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There’s always the Diamond Dogs friendly…
The clipping above pretty well tells you what this is about. It’s from the February 2011 edition of
Here’s a bit from it…
You can read the full thing in the magazine or purchase a pdf of the magazine from the
Elsewhere in the mag, Labyrinth is listed at #46 in a feature on The 50 Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Movies…while Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture doesn’t even get a mention. That’s fundamentally wrong.
You know you got something, You know you got style…
Regarding today’s headline, that’s what Sinead Van Kampen of the WOMAN section of the Irish Independent newspaper reckons at least.
In an item entitled:
The women listed are: Bianca Jagger, Patty Hearst, Lynda Carter, Farrah Fawcett and Jerry Hall…and obviously the beefcake above is the solitary geezer mentioned.
Here’s the entry concerning our man, with a couple of points I’ve made thrown in…
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David Bowie
Having spent the 1960s doing nothing more productive than singing about a laughing gnome, the new decade should have seen David Jones consigned to pop trivia. What nobody saw coming was that Bowie would enter the 1970s as the most fashionable cult on the planet and exit as a global phenomenon.
In fashion terms, David Bowie is the man who single-handedly invented and then reinvented androgyny. David Jones became David Bowie, David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust, everybody forgot his name, then they forgot his sex and finally they just listened to his music. This is what he wanted in the first place.
By the time 1975 came and went his look was so imitated that if a man turned up at a Communion party in a skintight gold lamé jumpsuit nobody would have raised an eyebrow.
How he became the sexiest man alive requires a leap of imagination from the reader.
(Blam Note: No leap for this reader) But were it not for Bowie, Boy George wouldn’t have been in Culture Club, David Beckham couldn’t have worn that sarong with a straight face, and Justin Bieber wouldn’t be getting the benefit of the doubt.
Fashion high point: The ironic wearing of an eye patch on stage (Blam Note: It was only for a short period of promotional work for Rebel Rebel, including video and photo shoots. Also, there may have been no ironic intention. If memory serves, Bowie claimed at the time that the eye patch was actually functional due to an eye infection. Either way, it looked great.)
Fashion low point: The not very ironic wearing of underpants on stage (Blam Note: Actually it was a jock strap, which could kind of be thought of as ironic when one considers the usual sporty types that would have worn one at the time. Of course, everybody wears one now…don’t they?)
Fashion legacy: More than anyone could have ever imagined (Blam Note: Here’s to that!)
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You can read the full thing
I (still) like the tee shirts…
A few months ago, back in September of 2010, we ran a contest to win copies of the limited edition Station To Station promotional T-Shirt. (
However, (and I’ve been a bit nervous to own up to this) due to an over-zealous security programme I lost a whole bunch of e-mail, including the entries to that original contest!
Really sorry about that folx, but hopefully you will have kept your entry in your sent box, particularly as we hadn’t announced winners yet.
You have a good couple of weeks to re-enter and I’ll give you the final closing date with the next part of this contest.
Here’s what’s up for grabs…
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Grand Prize
Station To Station Deluxe Edition with signed by David Bowie album-sized booklet…Plus, Station To Station promotional T-Shirt…Plus, Station To Station Special Edition so you can keep your Deluxe in pristine condition!
Five Runner-Up Prizes
Signed by David Bowie album-sized Station To Station booklet…Plus, Station To Station promotional T-Shirt…Plus, Station To Station Special Edition.
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There will also be more T-shirt prizes on top of the above to make up for the original contest problems.
For those of you that didn’t realise it, the signed album-sized booklet from the Deluxe Edition box has a lot more content than the one in the Special Edition box.
So, go re-enter the original contest
There’s five stars, man… (Sorry, I do know how lame that was)
The January 2011 edition of The Music Box has awarded the Station To Station Deluxe Edition
They also have A Reality Tour in the
Here’s the intro to the S2S review by John Metzger…
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Often identified in hindsight, transitional albums connect one era of an artist?s work to another. These sorts of efforts aren?t always very successful simply because they often feel strained, containing a mixture of concepts that fail to function as a cohesive whole. Who says, however, that transitional albums can?t also be magnificent? David Bowie?s Station to Station is a prime example. In fact, it certainly ranks among the finest outings that Bowie has ever recorded.
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You can see the full review
Anyway, don’t take their word for it…keep scrolling for your chance to win a Deluxe Edition signed by David Bowie and judge for yourself!
