Month: January 2011

Well, I might stretch it till Wednesday…

Those of you that meant to get along to the Mick Rock: Rock Music exhibition in London before it closed on the 16th but didn’t quite make it, now have another chance to view the show, buy original Mick Rock prints AND have your portrait taken by Mick.

We told you about the exhibition and book launch back in November last year, (11.11.2010 NEWS: MICK ROCK IN PRAISE OF DAVID BOWIE FOR EXPOSED LAUNCH) and due to overwhelming public demand the organisers have managed to keep the show going until Wednesday the 19th.

On that same day Mick Rock will photograph the contest winner and prints from the exhibition will be auctioned off…The images above are just a few of the Bowie ones on sale.

If you’re keen to attend or enter the contest you need to get over to Idea Generation pronto where you will find more details.

The door to dreams was closed… (until you said ‘BowieNet’)

Twig The Wonderkid has been in touch with some good news about tonight’s Fifth Annual Glamdammit Bowie Birthday Bash in NYC.

I’m sure all of those likely to attend were already planning to go anyway. However, if you were undecided, perhaps the lure of a 50% discount (which ended for non-BowieNetters last weekend) may still tempt you.

All you have to do is say “BowieNet” on the door and you’ll get in with a generous $10 discount off normal admission. I’m always needlessly nervous about these things, but perhaps mention Twig The Wonderkid if you’re met with a puzzled look.

You can read all the details regarding what sounds like a particularly exciting event by clicking on the above flyer.

Meanwhile I’ll leave you with an excerpt from a TONY interview about tonight with clubland legend Michael T…

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How is it that you?ve become the go-to guy for everything Bowie-related in New York City clubland?
Bowie has been a part of my life for longer than I should probably admit to in print. But of course, I?ve been obsessed with Bowie forever?literally, since the tail end of the ?70s.

Why do you think Bowie, and glam in general, still have such an appeal to them?
The very simplistic reason would be that so much music is so hideous nowadays! But Bowie?s music is just so good, and it?s obviously provocative in terms of its look, which is something that?s missing with most music today. Also, I think that people tend to romanticize eras that they?ve missed out on; I know I do. And let?s face it?Bowie is such an icon, and has been so influential on music, not only at the time but with so much that came after. Punk, New Wave, all the ?90s Britpop bands, electronic music, electroclash?there are very few artists with such a wide influence. Glam as a whole, whether it?s Bowie or Roxy Music or Queen or Cockney Rebel or Alice Cooper or the New York Dolls, has had a huge impact. And perhaps most important, I think it?s just fun.

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Read the full interview here.

I don’t wanna be angel, Just a little bit evil, I feel a devil in me…

A mere whippersnapper compared to yesterday’s entry, (01.14.2011 NEWS: DAVID BOWIE’S FORTY FIVE YEARS OF INTROSPECTION) Holy Holy was originally released on Mercury on January 15th, 1971.

This was the last of the Bowie releases on the label and it was clear Mercury weren’t really giving the record the promotion it had given the preceding Bowie singles in terms of picture sleeves and press adverts.

Holy Holy received a positive response from the music press generally and I’m sure DB didn’t mind the comparison made in this snippet from Melody Maker. (That’s the Syd comparison by the way, not the Jim one!)

Despite some favourable reviews and a performance by Bowie of the song on UK TV in one of his men’s dresses, Holy Holy didn’t perform well on any singles chart. It would take more than another year and another label before that kind of success returned.

FOOTNOTE: This original version of Holy Holy has never had an official digital release. Bowie re-recorded a far more energetic version of the song with The Spiders later the following year that ended up as the B-side to the Diamond Dogs single release in June 1974.

The Spiders’ version has been used erroneously on both the RCA Rare album release in 1982 and the 1990 Ryko reissue of The Man Who Sold The World, where it was listed as the original Mercury version in both instances.

