Month: March 2011

Yeah, yeah, yeah – up the hill backwards, It’ll be alright ooo-ooo…

Friday March 20th saw the release in the UK of the fourth A-side from the #1 album, Scary Monsters… And Super Creeps.

Up The Hill Backwards was released as both a picture sleeve 7″ 45 and also in the relatively new cassette single format, just as the previous single, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), had been at the start of the same year. (01.02.2011 NEWS: SCARY MONSTERS SINGLE RELEASED THIRTY YEARS AGO)

Despite the lure of the previously unavailable in the UK B-side, Crystal Japan, Up The Hill Backwards only reached #32 on the UK singles chart. Nevertheless, fans who couldn’t afford the expensive Japanese import, (07.05.2010 NEWS: JAPANESE CRYSTAL JAPAN TV CAMPAIGN AND 45 ARE THIRTY) were grateful for Crystal Japan‘s appearance on the B-side, as opposed to another track lifted from the album.

Young Americans were treated to a 12″ 45 only release of the same coupling, with the added bonus of a 12″x12″ set of all of the stamps that had been previously released as four different sheets with the Ashes To Ashes single in the UK. You can read more on that here: 08.01.2010 NEWS: MAJOR TOM HAS BEEN A JUNKIE FOR PAST THIRTY YEARS.

Up The Hill Backwards was also released with the same cover as the UK in Canada, Germany, Portugal and Spain, depicting an illustration by Andrew Christian of a Japanese worker wearing a surgical face mask, as worn by many Japanese as they go about their daily business.

While it’s usual to expect diminished sales as each single is taken from an album, and, as much as I personally love the song, Up The Hill Backwards was a strange and brave single release. With it’s stuttering rhythms and brilliant lead guitar outbursts from Robert Fripp, there was also no lead solo vocal from David. Instead a combined vocal from David, Lynn Maitland and Tony Visconti was used and the whole thing may have proved just a little too bizarre for the public at large.

Either way, David liked the song enough to feature it as part of the introduction sequence during the 1987 Glass Spider World Tour.

FOOTNOTE: The “I’m OK, You’re so so” line in the song was borrowed and tweaked from the title of the Thomas A. Harris best-selling self-help book illustrated in the montage above.

Insanity laughs, under pressure we’re breaking…

The two Queen and David Bowie Under Pressure videos are now available to purchase via iTunes.

You probably remember that the original video that accompanied the 1981 single release doesn’t actually feature David Bowie or Queen, but instead utilises various poignant film clips to illustrate the ideas of lost hope and the power of love suggested by the lyric. The top part of the above montage is a grab from that video.

The second video was created to accompany the 1999 Rah Mix single release of the track. This video cleverly cobbled together live footage of Freddie with footage of David from the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert, to give an almost convincing impression that the two were singing the song live together. In actual fact they never did. The bottom part of the above montage is taken from the Rah Mix video.

I should point out that anything suggested by the above montage was utterly accidental. As amusing as some may find it, I didn’t intend any offence…I’m not even smart enough to have thought of it!

Loving The Alien…

The first half of 1976 was a great time for Bowie fans, a new album, world tour and the appearance of David in his first major role as T J Newton in the full length feature, The Man Who Fell To Earth.

The film premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on March 18th 1976 to a mixture of invited guests, in the circle, and paying public, in the stalls.

Though attended by various celebrities, including co-stars Candy Clark and Rip Torn, David was unable to make the premiere due to touring commitments.

Above is a card apparently taken from the foyer display at the theatre and an unused ticket from the night…albeit a lowly stalls ticket.

Don’t forget the two remaining screenings of TMWFTE at the NFT in London next Tuesday and Wednesday…still a few tickets left for the Wednesday. The film is being shown as part of the BFI Roeg retrospective. (03.11.2011 NEWS: BFI ROEG RETROSPECTIVE AT NFT INCLUDES TMWFTE SCREENINGS)

New York’s a no go…

I guess any David Bowie release has always been big news and this particular one has certainly been widely-reported.

One of the first to announce the forthcoming arrival of the David Bowie Birthday Celebration – Live In NYC – 1997, DVD and CD, was NME online. However, they removed the piece as quickly as they put it up once they learned it was not legit.

