January is traditionally a fallow time for music (I’ve not even been to a gig yet and am struggling to find new releases to review).

However, there’s been plenty of unwanted news, as most music publications, and this page, are starting to look like a never-ending obituary column.

We’d still be talking about Lemmy had we not been overrun by Bowie tributes in the past weeks. Now, I loved Bowie’s music. Seems I wasn’t alone either with everyone from David Cameron to the Vatican jumping onto the band… sorry, paying their respects.

And some of the tributes have become decidedly overblown. Bowie is a Zelig-like figure, seemingly ever-present in history, so aliens parachuted down (at Ziggy’s behest) might think he’d invented the internet, space travel and brought down the Berlin Wall.

In fact, what he did was bring many of these things into the mainstream. The Fox Mulder of his day, his patronage paved the way for acceptance of alien cultures – mime, art rock. He was also the first (big name) artist to release a track on the internet – albeit in 1996 when few of us had computers, less still connected to the web. He sold shares in himself via Bowie Bonds. He flitted chameleon-like (© all newspapers) between genres – while not inventing glam rock, he did beat Bolan, Slade and The Sweet into the UK charts – though that was with ‘The Laughing Gnome’. He helped popularised Krautrock with his ‘Berlin trilogy’ – though Kraftwerk had already hit the UK charts. And even when he took on a genre well beyond his years – drum and bass on 1995 album Earthling – he got away with it simply because it was a pretty decent release.

But his metal project Tin Machine aside, Bowie did little that would blight his catalogue and body of work. It even emerged that Coldplay asked Bowie to appear on a track but he demurred on the basis that it was “not a very good song“.

The good news for, well, everyone, is that Kanye West has denied reports of his Bowie tribute album – anyone who hasn’t managed to blot out his take on ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ will be able to heave a sigh of relief and pit down the pitchfork – for the time being.

And despite crooning with Bing Crosby at the fireside and dancing with Mick Jagger in infeasibly large trousers, it was his patronage of lesser-known bands which had everyone, when the time came, asking what was on his iPod.

He produced Lou Reed and Iggy Pop’s successful solo albums, bringing them to a wider audience. To say nothing of his assistance for Mott The Hoople, when he was himself struggling to break through he donated ‘All The Young Dudes’.

Which takes us onto the departure of a less appreciated but similarly influential figure on the musical underground. Mott’s Dale Griffin also passed away, just a week after Bowie.

The band had five hit singles over Five Years (another Bowie reference, cheers). Drummer Griffin (nicknamed “Buffin”) then moved to producing albums for Hanoi Rocks and New Model Army as well as the Department S tune ‘Is Vic There?’ (surely you remember it?)

But his most significant contribution was at Radio One, where he worked with the John Peel show, producing what In Session Tonight author Ken Garner reckons could be close on 2000 sessions. Of course, many featured on Peel’s show are unknown even to hard core, er, hardcore fans, but among Buffin’s credits are the first Pulp session, Nirvana tunes that would find their way onto the ‘Incesticide’ compilation, plus sets from Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, Billy Bragg and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.

Hopefully I’ll not have to write another of these for a few weeks, but for now, a minute’s noise would be an apt tribute.