Month: August 2008

The boy in the Fred Perry, jumped up on the stage…

BowieNetter Lunamagic posted this item on the MBs from French site Canoë. Here it is in English, very kindly translated by BowieNetter Celine…

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Paul Weller and David Bowie – A joint project?

Paul Weller wants to get on stage with David Bowie. The singer who released the album 22 Dreams earlier this year admits that he listened to Bowie’s music a lot during the recording of the album and that he would like the chance to get on stage with the legendary rocker.

He said: “We played a lot of Bowie during the creation of 22 Dreams. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that that was a direct influence, but our roadie helped me re-discover Bowie’s albums when we were in the studio.”

“I haven’t been able to talk to Bowie. However, I would love it if he could join us for a show. It would be great if we could get together to make some music with my new band”.

The singer, who recently turned 50, confesses that this landmark birthday gave him additional motivation to make sure his latest album would be one he could be proud of.

He explained thus: “I didn’t want to find myself in the skin of someone whose greatest achievements are behind him once he reached a certain age. I wanted to prove the opposite by offering something different”.

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For those of you that haven’t been reading these news pages in recent months, Weller first expressed the rekindling of his interest in Bowie’s music back in May. (05.14.2008 NEWS: WELLER IS BORN AGAIN BOWIE FREAK & 05.22.2008 NEWS: BOWIE ASKS WELLER FOR HIS HAIRCUT BACK VIA E-MAIL & 06.05.2008 NEWS: WELLER WEARS BOWIE BUTTON FOR TV RECORDING)

Somebody else who has admitted listening to extra Bowie this week are the staff of NME magazine. In their regular “What’s on the NME stereo?” column under the heading: DAVID BOWIE – A LOT OF IT, they stated: “We whiled away Friday afternoon with a Thin White Duke marathon.”

And why not? Who among us hasn’t whiled away an afternoon listening to David Bowie? Come to think of it, a morning, an evening, the night time…a lifetime?

And tell you that you’re eight, but sister you won’t care…

Today is the eighth month of the eighth year and it’s Alexandria Zahra Jones‘ 8th birthday. I believe the Chinese would see that as a sign of much luck to come…why else do you think the Beijing Olympics kicked of at 08:08:08 am on 08:08:2008?

Anyway, I’ve posted this at 08:08 am NY time to continue the theme and you can join in the well-wishing via Simone‘s thread on the MBs here.

And these children that you spit on, As they try to change their worlds…

I know Will Young is the kind of artist to make BowieNetters switch off automatically, but he’s really not a bad person and he has good taste, a good sense of humour, and he knows his own music really isn’t all that much cop…though I don’t mind admitting I personally enjoyed the chorus tune of Leave Right Now.

Anyway, young Will was the subject of yesterday’s Soundtrack Of My Life feature in The Observer newspaper and this was his entry entitled: After I split with my boyfriend.

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Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1973)

I didn’t really ‘get’ David Bowie until a few years ago, when I watched a documentary on his 1973 US Spiders From Mars tour. I texted my ex-boyfriend, who is obsessed with Bowie, to tell him I’d finally got it. It was a revelation. If I were a teenager back then I’d be dressing up like him.

It makes things now seem a bit shit and tame, and after watching it I thought, ‘I may as well stop music because it’s pointless compared to what Bowie did three decades ago.’ It’s amazing theatre, with tricks like going up on a giant telephone. He’s really sexy, but sexless at the same time.

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I think Will is actually recalling the Cracked Actor documentary, but I’m sure everybody knows where he’s coming from.

Also in the piece there is another section entitled: The record that started it all. Here’s a bit from it…

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Peter And The Wolf Prokofiev (1936)

My gran had a record player, and she had a sunroom at the top of her bungalow where we listened to this. She threw away her record, which I wish she hadn’t, because I’m sure someone fabulous like Peter O’Toole narrated it. It’s the only music I remember from when I was really young, four or five.

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Well, I can’t find any record of Peter O’Toole having narrated Peter And The Wolf. And given that the above Bowie-narrated version is thirty years old, I’m wondering if Will was actually a fan of David Bowie’s voice much earlier than he realises.

Will’s album, Let it Go, is out on September 29th and his single, Changes, is released on September 14th. However, the title of the single is the only thing the track shares with the Bowie song of the same name.

And the stars look very different today…

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has a new exhibition running from tomorrow (13th) through to the day after David Bowie’s 62nd birthday in 2009.