I wouldn’t normally give these things publicity, but this release is still being generally reported as though it were official.

It seems the people behind this are the same as those that produced the Glass Spider CD and vinyl. We can’t stop you buying these things, but you should be aware that they are nothing more than bootlegs and not even ‘semi-legal’, as they are sometimes described.

Aside from the initial broadcasts, the only official release from the January 9th 1997 David Bowie Birthday Celebration at New York’s Madison Square Garden was two tracks, Little Wonder and The Hearts Filthy Lesson, which appeared on the Earthling In The City CD, (see above) given away with the November 1997 edition of the American GQ magazine.

Oh, show us the way to the next whiskey bar…

Thanx to BowieNetter jungtheforeman for the heads up on this one, it’s pretty cool. You can find out everything you want to know about it and apply for tickets by clicking on the animation above.

However, here’s the blurb in case you’re not feeling energetic enough to go all the way over to the JD site right now…

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SHARLEEN SPITERI AND FRIENDS HONOUR DAVID BOWIE AT THE ABC2

The JD Set returns to Glasgow at the O2 ABC2 where Scotland’s very own Sharleen Spiteri and a host of friends will pay tribute to one of music’s most enduring songwriters on Wednesday 20th April, 2011. Taking songs from ‘Hunky Dory’ alongside other classics from David Bowie, Sharleen will be joined by Ian McCulloch, Kate Nash, Steve Mason, Kid Adrift, the hotly tipped Ramona and other special guests. With so many great tunes to choose from there are sure to be debates about what Sharleen’s supergroup should play.

Sharleen said of this unique and very special night:
“There are few artists that have repeatedly changed the musical landscape but David Bowie is one of them. ‘Hunky Dory’ was really where the Bowie story begins, where he started to become the global artist that we know today. Aside from the incredible singles in ‘Changes’ and ‘Life On Mars’ the album boasts ‘Oh You Pretty Things’ and ‘Kooks’ although every track is a classic in its own right. This is the album that led to ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’, that set the tone for glam rock and kick-started a musical revolution that dominated music for most of the 70’s. I am looking forward to working with our special guests in reinterpreting some of the greatest songs ever written for this year’s JD Set in Glasgow.”

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The debate regarding “what Sharleen’s supergroup should play” has kind of been curtailed by the reproduction of the setlist in a photo gallery from rehearsals on the JD site.

Not sure who is doing what on the night, but my money is on Ian McCulloch performing The Prettiest Star seeing as he has already committed that particular song to disc.

Here’s the list for those of you that can’t make out the scrawl above…

Ziggy Stardust
Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide
Changes
Golden Years
The Laughing Gnome
The Prettiest Star
Andy Warhol
Oh! You Pretty Things
Life On Mars?
Queen Bitch
Rebel Rebel
Kooks
I’m Afraid Of Americans
Ashes To Ashes
Always Crashing In The Same Car
Drive-in Saturday

I’m hoping I’ve read The Laughing Gnome wrong and that it’s actually Kingdom Come or something, but seeing as it looks like the start of McCulloch’s set he’s probably mischievous enough to do it.

Oh Lord, Justin, let him see me…

You’re all more than familiar with one of photographer Justin de Villeneuve‘s better known creations, the session he did for Bowie’s Pin Ups cover in 1973, even though history records that the session wasn’t initially for that purpose. Here’s a bit from Justin’s website on the matter…

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The Bowie portrait was taken from a session in Paris at a photographic studio close to the recording studio that David Bowie was using to record his ?Pin Ups? album. I had gone to Paris specifically to photograph Twiggy & Bowie together for Vogue as the first picture of a man and woman featured on the cover.

David loved the picture so much, he asked if it could be used as his next album cover. I asked him how many albums did he think he?d sell? ?At least a million? was the reply. Well, I knew that Vogue would shift at the most 80,000 copies, which would be on the stands for only a month.

It was an easy decision to make: Vogue was furious, but I?d always retained copyright of my own pictures!

A month or so later I was driving along the ?Sunset Strip? in Los Angeles when to my amazement I spotted a 60ft hoarding displaying my photograph as the cover of ?Pin Ups?. (See above) It was worth the fall out with Vogue.