Eventually it ended up on EMI’s 30th Anniversary release of Ziggy Stardust as a bonus track, where it was far more fitting…Fingers crossed that we’ll get a proper digital release of the original in the not too distant future.

“Hi Dave. Drop in, see you around, come back if you’re this way again”

David Bowie’s 1966 Can’t Help Thinking About Me 45 is erm… forty five today.

See our BowieNet item regarding this single from five years ago when the release was a mere forty years old: 01.14.2006 NEWS: CAN’T HELP THINKING ABOUT ME 40 TODAY

We wish you well…

David Bowie has sent in a message for Nile Rodgers following the sad news that Nile has contracted cancer. Here’s the message…

“All our love and support goes out to you, Nile, you are the greatest. David and all at BowieNet.”

The message follows Nile’s recent harrowing blog entry entitled Walking on Planet C on his official website. In the blog Nile describes how the diagnosis affected him and how music remains so important, particularly at a time like this.

He is pictured above with David during recording sessions for Let’s Dance and the picture below that includes fellow Chic member, Bernard Edwards.

As you know, 1983’s Let’s Dance and 1993’s Black Tie White Noise were both produced by David Bowie and Nile Rodgers.

On a positive note, Nile has been posting messages on both Facebook and Twitter suggesting things are improving and that he has regained the use of his hand. He is also talking about the possibility of some live shows later this year.

Frankie drank his money, The little that he made…

The brand new series eight of the grim but hilarious Manchester-based (where else?) Shameless has just kicked off on Channel 4 in the UK.

The first song to be heard in the first episode was a short snippet of David Bowie’s Starman, (which accompanied part of an amusing spoof of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind) in one of the increasingly surreal sub-plots that have become more frequent on the show in the last couple of series.

If you missed it, you can watch the episode here, or just view the Close Encounters spoof here, which contains Starman.

The clip is called Cogito Ergo Sum and this is Channel 4’s summation of it: “It’s the usual from Frank: philosophy, arts and crafts, and… aliens?”

“Don’t that man look pretty”

The latest issue of The Word (February 2011) has a feature on the fifteen most inspired cover versions of all time. Paul Du Noyer chose David Bowie’s reworking of Bruce Springsteen‘s It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City, originally released on Greetings From Asbury Park.

I’m sure you all know the history behind the track and the story of Springsteen’s visit to Sigma Sound when Bowie was working on the Young Americans album…if you don’t, check it out in this BowieNet item: 03.01.2005 NEWS: TV TALKS ABOUT 30TH ANNIVERSARY YA 5.1 MIX

The image that the magazine uses of Bowie and Ava Cherry watching Rod Stewart and The Faces backstage at MSG is a little off the relevant time period. The show took place on February 25th 1975, despite the picture caption saying 1974. The other picture, taken during Springsteen’s visit, was snapped on November 25th, 1974.

It’s clear that Greetings From Asbury Park made a big impact on Bowie. Aside from It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City, he also covered Growin’ Up and recorded Spirits In The Night with The Astronettes…all three tracks originally from this one Springsteen album.

Elsewhere in the magazine there’s a full-page-and-a-bit of pictures of the young Bowie family with new arrival and future world-famous film director, Zowie Bowie, being pushed around in a perambulator. They are great pictures, but despite the mag’s claims that they are unpublished, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all of them before.

Yeah! I was shaking like a leaf, For I couldn’t understand the conversation…

The January 2011 edition (issue #62) of the Italian la Repubblica xL magazine boasts the above cover with a delicious Sukita shot of David Bowie.

Daniele Pensavalle of soundandvision.it sent me the pointer to the mag and had this to say regarding the content…

“It?s a 10 page special for his 64th birthday with lots of pictures (some very nice). Also there’s an article about his long career and interviews with many best Italian artists who talks about David and what he means to them.”

