Sees the pictures of himself, Every magazine on every shelf…
Loads more Bowie features have appeared in magazines around the globe recently. Here’s a taste of just a few of them, we’ll bring you more as we get them. First off, a few interesting features that are also available to read online:
The current issue of BLENDER doesn’t have a Bowie front cover, but it makes up for it with some beautiful Mick Rock shots and a great Q&A with DB inside, similar to the thing that Q magazine does every month. Here’s one of the questions that David answered regarding this place:
How often do you check out Bowienet, your Web site and Internet Service Provider? BACK2LIVE, BELOIT, KANSAS
“I thought you were going to ask how often I check into the hospital! [Laughs] I do it every single morning. If I?d known how much work it was going to be to start that blessed thing…I?d still have done it. But I?ve cut down my online time, because I realized how much of my life it was taking up. In the mid-?90s, I was an obsessive ? I?d surf all the time, just crazed. And apparently there?s a lot of porn on the Internet too.”
You can read the whole hilarious thing by clicking on the magazine title above, as you can with some of the titles below.
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The current editions of both Rolling Stone and AP have a Q&A page with David, and both feature portraits of him created by the very lovely, if a bit trashy, Mask. AP also uses Mask’s Coal Chamber pic for the front cover, and for a feature on the band inside. Boy, that girl has a huge…. talent!
They are both a good read, here’s an excerpt from the Rolling Stone piece:
“Kids. At school, I remember very distinctly kids laughing at me because I would draw and write with my left hand, something like, “Ooh, you’re the devil.” And the teacher used to smack my hand to try and make me right-handed. I mean, it really was looked down upon in Britain at one time. And it put me outside of the others immediately. I didn’t feel the same as the others because of that. So I think it might have been one of those tips of how I was going to evaluate my journey through life: All right, I’m not the same as you motherfuckers, so I’ll be better than you. But, you know: things said in jest…And, of course, at thirteen, the eye didn’t help [Bowie’s left pupil was damaged in a childhood fight]. Although I quite enjoyed that as a badge of honor.”
The AP feature, while much shorter, is a thought-provoking piece nonetheless, concerning itself as it does with our depressing, blind stumble along the road-to-nowhere. But I’ll give you David’s parting shot, which was a little lighter in tone, when he was asked what was the most important life lesson he had learned so far:
“Have no expectations until you’re 50 ? and then file them under ‘wishful thinking’.”
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Philadelphia Weekly cover photograph by Dagmar
This week’s Philadelphia Weekly has a moving recollection of the adventures of the ‘Sigma Kids’, written by BowieNetter, Steve Volk. For the piece Steve met up with a few of the original kids, Patti Brett (Hi Patti) and Leslie Radowill, but more specifically he looks back over the life of superfan Marla Kanevsky, aka BowieNetter, Zelvis.
The original story is one of Bowie folklore, and one that still makes even the most privileged Bowie fan envious:
“The Sigma Kids didn’t just meet David Bowie. For one night they were his confidantes, his buds–underage kids for whom he bought wine and champagne! And fresh corned beef sandwiches! Sandwiches they were too nervous to eat! Yeah, and he played Young Americans for them–straight from the master tape–before RCA’s label execs heard it and certainly before you heard it. You who weren’t there to hear Bowie debut his version of the Philly Soul sound.”
Yeah OK Steve, don’t rub it in! Anyway, I won’t give anymore away, suffice to say it’s an emotional ride, at times quite heartbreaking. Now you can go read the whole thing by clicking on the magazine title above.
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The July issue of the Tower Records free magazine, Pulse, has a magnificent Bowie front cover and a six-page feature with yet another Bowie interview and several new Frank Ockenfels’ shots. Here’s a bit from the interview in which David insists that he leads the most ordinary of lives:
“I really do. For the last 10 years, I’ve been married. End of story. And before that, in the ’80s, what really happened? It all seems pretty tame compared to what I see on Behind the Music! I don’t think I would make a very interesting Behind the Music. I feel like my friend Moby, who is constantly complaining, ‘I’m really famous, but nothing famous ever happens to me.’ I look back over a 40-year period and what’s really happened has been on stage and on record. Other than that, it’s been a quiet life, and I like it that way.”
You know how to find the whole thing.
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Reviews from some of the recent ‘Heathen’ shows have appeared with large colour pictures in a couple of magazines, Q and Rock & Folk to name but two. The August edition of Q has a double page spread review of the Roseland show, with a brief aftershow interview with David. Here he talks about the temporary power failure during the performance of ‘Low’:
“When you’re driven by electricity, what can you do? Shout louder? Hahaha! I don’t know. Do some mime, I suppose, in my case. Do a shtick…I thought, well, if it goes on any longer I’ve got a whole load of Tommy Cooper jokes I can use. I would have used them as well, believe me. Hahaha!”
We believe you David, what a shame…damn those efficient technicians!
The Rock & Folk piece is a double review of Meltdown and the Paris Olympia show by Jérôme Soligny, accompanied by a great full-page live shot…but naturally, the article is in French. Somebody out there has offered to translate French to English for me, but I lost the e-mail! Could you please contact me again you very generous French person.
Jérôme is also responsible for a four-page portrait of David in the current French edition of Marie-Claire, from which the picture at the top of this piece is taken. His original title of “The cultural exception” has been changed to “La creature aux cent visages” (The creature with a hundred faces) but other than that, he tells me it is a good feature and he is happy with it. Again it’s in French, so I’ll take his very reliable word for that.
I’ll be following up on the Philadelphia Weekly piece here soon, and we’ll bring you another magazine round-up as soon as we have enough for one.