Legendary Musician David Bowie Dies at 69, Rest in Peace

THIS MORNING I WOKE UP STUNNED AND SADDENED …

David Bowie, one of my all-time favorite musicians, has passed away at the age of 69. According to reports, Ziggy Star Dust died after an 18-month battle with cancer. Honestly, I never knew he had it. Bowie had just released his last album, “Blackstar,” this past Friday on his birthday. His music spanned so many generations and Bowie kept reinventing himself and his music. See David Bowie in concert was more than a concert, it was an epic event. The man was a music legend with more fantastic songs than most band have songs. In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the hit album Young Americans. But that is not before the glam rocker had such huge hits as  ”Space Oddity” and “Star Man.” However, probably my favorites are probable “Changes” and “Heroes”. But there are just too many to pick from. Then there was the MTV years where Bowie hit it big with “Let’s Dance,” “Modern Love” and “China Girl.”

You will be missed, Rest in Peace.

David Bowie – Space Oddity

David Bowie, the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personas, died on Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday.

Mr. Bowie’s death was confirmed by his publicist, Steve Martin, on Monday morning.

He died after an 18-month battle with cancer, according to a statement on Mr. Bowie’s social-media accounts.

“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family,” a post on his Facebook page read.

Mr. Bowie wrote songs, above all, about being an outsider: an alien, a misfit, a sexual adventurer, a faraway astronaut. His music was always a mutable blend: rock, cabaret, jazz and what he called “plastic soul,” but it was suffused with genuine soul. He also captured the drama and longing of everyday life, enough to give him No. 1 pop hits like “Let’s Dance.”

David Bowie – Changes

The Guardian – The legendary musician known for musical innovation and experimentation with his image died 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer.

The singer’s death was confirmed in a Facebook post on his official page: “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief.”

Writing on Twitter, Bowie’s son, the film director Duncan Jones, 44, said: “Very sorry and sad to say it’s true.” The news came as a shock to some, who were initially sceptical, but Bowie’s publicist, Steve Martin, told the Reuters news agency: “It’s not a hoax.”

David Bowie – Heroes

More from the NY Times obit:

Born David Robert Jones on Jan. 8, 1947, in South London, Mr. Bowie was a person of relentless reinvention. He emerged in the late 1960s with the voice of a rock belter but with the sensibility of a cabaret singer, steeped in the dynamics of stage musicals. He was Major Tom, the lost astronaut in his career-making 1969 hit “Space Oddity.”

He was Ziggy Stardust, the otherworldly pop star at the center of his 1972 album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.”

He was the self-destructive Thin White Duke and the minimalist but heartfelt voice of the three albums he recorded in Berlin in the ’70s, often considered his greatest work: “Low,” “ ‘Heroes’ ” and “Lodger.”

The arrival of MTV in the 1980s was the perfect complement to Mr. Bowie’s sense of theatricality and fashion. “Ashes to Ashes,” the “Space Oddity” sequel that revealed “we know Major Tom’s a junkie,” and “Let’s Dance,” which offered, “Put on your red shoes and dance the blues,” gave him worldwide popularity.

Mr. Bowie was his generation’s standard-bearer for rock as theater: something constructed and inflated yet sincere in its artifice, saying more than naturalism could. With a voice that dipped down to baritone and leaped into falsetto, he was complexly androgynous, an explorer of human impulses that could not be quantified.

 David Bowie – Starman (1972)

Country Singer Craig Strickland of Backroad Anthem Missing, 22 Year Old Friend Chase Morland Found Dead After Duck-Hunting Trip (Update: Craig Strickland Found Deceased)

Country singer Craig Strickland, the lead singer of the Arkansas-based country-rock band Backroad Anthem, and his friend, 22 year old Chase Morland have been missing over the weekend. The two failed to return from duck-hunting on Kaw Lake in Oklahoma.

Facebook: Backroad Anthem

@Backroad Anthem

Chase Morland posted the below ominous tweet prior to the two going missing. How bizarre.

Authorities are searching for a member of a country rock band, after he and a friend disappeared while on a hunting trip on an Oklahoma lake.

According to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, troopers began searching for 29-year-old Craig Strickland and 22-year-old Chase Morland, after the pair did not return from a duck hunting trip on Kaw Lake.

On Sunday night, a capsized boat was discovered, but the hunters were nowhere to be found.

Fox News is reporting that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol says the body of a 22-year-old man has been recovered on Monday afternoon and a second man is missing after the two went duck hunting and their boat capsized.

NBC News:

Country singer Craig Strickland has been declared missing following a duck-hunting trip in stormy conditions with a friend who turned up dead.

Officials began searching for Strickland — lead singer of country-rock group Backroad Anthem — and his 22-year-old friend Chase Morland on Sunday after they failed to return from duck-hunting on Kaw Lake, according to NBC affiliate KFOR.

Morland’s body was found in the lake on Monday, according to a statement from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

It said late Monday that the search for Strickland, 29, had been called off until morning due to bad weather and fading light.

UPDATE I: Body of Craig Strickland Found. Wife: Craig Strickland died from hypothermia

Hours after news broke Monday that Backroad Anthem lead singer Craig Strickland’s body was found, after having gone missing on a hunting trip over the holidays, his loved ones posted emotional tributes on Facebook and Instagram.

