in one way or another. Everything around that, how he dressed, dressed his hair, etc. was never important to me. Did that change? Yes, in a certain way it has.

Photo: Wo.

What I came home with, is a total different view of the man. The total control over all the creative parts of his career. The ideas, concepts, everything was thought out up front and from the very beginning of his career. Even when he was totally unknown, he created his own world and environment to work with and in. On his way to great things, even if that was only in his mind. A man obsessed is probably the right word. Always working, thinking, bubbling, a state any great artists of any kind must be in order to be successful and horrible for his personal environment most likely. Don't we know who David Bowie or Jones was in his private life? The answer is right in front of us in this museum. Always working and on the move to a new concept, song, video, sleeve, clothing, hairstyle, etc.

The second great thing I came home with was his ability to work with the right people at the right time. Couturiers, video artists, photographers, stage outfits for all, sets, dancers, etc., he always found the right people for that part of his career. And musicians of course. The exhibition brought the audience as close to the creative process of being David Bowie as an exhibition can do.

The third thing is that Bowie touched a lot of people. It was a Thursday and the museum was packed. There were so many people and all my age or older. Perhaps the museum is "lucky" and that Bowie's passing away brought more people out, but still.

Photo: Wo.

The fourth thing is that I stood outside the exhibition and "finally" understood what an icon this man was. Something I never realised and did not really care for, was how he touched upon the lives of many. Speaking of an impact. That it did not matter how you dressed. That someone can be who he is and express him/herself that way. Gender and hetero, homo and bisexuality can all be mixed up. Just look at pictures of how the world looked like outside of Bowie's little universe in the early 70s and his outlandish outfits and make up are put in perspective.

The fifth thing is that David Bowie was a total human, incorporating influences from whatever would work for him. Different cultures, religions, life styles, music styles. Everything found a place into his universe and became a part of his expression. "He really loved music" someone comments in the exhibition and it shows in his work as it evolved beyond what his fans could follow at some points in time and caught on or not.

Finally I come back to the music. Bowie had become an artist of the past to me. Music that I know so well, that there is no need to play it often any more and I am writing on the 70s stuff here. Whether it was 'Jump', 'Little Wonder', 'Hello Space Boy' or 'Blackstar', all the "new" songs that came by in the exhibition, were fantastic and hold up easily to 'Starman', "Life On Mars', 'Word On A Wing', etc., etc. And then there is that first one, 'Space Oddity'. The little synthesizer that created some of the sounds is on display also. That may forever remain his best single to me. And I was reminded of how good 'Ashes To Ashes' is, something I tend to forget. Absolutely fabulous.

David Bowie Is is a total experience. Walking around with a headset the music is everywhere. All visitors are in their own universe with David Bowie and that's the final strong point of this exhibition. There's no one between you and the master, except the dozens of other people wanting to read a lyric sheet or watch a drawing of a costume of course. At those moments there often is the music.

My one main remaining question is, when did Bowie decide to keep it all? All these costumes, drawings, lyric sheets, etc.? At a very, very early stage. And now the world can see it all too. The man is no longer with us, David Bowie was, everything is left behind for us to enjoy. Am I glad that I went to Groningen. Over 6 hours of travelling was well worth the experience.

Wo.

Tickets can be found on the website of the Groninger Museum until 10 April. Ordering up front is recommended. Sold out signs are known to be put up. After the 10th elsewhere in the world.

https://tickets.davidbowie-groningen.nl/en/