Month: April 2002

I’ll give you television…

The Museum of Television & Radio (MTR) in Los Angeles and New York will present the first-ever retrospective devoted to the extraordinary career of David Bowie. ‘David Bowie: Sound + Vision’ runs from June 7th through to September 15th, 2002, and the screenings will include:

* Rarely seen performances, outtakes, documentaries, and interviews
* More than fifty music videos, including “Life on Mars?,” “Ashes to Ashes,” “Let’s Dance,” “Jazzin’ for Blue Jean,” “Thursday’s Child,” and many more
* Alan Yentob’s classic BBC documentary Cracked Actor
* Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Hare’s a bit from the press release which you can reach by clicking on the image above (if it’s not there just yet, please try again a little later):

“Culled from archives around the world, as well as Bowie’s own personal library, this screening series will showcase the artist’s pioneering work in the music video form along with rarely seen performances, outtakes, documentaries, and interviews. Organized chronologically and comprised of nearly one hundred elements, this five-part screening series traces the evolution of a rock icon who, over five decades, has continually reinvented himself and his art.”

With news like this, what I want to know is, how are those of us travelling to Roseland from around the world ever expected to go home again?!

CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS

Just turn on with me and you’re not alone…

In celebration of the original release of the David Bowie classic, ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’, EMI are to reissue the album as a 30th Anniversary Special Edition. Due on July 1st the double CD will consist of the original remastered album, and a second disc of currently unavailable Ziggy-related recordings.

The majority of the songs on CD 2 were released as bonus tracks for the 1990 Ryko reissue campaign, but this is the first time they have been collected together on one CD. The tracks, (which include demos and versions of songs that appeared on Ziggy, as well as songs that were recorded during the Ziggy sessions) have been unavailable to fans for several years as the Ryko CDs have been out of print for some time now.

The bonus CD also includes a take of ‘Moonage Daydream’ recorded during the Ziggy sessions, but not previously released in any form. This stunning version has been remixed by Alan Moulder. Another treat for fans is the inclusion of studio banter between David and the band at the start of ‘Sweet Head’.

The Ziggy Stardust 30th Anniversary Special Edition will come in special packaging with rare and unreleased pictures from the period and extensive sleeve notes with contributions from celebrity Bowie fans, and a Ziggy Stardust Time Line by Kevin Cann.

Here is the full track listing:

CD 1:
01 Five Years
02 Soul Love
03 Moonage Daydream
04 Starman
05 It Ain’t Easy
06 Lady Stardust
07 Star
08 Hang On To Yourself
09 Ziggy Stardust
10 Suffragette City
11 Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide

CD 2:
01 Moonage Daydream (Arnold Corns version)
02 Hang On To Yourself (Arnold Corns version)
03 Lady Stardust (Demo)
04 Ziggy Stardust (Demo)
05 John, I’m Only Dancing
06 Velvet Goldmine
07 Holy Holy
08 Port Of Amsterdam
09 The Supermen
10 Round And Round
11 Sweet Head (Outtake – Take 5)
12 Moonage Daydream (Alan Moulder Mix)

We’ll hopefully give you an exclusive peek at some of the new artwork just ahead of the album’s release on July 1st.

I am the best jazz you’ve ever seen…

As some of you have already discovered, (grrrr….thanks for telling us Montreux) tickets for David’s performance at this year’s Montreux Jazz Festival are on sale now. David will perform in Auditorium Stravinski on Thursday, 18th July 2002 at 20:30. Click on the image above to take you to the site, where you can order tickets directly now.

Though billed as a “jazz” festival, you should be warned that many of the artists scheduled to appear are in fact rock acts, and it is thought that David Bowie is not likely to include much jazz in his own set!

So inviting…

Seems a few of you have been quite eager to find out the date of David’s BowieNet show at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. Well, I’m sure you’ll all be very pleased to learn that we’ll be making the announcement very soon. In fact, we might as well make it right now! So, without further ado:

We are very proud to announce that David Bowie will play a BowieNet show at the Roseland Ballroom in New York on Monday 10th June.

There ya go. Ticket details will be announced as soon as we are happy with the distribution system, but believe me, after Meltdown, we will be making very sure that the process of getting tickets to BowieNet members runs a little smoother this time…actually, a lot smoother! As smooth as Stephen ‘Baby’ King’s bum in fact.

For those that didn’t attend the last BowieNet show at the same venue, you may be pleased to learn that the Roseland Ballroom is unseated. That does mean of course, that if you do want to be down the front, (see pic above and the MBs) you may have to sleep with a few other crazy BowieNetters…No, not in the Biblical sense, I mean overnight in the queue outside the venue!

