Month: September 2008

And it was cold and it rained, So I felt like an actor…

We are pleased to be able to announce that Slow Dazzle is once again producing the official David Bowie calendar this year and we can exclusively reveal that the theme this time around is the Ziggy Stardust album cover session.

The calendar is a twenty eight page, thirteen month affair (Jan 09 to Jan 10) and it’s approximately the size of the original vinyl album.

The pictures inside are out-takes from the Ziggy Stardust cover session which was photographed in London’s Heddon Street in January 1972 by Brian Ward.

Most of the session has only ever been available as small low quality files online, but now you’ll be able to view a dozen or so of the out-takes from the session as large format high resolution images for the very first time.

Stay tuned for further details shortly.

What kind of magic spell to use?

BowieNetter bowieindundee told me about the item below published in today’s Sun newspaper in the UK.

It’s a teaser for a feature in Details magazine which I’ve not yet managed to get my hands on, so I’m not sure how many other TJ Newton poses Daniel Radcliffe has attempted other than the one shown here.

With the red Star Trek style trousers and red calf-length zip-up boots, the stylist for this particular shot was clearly in a bit of a hurry to wrap this one.

Anyway, you can read an interview with Mr Radcliffe on the DETAILS site here, and view a video interview where some graphics wizard in the DETAILS art department has hilariously superimposed Daniel’s head on various Bowie album sleeves.

Perhaps the stylist and the graphics person should swap jobs. Anyway, keep reading if you’re interested in aforementioned Sun article.

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HARRY Potter?s DANIEL RADCLIFFE looks more like DAVID BOWIE than a boy wizard in a magazine shoot.

With a menacing stare and slicked-back hair, the 19-year-old seems to copy Bowie?s pose in the 1977 film The Man Who Fell To Earth.

The futuristic snaps appear in the October edition of Details magazine.

Daniel has been keen to ditch his boyish image after playing JK Rowling?s Harry.

Judging by this snap, Dan?s the man.

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And just because I haven’t mentioned it, don’t think we’ve forgotten the Aladdin Sane flash scar on the young Potter’s forehead!

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, lift off…

A TV advert for the 2009 Lincoln MKS in the US features a cover version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Made by the Berlin Cameron Team Detroit agency, the 30-second advert is entitled Lift Off and it features Cat Power‘s cover of Bowie’s 1969 (and 1975) worldwide smash.

Recorded in June, the song is fairly laid back compared to the original, with the breathy vocal of Chan Marshall floating above it. It is not yet known wether Chan intends to release a full-length version of the track.

Though the ad is entitled Lift Off, this version of Space Oddity actually omits the lift off section which has been approached in various ways by Bowie over the years.

Cat Power almost covered David Bowie back in 2000 with a version of Wild Is The Wind on her The Covers Record. Though in fairness, the recording probably owed more to Nina Simone‘s original arrangement.

You can view the full Lift Off advert here.

I keep a photograph…

BowieNetter Zardoz pointed us in the direction of the Summer issue of PHOTOICON, which is still in the shops despite the fact that it’s now September. It’s a Rock ‘n’ Roll photography special and obviously there’s a Bowie page…

Photographer Tony McGee was responsible for the shots above which he took in 1990 as part of a session “for an album called Pin-Ups – a retrospective album of all his greatest hits to date”. I guess that album became CHANGESBOWIE which didn’t utilise any contemporaneous pictures in the end.

Anyway, here’s a bit of what Tony had to say about David…

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“We became very good friends at the time and we enjoyed on many occasions discussing the arts: cinema and literature were popular topics, and David is a devoted fan of painting. Francis Bacon would constantly come up in conversation and in many ways this triptych is dedicated to Francis Bacon.

Bowie was a very intense and inspiring subject and I would normally only shoot one roll of film on each different costume change. In fact, these frames are chosen from a roll of film of which only eight frames were exposed.”

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It’s actually a good issue that’s worth picking up, if not only to be able to read all of Tony McGee’s words, but to view the above triptych in a much larger form, unobscured by the ROCK ‘N’ ROLL stamp as above.

Finally, the back of the magazine has a full-page advert for a Richard Young photographic exhibition which ended on August 15th, sadly. However, you can still view and purchase fifty four of Richard’s Bowie shots at his online gallery.

Tapping out your memories…

In the first few seconds of September 1st, 1998, the internet gave birth to www.davidbowie.com – It was a momentous occasion reported around the globe…you can still read the BBC’s report published on the day, here.

Many of us were here right at that very moment eager to sample the delights of David Bowie’s latest project…and we weren’t disappointed.

It became apparent quite quickly that one of the strengths of this place was the community atmosphere where many life-long friendships were forged and even a few marriages have been witnessed.

In celebration of that fact we want to hear your personal stories about your time here, be you a newbie or a member since day one.

Please post your story on this message board thread and we’ll select some of the best contributions and post them here in the news throughout September.

We’ll be handing out some appropriate prizes to those we use and running some other contests to tie in with this 10th anniversary.

Finally, thank you all for your continued support and for keeping the faith…here’s to even better things to come in the not too distant future.

Get tapping!