Month: April 2010

I, I can remember, standing, by the wall…

Alexander Macinante has been in touch with details of an event in Italy next month for which he supplied the following blurb…

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Inside ? The sound of the divided Berlin

Tuesday 8th june will see the debut of a new italian show dedicated to the legendary Berlin Trilogy.

“Inside ? The sound of the divided Berlin”, produced by Ondesferiche, features a selection of tracks from David Bowie?s masterpieces “Low”, “Heroes” and Lodger”, all performed live, accompanied by action art and projections that aim to take the audience in the late 70?s Berlin, “a city cut off from the world” as Bowie said.

Setlist features some of the most beautiful and haunting instrumental tracks ever, like “Subterraneans”, “Neuköln” and “Weeping wall”, and rock gems like “Joe the lion”, “Repetition” and the inevitable “Heroes”.

The show debuts Tuesday 8th june in Asti, Italy, at the Palazzo Alfieri, as part of “Passepartout”, one of the main literature festivals in Italy, promoted by the Asti Library. Since 2004, the festival has a different theme every year, around which shows, concerts, meetings and laboratories are built. This year?s theme is the fall of the Berlin wall, and this sounded like the right occasion to create a music event about the Berlin Trilogy.

Live Band: Alexander Macinante, Matteo Curallo, Manuel Daniele, Edoardo Accornero. Projections and “sand art”: Licio Esposito. Showstarts at 10 p.m., free admittance.

More details will appear soon on www.passepartoutfestival.it

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I’m afraid I know no more about the event than you do now and I’m duty bound to point out that this project is not officially endorsed. However, if you do attend, please tell us what you thought of it.

You’ve really made the grade…

The June edition of MOJO magazine has a page and a bit feature regarding the recording of the Space Oddity single at Trident Studios on June 20th 1969.

The item is predominantly an interview with the producer on the day, the late Gus Dudgeon. However, seeing as how the interview wasn’t conducted from beyond the grave, you’ve probably read it before.

The piece ends on a nice bit of synchronicity with the paragraph below, which also explains the presence of the MOON DVD to David’s left in the picture above…

Inset in the montage above is the label from a 10? Space Oddity double-sided UK mono Trident acetate that has just gone on eBay for $1,113.00. The rectangular label is from the bag it was housed in.

If you’re quick you can still view the original eBay page here, where you can also listen to a recording taken from the acetate.

The same eBayer also sold a 12? double-sided two disc UK mono Trident acetate for the David Bowie/Space Oddity album for $1,313.00.

Like the 10″ single acetate which runs at 5:02 mins, the running times on the above time sheet for this double disc don’t tally with the released version…and the running order for the album is quite different too.

If you were the buyer, perhaps you would let us know if there are any obvious differences, or subtle ones come to that, between the acetate and the released version of the album.

When I’m forty five, I will jump in puddles, laugh in church and marry Iman…

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of David and Iman‘s civil wedding ceremony at Lausanne Registry Office, on April 24th, 1992. A formal church ceremony was later held in Florence.

The modern US doo dah for eighteen years is porcelain…so perhaps David will sing China Girl to Iman this evening. Sorry.

BowieNet members can join in and wish David and Iman a very special day by contributing to this message board thread, this year started by Bianca.

Photograph king, watches you go…

Due via Chronicle Books on July 28th, 2010, is Mick Rock‘s latest photographic collection, Exposed, featuring the rather tasty front cover above.

Aside from 200 of his finest shots selected from forty years worth of rock photography, the book also has a foreword by playwright Tom Stoppard and an afterword by producer, impresario and author, Andrew Loog Oldham

Here’s the blurb…

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Exposed — Mick Rock’s photo career began with him sneaking his camera into rock shows; it ignited when he started shooting a practically unknown David Bowie in 1972 and then went on to document the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. Since then Mick’s become a legend himself, shooting a who’s who of rock, punk, and pop icons and capturing the images of stars right as they became part of the pop firmament.

Exposed collects 200 of his best photos across nearly 40 years, including unforgettable images of Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Blondie, Queen, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Killers, Lady Gaga, U2, and many more. Featuring a revealing introduction, narrative captions, and an illuminating foreword by playwright Tom Stoppard, Exposed is a gorgeous visual celebration for music fans.

Mick Rock‘s photographs have helped define the image of rock ‘n’ roll, and have been featured on numerous album covers and in solo exhibitions around the world. He lives in New York City.

Tom Stoppard is a playwright, author, and screenwriter whose work includes Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Coast of Utopia. He lives London.

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We’ll give you more details of the Bowie content nearer publication.

A real cool cat…

If you’re in Minneapolis on Friday night, why not scurry along to REBEL, REBEL – Rock for Pussy VII – A Tribute To David Bowie …an event that raises awareness of no-kill cat shelters.

Here’s the cream…

ROCK FOR PUSSY VII, a musical tribute to David Bowie with proceeds to benefit the MN Valley Humane Society featuring Jim Walsh, Christian Erickson, Benjaman Somers Bachman, Lori Barbero, Matt Coffee, Janey Winterbauer, John Eller, David Campbell, Randy Casey, Noah Levy, Dan Wilson, Sam Keenan, Liam Watkins, Ciaran Daly, Laurie Lindeen, John Munson, Chris Pericelli, George Mckelvey, Venus and All the Pretty Horses, Chris Pavlich, Tommy Alsides, Steve Price and many more!!