“Today we lost our brother, our best friend, our bandmate,” wrote the country band, comprised of Toby Freeman, Eric Dysart, Josh Bryant, Brandon Robold and Isaac Sentr. “Craig was the most amazing person whose passion for life couldn’t be matched.”

“We can finally rest knowing that he is at Home in Heaven with his Father,” wrote his wife, Helen Strickland, on Instagram.

Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister Has Died at 70 … Rest in Peace to a Heavy Metal Rock Legend (Video)

SAYING GOOD MY TO A TRUE ROCK AND ROLLER …

Lemmy Kilmister, the founding member and frontman of Motörhead, has dies at the age of 70. Sadly, Kilmister passed away today after a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer. The WAPO described Lemmy as follows, “a voice like shrapnel and a bass tone to match. A steady diet of rock ‘n’ roll and rebellion, fueled by, until not so long ago, a bottle of Jack Daniels per day and sexual escapades too numerous to count. Plus: muttonchops.” Yeah, and your point? Lemmy Kilmister did it his way and I have to admit, Motörhead was one of my guilty pleasures. When you want to blow off some steam, hear some serious rock and crank the music at 11, Motörhead was on that playlist. Rest in Peace Lemmy Kilmister.

WWE pays tribute to The Ace of Spades

Lemmy Kilmister, the founding member and frontman of Motörhead, and a leading figure in hard rock’s resurgence in the late ’70s and its endurance since, has died of cancer, according to the band’s Facebook page. He was 70 years old.

“There is no easy way to say this…our mighty, noble friend Kilmister passed away today after a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer,” the band wrote on Facebook, adding that the rock veteran had just learned of his condition on December 26th (two days after his birthday), while at home with his family, “sitting in front of his favorite video game from The Rainbow… We cannot begin to express our shock and sadness, there aren’t words.”

The man known to most as simply Lemmy was born Ian Fraser Kilmister in Staffordshire, England, and founded Motörhead in 1975. In his long tenure as the group’s singer, bassist and primary songwriter — he was its sole remaining original member — Lemmy became a heavy metal icon; though the group’s hard-charging approach also nodded to punk, and appealed to its fans.

Kilmister, whose gruff vocals and pummeling bass were central to that sound, cut a distinctive presence offstage as well, with his mutton chops and prominent facial moles. He appeared in a number of films and video games, and inspired a titular 2010 documentary that featured such admirers as Dave Navarro, Alice Cooper, Nikki Sixx and Slash.

Ace of Spades

Motorhead Frontman Lemmy Dies at 70.

A rock and roll hellraiser par excellence, the British musician was a member of Hawkwind in the early 1970s before founding Motorhead. The band’s biggest hit was “Ace of Spades” in 1980.

Always cutting a distinctive figure with his giant mutton-chops, large facial moles and low-slung Rickenbacker bass, Kilmister was born Ian Fraser Kilmister in Staffordshire, England. A rock and roll lifer from the moment he saw the Beatles at Liverpool’s Cavern Club as a teenager, Kilmister played in a variety of British bands during the 1960s, briefly served as a roadie for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and played bass in space rock outfit Hawkwind from 1972 to ’75 (when he was fired after being arrested for drug possession at the U.S.-Canada border). But it’s as the founder and lone constant member of Motorhead that most of his legend relies.

The rare group to be revered by metalheads and punks in equal measure, Motorhead’s compulsion to push rock music to its fastest, loudest and most primal form left a profound influence on thrash and speed metal, though Kilmister himself always insisted that the band should be described purely as rock and roll. Famously laying out his ambitions for the group to become “the dirtiest rock and roll band in the world; if we moved in next door, your lawn would die,” Kilmister sang with a guttural yet surprisingly melodic growl, and played bass in the style of a rhythm guitarist, heavy on distortion and power chords.

Motörhead – The Game / Live at WWF Wrestlemania XVII, 2013

Trans-Siberian Orchestra from Boston MA 12/20/2014

If you have never seen TSO, I suggest you make a point to see them. They are phenomenal, the music and light show is beyond words … you will not be disappointed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2015 FROM SCARED MONKEYS … JOY TO THE WORLD, THE LORD HAS COME … “A Savior has Been Born to You”

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL FROM SCARED MONKEYS …

On this most joyous of special days we would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and to ask all to always remember the true reason for the season. As you are unwrapping presents, partaking in some eggnog, spending time with family, friends and loved ones, having your holiday feast and experiencing the joy of this day, always keep in mind the true reason for the season because  on this joyous day …  “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

May everyone have a joyous and blessed day!!!

Joy to the World, the Lord has Come … Wishing all a very Merry Christmas on this blessed day!!!

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger (Luke 2:10-16)

Joy to the World – Mormon Tabernacle Choir

I just wanted to share some of my most favorite Christmas songs. Remembering back when I was a child we would go the the Christmas service on Christmas Eve and the congregation would sing everyone’s favorite hymns. Believe it or not we also used to go Christmas caroling in the town as well. Those were the days!

Nat King Cole – Away In A Manger

 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – Jewel

Oh Holy Night -Charlotte  Church 

Silent Night – Bing Crosby

 Angels We Have Heard On High- Andrea Bocelli & David Foster

David Foster – CAROL OF THE BELLS, 1993

“O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles) – Luciano Pavarotti

The First Noel – University of Utah Singers