(Throw me tomorrow..oh,oh) Everything’s falling into place…

David’s show at the Festival De Nimes in France that we mentioned last week, (04/19/02 NEWS: BOWIE ANNOUNCES FRENCH DATE) goes on sale in the morning at 9.00am (local time).

David will be supported by Patti Smith and her band for the show which takes place on on Sunday July 14th, and is Bastille Day in France. Morcheeba, Tricky, Joseph Arthur and Superbus will also perform at the festival.

Tickets are 40 Euros, and you can make credit card bookings in France on 0892 683 622, or online at www.fnac.com and www.choosit.org

Make credit card bookings outside of France on 00 33 1 42 31 32 28 or via the same internet addresses above.

Dear BowieNetters,

We would like to apologise for the temporary glitch with the Ticket Program.

The Ticket Booth is up and running and is taking orders again. It seems that the overwhelming demand for tickets crashed the MusicToday Ticket System. They were down for approximately 3 hours.

If you tried to purchase tickets and received an order confirmation email, then you have successfully ordered tickets. However, if you tried to order tickets and got a “Your Shopping Cart is empty” message, please return to the ticket order page and try your order again.More details to follow?

Sincerely,
The BowieNet Staff

NOTE: If you are still recieving an error message, you may need to clear your cookies/cache.

If you attempt to purchase tickets and, for any reason, decide you do not want the tickets, be sure to empty your shopping cart. Each time you close your browser without emptying your cart, the tickets you had in the cart are held for 10 minutes. That means the total number of tickets is decreased by that number. This is the reason many of you are seeing that there are no tickets available. Always remembering to empty your cart will ensure the maximum ammount of available tickets.

If you are still having problems purchasing tickets, you should do one or both of the following:

— Send an email to tix@musictoday.com with the subject set as “BOWIE”
— You can also call 1.434.244.7200. By either mean, MusicToday should be able to help you get you your tickets as we still have a good number available.

Just a reminder, if you have purchased more than 2 tickets, you’ll only be charged and alloted for 2.

We hope this helps. Please bear with us.

Sincerely,
The BowieNet Staff

Due to the overwhelming demand for MELTDOWN tickets, we’ve reset the ticket system and currently have more tickets available at the Second Level ($36.00)

So, if you had recently received a “no tickets available” message, you’ll be pleased to know that the system is now accepting orders.

You should have no trouble placing an order. However, please feel free to contact Music Today via EMAIL or by phone @ 434-244-7300 if you require further assistance or explanation.

Thank you,
The BowieNet Staff

Now that the dust has settled, it seems as though the ticket program is running smoothly again. There are still seats available at the $36.00 level. Tickets will be on sale until Sunday, April 28th or until they run out.

We thought it would be a good idea just to fill you all in on what exactly happened yesterday.

As you probably know, tickets went on sale for MELTDOWN yesterday here on BowieNet. Among all the frenzy to get tickets, you Bnetters managed to put quite an intense pounding on the MusicToday Ticketing System. The traffic was so high at one point that you managed to MELTDOWN the server taking the orders. The shopping cart engine could not handle the frantic tenacity of repeated additions/subtractions of tickets from the carts. It just couldn’t create cookies fast enough.

This is the reason many of you saw the ODBC error or that your cart was empty even after you had selected tickets.

There was also another problem with a “no tickets available” error message. The explanation here is more of a mathematical one.

For one reason or another, users were closing their browsers in the middle of the purchasing process (Probably due to receiving one of the aforementioned errors). What this did to the system, was place whatever number of tickets you had requested (1,2) on hold for 10 minutes. This feature, designed to protect your order, would then begin multiplying these “holds” depending on how many times each user retried an order. That can really add up

All the prior explanations still do not justify the fact that the system failed to perform adequately to your needs. We want to take this time to sincerely apologize for the extreme panic and inconvenience caused by these errors.

Our intention was to have something unique and special for our Members, whereas it came across as quite the opposite. We want to assure you that we are working to improve our ticketing solution to ensure that this does not happen again.

Sincerely,
The BowieNet Staff

I keep a photograph, It burns my wall with time…

This week’s NME comes with a free 24-page photo suppliment that contains “50 classic photographs from the NME archive”. Naturally it contains a shot of DB.

Taken in 1974 by Gijsbert Hanekroot, the mono photograph is of DB in one of his very last Ziggy poses during the making of the ‘Rebel Rebel’ video. You know the one, with the eye patch and the large erm…you know…Susans will love it.