Month: October 2008

Dive In Saturday…

It’s more than two years since DB mentioned it in his BowieNet journal and almost a year since it was first shown in America. We’ve given it a couple of mentions on here too. (10.05.2006 NEWS: SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS IN NEW BOWIE JOURNAL & 05.21.2007 NEWS: ATLANTIS SQUARE PANTS TO AIR IN NOVEMBER & 10.05.2007 NEWS: EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK AT LORD ROYAL HIGHNESS & 11.11.2007 REMINDER: LORD ROYAL HIGHNESS ON TV MONDAY & 11.16.2007 NEWS: DB SPONGEBOB EPISODE ATTRACTS RECORD 9 MILLION)

Now I’ve had a couple of e-mails wondering why we hadn’t mentioned the UK premiere of David Bowie as Lord Royal Highness in the SpongeBob SquarePants special: Atlantis SquarePantis.

Well, in fact we had…the ever-vigilant Spaceface gave us all plenty of notice in the calendar section, (see above) as she did with All You Need Is Love, (10.26.2008 NEWS: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE ROCKUMENTARY ON MORE 4) which sadly wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it.

Anyway, if you’re in the UK it’s not too late to catch David Bowie as Lord Royal Highness…It’s even recommended by The Guardian.

I’ll leave you with the remaining screening times…

Saturday, 1st November at 17:00 GMT – Nickelodeon
Saturday, 1st November at 18:00 GMT – Nick Replay
Sunday, 2nd November at 14:00 GMT – Nick Toons

But now you pick them on the screen…

Last week we set this contest for three pairs of tickets for Thurston Moore’s presentation of David Bowie videos at MoMA, (10.23.2008 NEWS: WIN MoMA BOWIE VIDEO PRESENTATION TICKETS) wherein we asked you to identify each of the Bowie promo videos in the animation above.

Well, there were nine different ones to list and here is that list…

1 ~ The Hearts Filthy Lesson
2 ~ “Heroes”
3 ~ The Jean Genie
4 ~ Life on Mars?
5 ~ DJ
6 ~ Blue Jean
7 ~ Ashes To Ashes
8 ~ John I’m Only Dancing
9 ~ Jump They Say

And here are the three BowieNetters that each win a pair of tickets…

daligala
MeetingVenus
shammy

We’ll be in touch shortly to tell you how go about claiming your prize. Well done folks.

For those of you that weren’t so lucky, advance tickets will be available at the Museum?s Lobby Information Desk and online at www.moma.org, beginning November 1, 2008.

I asked for an autograph…

The headline says it all and here are the details of each of those events…

Mick Rock Book Signing @ Cambridge Borders
03:00 pm, Saturday 1st Nov 2008

Mick Rock Book Signing @ Charring Cross Road, London Borders
06:30 pm, Monday 3rd Nov 2008

Click on the links for more details.

——————————————————————————————–

I spoke with the manager at Charring Cross Road Borders and though the events are primarily in support of Mick’s book of Syd Barrett photographs, Psychedelic Renegades, visitors are welcome to bring along anything at all to be signed…including your own body parts.

However, the store carries a good supply of Mick Rock titles if you need something a little more conventional to sign on the night.

If you can get along it will be worth the effort as the delightful old queen hopes to have some kind of visual presentation to accompany his fairy tales.

Reduce us down to witless punks…

“DAVID BOWIE – PUNK AUCTION ROCKS NEW YORK” screamed the headline on the contactmusic.com site. But, for those of us that remember the above double page advert in the UK music press from December 1977, it didn’t quite ring true.

Of course, David Bowie could never have been accused of being a punk rocker, well, perhaps he could in 1972 when he invented the look, but musically it’s a genre he never really played with.

It transpires that the news item is in regard to an upcoming Christie’s New York auction of punk AND rock next month and not punk rock.

Anyway, there are still five items that may interest the Bowie collector unaffected by the credit crunch, as you can see from the estimates below….

The three Mick Rock items are fairly self explanatory, but here’s a look at the Moonage Daydream collage just for the hell of it…

The first item in the list above is a 1966 four page, two colour, press leaflet promoting David Bowie and The Lower Third. This is a highly collectable piece of memorabilia which has only shown up on eBay a couple of times and always commands a high price…be interesting to see if it reaches this estimate though.

Finally, the above item is a 1959 Fender Musicmaster guitar signed by over 170 musicians. Each signature was acquired directly from the artists by a security man for the Black Mountain Music Festival in North Carolina, over a period of 15 years. Here’s a close-up of just a few of the signatures on the reverse of the guitar…

You can most likely make out a 1990 Bowie signature, but a few more of his associates have left their mark too…Some of those include: Mick Ronson, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Adrian Belew, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton and Steve Jones.

North Carolina was one of the stops on The Sound + Vision Tour so I don’t doubt the guitar is genuine, as Bowie and Belew have signed right next to each other and it looks like they even used the same marker.

If you were thinking of spending the six to eight thousand dollars estimated for this lot, I’m sure you can rest a little easier about its provenance now.

You can learn more about any of the above by clicking on the images.

Then you howl like a wolf…

The above shot from 2002 has been voted one of the best shots ever taken for UK GQ magazine and it is reproduced in this month’s twentieth anniversary issue (December) of the magazine for that very reason.

