Started 2020 writing about Prince and Bowie and…Mystify: Michael Hutchence a solid documentary on the INXS frontman.
It’s been making the festival rounds…it was at Tribeca this past April, it screened on the BBC at the end of December…it’s even out on DVD. The 7th, however, was their 1 day catch it if you can American release. Mainly for cities that are not like LA or NYC you know? (Turns out America has more than 2 cities…did you know this?!)
And sorry…there are no Canadian dates!! Boo!! It played at Hot Docs here in Toronto last April. I interviewed the director on January 7. He’s an Australian filmmaker and we like gave him a bunch of Canadian firefighters so he owes us. Made him laugh when I brought that up. But yeah no Canadian dates.
(The doc is called Mystify (outstanding tune on the sublime Kick album) but during many movie moments I keep returning to Don’t Lose Your Head released right before Michael perished:
“What must have happened to your soul
Is skinnin’ you alive
The thing that you fear the most is love
And that’s buried deep inside
So deep insideThe heart you’re building out of rock
Is turning into sand
Cause you never took the time to think
What it means to be a man”
That was June 27, 1997…dude’d be dead by November 22, 1997. And suddenly we hadda face Y2K and a whole new millennium with one less band. I did not enjoy this New Sensation. I think of that song often when it comes to Michael Hutchence’s passing. While Five Years is what I think about with Bowie.
II
Five Years is a monster song: those lyrics and the subtlety of the music as it builds. I know the whole Ziggy thing gets lots of press (as it should) but Five Years is easy to overlook and under appreciate on an album with Moonage Daydream, Starman, Ziggy and more.
Bowie (and Prince) we don’t replace em…music will be fine lots of people will continue to make excellent songs but yeah those guys are gone. Just gone.
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