About

Hi I'm Matthew. I'm a CS undergraduate at UW Madison and over the summer I got REALLY into David Bowie, so I decided to dedicate my UW-webpage as a fan site. When I rock and code with him, no one else I'd rather be. Anyways, this is my personal website, and is currently my playground for learning a bit of front-end. Powered by Bootstrap. All music is by David Bowie, of course. None of the videos are mine, and are liable to be taken down at any time. Hope you enjoy!

Favorite Songs

Here's some of my favorite David Bowie songs. The list is unordered, they're all too good to choose a favorite. I haven't really gotten into any of his post-"Let's Dance" stuff yet. If you have any recommendations, shoot me an email! (westphall@wisc.edu)

TVC15: I'd be lying if I said I knew what this song is about, but man is it catchy! This track comes off of Station to Station, released in 1976, the same year as the film the Man Who Fell to Earth. Bowie stars in this movie as an alien who comes to earth looking to bring water back to his dying home planet, but ultimately succumbs to the earthly vices of television and alcohol. Perhaps the song's lyrics tie into the plot: "Oh so demonic oh my T V C ONE FIVE!"

Breaking Glass: This track comes off of Low, Bowie's first album following his relocation to Berlin. With a driving beat, minimal lyrics, and that irresistable 3 note synth thing at the end of every verse, this song paints an etherial image of what I can only guess is a breakup gone horribly wrong. While the album's whole B-side is devoted to avante-garde instrumental tracks, this one and the others on the A-side are a bit more accessible for a casual listener such as myself. "You're such a wonderful person! But you've got problems! Oooooooh!"

Yassassin: As the embedded youtube video so helpfully explains, this song's title means "Long Live" in Turkish. Featuring a world-beat sound and the excellent sing-along line: "YAAASSAAASSINN!!" at the end of every phrase, this track is sure to be crowd pleaser. This track comes from Lodger, Bowie's third and final Berlin release. Other great tracks from there include "African Night Flight", another great world beat selection; and "Red Sail", a song which talks a great deal about hinterlands.

Rock 'n' Roll with Me: This song, off the the 1974 album Diamond Dogs, carries the heartfelt joys of rock and roll music. It's the only song on this list to have been paraphrased in the "About" section, which is no small feat. It comes from the 1974 album Diamond Dogs, which came hot off the heels of the death of Ziggy Stardust and the birth of a new character, Halloween Jack. Originally intended to tell the story of George Orwell's "1984," the content of the album had to be altered after Orwell's estate denied Bowie's requests for the novel.

Scream Like a Baby: This track comes off of Bowie's 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and tells the story of the narrator and his friend Sam, two political dissidents who are jailed and tortured by a totalitarian government. Although it came out 6 years after Diamond Dogs, I get a very "1984" feel from it. The song has music to fit its grim lyrics, with a determined, driving beat and pained vocals. Other great songs off this album include the title track, "It's no Game (Part 1)," and "Teenage Wildlife."

And Many More: This list of songs is by no means comprehensive, but in order to keep the page's loading time from getting too outrageously long I'll have to leave it at 5. Any of the albums listed is a fantastic listen, and be sure to check out, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars," "Aladdin Sane," "Hunky Dory," and "The Man who Sold the World," albums who unfortunately are lacking representation in the list above. Although this site certainly skews towards his early works, don't let that stop you from exploring his entire oeuvre!

Computer Science

I also do Computer Science! I do most of my work in Python and numpy, though I'm also a huge fan of FORTRAN and C. As you may have guessed, I'm also dipping my toes into web development, and having a lot of fun with it. I've used Java and MATLAB through UW courses, but haven't done much with them independently. I've also done a bit with React (not utilized here, unfortunately).

My other websites:

  • Github

  • Bitbucket

  • Linkedin

  • F Dot: an esoteric programming language loosely based off of x86 assembly with a javascript interpreter and html/jQuery editor (documentation is currently very sparse).

  • HotLoops: A Django project that uses numpy and matplotlib to generate Pressure-Volume diagrams and their solutions.

  • BROWSERONEBOWIE: Another David Bowie fansite, since one is never enough. Angular-based project that lets you sort through his albums and play them through the youtube javascript API.