Hey there, I'm Jason Gots, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

The other day I was at a kid's birthday party, and a fellow dad was joking that when we were kids,

it was all bang, bang, bang, and now it's all peo, pew, pew. He was talking about video games and

lasers as opposed to, I'm guessing, peo, pew, pew. He was talking about video games and lasers, as opposed to,

I'm guessing, cowboys. Actually, as I remember childhood, it was all,

whew, whew, whew, I was five years old when Star Wars, A New Hope came out, and like everyone

who grew up back then, I had sci-fi seeping into my very pores, alien civilizations, cyborg

killers, the dark, unfeeling menace of advanced technology.

Because there can never be too many Jasons, my guest today is the Hugo Award-winning writer,

Jason Heller.

He's here to tell the eerie and fascinating tale of how sci-fi seeped into the pores of popular

music in the 1970s, and how, along with

psychedelic drugs and electronic instruments, it produced and was transformed by David Bowie

and others into something rich and strange, something that changed the face of music and

pop culture forever.

His new book is Strange Stars, David Bowie, Pop Music, and The Decade Sci-Fi Exploded.

Welcome to Think Again, Jason.

Thanks.

Bowie is the through line here, yeah?

Yeah, Bowie is definitely the main character, if you will, in this nonfiction book.

David Bowie personally was the first concert I ever saw when I was 15. First concert you ever saw it, like your parents never took you to one before?

Never.

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