Month: April 2007

Well I stood stoned-like at midnight…

Genesis Publications have just made their excellent FROM STATION to STATION mini-site live, and you can reach it by clicking on the image above.

Also, as promised yesterday, here’s an exclusive excerpt from the book set during the final days of The Diamond Dogs Tour, and it’s a great sample of Geoff‘s wit that is apparent throughout the pages of FROM STATION to STATION…

———————————————————————————————————————–

“Towards the end of the tour, before I went on stage I foolishly smoked half a joint offered to me by drummer Dennis Davis. Bad mistake. It wiped me out. Given the complexity of some of the dance and mime routines this wasn’t a good thing. One part of the show required Gui and me to beat David up until he collapsed. We would then pick him up and carry him over our heads with extended arms, a quite dangerous thing to get wrong. I was stoned but I managed not to do anything stupid. In fact, I managed nothing at all. As Gui single-handedly gave David a going over, I stood and watched in a daze. As he attempted to carry David off stage I absent-mindedly strolled after them.

On another occasion, again towards the end of the tour, we were singing ‘Changes’ for the purposes of a sound-check. When we reached the chorus David stopped the band, walked over to Gui and me, and asked us to sing our part. We duly obliged. David doubled up with laughter. For two-and-a-half months we had been singing ‘turn and face the strain’ instead of ‘turn and face the strange’. From then on, every time we performed that song David would stick his arse out towards us and make like he was trying to squeeze one out, which would make us both laugh and fluff the line even worse.”

———————————————————————————————————————–

There you go, even Halloween Jack had a sense of humour. I think I have a picture of the exact moment Geoff is talking about. If I find it, I’ll scan it and stick it on the MBs.

Me, I’m fresh on your pages…

As those of you who took the time to register with Genesis Publications will be finding out around now, the company has despatched copies of the eight-page, full colour, glossy brochure (above) detailing the upcoming FROM STATION to STATION book.

I won’t give too much away here, as there are some wonderful exclusive pictures to be seen within its pages. However, to make up for the lack of pictorial content here today, come back tomorrow for another exclusive shot and excerpt from the book that isn’t the brochure.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a bit from David’s foreword…

“What a terrifically clever idea this is. I am all kinds of shades of green as I didn?t think of it first. Take the two of us and pretend that we went to America, Japan and, wait for it, f?? Russia of all places, me as a rock star and you as cheerful backing singer and sidekick and then write a book about it. Brilliant! Will you actually be able to get this stuff published do you think?” – David Bowie

And he’s down on the street…

It’s time to start sending in your entries for this one now. Don’t fret if you’re not ready yet, you still have until the end of the month before you get your entries in.

See these news stories if you’re not even familiar with this contest…

03.25.2007 NEWS: ZIGGY STARDUST SIGNED ARTIST’S PROOF CONTEST PART ONE

03.29.2007 NEWS: ZIGGY STARDUST SIGNED ARTIST’S PROOF CONTEST PART TWO

04.01.2007 NEWS: ZIGGY STARDUST SIGNED PROOF CONTEST FINAL PART

When you have all three parts completed, send them to me here.

Please send in your entries for the final part as a Joint Photographic Experts Group file, or JPEG for short…no bigger than 1mb when opened up, please. (No bigger than 584 x 584 pixels at 72 dpi)

We’ll hopefully be making a gallery to display all of the entries for the alternate Ziggy Stardust sleeve.

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 at midnight UK time on Monday April 30th.

But now you pick them on the screen…

In association with Mick Rock, EMI will make the above four promotional David Bowie videos available to buy as digital downloads on July 13th.

For those of you having trouble identifying them, they are, from left to right: John, I’m Only Dancing, Space Oddity, Life On Mars? and The Jean Genie.

This now means you can enjoy prime Ziggy action on your iPhone (or other preferred multi-media mobile device) while your stuck on your commute to work, etc.

He’s in the best selling show…

Congratulations are due to David Bowie with the news that his 1971 classic Life On Mars? has re-entered the UK single chart at #55 today.

This placing has come about due to changes to the way the chart is compiled in the UK, whereby downloaded tracks are now eligible for chart placings along with physical sales of CDs and vinyl too.

The sudden extra interest in the song is reckoned to be mainly down to its use in the popular UK time travelling cop show of the same name. (04.07.2007 NEWS: LIFE ON MARS ENDS ON TUESDAY WITH TWO BOWIE CLASSICS)

You may be surprised to learn that the last time Life On Mars? charted in the UK, it was at #97…This was the Lifetimes issue of the single released in 1983. Previous to that, the original UK single (above) peaked at #3 in 1973.

Consider the possibilities if a concerted effort was made to actually promote another Bowie download of this calibre. Imagine a Top 20 brimming with Bowie tunes…it’s possible I tell you!