REBEL, REBEL – Rock for Pussy VII – A Tribute To David Bowie
Friday, April 23rd, 2010 / 8:00 pm
18+ $8.00 adv | $10.00 door
701 First Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN, 55403-1327

So, if you’re a cat person in Minneapolis this evening, or just a fan of David Bowie’s music, get along to First Avenue for what looks like being an evening where everything is just Hunky Dory.

Ain’t that poster love?

I’m sure a few of you must have stumbled upon this already. But, even though it was published on September 3rd in the UK last year, it’s still well worth a mention here.

The Art of Classic Rock – Rock Memorabilia, Tour Posters and Merchandise from the 70s and 80s by Rob Roth and Paul Grushkin, is a beautifully illustrated, large format hardback with over 750 colour photographs.

Published by Goodman Books, this lavish tome boasts a 32-page Bowie section packed with Bowie promotional posters, adverts, tour passes and shop displays from Ziggy Stardust through to A Reality Tour.

A couple of small misgivings…the captions aren’t always accurate and the main body of the text is simply a potted history of each artist by Paul Grushkin that doesn’t really offer anything new, though there are a couple of interesting bits with Rex Ray in the Bowie section.

However, the biggest disappointment for me is that I would have loved to have had Rob Roth’s own angle on how he amassed the collection and the story behind the most interesting items…a wasted opportunity I feel.

Minor grumbles aside, the book is still worth every penny for the visual content alone. And while I know there are a few of us collectors with a more impressive Bowie collection than that featured in the book, you have to remember that Rob Roth has sizeable archives by eight artists and this probably isn’t a complete record of his collection by any means.

The Art of Classic Rock isn’t available in the US until October 26th, 2010, where it will be published by Collins Design.

‘Cos he knows it’s all worth loads…

The May edition of Record Collector has the following exchange between a disgruntled reader and Ian Shirley, editor of the magazine’s Rare Record Price Guide…

Not sure I agree with RC’s valuation…actually, I am sure, I don’t agree. I’m not going to have yet another rant about this, but surely the only way to gauge the current value of a record is to study the recent sales history.

The only UK copies of Starman to go for that much have been demos with a picture sleeve. But even then a UK demo with a M- picture sleeve fetched only £51 just over a year ago.

Generally you’re unlikely to have to pay much more than fifty to sixty quid for a decent copy and you can pick up a demo without a picture sleeve relatively cheaply too.

I think the £30 dealer offer for a copy with a torn sleeve was more than fair considering he has to try and make a profit too.

Having said that, there are copies of Starman worth considerably more than £100.

In 2008, a copy of the Angolan picture sleeve, above left, fetched a remarkable £1,750, while in the same year a UK white label promo copy, above right, went for a not too shabby £733!

The church of man love is such a Holly place to be…

You may have seen the February edition of Q magazine, wherein Holly Johnson was the owner of that month’s featured record collection.

Like Elly Jackson in the same feature of the May issue of Q, (04.04.2010 NEWS: HOW TO BUY BOWIE IN Q, PLUS LA ROUX AND IGGY POP ON DB) Holly has chosen two David Bowie albums out of the nine from his collection.

Here’s what he chose: The Album That Validated My Sexuality was Aladdin Sane and The Album That Soundtracked A Year was The Idiot. OK, strictly speaking the latter was released as an Iggy Pop album, but it’s as much a Bowie album to my mind…and I’m sure you’re tired of me saying so!

Holly also popped up on the BBC’s The One Show recently. This was for an eight minute feature: The First Album I Ever Bought.

Holly talked about the “bird of paradise landing in our front room” when he first witnessed Starman on TOTPs. He then went on to say how the combined effect of Starman, the Ziggy Stardust album and seeing Bowie at the Liverpool Empire in 1973 changed his life.

He also talked about how he got to chat with his hero when Bowie phoned him up and that DB was everything Holly had hoped he would be.

Hooked to the silver screen…

As you can see from the grab above, there are now four Bowie-related films on iTunes UK. Not sure when they were released digitally, as the dates accompanying each don’t actually make much sense at all.

Anyway, I’ve only just spotted TMWFTE so I think it’s a relatively new addition. It’s the full-length 139 minute version and it’s great to know that I can now watch it WHEREVER I am.

Thinking this was progress of sorts, I decided to check on iTunes US to see if they had the same. This is what I saw…

Twelve films! That’s not fair…we want twelve films in the UK too!

Still, poor Germany only has The Prestige, while China and, more incredibly, Japan, don’t seem to have any at all…so I’ll stop my grumbling for now.

Lay the real thing on me…

A couple of weeks or so is probably long enough for you to have dwelt upon this one. (04.01.2010 NEWS: THE ANNUAL BOWIENET NO APRIL FOOL CONTEST!)

We posted seven unusual/rare Bowie items in aforementioned news piece on April Fools’ Day, all of which exist in the real world…apart from one of them.

You’ve had a couple of weeks to research, now to be in with a chance of winning a mystery prize worth winning, simply tell us what that fake item is.

Once you think you know the answer, send it to me here. You have until midnight New York time on April 30th to get your selection in.

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. If you do neither of these things you won’t be eligible to enter.

Jolly good luck ‘n all that.