Month: April 2010

It was made for you and me…

Last time we mentioned it back in February, (02.14.2010 NEWS: RAW POWER’S ORIGINAL BOWIE MIX REINSTATED) we reported that Sony’s double disc Raw Power Legacy Edition would be available from next week on the 12th (13th USA) but that date has now been put back to the 26th.

The 4-disc Deluxe Edition is available to pre-order via the Iggy And The Stooges website now.

Come and buy my…

The May edition of Q magazine has a two page spread with a guide to which David Bowie albums it considers essential (Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Station To Station) right through to the one album they feel should be avoided: Never Let Me Down. As if any of you need to be advised in this manner. They also have Fame in their regular “50 Essential Tracks to Download This Month…” section.

Elsewhere in the mag, La Roux front person, Elly Jackson, reveals nine of her favourites from her record collection…two of which are Bowie. Each of the nine albums have different headings, with Let’s Dance being: “The Album That Reminds Me Of Ibiza” and Young Americans being: “The Album That Drives Me Mad”!

Here’s Elly’s reasoning behind the latter…

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“I’ve listened to this album nearly every day for the last two years. There’s a guitar line in the second verse of Fascination that makes me feel insane inside. I’m so obsessed with it that my manager bought me a signed copy for Christmas. There are similarities fashion-wise between me and Bowie in this period, but it’s weird because I only got into him after I started making music – and certainly after I got the quiff!”

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Let’s hope her manager didn’t buy the signed album on eBay, where I reckon ninety percent of the signatures are fake!

Finally, there’s a five page Iggy Pop feature/interview wherein he talks about watching Starsky & Hutch and A Country Practice on American Forces TV Network in Berlin with Bowie. Mr Pop also talks about going on the piste with DB and how he taught Iggy to ski: “David was a good instructor. He has the gift of patience.”.

“Listen to the words!” he cries…

The Writers of Influence exhibition due at the Graves Gallery in Sheffield later this month, takes visitors on a journey from the Bard to Bowie while celebrating some of Britain?s finest literary talents along the way.

Aside from the NPG?s ?Chandos? portrait of William Shakespeare, on tour outside of London for the very first time, the exhibition features other memorable names from the literary hall of fame, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Agatha Christie, John Lennon, David Bowie, alongside contemporary lyricists such as Jarvis Cocker and Dizzee Rascal.

The Bowie portrait in the exhibition is from Terry O?Neill‘s Diamond Dogs session, though not the one on the poster above. I’m not sure what examples of Bowie’s literary contributions accompany the photograph…perhaps a local BowieNetter could let us know. (Hi Zardoz!)

Anyway, here’s the diary for the touring exhibition which ends in Sunderland in March 2011.

Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield
21 April – 3 July 2010

Southampton City Art Gallery
23 July – 26 September 2010

City of Plymouth Museum & Art Gallery
16 October 2010 – 8 January 2011

Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
29 January – 27 March 2011

Thanks to Mackem lass Spaceface for the original pointer to this exhibition.

It was a day in that blue month September… (For now at least)

Manimal Vinyl‘s tribute to David Bowie that I think we have mentioned before, (01.03.2009 NEWS: UNTITLED TRIBUTE TO DAVID BOWIE TRACKLISTING UPDATE & 03.07.2010 NEWS: UNTITLED TRIBUTE TO DAVID BOWIE GETS A TITLE) has been put back once again and has another tracklist update which may be final…though I’m not promising anything with the difficult labour this release has endured to date.

The album will now be available on September 6th, 2010 with 100% of the net profits going to War Child UK.