Take my tip, get on out…

Due on June 4th via the reactivated Zonophone label is the various artists compilation, Take My Tip (25 Sixties Mod Gems). Released in both physical (ICPN: 00946 3 95262 2 2) and digital formats (ICPN: 00946 3 95263 5 2), the album takes its name from the first ever released Bowie composition.

As I’m sure you all know, Take My Tip was the B-side of the one and only release from The Manish Boys, I Pity The Fool, via Parlophone in March 1965.

Those of you only interested in the Bowie content in the digital format may be better served by Bowie 1965!, the four track digital EP released at the beginning of the year. (01.01.2007 REMINDER: DB 1965! AND BAAL DOWNLOAD EPs AVAILABLE NOW)

I’ll leave you with a bit from the press release and the tracklisting…

————————————————————————————————————-

This new series of Zonophone compilations is dedicated to the enduring appeal of 60s music in its various guises. The period of British music between 1963 and 1969 has endured beyond any other ? and not just because it was spearheaded by two of Pop?s most timeless masters, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Where British artists in the 50s had failed to properly engage with their influences (namely, American rock?n?roll), UK bands in the 60s successfully fused their love of U.S. black music with other styles, charged it with a healthy dose of youthful aggression and called it their own. That?s in essence the Beat and R&B era, of course, in a nutshell. But a quick glimpse at the credits for this compilation reveals more: previously, serious-minded musicians shunned “pop”. The R&B explosion brought them into the fold: now, hardcore jazz musicians could be found in the ranks of various beat combos.

Running parallel with this musical renaissance was a similarly exciting evolution in youth culture. Mod was the catch-all term used to describe the newly-acquired aspirant lifestyle adopted by many teenagers ? with a strongly identifiable look, the emphasis on the neat, the sharp, the modern. Four or so decades on, Mod has now come to symbolise the era, inseparable from the iconography of the mid-60s, and kept alive by a small but perfectly formed scene of people who weren?t even born at the time. What?s Mod? What you want it to be. Is this CD Mod? Who cares?! In essence, Take My Tip is a fascinating jukebox of classic rarities, hard-to-find collector?s items and genuine discoveries. Take my tip ? listen to this CD and enjoy!

————————————————————————————————————-

Zonophone Recycled Series – Various Artists – Take My Tip (25 Sixties Mod Gems)

01. Ottilie Patterson with Sonny Boy Williamson – Baby Please Don?t Go
02. Long John Baldry & The Hoochie Coochie Men – Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air
03. Duffy Power – If I Get Lucky Some Day
04. Tony?s Defenders – Yes I Do
05. The Manish Boys – Take My Tip
06. Chris Farlowe and The Thunderbirds – Buzz With The Fuzz
07. The Shotgun Express – Curtains
08. Herbie Goins & The Nightimers – Cruisin?
09. The Ram Jam Band with Geno Washington – Shake Shake Senora
10. Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers – Strange Feeling
11. Simon Dupree & The Big Sound – 60 Minutes (Of Your Love)/A Lot Of Love
12. Haydock?s Rockhouse – Mix-A-Fix
13. Beryl Marsden – What?s She Got
14. The Roulettes – Jackpot
15. Mike Patto – Love
16. Rod Stewart – I Just Got Some
17. Toni Daly – Like The Big Man Said
18. Murray Head with The Blue Monks – You Bore Me
19. Kenny Lynch with The Laurie Jay Combo – Harlem Library
20. Edwick Rumbold – Boggle Woggle
21. The N? Betweens – Evil Witch Man
22. The Shadows – Scotch On The Socks
23. Ben Carruthers & The Deep – Jack O?Diamonds
24. Paul Williams & The Big Roll Band – Gin House
25. The Night-timers featuring Herbie Goins – The Music Played On

And there was a little old man, in scarlet and grey, chuckling away…

Forty years ago today, the Deram record label released David Bowie’s second 45 rpm 7″ single for the label, The Laughing Gnome/The Gospel According To Tony Day. Belgium had the honour of the very first DB picture sleeve single anywhere on the planet with the release(above), but the record did little to excite the record-buying public anywhere in the world in 1967.

A little over six years later in September 1973, while the music world was still reeling from the shock announcement of Ziggy‘s retirement a couple of months previously, Deram saw the chance to recoup on their original investment and had a #6 hit in the UK and massive world-wide sales with this particularly un-Ziggy novelty record.

This time, most of the territories were treated to a picture cover, excluding the UK as usual, which had only just enjoyed its second commercial picture sleeve with Life On Mars? a couple of months earlier…The first being Starman in April the previous year.

In fact, many of us agree that Starman was the first UK picture sleeve, period. Unless you believe the unlikely tale regarding the Space Oddity promotional sleeve. Anyway, I digress.

