ARTIST OF THE MONTH: David Bowie

January has always made me think of David Bowie. There's some big anniversaries for him in the first month of the year. The biggest one is his birthday, which is on the 8th; he would have been 78 this year. Sadly, this month also carries the date of his death in 2016, two days later on the 10th. It is quite bizarre to celebrate the birth of such an influential artist and then mourn his death so quickly afterwards. I tend to focus on birthdays, and not the days that people passed away. I like to be thankful that they were born, not sad that they've left us. It's hard to avoid that with Bowie though. When the news of his death broke it floored me. It was so unexpected. Little did we know how much he'd been going through.

Two of my favourite Bowie albums celebrate their releases in January. The first, Low, came out on the 14th in 1977 and the second, Station to Station was issued the previous year on the 23rd. Both records are regularly in my Top 5 Bowie albums (hey, tastes change over time, yeah?) and I enjoy them both immensely, for different reasons. Although they are only a year apart, in some aspects they feel as though decades passed between them. I've already revisited them both, and as I type, I'm spinning another favourite: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) from 1980. Seeing as January is a month for Bowie celebrations, I thought I'd carry that into my live performances. As such, I will play a lot of Bowie in my solo shows and throw a few into the WGJS ones as well. I will endeavour to learn some new ones as well, and attempt songs off the aforementioned anniversary-having albums. I'm going to do something like this every month, and focus on a different artist. I'll probably use their birthday as the focal point. Seems like the best way to start, doesn't it? Anyway, expect a bit of Bowie at my gigs this month!