Month: June 2002

And me I’m on a radio show…

David Bowie is due on the Jonathan Ross show in about fifteen minutes. He is in the building and waiting to join the chat. So far this morning the conversation with Jonathan’s guest’s, Ricky Gervais and David Baddiel, has centred on all things David Bowie, and very funny it is too.

There is also an online chat where you can apparently “Join Jonathan Ross & David Bowie for a chat”, and obviously the show has been liberally sprinkled with the usual Bowie tunes. Click on the image above to take you there.

No mistake here… If you know what to do, good luck. If you don’t, you need to look around!

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision…

As I’m sure you all know by now, last night was the taping of “Friday Night with Ross and Bowie” which is due for broadcast a week from today (Friday July 5th) on BBC1, at 10:35pm. I won’t give too much away before the broadcast, so those of you who weren’t at yesterday’s taping can enjoy the surprises too.

I can tell you that David and the band performed wonderful versions of ‘Fashion’, ‘Slip Away’, ‘Be My Wife’, ‘Everyone Says Hi’ and the intro to ‘Fame’ which was aborted in favour of a cracking rendition of ‘Ziggy Stardust’.

A few of the highlights of the conversation between a nervous Jonathan Ross and a very relaxed and smiling David Bowie (in no particular order and nowhere near complete) were: Japanese sex toys for the ear, the cut-up technique, a stylophone duet, man love, Glam Rock clothing, the killing of Ziggy, birds and bees chat with Duncan, a brilliant rendition of Lexi-speak, the parallels between ‘Low’ and ‘Heathen’, and much, much more.

Can’t wait to see the final broadcast to see how they’ve managed to edit this very entertaining craziness down to a TV programme!

You will start to see the fruits of our labor this coming weekend as we move into the final stage of our much-discussed technology upgrade. The promised enhancements to core community systems, specifically email and meesage boards will be live in a few days! Please read on for two particularly important updates.

1. Attention ISP Users!!

For those of you who use the dial-up service provided by BowieNet, please check your BowieNet email box before the weekend for detailed info on steps you need to take to continue uniterrupted service throughout the upgrade – and to enjoy faster connection speeds through more dial-up numbers after the change over.

2. Chat on Hold

When the new site features go live on Monday you will notice one thing missing – chat. Fear not, this is not a mistake or a permanent situation. The chat functioanlity is being re-built from the ground up and will require another week or two to get up and running. The new client will be much more fluid and easy to use than the current version.

Watch this space for more information.

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision…

If you’re planning to see David Bowie at Meltdown on Saturday, it’s well worth getting there early to check out the Bowieart Sound and Vision exhibition, if you haven’t already done so. The installation features wonderful work created by artists selected from Bowieart such as: Dan Howard-Birt, Luke Oxley, Giles Round, Graham Hudson, Tsai-Wei Chen, Seb Patane, Mathew Sawyer, Anthony Gross and Gaia Alessi with Richard Bradbury.

Check Bowieart (click on the image above) for a report on the opening night of Sound and Vision, and read a brief outline of the works these artists have exhibited for Sound and Vision in the original Bowieart press release, below. Sound and Vision runs until 29 June 2002 at Level 2, of the Royal Festival Hall.

Total Blam Blam – (BowieNet News Editor)

—————————————————————————————————————————— SOUND AND VISION AT MELTDOWN

The Collection of artists presented in Sound and Vision have been selected from Bowieart, David Bowie?s art website that allows the online community direct access to the talents of young artists, giving them the exposure they deserve at an important time in their careers. Current or recent graduates from top British colleges, the artists raise questions of articulation without relying exclusively on the purely visual. All ten artists concern themselves with the intensities of musical or popular pleasures, using music and contemporary culture as their language or sound as their source.

Despite the fact that the works included in Sound and Vision are conducted on the terrain of the popular they retain a degree of reflexivity while commenting upon a number of wider issues. Dan Howard-Birt for example, may use a song lyric in his work but he is not quoting a band or even making reference to it. The lyric interests him because of the casual and understated way it infers something much bigger; isolated as an articulate utterance the words take on a greater presence, referring to something beyond the linguistic. The same can be said of Luke Oxley, whose new light work for Sound and Vision mischievously and critically re-works a song lyric. In lifting words from an old Grandmaster Flash song Oxley confuses our taught reading and understanding of the language used. Giles Round on the other hand opts for a proclamation that hypnotically erupts from a rainbow of colours, the quote appears to have been captured from a song but its origin cannot be placed.

Other artists introduce tangible sound into the exhibition space whilst using it to greater ends; Graham Hudson playfully stages an orchestral war between two competing mixing decks, where a political West takes on the mystery of the Middle East. Whilst kr buxey presents a three part video work that concerns itself with desire and longing. Using reconfigured footage of women at Tom Jones concerts throughout the 60?s and 70?s, Legion observes compulsive and hysterical behaviour. Representing another side of desire and longing is Tsai-Wei Chen?s Cicada; an audio and visual experience that evokes feelings of loss, loneliness and yearning in a nostalgic attempt to capture the artist?s homeland. By evoking the sound of the cicada the artist creates a mesmerising sonic environment similar to that created in Seb Patane?s video piece. Drone is a new work by the artist that explores the language of sound in an entrancing dirge that visualises white noise. Mathew Sawyer on the other hand uses music itself as his means of communication and presents new audio tracks for the exhibition.

