Ziggy Shuffledust & the Spiders From Mars
Over the past few years, a lot of great local players have shuffled through the David Bowie tribute Ziggy Shuffledust & the Spiders from Mars, including members of Creedle, but the central figure with the orange hair and jumpsuit remains founder Gary Shuffler, who played hard rock with Honey Glaze until that band split in 1993. Shuffler has also fronted tributes to Bauhaus, Queen, Guns N’ Roses, the Who, and Adam & the Ants, but demand for faux Bowie has skyrocketed since the singer’s death in January 2016, and so the Shuffledust show turned up nearly every month on local stages that year.
They’ve been laying surprisingly low this year, but with Bowie’s birthdate and deathdate looming, December 20 seems a good time for a great time, singing and cheering the praises of rock’s late Thin White Duke. And what better place to do so than the Casbah, which practically had a cot with Shuffler’s name on it stashed in the back room, they played there so often last year. Apropos to the glam ‘n’ glitter theme of the evening, openers Electric Warrior will pay tribute to T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan, a performer that Bowie himself was essentially tributing when he cannily “borrowed” from Bolan’s increasingly successful circus rock act, even before creating his own Bolanesque persona as Ziggy Stardust.