Month: June 2006

I am a DJ…

Mick Rock has been signed up by Xfm radio in the UK for a twelve-week stint (initially) spinning his very favourite platters for your listening enjoyment.

I don’t want to give too much away, suffice to say that the world’s favourite rock photographer intends to kick off with a Bowie tune for his first live broadcast from New York tomorrow…poor sod is going to have to get up pretty early for this!

Here’s the official press release…

————————————————————————————————————-

MICK ROCKS Xfm

Xfm, the UK’s best radio station has hired the world’s coolest photographer to host a series of exclusive shows from one of the hippest cities on the planet.

Mick Rock, the man behind some of the most iconic rock and roll photographs of all time, will present a Saturday afternoon show live from New York that will be broadcast across the Xfm Network. Starting on July 1st, Mick’s show will be the first on Xfm to be available as an enhanced podcast allowing listeners to download exclusive Mick Rock images to their MP3 players.

Best known for his work in the early 70s with an up-and-coming young musician called David Bowie, Mick has spent the last 30 years hanging out with, and photographing, rock and roll royalty. More recently he’s worked with contemporary stars including Kate Moss, Michael Stipe, Johnny Marr, The Killers and Scissor Sisters to name but a few. The events he’s witnessed, the people he’s met and the showbiz stories he’s acquired over the years will make his show a must for music fans everywhere.

Mick will also spend a week at Xfm’s stations in London and Manchester taking behind the scenes photographs of DJs and live sessions including an exclusive Primal Scream gig for listeners at The Garage in London on Monday 14th June. Mick will also shadow Xfm backstage at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, which has bands such as The Strokes, The Raconteurs and Belle and Sebastian on the bill.

Mick Rock Said:
“I’ve done some club DJ’ing over the years and occasionally selected tracks for my promo radio interviews, and of course I’m always the DJ on my photo sessions, but this is the first time my fave tracks and my mouth have been coordinated for national broadcast on my very own show!! I’m buzzed as a budgie about it all. Especially to be doing it in tandem with my new friends, the highly innovative XFM team. It’ll be the latest releases from the new acts I’m shooting blended with classic tracks from old friends of mine, hot and heavy from my New York hideaway…..Hold on to your knickers, everyone, here comes the Rock Machine, lips and grooves syncopated for your edification…..”

Xfm’s Network MD Nick Davidson said:
“What Mick doesn’t know about the rock scene you could write on the back of a postage stamp. With Xfm’s unrivalled play list and an address book that reads like the Live Aid and Live 8 line-ups rolled into one, Mick’s show is going to make compulsive listening. This will be the perfect show to launch Xfm’s enhanced podcast allowing fans to view Mick’s iconic images whilst he regales them with his rock and roll tales.”

The images from Mick’s week at Xfm will go on display in 2007 to celebrate Xfm’s 10th anniversary.

Mick Rock Live From New York
Saturdays 1-3pm from 1st July 2006
Only on the Xfm Network
London 104.9FM – Manchester 97.7FM – Scotland 105.7-106.1FM –
Across the UK on DAB

————————————————————————————————————-

You can tune in live by clicking on Mick’s hooter in the picture above and you’ll even be able to make your own requests from the same page.

You know I’m smiling baby…

Paint It Black, the 19-track EMI compilation of Rolling Stones covers we told you about a couple of weeks back, (06.11.2006 NEWS: BOWIE TRACK ON STONES COVERS COMPILATION) now has a dedicated website.

You may remember the album kicks off with Bowie and The Spider’s 1973 version of Let’s Spend The Night Together, which you can now hear a snippet of on aforementioned site, (as if you don’t already have Aladdin Sane) and you could win a pair of tickets to see The Rolling Stones live at Twickenham in the UK on Sunday 20th August while you’re about it.

Click on the ‘click here’ bit above to reach the Paint It Black site and enter the contest, but hurry, it closes on July 3rd.

You want more and you want it fast…

You’d have to be absurdly unobservant to have not noticed our news pieces regarding the David Bowie Peace Thru Art wristbands that we’ve told you about over the past year. (06.18.2005 NEWS: DB EXPLAINS INSPIRATION FOR CHARITY ARTWORK & 11.01.2005 NEWS: BOWIE WRISTBANDS AND E-CARD AVAILABLE NOW & 11.18.05 NEWS: BOWIE CHARITY WRISTBANDS HUGE SUCCESS & 01.05.06 NEWS: NEW BATCH OF BOWIE WRISTBANDS NOW AVAILABLE & 03.01.2006 NEWS: NEW STYLE BOWIE WRISTBANDS AVAILABLE NOW) But, judging by the huge success of the wristbands it seems you’ve all been paying close attention.

