Month: July 2010

It’s happening now…

If you happen to be enjoying the happy coincidence of being in Greystones, County Wicklow, in Ireland whilst reading BowieNet news…then get yourself down to Greystones Theatre pronto for some Bowie fun with The Universal Funk Orchestra (UFO) this very evening.

You still have a couple of hours to get your plan together…in fact you could still make it down from Dublin as I post this…here’s what I’m going on about…

————————————————————————————————————-

THE UNIVERSAL FUNK ORCHESTRA
vs DAVID BOWIE ALADDIN SANE
11PM SAT 31ST JULY ?10/?15
NO RULES NO REHEARSALS NO REFUNDS

Continuing with their belief that being great is better than being perfect, Greystones’s improv collective The Universal Funk Orchestra next take on one of rock’s true icons, and perhaps his most wired and wonderful album ? Aladdin Sane.

With Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars finally making David Bowie the star he had long plotted to be, the boy born David Robert Jones was suddenly in grave danger of sucking up into his might.

Having also just produced Lou Reed’s Transformer album, golden boy Bowie was living the hedonistic rock’n’roll lifestyle to the full ? to the point that this follow-up album was recorded entirely on the road. And it’s got the raw power to prove it.

Songs such as Drive-In Saturday, Time, Cracked Actor and The Jean Genie proved that, even when not entirely on this planet, Bowie could still deliver the hits.

For The Universal Funk Orchestra, it’s the perfect combination of songwriting genius and wild animalistic abandon. And you can dance to it too. Let yourself go…

————————————————————————————————————-

These are the same folk that did Ziggy a couple of years back, (06.24.2008 NEWS: TUFO CELEBRATES ZIGGY STARDUST IN IRELAND) and we would love to know what you make of them if you manage to get along.

Demanding Billy Bragg and other friends of mine…

The September edition of Q magazine (issue 290) has a feature entitled The Ultimate Playlist: 1001 Songs.

The songs have been compiled by a whole collection of celebrities, far too numerous to list here.

Each of the contributors have selected a ten-song themed playlist with the biggest names in music getting the double page spread treatment, like the Bowie feature above.

Ricky Gervais selected the Bowie songs, though there are other DB selections peppered throughout the 1001 tracks chosen by other well known types too.

Here’s the concluding paragraph from Ricky’s piece with the ten tunes he selected.

I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty cool list, particularly as it’s from someone who doesn’t even pronounce Bowie correctly. Sorry Ricky, it had to be said! 😉

Elsewhere in the mag Billy Bragg recollects how David Bowie helped him rescue his teenage identity from the horrors of parental interference.

Bowie and his music helped Bragg connect with the more interesting girls in his class who enjoyed lunchtime sessions talking about and playing Bowie albums.

The cover of Aladdin Sane was also the blueprint for his first independent haircut away from the Richard III look his parents had previously engineered.

Here’s a teaser from the Bragg bit…

If you want to read the full article along with the Ricky Gervais item, I’m afraid you’ll have to buy the September edition of Q for yourself.

When I’m Fifty Five…

Today is Iman‘s 55th birthday and I’m sure you’ll all want to join us here at BowieNet in wishing her many happy returns of the day.

She is pictured above at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York last month, when she received the Fashion Icon Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. (05.07.2010 NEWS: DAVID AND IMAN ATTEND CFDA AWARDS)

Put your feet up Mrs B and let Mr B make a fuss of you for the day.

Real Cool World…

Apple‘s iPhone (above) has been voted the coolest thing on the planet in a recent survey by Costa Coffee.

The company polled 3,000 Brits who also voted Apple themselves in to the #2 slot and Apple’s iPod fourth…just behind the internet at third.

Obviously a poll of Brits was always going to have a national treasure like David Bowie somewhere in the top 100, and in the event he managed an impressive 58…one place ahead of John Lennon.

Bowie is the highest placed living musician in the poll, (that’s if you skilfully ignore the presence of Cheryl Tweedy at #48) and he was even voted cooler than Elvis, who came in at #71, and Frank Sinatra at #81.