Using up to the minute technology, artist Anthony Gross uses mainstream software customised with downloads from the Internet. Band of One is a new installation consisting of animation and music that centres on a simulated boy band of 3D computer clones. Intended as studies of group male exhibitionism, these images also raise questions concerning the commodification of the body within a generic pop industry. While Gaia Alessi and Richard Bradbury have collaborated on a new work fittingly titled D.I.S.C.O.S, the acronym for all the manmade junk currently floating around the planet outside the atmosphere. Experienced within a configuration of elliptical speakers, the contents of the D.I.S.C.O.S. database orbits the participant detaching itself and drifting ever further away from its meaning.

OK, I think we have all bases covered. If you are going to Meltdown and have yet to collect your tickets, please read the following very carefully.

If You Ordered Via BowieNet:

There will be a BowieNet collection desk in the RFH foyer, manned by, or I should say womaned by, (it’s so confusing these days) our very own SusanS. (What a Trojan) This set up is only for those of you that ordered your tickets via the BowieNet Ticket Store, and not via the RFH directly. (See “If You Ordered Direct From The RFH” below for details if you ordered directly from the RFH)

When you ordered via BowieNet you will have received an e-mail confirmation that was sent from “Musictoday Tickets” with a subject line of “Your Ticket Order” on or around 23rd April. This e-mail confirmation contained your seat numbers, an order number and the following information:

“Will-call orders will be held at the venue box office the day of show. You must bring your confirmation e-mail receipt, picture ID, and credit card used to purchase the tickets online. Without your picture ID and either the e-mail receipt or credit card used to purchase the tickets, you may be denied entry to the event and no refund will be issued.”

OK, so the only change to that instruction is that you can collect your tickets the day before the show, as well as on the day of the show. I understand that many of you won’t necessarily have picture ID, or the credit card that the tickets were ordered on, but as long as you bring that e-mail confirmation and some form of identification, preferably something with your picture on it, (passport, work security card, travel pass etc) it will make things easier for everybody.

Here are the times you can collect your tickets from the BowieNet collection point in the RFH foyer:

Friday June 28th 14:00pm to 20:00pm
Saturday June 29th 14:00pm to 19:00pm

Any tickets not collected by 19:00pm on Saturday will be handed over to the RFH Box Office where anybody arriving later can collect them. I do recommend that you try to collect well before 19:00pm on Saturday to avoid any last minute problems, and don’t forget that e-mail confirmation and your ID.

If You Ordered Direct From The RFH:

If you ordered your tickets directly from the RFH, and haven’t had them sent to you, your tickets should be ready for collection now. It is advisable to call the RFH box office on 020 7960 4242 to check your tickets are there before you go to the venue to collect.

Please note…you can not check if your tickets are at the RFH if you ordered via BowieNet…the people in the RFH box office will not be able to help you, so please don’t confuse them. Everything you need to know about collecting your tickets should be contained within this post, so please re-read if you haven’t understood.

The one and only Tony Visconti will be hosting and playing in a four piece band at Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette St @ Astor Place) on Wednesday June 26.

The group consists of TV on bass, Dave Matos on guitar, Dennis Diken (of The Smithereens) on drums and Joe McGinty (Losers Lounge) on keyboard. Three singers, Richard Barone, Kristeen Young (who sang some back ups on Heathen) and Mark Anthony Thompson of Chocolate Genius.

They will be doing songs that TV has produced or arranged over the span of his career. Obviously there will be lots of David’s songs and Marc Bolan’s songs in the show.

A splendid time will be had by all.

Come out and join us!

Freak out in a moonage daydream oh yeah!

Yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph Magazine here in the UK had a four-page-spread preview (see above) of the Moonage Daydream book that we first told you about over a year ago. (05/01/01 NEWS: MOONAGE DAYDREAM – THE DETAILS & 08/08/01 NEWS: MOONAGE DAYDREAM UNVEILED) The book is now available to order in two different editions, including a beautiful leather bound version of only 250 copies which includes an exclusive print signed by Mick Rock.

All of the books contain the page illustrated below, which is signed by both David Bowie and Mick Rock, and apart from many previously unreleased pictures from Mick’s library of 6,000 shots of Ziggy, (many of which Mick has managed to keep secret until now) David himself has written some 15,000 words especially for Moonage Daydream. Having been privileged to see a dummy copy of the book, I can tell you that he does give some fascinating insights into the period, and the pictures are just astonishing.

Here are a couple of David’s captions from the book that the Sunday Telegraph used in their piece.

“When the TV series Bewitched went into colour in the late 1960s, for some strange reason Samantha occasionally wore tiny tattoos on her face. I thought it looked really odd, but inspired. So I used a little anchor on my face myself for the ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’ Video.”