A few people have wondered why I had a make-up artist paint masks on Bowie & Twig?s faces. The reason was that Twiggy and myself had just returned from a tropical island and were as brown as berries. Bowie was his usual Thin White Duke pale as a sheet. The masks balanced the obvious skin colour clash whilst remaining enigmatically strange.

Over the years, many people have assumed that it was Angie, David?s lunatic wife at the time, on the cover with Mr Bowie when it was in fact M?selle Twiggy!

Incidentally, the first Vogue cover portraying a man and a woman (they obviously liked my idea) was published a few months later with Ryan O?Neal and Marisa Berenson!

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Other versions of this story suggest that the Vogue editorial team were actually getting cold feet about using the shot and while they dithered David suggested using it for the album cover…either way, the result was the same.

Check out Justin’s site if you’re interested in buying a print entitled Solo Bowie 1 that he has made.

Justin de Villeneuve: Fashion and Fame
The Fashion and Textile Museum

Exhibition Dates: 18 March – 25 April 2011

Opening hours and bookingEntrance to this exhibition is on selected days only.Please call the FTM on 020 7407 8664 for dates and booking.

You’re face to face, with the The Man Who Fell To Earth’s director…

The BFI in London salutes the work of Nicolas Roeg this month with an exhaustive retrospective at the NFT, which obviously includes screenings of The Man Who Fell To Earth.

The first of these takes place this Sunday (13th) with two further showings on the 22nd and 23rd.

Sadly, it seems the NFT may have underestimated the popularity of this film as it’s being shown in the rather intimate confines of screen 3.

This means that the screening on Tuesday March 22nd, which is being introduced by screenwriter Paul Mayersberg, pretty much sold out the moment it went on sale.

However, without wishing to gloat, if you managed to get a ticket, I’ll see you there.

The director himself has just given an interview to The Guardian, and though there’s little Bowie content in the piece, there is a cracking shot taken on set of Bowie and Roeg.

You can read the interview online here.

Finally, Nicolas Roeg himself will be appearing at the Borderlines film festival in Hereford in the UK on April 5th. That’s the day before the R2 BD release of The Man Who Fell To Earth, (03.07.2011 NEWS: TMWFTE REGION 2 BLU-RAY PUT BACK TO APRIL) but I bet you Roeg forgets to mention it.

I’ve got Friday on my mind…

This won’t be news to any of you that have taken our repeated advice and kept an eye on manmademovies.co.uk for all things Duncan Jones.

But for those of you that didn’t know, Duncan Jones’ second major feature, Source Code, premiers on Friday evening when it kicks off the South By SouthWest festival in Austin, TX, in the USA.

This is ahead of the general release on April 1st, though if you’re in the US there are six private advance screenings between now and then too.

Unkle Rupert over at manmademovies also tells us that Duncan and his good lady, Rodene, are keeping a journal of the promotional tour. Judging by the picture of them above though, it doesn’t look like they’re having very much fun at all.

Check out the Source Code crazy press tour blog here.

Tate Modern Love, gets me to the Turbine Hall on time…

Well that’s the Tate Modern update for Part II of Michael Clark’s new work above, though I’ll be buggered if I can find booking details anywhere on the Tate site just yet…please let us know if you have more luck.

Though part one (08.24.2010 NEWS: CLARK USING BOWIE TUNE FOR MASS DANCE AT TATE MODERN) did use a Bowie tune, It’s No Game (Part 1) in fact, it’s not known what the content might be for the final piece in June…though I guess It’s No Game (Part 2) would be the logical choice. In other words, don’t expect that!

Meanwhile, the quite brilliant come, been and gone is scheduled for five more European dates in April…

7, 8, 9 April – Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland
14, 15 April – Schauspiel Köln, Germany

And there are more performance dates to be announced soon, according to the Michael Clark Company diary page.

Not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do…

Aside from the rubbing-your-nose-in-it nature of this feature in the current NME, (March 12) this list of the 100 GIGS YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT is obviously pretty impressive.

Perhaps a little predictably though, Ziggy‘s last stand at Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd 1973 is the Bowie show the magazine has chosen for this list. Here’s the entry…

The thing is, I can probably think of 100 Bowie shows alone that I wish I had been at…but what to do? You’re born when you’re born, kidz.