The Italian readers among you can read more over on the xL site…Any of you Italian BowieNetters that have the mag, please feel free to send in a translation of the article so we can all understand it! 😉

Time – He speaks of senseless things…

Had a communication from an organisation calling themselves the Clever Bastards From The Future (CBFTF) claiming to have presented David Bowie with a cake for his 64th birthday way back on this day in 1987!

As unbelievable as the story sounds, the evidence is overwhelming and who am I to question such things on a day like this?

The group reckon they accosted David with the cake ‘on the piste’ and he gladly posed with it, albeit with a slightly bewildered look on his face.

They were about to take extra pictures with more convincing evidence of their journey when their space/time portal closed prematurely and whisked them back to the future.

However, it seems there was still fine-tuning to be done to their time machine and they didn’t notice they had returned to 1987 instead of 2011 before they got home again…at least they got the January 8th bit right though.

I’ll leave you with a close-up they took of the cake before they set off which, to my mind, actually proves it must have happened.

A sad footnote to this tale is that along with these pictures, the CBFTF mailed me an explanation that this was the only time travel journey they would undertake and that they planned to destroy the machine for fear of creating time-based anarchy throughout history.

I think they must have stuck to their word as this seems to be the only evidence of their success.

So along with the CBFTF I’m sure you will all want to join me in wishing David Bowie a wonderfully enjoyable 64th birthday wherever he may be right now.

Come to the show tonight… (and tomorrow night)

I have to admit that I wasn’t previously familiar with the name Ann Magnuson, but she sounds an interesting Lass Insane. Tonight and tomorrow night (January 8th/9th) she will perfrom a special Bowie birthday tribute with her band, the Star Whackers From Mars, which includes Kristian Hoffman, Jonathan Lea, Joe Berardi and Miiko Watanabe, plus special guest Michael Des Barres.

Talking to Libby Molyneaux at laweekly.com, Ann described what to expect from the shows…

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“We will perform mostly a hybrid of Ziggy and Aladdin Sane mixed with a few barks from Diamond Dogs plus a soupcon of Low, as well as a nod to Bowie’s Mod years, a wink to Mott the Hoople and a birthday greeting via the Beatles ‘When I’m 64’ done Brecht/Weill-style in honor of his Berlin years. FYI, he’s turning 64. I’m not impersonating Bowie so much as rekindling the ecstasy of a teenager who is singing and dancing along to those records in the basement of the house she grew up in back in West Virginia.

I feel all the radiant joy those songs brought me then ? with all the attendant hormones and unbridled excitement over the endless possibilities that lay ahead. In short, I feel what Bowie was bringing to the world- permission to step out of the black & white mundanity of a Kansas farm house and enter the wild, wonderful Technicolor world of Oz! And since Bowie isn’t performing at all anymore, someone has got to sing these songs live on stage!”

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The information above pretty well says it all, but here’s the official blurb for some of the finer points…

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ANN MAGNUSON DOES DAVID BOWIE (L.A. Edition)

A glittering glam-rock tribute to Mr. Bowie on the occasion of his birthday on January 8th, 2011! *PLUS another show added by popular demand on January 9th!

Starring Ann Magnuson.
Kristian Hoffman, Musical Director.
With The Star Whackers From Mars featuring Kristian Hoffman (keyboards), Jonathan Lea (guitar), Joe Berardi (drums), Miiko Watanabe (bass)

PLUS Special Guest Michael Des Barres!

TWO SHOWS ONLY!

The Steve Allen Theater at The Center For Inquiry
4773 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90027
Phone: (323) 666-4268

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As I post this early on Saturday evening in the UK, LA is just coming to life, which leaves you almost a whole day to get your best Bowie clobber together and make your way to the venue. I would check ticket availability first though.

If you didn’t already see it, check out the other Bowie Birthday Bashes we mentioned in our previous related news item. (01.03.2010 NEWS: ROUND-UP OF BOWIE BIRTHDAY EVENTS FOR THIS SATURDAY)