Unless your heart’s made of Duke coal, you’ve been mourning a fast growing list of dead rock stars in this current year of our Lord 2016. Perhaps they saw a shit storm a’ comin’ by way of our ever-more depressing political prospects this election and decided it was time to migrate to that VIP section of Rock and Roll Heaven in the sky.
Nobody I’m close to hasn’t deeply felt the loss of David Bowie and Prince. Both were utter singularities of popular music, reshaping the sonic landscape of the last 45 years like few artists could ever hope to, much less as solo acts. Both warped genres of music and bended gender stereotypes of what musicians were allowed to create and who men were allowed to be.
Bowie was a tragic loss, but his death didn’t effect me nearly as deeply as losing Prince last week. Maybe it was the fact he was 12 year’s Bowie’s younger, aligning his music into more of my upbringing. Bowie re-entered pop zeitgeist when I was in my early 20’s via art-schlock cinema soundtracks, but Prince shaped my pop sensibilities as a kid, and helped me and millions more learn what real fucking dance music is.
So it was with bitter verve that I skimmed through my archives of thousands of cycling photos, finding hundreds from Bowie vs Prince mobile-music rides, part of Portland’s legendary annual Pedalpalooza festival.