The only other living musicians featured were Stevie Wonder and The Rolling Stones at 95 and 96 respectively.

The Sun newspaper has published the full 100 Coolest Things On The Planet here.

Thanx to all of you that e-mailed in regarding this…never knew there were so many Sun readers among you! 😉

Fame, makes a man take things over…

Thirty five years ago today David Bowie released the second single from his Young Americans album, Fame, backed with another YA track, Right.

In September the single peaked at #17 in the UK, beating the previous single, Young Americans, by one position.

Proving that Brits weren’t quite as receptive to the new Bowie sound as their American cousins, the 45 became his first #1 single ever when it reached the top of the Billboard chart in the US.

This seemed a little ironic considering the UK was the territory where Bowie had already scored many top ten hits, but hadn’t quite managed a #1 there yet.

That would change when he reached the top of the UK chart with his next RCA single, a reissue of Space Oddity.

Famously co-written with John Lennon and Carlos Alomar, Fame became a staple of the Bowie live show and remains a firm favourite with funky types everywhere.

Don’t forget to turn off the light…

Following on from last night’s final Friday Night With Jonathan Ross on BBC 1, Wossy signed off from the BBC this morning with his last ever Saturday morning radio show on Radio 2.

Regular visitors to these pages will know just how big a role JR has played in promoting David Bowie’s work over the past eleven years or so, via both TV and radio.

Perhaps one of the most touching gestures though was the fact that he played a Bowie song every single week on his radio show for eleven years…excepting one week when he forgot and became quite upset on air by the mistake. He redressed the balance the following week by playing two Bowie tracks.

In total, Jonathan played Bowie approximately 570 times over the eleven year period, and today was no exception as the final track of his last show was Drive-In Saturday …and quite emotional it was too. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the show for a few more days yet, here.

As sad as this news may be for regular viewers and listeners to JR’s shows, the good news is that the ITV1 channel has agreed a deal with him for a new chat show to be broadcast in late 2011 and early 2012. Good luck, Wossy, not that you need it.

An old fashioned band of married men, Looking up to me for encouragement…

We already told you about this one last month, (06.19.2010 NEWS: BEATLES TO BOWIE AND RON WOOD AT THE SFAE) but here’s a little reminder from the blurb nevertheless.

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

From British invasion to glams and punks, Beatles to Bowie offers a visual journey, showcasing the revolution of the 60s and early 70s. Over 50 photographs will be on display capturing the most iconic images from 1962-1974, along with photos from archives that have never before been seen or printed.

The journey starts with The Beatles in Hamburg and travels to their stroll across Abbey Road. Moving west, Bay Area bands and San Francisco’s blossoming counterculture are chronicled, before showing the shattering emergence of the Punks and the spectacle of oddity provided by Glam.

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

I’ll leave you with another Terry O’Neill shot of DB from the exhibition that was taken in September 1975, (that’s also an O’Neill shot from 1974 above) when DB attended Peter Sellers‘s 50th birthday party in Los Angeles. He joined in a jam with Bill Wyman, Ron Wood, (both pictured) Bobby Keyes and Keith Moon.

Here’s how Terry remembers the evening…

“I was invited to what I thought was just a small private party by Peter who was a close friend and didn’t realize he’d invited so many stars. I’m glad I took my camera – it was a one-off moment in rock ‘n’ roll history. I never knew Bowie could play the sax.”

Oh to hear a recording of the music created that night.

The exhibition opens to the public on July 19th and is situated at the San Francisco Art Exchange, 458 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. The gallery is open from Monday to Saturday between the hours of 10:00am and 6.00pm.

And (R)other friends of mine…

Following on from a couple of European dates earlier in the year, Michael Rother will be performing selected concerts around the world in summer 2010 with his project Hallogallo 2010.

Rother (far left in the line-up above) will be joined by Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs) and Benjamin Curtis (The Secret Machines, School of Seven Bells). Together they will play music by NEU! as well as tracks by Harmonia and some of Michael Rother´s own solo work.