You may remember that there were other products promised from whateverittakes.org utilising David’s designs, but unless anybody out there knows differently, I don’t think any of those other items ever materialised.

Well, now you have the power to make them a reality. Understandably, the charity only plans to produce items where the demand is great enough, they can’t be expected to sit on expensively produced stock, so this voting system makes perfect sense.

Below are some examples of the products whateverittakes.org can make using the above artworks, with an approximate price guide and the amount of votes needed for each item, with the current tally in brackets. (Sorry the prices are only in GBP, convert to your preferred currency here.)

Design 1 (above left)
Limited Edition Plate
Guide Price £95 – £125 – Votes Needed 500 (56)
Limited Edition Mug
Guide Price £5 – £7.50 – Votes Needed 500 (98)
Trainers / Sneakers
Guide Price £25 – £50 – Votes Needed 1000 (68)

Design 2 (above right)
Limited Edition Plate
Guide Price £95 – £125 – Votes Needed 500 (37)
Limited Edition Mug
Guide Price £5 – £7.50 – Votes Needed 500 (50)
Trainers / Sneakers
Guide Price £25 – £50 – Votes Needed 1000 (45)

Bizarrely, you can also vote for a T-shirt of each design, even though there is no price estimate or amount of votes needed! However, the voting currently stands at 185 for Design 1 and 73 for Design 2…I guess if you want a T-shirt you should just join in the voting anyway. You can also vote for wristbands, but seeing as they’re already available that option also seems strange.

If you truly want these items you best get voting now, as you can see there’s a long way to go…particularly for the trainers.

You must be a registered member to vote and you must be logged in. (It’s a very simple process) You should also note that after you have voted for each item, it seems you have to hit your browser’s back button to vote for another one.

Looked a lot like you and me…

Bowie tribute artist, Laurence Bolwell, (above left) and Bowie impersonator, Steven Spratt (right) have been hired by the BBC for an episode of a new six-part comedy due to start airing next month, called Time Trumpet.

Written and directed by satirist Armando Iannucci, (whose previous work includes the brilliant The Day Today, Alan Partridge and The Thick Of It, among many other things) Time Trumpet will “look back” on events of the next 50 years from the perspective of a nostalgia show from the year 2050.

I’m been asked not to give anything away about the episode in which Laurence and Steven both get to play David Bowie’s alter-ego Ziggy Stardust, but I don’t think I’m revealing too much when I say you probably won’t view Stars In Their Eyes in quite the same way again!

It does all sound a bit of a hoot and we’ll give you the definite air date of this particular episode as soon as it’s confirmed.

It’s Monday…

Well, it may be one of the more intriguing headlines I’ve had to write. But, for those of you kicking your heels in the Auvergne region of France next week, you may want to pop along to a discussion, hosted by the very talented Adeline Lecatre, about the changing face of David Bowie with particular emphasis on the various visages presented on his album sleeves…or something like that.

I’ll hand over to the very French BowieNetter, Jerome Soligny, who knows a bit more about Adeline than I do… Jerome Soligny,

————————————————————————————————————-

Hi fellow Bowienetters,

Adeline L is a very sweet and shy friend. We met in 2002, in Nîmes, where David Bowie was playing on that famous summer night. She was wearing a Brian Eno t-shirt, circa 1973. She seemed to know everything about glam rock, and, to some extent, more about it than I do. She still does. We don’t see each other much as she lives in deep France and I’m a harbour boy.

But still, every time David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Morrissey or Lipstick Traces play somewhere, we’re both around. I don’t exactly know what she does with her life and when she talks, she quotes much smarter things than I do. Well, I’m just a harbour boy after all.

I know she’s some student in history of art and that she’s just finished a thesis about Cocteau. Not the Twins. Meaning, she’s an art girl whose heroes I’m (and you must be) kind of familiar with. As far as I understand, she’s organising this nice conf/debate around David Bowie’s record covers, with Bowie fans and, possibly, a few arty people. So, if don’t live far from her (and even if you do actually), I’m sure you’ll have a great time there. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it. Guess I’m too much of a harbour boy.

