Month: March 2007

All you’ve got to do is win…

As promised, here’s your chance to win one of ten copies of the Young Americans Special Edition CD & DVD that we’ve mentioned here on more than one occasion.

It’s well recorded that the album went through several working titles before the title of Young Americans was finally settled upon.

Below is a list of the rumoured titles, including one that never was.

Dancin’
Somebody Up There Likes Me
One Damn Song
Shilling The Rubes
Naked and Wired
The Gouster
Fascination

For your chance to win one of these ten copies, kindly donated by EMI, all you have to do is tell us which is the title that wasn’t ever considered.

When you think you’ve isolated the rogue title, send it to me here.

Usual BowieNet rules apply: Only one entry per BowieNet account, and please remember you must enter using your BowieNet e-mail or at least supply your BowieNet user name.

The contest ends next Wednesday, March 14th at midnight UK time, and we’ll announce the winners a week from today on the morning of the 15th.

He’s so divine, His soul shines…

Just twelve more days until the EMI Young Americans Special Edition CD & DVD package is released.

As we told you last time, (02.27.2007 NEWS: EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW OF DB YA BOOKLET CONTRIBUTIONS)) the accompanying booklet has contributions from David Bowie throughout David Buckley‘s sleeve notes, and we thought you might like to read some more of those contributions, and view another of the booklet pictures.

In an interview in 1975, talking about the state of rock music generally and more specifically regarding his own album, Young Americans, David said this: “I tried to do a little stretch of how it feels musically in this country, which is sort of … the relentless plastic soul basically. That’s what the last album was.”

Thankfully, that’s not quite how he feels about the record now, as to my mind, and considering it was the creation of a white man, Young Americans is one of the most authentic sounding soul records of all time…

Here are David’s comments from the new sleeve notes:

?In 1976 I had spouted some nonsense about the album being ?synthetic radio stuff ?. I don’t believe that for one moment now. I was living and breathing soul and R&B at this time. I listened to nothing else. It became America for me. There was nothing else except maybe electronic music, and stuff like George Crumb. That?s what my world was.?

Tony Visconti confirms the authenticity of the recording process itself:

?His vocals were so perfectly sung and so heart-felt that we hardly had to replace any lines. I would say that 80% of the vocals are live takes, with the band playing at the same time. That?s the time-honoured way most earlier soul records were made.?

Carlos Alomar concurs with Tony regarding the power of David’s vocal abilities:

?Let me tell you, from the very, very beginning, David Bowie is a singing fool, make no doubt about it. That means he?s got chops galore. This dude can wail – that?s the best compliment I can make. This man was doing all the inflexions; he was doing all these kinds of low Newley imitations and then he goes up into a sort of falsetto. That stuff is amazing!?

According to David though, these vocal acrobatics didn’t come easy:

?My drug problems were creating havoc with my voice, producing a real raspy sound that I fought all the time as I wanted to sing high, swooping into falsetto and such. In the end though I think I sing higher on this album than anything else I’ve done.?

Tune in tomorrow when we will run the contest to win ten copies of the Young Americans Special Edition CD & DVD.

I never knew just how much I missed…

We told you about rock photographer Brian Rasic‘s excellent new website a couple of days ago. (03.04.2007 NEWS: VIEW PHOTOGRAPHER BRIAN RASIC’S BOWIE ARCHIVE)

But, in my excitement, I hadn’t realised there were sections for his other shots of DB too.

This means that I have had to post a couple more in today’s news, which is probably not too much of a hardship for you all to have to endure.