So now you know. Perhaps the anchor would be an appropriate little motif for Sailor to re-adopt. The next caption I’ve taken from the Sunday Telegraph piece justifies pretty well why I have had the little sticker, that I’ve posted below, in my collection for close on thirty years. OK, it may have seemed a tenuous link to Bowie at the time, but now everybody wants one! };-)

“The flash on the original Ziggy set was taken from the “High Voltage” sign that was stuck on any box containing dangerous amounts of electricity. I was not a little peeved when Kiss purloined it. Purloining, after all, was my job.”

Good stuff eh? This truly is a fantastic publication, and I’m sure the limited edition of the book will go very quickly indeed. Click on any of the images above to take you to Genesis Publications? Moonage Daydream ordering page, and go here for their news page that includes a very favourable review of the book from The Washington Post, that describes the book as a “masterpiece”…and that’s an accurate description.

…looked a lot like you and me…

The deliciously diminutive photographer and occasional non-stop Go-Go dancer, Mask, wants to give you the chance to “Do” Bowie. And what’s more, you could win a pretty groovy prize just for having a bit of fun! So, what the bloomin’ heck am I going on about?

Well, that other BowieNet big talent, and theatrically inclined Rex Ray, is running a “Bowie related/inspired exhibition” at Gallery 16 in San Francisco, from mid August to mid September. More details on this event as we get them, suffice to say Mask has been invited to take part.

The Plan

For her contribution, Mask plans to shoot at least fifty willing participants under the banner: “Doing Bowie”. This entails a group of people, exactly like you, choosing their favourite Bowie persona and attempting to recreate it for the camera. This is your chance for a kind of strange world-domination, and you won’t even have to shave your legs, as Mask will be shooting from the waist up. (Too late…Rednik already waxed!)

Anyway, the shoot will take place in a studio located pretty close to the home of Meltdown, the RFH, where most of you are going to be on the day of the shoot anyway. This truly exciting art event takes place between 1:00pm and 4:30pm this coming Saturday the 29th.

If you aren’t the type that particularly wants to travel in your Bowie clobber, be it an Aladdin Sane lightning bolt, a Ziggy gold blob, a Labyrinth wig, TMWFTE alien eyes, or a combination of the lot…you can get changed and made up at the studio, (you must bring everything you’ll need for your transformation with you though) with plenty of time to get ready for the Bowie show later that day. The shoot will be “painless and fast”…it says here…especially if you are ready to have your picture done as soon as you arrive.

If you do take part, you will be agreeing to full permission of the usage of the picture taken of you, not only for the aforementioned exhibition, but also for a possible book recording the event, also called “Doing Bowie”. Please understand that you can remain anonymous for the project if you so desire, but who wouldn’t want to be associated with such a great idea?!

What Do I Get?

Your incentive? Apart from your image becoming an actual piece of art, your own page in the book, and helping out Mask you mean? Well, OK…we have something else too.

Depending on the amount of people that show up, we will give away a very special Roseland 2002 poster, (see poster at the top of this piece) that is already signed by its designer, Rex Ray, and is about to be signed by Mask who took the picture on it, and will hopefully be signed by the subject, David Bowie himself. We will give away up to twenty of these posters, and the recipients will be chosen randomly after the event.

There will also be one very beautiful print of David taken by Mask, printed on high quality doo-dah and all that malarkey (see above). This will also be awarded to one lucky random attendee after the event.

How Do I Get Involved?

If you are interested in taking part in this little bit of rock history in the making, please e-mail me immediately at TotalBlamBlam@DavidBowie.com as we need to get an idea of numbers ASAP. You can continue to e-mail me up until Friday, but please do make contact as soon as you think you’ll take part. We will reply with the final details of where and when as soon as we have them, and we’ll post them on the MBs too, just to be safe. Oh I can’t wait…now, where did I put my ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ man’s dress?

After Today…

Last Friday (14th) we asked you for your pictures from David’s performance at NBC’s Today TV Show 7th Annual Summer Concert Series, (06/14/02 NEWS: LIVE REPORT FROM TODAY SHOW SOUNDCHECK) and we promised to reward the person whose picture we used with a highly collectable ‘Heathen’/’Slow Burn’ package, that comprises four different European CDs, two of which are much sought after promotional items.

Well, we have a winner in superfan, David Poley, and two of the pictures he sent us within moments of DB leaving the stage are reproduced above. Mr Poley was also the man responsible for requesting ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ during the soundcheck, for which he was rewarded, unbelievably, with most of the requested song. Thanx a lot David, send your address to TotalBlamBlam@DavidBowie.com with a subject line of “Today Pic Winner” and we’ll have your booty off to you as soon as you’ve responded.

We’ve also decided to reward BowieNetter MIchael DeCero with the same prize for two of his superb pictures, (above and below) which didn’t reach us quite as quickly as Mr Poley’s shots, but deserve a prize anyway. Well done lads, don’t forget to forward me the address you want your prizes delivered to, and thanx again for sharing your work with BowieNet.