Peace to you all from the grey waves, Jerome.

PS : To complete Blammo’s piece about the France boat, (06.12.2006 SNIPPET: ZIGGY’S LAST STAND ABOARD THE SS FRANCE) I wanted to say that one of my treasured possessions is an autograph David Bowie signed while on that very cruise, for the father (maybe uncle) of a good friend of mine, then working on the ship. David was asked to sign it for “some kid who loved his music”. Hey, you wanna know ? The harbour boy still does.

————————————————————————————————————-

If it’s any indication as to what the evening may be like, I’ve seen some of Adeline’s paintings of David Bowie, and indeed Brian Eno, and they’re quite lovely…Not that that necessarily makes her a good speaker of course, but she clearly has very good taste.

The evening kicks off at 20:30hrs on Monday June 26 at: Centre Jean Richepin, rue Jean Richepin, Clermont-Ferrand…and it’s free to get in.

Let us know how it went if you do manage to get along.

The past it almost shimmers now…

Mojo magazine has produced another in it’s long line of ‘special edition magazines’, and this time it’s: THE WHO & THE STORY OF ’70s ROCK.

Despite its title and the Pete Townshend cover, the 148-page, full colour special features large pieces on many bands renowned for their 70s output. Here’s the blurb from MOJO…

~ New Interviews, Untold Stories, Classic, Rare & Unseen Pictures
~ How BOWIE became a space age superstar
~ Inside THE WHO‘s decade of decadence
~ Out of control with LED ZEPPELIN
~ Sex, drugs and murder with THE STONES
~ Taking a trip to the dark side with PINK FLOYD
~ The secret world of KATE BUSH
~ Plus ALICE COOPER * GENESIS * ROXY MUSIC * SEX PISTOLS * FLEETWOOD MAC and THE 70 GREATEST ALBUMS FROM THE ’70s… and much more

The Bowie feature (above) covers the period from the release of the Space Oddity single up to Starman on Top Of The Pops. It’s pretty much a cut and paste affair that doesn’t particularly contain “New Interviews” or “Untold Stories” and there are some silly inaccuracies too.

Try this: “He had worn one [‘male’ dress] on the original UK issue of The Man Who Sold The World, but the Americans rightly reckoned it could be off-putting and the US version had been packaged in the now more familiar ‘high kick’ sleeve.”

Well, I’m sure you all know that to be rubbish. The first TMWSTW sleeve in the US was the ‘cartoon’ cover, released almost six months before the UK ‘dress’ cover. Both covers were replaced with the world-wide RCA reissue that utilised the ‘high kick’ sleeve in 1972.

Anyway, it’s still a good little feature and I’m not sure I remember seeing the particular Ziggy played a record at Haddon Hall shot that they’ve used anywhere else before…I could be wrong.

Elsewhere in the mag there’s a feature on the 70 best 70s albums, within which Aladdin Sane and Lodger are included, not to mention Raw Power and Transformer.

If you’re still tempted and you’re outside the UK, click on either of the above images to purchase online.

Somebody plays my song in tune…

The specially recorded version of “Heroes”, for the ITV 2006 football World Cup theme by British band Kasabian that we told you about last month, (05.20.2006 NEWS: KASABIAN COVER BOWIE FOR WORLD CUP) is now available as a free download when you pre-order the online version of the band’s new single, Empire.

Empire is released in the physical world next month, but apparently the formats won’t include “Heroes”.

By all accounts, Kasabian recorded the Bowie tune despite having rejected the FA’s request to write the England team’s official song.

The band’s front man, Tom Meighan, explained to The Sun newspaper that the offer to write the official song did not really appeal but that this chance was too tempting to turn down.

“We never wanted to do the official song – it is too much of a burden. But it is wonderful to know our song will be part of the World Cup soundtrack. Bowie has heard it and told me it’s like the Velvet Underground – but heavier.”

Well, you can make up your own minds about that if you buy the full-length version of “Heroes”. on the band’s site: www.kasabian.co.uk or by clicking on their cheekily adapted (by me) logo above.

Became the special man, then we were Ziggy’s band…

BowieNetter fshion (sic) pointed me in the direction of a BBC story by Patrick Jackson headed Surreal times on the SS France. Here’s the intro to the piece to set the tone…

————————————————————————————————————-

Ship-lovers and ecologists are battling to prevent the scrapping of a former French ocean liner in India. We look back at the (slightly surreal) glory days of the SS France.

