On Wednesday morning Zach Staggers (of the fantastic Bay Ridge punk band So So Glos) shared six amazing minutes of David Bowie impersonating a number of his peers, including Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and Bruce Springsteen (the second impression almost sounds like he’s doing Bob Dylan, but it’s actually T. Rex’s Marc Bolan; the only one that really misses the mark is his rendition of Neil Young). According to Staggers’s post on The Talkhouse, Mark Saunders, a friend of Staggers’s family and record producer, shared the clip with his father.
Bowie’s impressions are loving but satirical, and obviously the product of deep appreciation—listening to hours of his music after his death last week, I was struck by how much he reminded me of an actor in the way he approached each line. The only surprising omission in Bowie’s own version of Fallon’s Wheel of Impressions is Mick Jagger. But Bowie spent enough time imitating (and, perhaps, mocking) Mick on his own records: “Diamond Dogs” and his take on Springsteen’s “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” seem particularly indebted to the Rolling Stone.