She’d sigh like Twig the Wonder Kid…
Twig The Wonderkid (that’s him above with Lady Valtronic) has been in touch with a link to the
The annual do took place during MLK weekend on Sunday January 16th, (01.16.2011 NEWS: BOWIENETTER DISCOUNT FOR TONIGHT’S NYC BASH) and it looks like it was the place to be…as usual.
Beautiful, Bowiefied youngsters walking tall and acting fine all over the shop to live Bowie music and DJ sets. What’s not to like?
I’ll leave you with a montage of the other birthday boy from the night, Michael T, who you have to admit looks pretty cool.
You can also view more of LENSJOCKEY‘s incredible shots over on
The return of the Thin White Dukes…
It seems Belgian clothes designer Dries Van Noten is joining in with the 35th anniversary of Station To Station with the unveiling of his Fall 2011 Menswear range at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.
The Thin White Duke himself is the clear influence on this range, as pointed out by Tim Blanks over at
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“I wanted something glamorous without being feminine,” Dries Van Noten said of his latest collection. He chose as its nexus the most glamorous mid-seventies incarnation of the most glamorous male chameleon of them all: David Bowie as the Thin White Duke. The models sported Bowie’s hairstyle of the time (reddish blond, slicked back). The soundtrack played a radically deconstructed version of “Golden Years” (one of his biggest American hits). And Van Noten made full use of a silhouette?peak-shouldered, double-breasted jacket over full, pleated pants?that echoed the nouveau-Sinatra outfits worn by Bowie on his epochal ’76 tour in support of Station to Station, the album that launched the TWD on the world.
It could have been one more fashion love letter to one of the most influential performers of the past half-century?the designer acknowledged backstage how intrigued he’s always been by Bowie?and that would have been the end of it. But obviously Van Noten had other things on his mind. He said Bowie got him thinking about surfaces and what happens when you scratch them, and so he put together a collection that was based on oppositions: a formal navy evening jacket over a casual white tee; a sleek, chic shawl-collared blazer in traditional camel pinning down the silhouette over huge white cargo pants; a cropped cadet jacket laden with bullion embroidery paired with a chunky hand-knit; dark overcoats in the most traditional English materials layered over their exact twins in bright white technical fabrics.
Van Noten’s quietly subversive streak was insinuated in the way technical details like snap closings and bonded linings were used on classically tailored camel and navy. An elegant double-breasted camel blazer was paired with his version of motorcycle pants, unzipping from waist to ankle. Unhinged elegance was also the theme of that oversize knitwear and the swaths of fur that defined coat lapels. But these flourishes also helped to emphasize the grandness of the clothes. If Van Noten wanted to convey something about heroic masculinity, he chose the right place. The Musée Bourdelle is filled with the majestic sculpture of Antoine Bourdelle, a student of Rodin’s. And, of course, the hero of the hour’s most famous song is called “Heroes.”
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Check out the original piece on
An amusing aside to this news item is the hilarious mess one of the popular online translators made of the original Dutch article I found.
I’ll leave you with the full paragraph that mentions what must be the fashion high point of 2011 so far: “Crossed fumaroles in stylish camel were now combined once with engine trousers.”
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Dries Van Noten succeed in surprising time on time and nevertheless faithfully to remain to its style. Its inspiration source was this season the David Bowie of the years seventy. Whereas Bowies hit `applied years’ resounded in the Bourdellemuseum, the models which it kept middle between retro and rock, showed clothing. Crossed fumaroles in stylish camel were now combined once with engine trousers, then with vrijetijdsbroeken with large pockets. Thick, mouwloze cable pullovers link fold trousers dressed concerning white T-shirts talents a sport-loving garlic.
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“Engine Trousers” and “sport-loving garlic”, gotta love those translators!
Speaking of Thin White Duke look-a-likes…
Such is the stuff, from where dreams are woven…
The February 2011 edition of Record Collector (
The ten-page article, written by Thomas Jerome Seabrook, is entitled White Shirt Black Noise and it’s a detailed look back at the recording history of the recording of Station To Station and the attendant world tour.
The whole thing is punctuated with lots of cool, if already familiar, period pictures, though I’ve not read the actual content yet so I’ve no idea how accurate any of it is.
However, I can tell you the feature also has a price guide for Station To Station-related releases, with the 7″ section being overseen by lanky BowieNetter, Chas “Anybody got a spare US Rebel Rebel with NY Remix label?” Pearson, creator of the excellent, if not slightly mental,
It seems the album section has been slightly neglected though, with no mention at all of the withdrawn Station To Station US colour proof.
The withdrawn UK colour proof is listed at the same old £500 that the magazine has had it priced at for years, even though I think it’s even scarcer than the RCA Diamond Dogs ‘Cock’ sleeve.