It’s entitled Looking at Music and here’s the blurb:

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In the 1960s, the decade that saw astronauts land on the moon, artists were likewise seeking to expand boundaries of time and space and to have new experiences. At the same time, portable video equipment reached the consumer market?suddenly simultaneity and “now,” the present and the past, became content. Musicians led the way in developing new working methods, and music was at the forefront of interdisciplinary experimentation during the early days of media art. This exhibition looks at the dynamic connections that occurred from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s with a display of early media works by Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Steve Reich, Joan Jonas, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, and David Bowie presented alongside related drawings, prints, and photographs by John Cage, Jack Smith, Ray Johnson, and others.

Looking at Music
August 13, 2008?January 5, 2009
The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery, second floor
Organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media.

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David Bowie is apparently represented via Mick Rock‘s iconic 1972 Space Oddity video.

If you manage to get along, please do give us your impressions and let us know what’s in the exhibition brochure, etc.

Better to shine…

Had a couple of BowieNetters e-mail me asking if I saw the most recent eBay auction for a laminated Hunky Dory. Indeed I did, and it seems the worldwide economic downturn hasn’t scared bidders too much as this most recent laminated copy fetched an impressive £327 GBP (approx: $627.61 USD)

Having said that, it’s not nearly as high as the one I mentioned in March of 2007, (03.12.2007 NEWS: LAMINATED COPY OF HUNKY DORY FETCHES $1,000 ON EBAY!) and in fact a copy went for £565 GBP in November 2007 which holds the current eBay record for a laminated Hunky Dory.

Not quite as scarce as the seller of the most recent copy would have us believe: “THIS is the VERY RAREST BOWIE LP OUT THERE!!! The fact that about one laminated copy (if you’re lucky!) turns up on ebay roughly just once every three years is all the proof you’ll need that it’s virtually IMPOSSIBLE to find a true day-of-release 1st Press like this!!!”

Actually, it’s nearer three or four copies a year at the moment and I would imagine with the press advertising that accompanied the LP on its release, RCA would have pressed up a fair few thousand for the day of release. However, how many of those copies have survived the ravages of the last thirty seven years is anyone’s guess.

There’s been many others, so many Time Outs…

The UK’s Observer newspaper reports that Time Out magazine is forty-years-old today.

Congratulations are due to the world’s favourite cultural guide that has always had its finger on the pulse and has featured David Bowie in its pages many, many times over the years.

Above are some of the Bowie front covers, from the very first in 1973 to last year’s TONY cover celebrating The Highline Festival. (05.02.2007 NEWS: EXCLUSIVE TIME OUT BOWIE INTERVIEW AND NEW PORTRAIT)

However, at least one of the covers is missing from the above line-up. If you fancy your chance to win a very rare and quite lovely A1 poster of the 2000 edition, (see penultimate cover on the right, above) all you have to do is give me the month and the year of any missing front cover(s) you think there are.

It is possible to find the answer online, at least it will be online until Thursday evening UK time. However, the contest is open until midnight Saturday 16th August and the winner will be notified shortly thereafter.

Usual BowieNet rules apply: Blah, blah, blah.

Five years, that’s all we’ve got…

I’m sure we did something about this back in June last year, when we referenced this article in the LA Times, but I’ll be buggered if I can find it now. Anway, to recap…

What We Do Is Secret is the directional debut from writer/director Rodger Grossman and it concerns itself with the five year plan of Darby Crash, lead singer of 70s LA punk outfit, The Germs, who died of a heroin overdose on 7th December 1980…the day before John Lennon was murdered in New York.

David Bowie’s music was a massive influence on Darby Crash and this is reflected in the movie with the inclusion of two Bowie tunes. Here’s a bit from that LA Times piece…

“The final key element came when Paar, who along with Smear and Grossman wrote a letter to David Bowie, convinced the English rock icon to license his epochal ?Five Years? and ?Rock and Roll Suicide? to the production.”

Shane West (ER) stars as Darby Crash and Bijou Phillips and Rick Gonzalez play his bandmates in this faithful biography.

Following positive responses after selected screenings last year, What We Do Is Secret goes on general release in America today.

There are plans to release a soundtrack CD and a DVD of the film in the near future, more of which as soon as we have details.

Meanwhile, check out the official website for the trailer and further screening information. You can also hear The Germs’ live version of Hang On To Yourself here.

Way back in West Berlin…

There’s an informative piece in the travel section of today’s Guardian newspaper that attempts to provide a guide to David Bowie’s Berlin. Here’s the intro:

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Many great cities are celebrated for their art and culture but only a select few come with their own soundtrack. From Kurt Weil to Bertolt Brecht, Lou Reed to Iggy Pop, Nick Cave to the minimal techno DJs currently ruling the roost, our image of Berlin is shaped by the ambitious music created there.

