- Jimmy King
• It’s David Bowie Day in New York City! Those of us for whom every day for the past week and a half has been David Bowie Day can only nod in agreement at the decision made by Bowie’s adopted hometown; NYC mayor Bill de Blasio will read a proclamation tonight following the curtain call of Bowie’s current play, Lazarus. Here in the Mercury office, our unofficial David Bowie Month/Year/Lifetime continues, as our admiration and affection for the man’s peerless catalog expands to heretofore unforseen bounds. Have you really listened to “The Bewlay Brothers”? Like, really listened? “Leave my shoes and door unlocked, I might just slip away, hey.” The dude was just… incredible. The United States at large seems to agree, as it just gave David Bowie his first number one album ever with his surreal, ghostly, great final word, Blackstar, a title that my autocorrect STILL wants to change to Backstair.
• Music publicist Heathcliff Berru, head of Life or Death PR, resigned yesterday amid sexual assault allegations that first surfaced Monday night on Twitter. Berru issued an apology of sorts as his career collapsed nearly overnight and clients like D’Angelo and Killer Mike dropped the firm like a poisoned potato. Spin has a good breakdown of the chain of events, which was spurred by tweets from Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman, and was backed up by Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino—among many others, including a former Mercury contributor who has since deactivated her Twitter account and whose privacy we will respect here.
• In similarly appalling news, R. Kelly apparently feels sorry for poor Bill Cosby. You probably don’t want to read his interview with GQ, but here’s the link.
• In much, much, much better news, former Portland singer/songwriter Laura Gibson has a new song! Hooray! It’s from her forthcoming album Empire Builder, which might refer to her current home in New York (AKA the Empire State). It also might refer to her having to rebuild her life entirely when her East Village apartment burned in an explosion last year, along with all of her belongings. Gibson’s new album comes out April 1 on Barsuk Records and includes contributions from Portland musicians Dave Depper, Peter Broderick, and Dan Hunt.
• There’s also a beautiful new song from Eric Bachmann (Archers of Loaf, Crooked Fingers), and it will make you feel much better after having reading news items #2 and 3 above, I promise. My friend describes it as “boozy Neil Diamond,” a phrase that pretty much encapsulates everything I ever wanted from a piece of music. Bachmann’s upcoming self-titled album will be out on March 25 on Merge Records, and Bachmann will play a show at Mississippi Studios on Saturday, May 21.