If a mint condition untrimmed UK colour Station To Station sleeve was to turn up on eBay, surely it would fetch at least four to five times that amount by my reckoning.
Thanks to BowieNetter Paul Woods for content confirmation of this issue.
This ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll…
Not too many months after the beautiful and exciting culture shock that was Young Americans, The Daily Mirror in the UK reported that Bowie had already forsaken Soul Music and that his next album was going to be Rock ‘n’ Roll.
I have to be honest and say that the statement terrified me. You have to remember that genre-hopping was something that Bowie was already associated with and to my fourteen-year-old brain this news signalled an altogether more unsettling switch.
I knew Bowie had recently been working with John Lennon who had released his own album entitled Rock ‘n’ Roll in January 1975 and I thought the influence must have rubbed off. I wasn’t happy.
To my ears, Bowie’s Soul vision had already taken a few plays to get used to after the Rock Music of Diamond Dogs, despite hints on that album that a change of direction was on the horizon…not to mention the clues on David Live. Bizarrely, Knock On Wood didn’t even seem incongruous to me.
But Rock ‘n’ Roll?! It was bad enough that it was the awful music that occasionally ruined otherwise good discos…Danny and The bleedin’ Juniors, Old Bill Haley and his decrepit Comets! At The Hop and Rock Around The Clock?! I think not.
Surely the forward-looking Bowie wasn’t going to follow in the footsteps of all the other dull revivalists poisoning the charts: Mud, Showaddywaddy and their ilk. It just didn’t make sense.
At least Bowie’s own look back at the records that informed his musical past via Pin-Ups a couple of years earlier didn’t go back too far and it sounded like a thoroughly modern record too.
My distress was short-lived. By the time Golden Years was released in November 1975 my relief was palpable and once I got Station To Station playing on my music centre, thirty five years ago today, I was a very happy teenager indeed. I hadn’t realised that Rock ‘n’ Roll could mean Rock Music too.
Thankfully, my musical palate quickly matured enough to be excited by a wider range of tastes that included most genres, though I’m still not ready for Mud or Showaddywaddy just yet.
Wouldn’t it be great if David Bowie made a Rock ‘n’ Roll album.
Anyway, sorry for the long diversion…come back on Monday (Ooops…meant Tuesday) for your chance to win a Deluxe Station To Station box that includes a signed booklet, with lots of runner-up opportunities including more signed booklets, T-shirts and a few of the Special Edition too.
If you need to re-familiarise yourself with either of the editions’ content, don’t forget the
Somebody plays my song in tune…
Harmonix have just announced that five more of David Bowie?s best loved songs will be available from January 25th in the Rock Band 3 Music Store. This follows on from previous stories here related to David Bowie Rock Band stuff. (
Here’s a bit from the official Rock Band site…
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Can’t get enough Bowie in Rock Band? Next week you’ll have five more beloved David Bowie classics to rock out to, with two featuring Pro Guitar / Pro Bass upgrades.
David Bowie is simply a music legend. He has sold more than 136 million albums worldwide, awarded nine Platinum albums in the United Kingdom and five in the United States, is ranked No. 39 on Rolling Stone?s 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time, No. 23 on their Best Singers of All Time and was named No. 29 on the BBC?s list of 100 Greatest Britons.
As always, songs available as downloadable content for Rock Band 3 feature five-button guitar and bass parts, drums, Pro Drums, and keys, Pro Keys and harmonies, where applicable.
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These are the five new songs which will be available on Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 system on January 25…
Blue Jean
Fame
Modern Love
Young Americans
Ziggy Stardust
Modern Love and Ziggy Stardust will have Pro Guitar and Pro Bass expansions available for purchase.
You can read the full article
These songs join the six below, already available across various platforms…
You can view a more in-depth press release
Meanwhile, with a Rock Band catalogue of eleven songs now, surely the day can’t be too far away when we see some bright sparks presenting a live Bowie Rock Band show…That could be fun if
On peut être un héro, Pour juste une journée…
The French-language,
Packed with one hundred, (count ’em) beautiful pictures, (some rare ones too) you can judge for yourself before you
Among the features within the mag there is a discography, a retrospective of DB’s acting career, a look at the Berlin trilogy and various archive Bowie features transcribed into French for the first time…among them, an article by Nick Kent on Bowie?s 1973 USA tour and an in-depth Bowie interview by Bill DeMain.
Though this impressive retrospective seems to be a visual feast at least, I can’t really comment on the written editorial content as I’m not French-reading, yet. It could happen.
Thanks to Michel for the pointer.