But for a generation of music lovers, the spirit of David Bowie bestrides the landscape of Berlin more than any other musician. At the peak of his career in the mid-to-late seventies, Bowie lived and played in the city, working on three albums with producer Brian Eno.

Those three years, when Bowie lived in a flat with Iggy Pop have passed into rock folklore, and yet despite the massive changes undertaken in the preceding decades, much of Bowie’s Berlin remains, while the adventurous spirit that drew him there is as strong as ever.

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You can read the whole thing here, and It is worth taking notes from if you intend to visit Berlin. Alternatively, you could contact the far more knowledgeable BowieNetter Bianca who provided the pointer to this article in the first place. Unless, of course, you’re a friend of David Bowie…he probably knows best.

Every magazine on every shelf…

Nothing major in the September issues of the monthly rock press in the UK, but it’s worth mentioning the snippets there are in case you wish to investigate further.

UNCUT – A full page appreciation of The Walker Brothers‘ album Nite Flights in the regular UNCUT Classics section. Here’s a bit from it:

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There was cross-fertilisation with the Bowie/Iggy/Eno Berlin work of the period, which Scott loved. Eno claims to have heard Scott’s material just before joining Bowie for the Lodger sessions and that “The Electrician” was a major spur.

“Scott sent me Nite Flights,” said Bowie. “I think he’d been very influenced by Low and Heroes, which we’d just finished. I have deep admiration for him, it was as a tribute that I did a version of ‘Nite Flights’ on Black Tie White Noise.”

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Elsewhere, the magazine has a three star review of Life Beyond Mars illustrated with a half page Ziggy picture.

RECORD COLLECTOR – Also has a three star review of Life Beyond Mars by Kris Needs.

Q – Carl Barat again nails his Bowie colours to the mast, (He chose Oh! You Pretty Things for his Under The Influence CD back in 2005) in Q’s regular Mix Sessions feature. This time he’s chosen Changes, and here’s a bit of what he says about his selection:

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It’s not my favourite Bowie song, that’s Oh! You Pretty Things. But there’s something very poetic about the lyrics dealing with a journey in the personal sense. It’s something that needs to be addressed. Like I said, I’ve just turned 30, so change is something that’s on my mind.

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MOJO – In their regular column, All Back To My Place, MOJO asks Neil Tennant: Which musician, other than yourself have you ever wanted to be? This was his reply:

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At 17, I wanted to be Bowie. He changed our lives after seeing him on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972. I didn’t have the money to buy albums then so we’d go to the classical department of Windows and ask to hear Hunky Dory in the stereo listening Booth.

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On page 21 MOJO has lifted Bowie’s Enid Blyton/Velvet Underground quotation from the iSELECTBOWIE sleeve notes.

Finally, MOJO has a look back at One Hit Wonders The Merseys‘ #4 hit, Sorrow, originally released as a B-side by The McCoys. Here’s a bit from the concluding paragraph:

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The Merseys’ profile got a boost in ’73 when David Bowie covered Sorrow on Pin Ups. “It was a bit of a shock,” laughs frontman Tony Crane. “He did it the way we did it.”

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That’s about it, folx. For those of you wondering why I’ve ignored Word magazine, it doesn’t publish until the middle of the month.

Please do let us know if you see anything interesting regarding DB published in magazines outside of the UK. We will credit you and if it’s particularly good you may even earn yourself a prize.

They come and they go, Like spirits…

Following the successful return to his regular haunt The Living Room last month, Gerry Leonard, aka Spooky Ghost, has two more shows there in August and another at The SpiegelTent.

For those of you that don’t subscribe to Spooky’s scary newsletter, here are the exciting details which include some guests whose names may seem familiar…

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Hello all you dusty Ghoul lovers,

Time to dust off the dust and stroll down town to the “Long Time No Spook…” gigs this summer in New York.

SpookyGhost will play three shows this month with different line ups to keep on his boney toes.

Tuesday Aug 12th @ 8PM. The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street NY.This show will be a trio show with Gail Anne Dorsey on Bass and Sterling Cambell on Drums.Come early for a set from Pamela Sue Mann @ 7PM

Thursday Aug 14 th @ 8:30PM. The SpiegelTent @ BARD College Annadale-on-Hudson as part of the Summerscape festival.This show will be a trio show with Gail Anne Dorsey on Bass and Sterling Cambell on Drums.

Friday Aug 22nd @8PM. The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street NYThis show will be a trio show. Lineup to be announced.

Hope to see you all there!

Best

Ghost

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Such a shame that The Ghost is so scared of water, would be lovely to see him over this side of the planet.