MGMT are back in the frame with their version of TVC 15 and here’s how the 33-track double disc looks right now…

Repetition ? A Tribute To David Bowie:

Disc 1:
01. Exitmusic ? ?Space Oddity?
02. Duran Duran ? ?Boys Keep Swinging?
03. Megapuss (Devendra Banhart) ? ?Sound and Vision? (en espanol)
04. Warpaint ? ?Ashes to Ashes?
05. Charlift ? ?Always Crashing in the Same Car?
06. A Place to Bury Strangers ? ?Suffragette City?
07. All Leather ? ?Fame?
08. We Are The World ? ?I’m Afraid of Americans?
09. Carla Bruni ? ?Absolute Beginners?
10. VOICEsVOICEs ? ?Heroes?
11. Corridor ? ?Be My Wife?
12. Vivian Girls ? ?John, I?m Only Dancing?
13. Lights ? ?As The World Falls Down?
14. Keren Ann ? ?Life on Mars??
15. Genuflex ? ?Soul Love?
16. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes ? ?Memory of a Free Festival?

Disc 2:
01. MGMT ? ?TVC 15?
02. Aska & Bobby Evans (feat. Moon & Moon) ? ?African Night Flight?
03. Tearist ? ?Repetition?
04. The Polyamorous Affair ? ?Theme From Cat People?
05. Halloween Swim Team ? ?Look Back in Anger?
06. Jessica 6 ? ?I?m Deranged?
07. Rainbow Arabia ? ?Quicksand?
08. Swahili Blonde (feat. John Frusciante) ? ?Red Money?
09. Aquaserge ? ?The Superman?
10. Sister Crayon ? ?The Bewlay Brothers?
11. Lewis & Clarke ? ?Changes?
12. Mechanical Bride ? ?Sound and Vision?
13. Zaza ? ?It Ain?t Easy?
14. Ariana Delawari ? ?Ziggy Stardust?
15. Mick Karn ? ?Ashes to Ashes?
16. Xu Xu Fang ? ?China Girl?

The Vivian Girls‘ version of John, I’m Only Dancing is already available via iTunes, where you can have a preview listen before you cough up your cash. It’s probably closer to The Polecats‘ arrangement of the song than Ziggy‘s but either way it’s rockin’.

Repetition (which I reckon will get another title change yet) will be available as a limited CD, limited double LP and a download version with exclusive bonus tracks.

Don’t fake it, baby…

When I posted a follow up to last year’s April Fool gag on April 2nd, 2009, (04.02.2009 NEWS: DID YOU TAKE THIS PICTURE OF DAVID BOWIE?) I made the following promise: “…so many members have now begun to expect this kind of thing on April 1st, I think it’s time to say that this was the last one we’ll ever do…”

No reason why you would believe that at the time. However, as unlikely as it seems, I have actually stuck to my word.

I’ve posted this item as late in the day as possible so as not to spoil everyone else’s April Fool pranks. Indeed, as I post this, Honolulu still has a good few hours (at least seven) of April 1st left to go. Who listens to the midday rule anyway?

April Fools’ Day is definitely a redundant tradition on BowieNet…when you do fall for my silliness it’s no real fun anyway, as there’s no crime in believing something that’s perfectly feasible…as most of the last few years attempts to hoodwink you have been, kind of.

So instead we will run this annual bit of mischievousness instead. It’s a pretty straightforward contest, but I guess you has to knows yer eggs…

There are seven Bowie ‘collectibles’ on this page…some official, some not…all real items in my collection, except for one fake!

All you have to do for now is study each of the items with their captions (which I’ve kept short to make it all a little bit harder) and stay tuned to find out what to do with your findings. I’ll kick off with the description for the above item of dubious origin…

Item #1 (above): Seven track Turkish 12″ featuring David Bowie’s Let’s Dance

Item #2: Box of promotional MAINMAN gold matches

Item #3: Unassembled Aladdin Sane record store counter display, USA 1973

Item #4: Japanese 12″ x 12″ in-store double-sided RCA flyer from late 1972

Item #5: BPI bootleg 7″ 45 single pressing of two live Bowie tracks

Item #6: Playable Polish flexi-disc postcard of Kazimierz Mikulski’s 1954 painting, Night Rehearsal, featuring the Bowie song, Star

Item #7: 1976 Sound Promotion Bowie logo solid metal belt buckle

So that’s it. As I say, stay tuned for further details of how to proceed.