The picture was one of many taken by Markus Klinko & Indrani in recognition of David’s Lifetime Achievement gong at the 2002 GQ Men Of The Year awards.

See our original news item from September 2002 for two more of the shots from the same session. (09.03.2002 NEWS: BOWIE RECEIVES GQ OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD)

We can love, Oh yes, we can love…

We first told you about the DVD release of Tony Palmer‘s All You Need Is Love documentary back in May. (05.05.2008 NEWS: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE DOCUMENTARY FINALLY OUT ON DVD)

However, if your interest in the history of rock isn’t great and you weren’t tempted to shell out a small fortune on the five disc set for minimum Bowie return, then I’m sure you’ll be pleased to learn that episode sixteen: Whatever Gets You Through The Night (Glitter Rock), is to be shown on MORE4 in the UK this coming weekend.

Here’s the synopsis…

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

Episode Sixteen: Whatever Gets You Through The Night (Glitter Rock)

This Episode takes place almost entirely on stage; fans are always seen from the performer?s point of view. Thus, we begin to feel and experience first hand the pressures being put upon various individuals by the music industry. We are backstage with David Bowie as he makes himself up for a performance. We watch Alice Cooper ritualistically smashing up a doll, while the fans shriek for more and more. We are with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull as he prepares to face a screaming crowd. We watch Eric Clapton before drugs, during drugs and after drugs. We are on stage with Keith Emerson as he hurls his electric organ at the audience…

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

All You Need Is Love airs on Saturday 1st November on MORE4 at 00:40 to 01:50 am…that’s Friday night to normal folk.

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision…

See last month’s news item for all the details, (09.16.2008 NEWS: BoB CD AND ZIGGY MoPi DVD GIFTPACK DUE NEXT MONTH) and tune in next week for a contest to win this handsome little package.

Femme fatales emerged from shadows, To watch this creature fair…

Speaking of Ziggy Stardust live (see yesterday’s news item) the December issue of UNCUT has the above double page spread with fan recollections from the Rainbow in August 1972 up to Newcastle in June 1973.

One of the contributions is from our very own Jackie_C who remembers the Christmas Eve Rainbow show. Here’s what she said…

I think there may have been more BowieNetters who didn’t get their stories published in UNCUT. If you were one of them please let us see your story in this MB thread.

First person to post their unpublished Ziggy live memory gets the unused 1973 sticker below from my personal collection, as utilised in the UNCUT feature.

Staying back in your memory, Are the movies in the past…

One of the things I’ve noticed doing these anniversary release items is just how many of the recorded release dates are inaccurate. I won’t go on about this, (cries of: “Doesn’t normally worry you!”) but obviously we will do our best to correct these errors as we go along, using chart placings, advertisements and archive music press cuttings.

After it’s success as hugely popular bootleg and after ten years of campaigning for its release, fans were finally rewarded with the double vinyl RCA issue of Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture on October 24th 1983. Above are the UK (left) and US pressings.

Below is the sticker from the limited edition American clear vinyl pressing of the album…

The reason I have highlighted this is because Dave Thompson‘s Moonage Daydream book from 1987 makes mention in the album discography of the following item…

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

Ziggy ’83 – RCA QLP2 4862 (Canada) – January 1984

A clear vinyl promotional album taken from the ABC Radio Broadcast of David’s 1983 Montreal show, and identical to the Serious Moonlight video.

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

Now, unless this is yet another release that has slipped by undetected for the past twenty five years, (10.06.2008 NEWS: ULTRA RARE BOWIE BARGAINS BAGGED ON EBAY) I think Ziggy ’83 must be an album that has been confused with the above American clear vinyl Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture.

But, as I’ve said before, you never can tell with these crazy Canadians, so if you know differently and can prove the existence of Ziggy ’83 we would love to hear from you.

In 1991 at least four different Czech pressings of Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture on coloured vinyl were issued via BMG/Globus International.

However, the most complete and best sounding version on vinyl remains EMI’s 30th Anniversary Edition from 2003 which was released as a limited edition numbered red vinyl and included a poster.

MoMA can I kiss you?

We told you about this event a few days back (10.20.2008 NEWS: THURSTON MOORE TO PRESENT BOWIE VIDEOS AT MoMA) when we mentioned that tickets for Thurston Moore’s presentation of David Bowie videos at MoMA would go on sale in two batches.

The first batch goes on sale on November 1st and the remainder go on sale on the day of the show, December 1st.

However, those very generous types at MoMA have given us three pairs to give away before the first sale.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is identify the videos that are utilised in the animation in aforementioned BowieNet news story from October 20th.

One clue is that all the images used are from videos that will be screened at the Bowie presentation at MoMA on December 1st.

Send your answer to me here before midnight NY time on Thursday October 30th. Winners will be announced the next day.

Usual BowieNet rules apply: Only one entry per BowieNet account per week, and please remember you must enter using your BowieNet e-mail or at least supply your BowieNet user name. If you do neither of these things you won’t be eligible to enter.

Sorry to go on about this last point, but the first eight selections in the last contest didn’t supply either their BowieNet e-mail or their BowieNet user name and therefore had no claim to the prize that should have been theirs. Please make sure that if you’ve made the effort to enter that you then also tell us your member name one way or the other.