Brian has been official photographer at many Bowie events since 1983, here’s a list of the 80s and 90s Bowie content on the site that I missed last time…

1980s

~ London, Claridges Hotel, 1983
~ Serious Moonlight Tour ’83, Wembley Arena, London
~ Serious Moonlight Tour ’83, Hammersmith Odeon, London
~ Glass Spider Tour ’87, Feyenoord Stadion, Rotherdam, Holland

1990s

~ Rainbow Theatre, London 1990, Press for Sound + Vision Tour
~ Docklands Arena, London 1990, Sound + Vision Tour
~ Tin Machine Tour, Brixton Academy, London 1991 (Injured DB from this show above)
~ Wembley Arena, London ’95, Outside World Tour
~ Shepherds Bush Empire, London ’97, Earthling World Tour
~ Net Aid, Wembley Stadium, London 1999 (See the shot at the top of this item)
~ Virgin Megastore, launching Nomad Soul computer game, London 1999
~ Astoria, ‘hours…’ Tour, London 1999
~ Aftershow party at Pop, London 1999, with various celebrities

That’s another forty four shots which brings the total to one hundred and thirty five. Well done Brian, some incredible photographs you have taken, and I should mention that fans are screaming for a book of your Bowie pictures.

You little wonder, little wonder you…

As you know, (10.24.2006 NEWS: EMI JAPAN’S 17 MINI-SLEEVE CDS RELEASE SCHEDULE) the third and final batch of EMI Japan’s replica mini-sleeves (see above) is out this week.

Don’t forget that Sony Japan are also scheduled to release the five Bowie Sony albums later this month. (02.11.2007 NEWS: SONY JAPAN TO ISSUE FIVE BOWIE CDS AS ‘PAPER JACKETS’) Stay tuned for an update on this shortly.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes…

We set a competition last week (02.25.2007 NEWS: TMWFTE DVD SPOT THE DIFFERENCE CONTEST) to win five copies of the recently released Optimum double disc region 2 DVD of The Man Who Fell To Earth.

Well, above is the solution, and below are the winners…can’t get any simpler than that.

kat_eyes
Odilius
richeille
Steffrox
strobe (Whose solution with the red rings above, I have cheekily utilised)

Well done you five, send your postal addresses to me if you want to take delivery of your prize.

Thanx again to Optimum Releasing for their generosity.

FOOTNOTE: The “squiggly bit” on the phone, as several of you described it, is actually the logo of TJ Newton‘s company, World Enterprises.

To be right in that photograph…

World-renowned rock photographer Brian Rasic has a splendid new website that boasts a very impressive archive of Bowie shots that Brian has taken since the early eighties.

Brian has been official photographer at many Bowie events over recent years. Here’s a list of the Bowie content on the site from this century…

~ With David Gilmour in concert, and rehearsals at Royal Albert Hall, London 2006
~ Isle Of Wight Festival, 2004
~ Wembley Arena, Reality World Tour 2003, London
~ Forum, Copenhagen, Denmark, Reality World Tour 2003

~ Riverside Studios, Reality Tour premiere, London 2003 (pre-show shot above)
~ BBC Radio 2 session, Maida Vale, London 2002
~ Hammersmith Apollo, Heathen Tour 2002, London
~ Silver Clef Awards, London 2002
~ Meltdown, Royal Festival Hall, London 2002 and with various celebrities backstage
~ Waterloo Station, London 2002
~ Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester, Heathen Tour 2002 plus backstage shots
~ Tweeter Centre, Boston, USA, ‘Heathen’ tour 2002
~ Promoting ‘Heathen’ album at HMV shop, London 2002
~ BBC Radio Theatre, London 2000 plus aftershow party

Including pictures from the 80s and 90s, there are one hundred and thirty five shots in total, and very good they are too.

I’ll leave you with the above shot of BowieNetter Susans having her newly-trimmed spikes felt by DB himself at the BBC Radio 2 session, in London’s Maida Vale in September 2002. (09.18.2002 NEWS: BOWIE RADIO TWO SESSION PICTURES AND REVIEWS)

Baal survived it, he just used his eyes…

You all know what this is about, if you don’t, I’m afraid you’re too late. But, you can go here to see what you missed anyway: 02.16.2007 NEWS: WIN ULTRA RARE NUMBERED EMI 5-TRACK VINYL BAAL EP.

OK, no more messing. We asked two questions, here they are with the correct answers…

Question 1: Above is a grab from the David Mallet directed video for The Drowned Girl. What we want to know is, who is the clean cut young guitarist to David’s left, and what was his connection with the Baal studio recordings?