David Bowie has long been a fan of Rother’s work even contributing sleevenotes to NEU!’s recent box set retrospective. (05.07.2010 NEWS: NUE! VINYL BOX SET OUT MONDAY WITH BOWIE QUOTATION)

As I’m sure you will remember, Bowie has also championed the work of both Sonic Youth and The Secret Machines.

Click on Rother’s mug shot for a full list of dates thus far announced.

John, I’m Only Dancing (Again)…

The BBC Trust has rejected the BBC’s plans to close the digital radio station 6 Music. In his initial response to the BBC strategy review, BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said that the case for the closure of 6 Music had not been made.

He said the trust – which represents the interests of licence fee payers – would consider closing 6 Music only as part of a wider strategy on the future of digital radio.

The trust also said 6 Music was encouraging the take-up of digital radio among listeners, describing it as a “highly distinctive” service that represents “value for money” and is “well liked” by its audience.

A high-profile campaign to save 6 Music was set up after a strategic review of the BBC’s services was announced and David Bowie was among the very first to lend his support. (02.26.2010 NEWS: BOWIE BACKS 6 MUSIC IN BBC BOMBSHELL & 02.27.2010 NEWS: BOWIE 6 MUSIC STATEMENT MAKES FRONT PAGE OF THE TIMES)

Here’s what he had to say: “6 Music keeps the spirit of broadcasters like John Peel alive and for new artists to lose this station would be a great shame.”.

In the short term at least, it seems the publicity generated by the closure proposals hasn’t done any harm to the 6 Music listening figures. The trust noted the 6 Music audience was 600,000 a week at the time of the review, but had since risen to one million listeners.

Well done to any of you reading this that joined the campaign to save 6 Music…great to see people power can still make a difference.

Drink, drink, drain your glass, raise your glass high…

Thirty years ago on this day Bowie fans in Japan were treated to an exclusive release with the 7″ 45 single, Crystal Japan / Alabama Song, above.

Crystal Japan was a haunting and quite beautiful synthesiser based instrumental track that David provided for the Japanese sake Crystal Jun Rock advertising campaign, though it wasn’t recorded specifically for the campaign.

He also appeared in two very different and enigmatic TV adverts from where stills were taken for the single sleeve and promotional inserts, see above.

While in Japan David spoke briefly about his reasons for agreeing to do the commercials, both of which can be found on YouTube in varying degrees of quality…

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

Q. Why did you agree to do the commercial?

DB: There are three reasons. The first one being that no one has ever asked me to do it before. And the money is a very useful thing [spoken in Japanese]. And the third, I think it’s very effective that my music is on television twenty times a day. I think my music isn’t for radio.

Q. So did you write the music for the commercial?

DB: Yes, this is the important point and the reason I agreed to do the commercial. It’s a very slow one. I didn’t use bass or drums so it’s very different from anything I have done before. It will be included in my next album. I don’t drink while I work so I didn’t drink while I wrote this one, of course.

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

Crystal Japan never made it to the next album, Scary Monsters… And Super Creeps. However, it was included on the 1992 Rykodisc/EMI reissue of the album

The single was available around the globe as an import, though those who couldn’t afford it were gifted the track as a B-side to Up the Hill Backwards the following year.

Various collectibles were created during the campaign, aside from the promotional single there were various posters and adverts all of which are now much sought after.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails liked the track so much that he released a thinly-veiled cover of it, A Warm Place, on his The Downward Spiral album. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with him regarding Bowie’s influence on The Downward Spiral.

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

“I was really into electronic music at the time. “David Bowie’s ‘Low’ was probably the single greatest influence on ‘The Downward Spiral’ for me. I got into Bowie in the ‘Scary Monsters’ era, then I picked up ‘Low’ and instantly fell for it. I related to it on a song-writing level, a mood level, and on a song-structure level…I like working within the framework of accessibility, and songs of course, but I also like things that are more experimental and instrumental, maybe.”

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

Crystal Japan is available on David Bowie’s 2001 All Saints (Collected Instrumentals 1977-1999) CD.

Thanx to my old mate Lanky Pearson for the single sleeve scans.