If the ghost of Salvador Dali appears off the coast of Gujarat, he may well be on the deck of the SS France, walking his pet cheetahs. A phantom guitar chord may hang in the air, left behind by David Bowie the day he played the staff canteen.

————————————————————————————————————-

It’s well documented that David Bowie arrived in New York after a five-day journey on the SS France on April 11th 1974. But, it’s not widely known that he performed an impromptu set accompanying himself on accoustic guitar with some kind of backing from the more musical of the crew members.

Travelling as a first-class passenger, DB was not scheduled to play during the crossing, but according to the receptionist on board the ship, one Bruno Rabreau, David had apparently heard that the crew were disappointed that he wouldn’t be performing, so he turned up in the canteen with an acoustic guitar.

Bruno remebers the occasion thus: “We enjoyed more than ten songs and especially Space Oddity which was the first one, and a few crew members took instruments too and played with him. It was a really, really good time. He was a very ordinary person and very friendly to us. We really enjoyed it.”

Well, I’m not sure David Bowie could ever be described as ordinary, but I think I understand what Bruno meant.

Of course, what Bruno and his fellow crew members can’t possibly have grasped the significance of, is the fact that this was most likely the true last performance by Ziggy Stardust.

There are those that feel Ziggy died at the Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd 1973, but it’s undeniable that the Ziggy look continued through The 1980 Floor Show via the Rebel Rebel video and right up to the Diamond Dogs sleeve.

Indeed, Bowie’s appearance in the Diamond Dogs TV advert wasn’t that far removed from the Ziggy look. Still the same hair colour, albeit shorter and side-parted, and the rouge and heavy eye make-up was still there.

Anyway, IMHO, what the crew witnessed on that day was the end of another chapter, before the sights and sounds of America led Bowie down new and unexplored avenues.

Now, if only Bruno could remember the full set list!

You can read the full BBC article here.

When people stared in Jagger’s eyes and scored…

Released tomorrow is a 19-track compilation of covers of Rolling Stones tracks collected from accross the years and entitled Paint It Black.

The album kicks off with Bowie and The Spider‘s searing 1973 version of Let’s Spend The Night Together, originally recorded for the Aladdin Sane album, and a live favourite on the Aladdin Sane tour.

The move-aside-Mick Jagger sheer swagger of this recording made it a far raunchier, and indeed sexier, rendition than The Stones’ own version.

However, respect for Michael Philip was retained on Aladdin Sane with the lyric quote above taken from the classic Drive-In Saturday.

Here’s the full tracklisting of Paint It Black…

01 Let’s Spend The Night Together – David Bowie
02 Street Fighting Man – Rod Stewart
03 Jumpin’ Jack Flash – Aretha Franklin
04 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – Otis Redding
05 Tumbling Dice – Linda Ronstadt
06 Honky Tonk Women – Ike And Tina Turner
07 Sympathy For The Devil – Bryan Ferry
08 Gimme Shelter – Grand Funk Railroad
09 Paint It Black – The Mighty Lemon Drops
10 Lady Jane – Tony Merrick
11 Out Of Time – The Ramones
12 Get Off My Cloud – The Flying Pickets
13 19th Nervous Breakdown – Jason & The Scorchers
14 Bitch – Exodus
15 Dandelion – Miranda Lee Richards
16 Wild Horses – Leon Russell
17 Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) (Live) – The Quireboys
18 Dead Flowers – Gilby Clarke
19 Brown Sugar (Live) – Thunder

Thanx to BowieNetter jungtheforeman for the pointer.

He put the blame on me and Ray…

While I’m waiting for the OK on some of the pictures I took during the actual filming of David’s appearance in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant‘s BBC comedy show Extras on Tuesday, (06.07.2006 NEWS: BOWIE PART FILMED FOR EXTRAS) I thought you might like a look at a couple of the portrait shots I snapped between takes.

Like some bizarre human/magpie hybrid, I snatched these shots while the quite lovely and very tolerant Ray Burmiston did a whole bunch of shots professionally…with lights and backdrops and all that expensive paraphernalia that he had set up earlier. Thanx for letting me sneak in Ray.

Anyway, if any BowieNet members like the look of these, they can click on either image to reach bigger versions on the BowieNet MBs.