Answer 1: It’s Tony Visconti, of course. Tony was co-producer of the Baal studio recordings with DB at Hansa Tonstudios, Berlin, Germany in 1981, and he also played bass on the sessions.

Question 2: Above are the sleeves for the digital EPs released at the start of the year: BOWIE 1965! and the BAAL EP. EMI originally released one of these EPs with identical tracks (albeit with a different title and a different sleeve) on vinyl in 1979. Which of the above has the same tracks as that release? BOWIE 1965! or the BAAL EP?

Answer 2: The answer is BOWIE 1965! pictured below right with it’s EMI vinyl counterpart from 1979 which had an identical tracklisting.

The majority of you got this right, but sadly, The Random Generator was programmed to select just one correct entry…which it has now done and has issued forth the name of BowieNetter TotalBlamBlam! Not really, it’s chaspearson.

Chas also pointed out in his entry that South Africa was the only country outside of the UK that pressed a Baal 7″…and with a knowledge of trivia such as that I guess he will be quite happy to have won this one.

Well done Chas. Get your address to me as soon as you want your prize to be sent. Meanwhile, look at yesterday’s news to remind you of just what it was you have won.

Thanx again to Nigel Reeve at EMI for making this great prize available to BowieNet.

FOOTNOTE

It seems a few of you were thrown by the still from The Drowned Girl video. Tony Visconti does mention the shooting of both The Drowned Girl and Wild Is The Wind promos in his book, but it seems his account confused some of you.

Hopefully I can clear the matter up now…

In the promo for The Drowned Girl (see still at the top of the page) Tony is seated on a stool next to David and he’s playing guitar. Coco Schwab is playing tenor saxophone in this video.

In the promo for Wild Is The Wind (see still above) Tony is across the room from David and he’s playing upright bass. Coco is playing guitar in this video and that’s her silhouette you can see at the top right of the above still. This is the video Tony talks about in his book. Perhaps he forgot about the role changes for The Drowned Girl.

The other two musicians in the videos are Mel Gaynor from Simple Minds and Andy Hamilton, a friend of Tony’s.

Apparently this information wasn’t as easy to find as I thought, though the great majority of you certainly guessed right, even if you didn’t know for sure.

He couldn’t wait for 12 o’clock midnight…

If you’ve not already entered, don’t forget that the contest to win one of only ten hand-numbered 7″ vinyl BAAL EPs ends at midnight tonight UK time.

That’s the very disc above that some lucky BowieNetter will be winning. But, if it’s the first you’ve heard about it, then visit the original news story for your chance to enter and win: 02.16.2007 NEWS: WIN ULTRA RARE NUMBERED EMI 5-TRACK VINYL BAAL EP

The winner will be announced tomorrow.

You’ll find him interesting…

To mark the release of the new album, The Weirdness, released next Monday by the recently reformed The Stooges, the current issue of MOJO magazine has a Stooges front cover and a sixteen-page special celebrating the history of the band.

Inevitably there is mention of David Bowie and a half-page version of the above previously unpublished shot. At least I’m pretty sure I’ve not seen this particular Andy Kent shot…definitely not in colour anyway.

There’s also a cover mounted CD entitled: THE STOOGES JUKEBOX, compiled exclusively for MOJO by Iggy Pop, wherein “Iggy and pals present the mind-boggling music that rocked their sorry souls, from Howlin? Wolf to the MC5, through to Little Richard and Frank Zappa.”

Elsewhere in the mag there is the ubiquitous review of Bowie, Bolan And The Brooklyn Boy, for which TV answers a few questions. Here’s an edited excerpt from his answer to “What record are you proudest of?”

“Scary Monsters, Electric Warrior and “Heroes”. On each, we went in with a small idea and all three came off brilliantly. David and I always joked at the beginning of every album, ‘This is gonna be our Sgt. Pepper!” I think we hit that on Scary Monsters.”

The April issue of MOJO magazine is on the shelves now.