Far from considering the chuckling chappy a skeleton in his closet, however, Bowie later expressed his gratitude for The Laughing Gnome‘s re-emergence, stating that he was relieved that the public got to see his lighter side after the darkness of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.

Fred‘s brother has continued to show up over the years. In 1990 when Bowie announced a telephone poll for the upcoming Sound + Vision Tour, the UK’s NME magazine tried to hijack the vote with their JUST SAY GNOME campaign when they tried to persuade readers to vote for the song to be performed live. A weekly tally was kept by the publication and they even produced a limited edition JUST SAY GNOME T-shirt to mark the event.

Bowie later joked with the NME’s competitor, Melody Maker, that he had indeed been rehearsing the song in a Velvet Underground style, but that once he heard of the NME’s campaign he had to scrap plans to perform the song as he couldn’t be seen to be pandering to the press.

Apart from teasing audiences with snippets of the song over the years, viewers of the BBC’s Comic Relief show in March, 1999, were threatened with a four hour long performance by Bowie of a new composition for voice and recorder entitled Requiem For A Laughing Gnome. Viewers were encouraged to bring the surreal performance to an early end by donating more cash to the Red Nose Day charity!

Finally, despite his tongue-in-cheek tale to Melody Maker about the intention to play The Laughing Gnome live, I can confirm that David and the band truly did soundcheck the song at Wembley in November 2003 and it was on the proposed setlist for the Glasgow show a couple of days later right up until the band were actually onstage and playing…a late onstage change of mind by David robbed us of what would have been one of rock history’s more memorable moments.

These days, the song looks like being eclipsed by The Little Fat Man (With The Pug-Nosed Face) for the song most likely to be shouted by a heckler. But having said that, I feel we haven’t heard the last of the little old man in scarlet and grey just yet.

Now you’ve met the London boys, things seem good again…

For those of you that missed David’s Furlongs piece in The Times last month (03.15.2007 NEWS: DB RECALLS HIS DAYS AT FURLONGS IN TOMORROW’S TIMES) you can now check it out on the Music Recommenders site, from where NME has again picked up on it. (03.28.2007 NEWS: BOWIE IS NME’s NEW MUSIC TIPSTER OF THE WEEK)

Loving The Alien Sex Gods…

Following the success of his shows last year, (10.07.2006 NEWS: ZIGGY AT THE VANGUARD IN SYDNEY NEXT WEEKEND) Jeff Duff (aka Duffo) has been in touch with news of repeat shows at The Vanguard in Sydney, Australia, in a couple of weeks.

Over to you Jeff…

————————————————————————————————————-

The new ZIGGY PLAYED THE VANGUARD shows are taking place in Sydney at The Vanguard in King Street, Newtown in Sydney over three big nites, Thursday 26, Friday 27 & Saturday 28 April.

My glamourous entourage will be performing songs from the Ziggy Stardust period along with Bowie faves from the eighties & nineties. Jeff Duff will be joined on stage by three very cool ozy singers… Steve Balbi, Damien Lovelock & Natasha Stuart all backed by Duffo’s very own glam band the ‘Alien Sex Gods’

Last years shows were huge…this year we’ve had to add an extra nite and the whole sha’bang promises to be even bigger than last year. I better get my needle and cotton to work and start creating some new glad rags for the show. Vanguard management have requested that I try to keep my clothes on for the upcoming shows.

Book online: www.thevanguard.com.au/ – Tickets [$25 Australian]
The Vanguard – 42 King St., Newtown, Sydney, Australia – Ph:[02] 9557 7992

————————————————————————————————————-

Sounds like a lot of fun…Anybody down there in Sydney that’s going along, please send us your review and pictures.

Run, run, run, run, run, run, run…

BowieNetter Sinj3 (Simon Powell) has asked me to pass along his gratitude to everybody on BowieNet who helped him surpass his sponsorship target for the upcoming London Marathon on April 22nd.

Simon, a long-term Bowie fan, is running in aid of Asthma UK, here’s a bit from his personal message on his donation page…

———————————————————————————————————————–

“I’ve made the decision to do my first (and possibly last) marathon. I decided that if I was going to commit so much time and effort into something, then it was probably worth raising money for a good cause along the way.

Having suffered from asthma for 20 years, I’m offering my support to Asthma UK (www.asthma.org.uk) who help to educate and support the estimated 1 in 10 people in the UK who are afflicted with this annoying (and sometimes fatal) condition.”

———————————————————————————————————————–

As Simon points out on his page, even though he’s flown past his target with your generous help, he can never raise too much money, so for those who haven’t yet had a chance, or didn’t even know about Simon’s fund-raising scheme, PLEASE SPONSOR SIMON NOW.

Good luck for the 22nd, mate…we’re all rooting for you.