This is the first NFT minted for the first collection of digital works by Chris McKay, aka Charlie Son. He has been a photographer of music and entertainment legends for more than 20 years. McKay's work has been featured in all major outlets and publications with much of his work represented by Getty Images . He took all of the photos and videos upon which his NFTs are based.
About this piece from the artist:
David Bowie Turns On His Audience.
Didn't he? Doesn't he? Look at him. Look at the fierceness. David Bowie was a turn on. Musically. Artistically. Emotionally. Physically. Even at Bowie's most detached, he was something beyond magnetic. But, of course, that's far from all. Not only would Bowie turn on the audience in the more common sense, he was never afraid to turn on his audience (as in turn his back) when it was time to move on. He would build a world, invite everyone in, then toss away the entire aesthetic, like shedding skin, to grow. Meanwhile, as hard as everyone tried, no one could ever really catch up to him.
Ziggy? Yeah, Ziggy was The Nazz, but Ziggy lived his time, dropped his body, and from what once had been Ziggy, Halloween Jack crawled from the ruins. Within a year, The Thin White Duke had disposed of Halloween Jack's exoskeleton and traded rock and roll for soul.
As soon as The Soul Period was accepted, Bowie was off to Germany to record icy, non-commercial experimental sounds that were unheard of in so-called "popular music".
Of course, the biggest surprise was in the early '80s when everyone was convinced that Bowie had settled in as an "art rocker". What was there left to do, after all? Well, David turned on his previous lives and followers by releasing the Let's Dance album (one of the most popular and commercial releases of that year). This new, super-blonde, glossy creature then took the world by its currencies, selling out stadiums across the globe on the Serious Moonlight Tour.
This was the course for David Bowie. This was always the course. Turning on.
Bowie would regularly "retire". He did it in 1973. He "retired" his old hits in 1990, but whenever he was inspired to return, he would come back and you could never know who he would be now. The Goblin King from Labyrinth? The electro-wizard of the Earthling era? You couldn't know. And that was a big part of The Turn On.
Fitting of Bowie, he didn't announce his retirement when he actually did stop performing in the mid 2000's. He just went away and left people wondering for years. Within days of his death, he released one final, glowing masterwork, 2016's Blackstar. The album appeared on his 69th birthday, and, within days, David Bowie had simply dropped one more body, simultaneously turning on his audience (in yet another way) as his hits transformed themselves from songs into canons. And new audiences were and are still coming to him.
I took this photo on May 8, 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia. His final concert ever was just a little more than a month away, but we had no way to even imagine such a thing on this night.
If Bowie had ever integrated all of his characters, the Reality Tour was that time. He took his favorite musicians from over the years and formed a crack band that could turn on (there's that phrase again) a dime.
This photo was taken during the opening song of the night, "Rebel Rebel". At the moment you see, David was doing it again. He was turning on his audience. The crowd was high on a rearranged version of the classic that featured call and response. At the peak seconds, Bowie turned the microphone on the audience. Turning it over to the crowd. Giving them that glory and glamour of a cathartic moment. Gifting it to the assembled. Bequeathing it. Leaving it to them. An offering.
I had experienced a couple of nights with David Bowie before, but I was not prepared for the expansiveness of the set he performed that warm spring evening outside in Georgia. The stars were out that night, but not just up there. This was a distillation of every thing and everyone Bowie had been from 1969 to the present. It was glorious.
I am grateful that I was allowed to be there to capture the evening with my camera and I'm pleased to be able to offer David Bowie Turns On His Audience as my first ever NFT and the inaugural image of my Music In Action Collection. I offer the image as an homage, a tribute, and a beginning.
Over the years, I photographed thousands of musicians, but when choosing who to have represented in my very first offering as an NFT, all I could see in my mind was David Bowie. His love of new technologies was always apparent. Whether he was selling his music as stock or creating his own server (BowieNet) all the way back in 1998, Bowie was a natural as "the first". Bowie's embrace has inspired me to offer David Bowie Turns On His Audience to turn on my work as an NFT artist.
Future releases in the Music In Action Collection may be limited editions, but the genesis could and should only be one. This one.
Let's dance.
