Her “big name drop brag”. That is how Tash Joyce describes David Bowie.
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When the Bendigo woman was just 16, she won a radio competition to spend a few precious moments on the phone with the musical icon.
She remembers quizzing the musician on his image changes and “trying to sound very smart and intellectual”.
“He went off on tangents that a 16-year-old girl from Bendigo in the 80s had no idea about,” Ms Joyce said, laughing.
“I grew up absolutely adoring him so I was really devastated when he died last year.”
Her face, painted in the red lightening bolt design from Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album cover, brightens when she describes plans for a tribute show in Bendigo on the weekend.
Acts from as far away as Point Lonsdale and Broken Hill will perform at the Golden Vine on Saturday, recording an album of covers to present at the David Bowie convention in Hull, England, later this year.
Topping the bill is Melbourne trio The Thin White Ukes, who perform Bowie tracks using their ukeleles.
Gorgeous Voices chorister Linda Kirkman, whose vocal group will also contribute a track to the album, said it was the “otherworldly” quality of Bowie’s music that made her a fan.
“I like [that] his music steps outside the usual way of thinking about the world, because we all need to do that,” Ms Kirkman said.
“He's gender queer, and he's challenging gender and sexuality.”
The singer, who posthumously won three awards at this week’s Grammys, had won new fans in the year since his death, Ms Joyce said.
“I'm meeting people, just through organising this, who've never been into Bowie much, but since he died they've started looking into it and they're finding his whole story fascinating.”
It is a far cry from the day after her Bowie interview, when Ms Joyce shared her brush with fame only for classmates to say they didn’t know who the artist was.
Asked for her favourite Bowie track, she said it was Life on Mars that won out when it came to karaoke, but she admired his music videos featuring aboriginal cast members, created at a time when Indigenous culture was still a taboo topic in Australia.
She was even planning to make her love for Bowie permanent with a red, lightning bolt tattoo.
Benders does Bowie begins at 7.30pm on Saturday. Entry costs $5.