Month: August 2011

And there’s blood on my nose…

The image above is the third of several that you will need to identify from The Man Who Fell To Earth to be in with a chance of winning a 40″ x 27″, specially-commissioned, Keiko Kimura-designed, limited edition poster that we told you all about over the lasst couple of months. (07.30.2011 NEWS: TMWFTE LIMITED EDITION POSTER CONTEST PLUS MORE DATES + 08.07.2011 NEWS: THOSE TMWFTE DATES KEEP COMING PLUS PART 2 OF CONTEST)

You must be getting the hang of this now…not that there’s much to get the hang of…see aforementioned news stories if you’re feeling a little bewildered though.

As usual, here’s the updated schedule with even more dates…

Stay tuned for the fourth part of the contest and remember, you won’t need to do anything until we’ve posted all of the images.

And if the homework brings you down…

Happy 11th birthday to you, Alexandria Zahra Jones, wishing you many happy returns of the day from everybody here at DavidBowie.com.

Hope you’re have a wonderful day, Lexi, and that you’re placing extra special demands on mum and dad.

Here in the UK, you’d be moving up to secondary or high school when you go back next month. Not sure if that’s the same for you, but I thought I’d help ease you in to the more serious level of maths that you will be facing.

Above is an animation of the number 11 appropriately enough. All you have to do is count how many times the number 11 appears before you get to the stop sign.

You can restart the animation by refreshing the screen at any point. You can find the answer below, but no peeking!

Did we catch you out? Get used to it…those high school teachers are always getting up to sneaky stuff to try and trip you up. If we didn’t catch you out, don’t blame me…it was your dad’s daft idea…a bit.

I bought you a pair of shoes, A trumpet you can blow, And a book of rules…

You may have already seen this one via a Google alert, as the online version went live last night.

It’s a front cover and 4-page interview with Duncan Jones by Martyn Palmer for today’s Mail On Sunday Live magazine.

The piece appears on the eve of the Blu-ray/DVD release of Source Code. (06.18.2011 NEWS: SOURCE CODE BDs AND DVDs DUE IN JULY AND AUGUST)

However, the bulk of the interview is taken up with Duncan’s recollections of his childhood backstage and on set and with his relationship with his father.

It’s a touching piece and his obvious affection for his dad and appreciation of the life lessons he learned at an early age come across very strongly.

You can read the full thing online here. But, you have to admit, you’re going to want to get your hands on the hard copy when it features a cover as cool as that above.

I’ve got more friends than I’ve had hot dinners…

Great little spread in the Observer Food Monthly today…and I’m not talking particularly about Ziggy and Ronno’s British Rail nosh on an Aberdeen bound train in May 1973.

I’m sure you’re all more than familiar with this classic Mick Rock shot, which he elaborates on to Euan Ferguson, long distance from Staten Island.

Here’s the last couple of paragraphs from the article…

Stay tuned for your chance to win a Mick Rock Bowie tins that we told you about recently. (08.06.2011 NEWS: MICK ROCK BOWIE BOOK AND STARMAN RED VINYL 45 IN A TIN!)

Speaking of the Sunday supplements…

Three, Two, One, Lift Off…

It is with much pleasure that we can exclusively reveal Pete McKee‘s latest portrayal of David Bowie, which is entitled: Three Minutes to Lift Off Mr Stardust.

The painting is one of many illustrating pivotal events in the history of recorded music that Pete has made for his upcoming

Great Moments in Popular Music exhibition.

I’m sure you’ve all realised that the ‘great moment’ depicted above is of David Bowie and Trevor Bolder (remaining Spiders just out of view) about to create the first tremors of a national youthquake in the UK, with the televisual debut of Starman on Lift Off With Ayshea on June 21st, 1972.

You can read Marc Riley’s account of this life-changing moment and view another of Pete’s Bowie paintings in this BowieNet story from last year: 09.12.2010 NEWS: MARC RILEY PAINTS BOWIE FOR COVER VERSION EXHIBITION

Of course, the full effect of this eruption would be complete a couple of weeks later on July 6th with another broadcast of Starman reaching a wider audience on Top Of The Pops.

For those that haven’t already gleaned the information from the advert above, the exhibition opens at Snap Galleries in London next month.

Get more information at the Snap Galleries site. While you’re there, check out a great feature on artist Morgan Howell, with an introduction to his wonderful paintings of iconic 45s, which we have featured on these pages more than once or twice.

Ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes, Coveting Bowie’s back catalogue…

This sounds impressively ambitious, a whole bunch of musical type Bowie fans carving up the Bowie back catalogue to perform the songs live from 2:00pm on Sunday, August 21st, under the shared umbrella of Love You Till Sunday.

In fact, around twenty artists will perform a collective tribute to David Bowie, consisting of approximately forty Bowie tunes, presumably played at breakneck speed to fit ’em all in!

Still, if the attention to detail is anything like it is in the above flyer for the event, then a splendid time should be had by all.

For those of you wondering, the flyer is based on the original Dutch Love You Till Tuesday picture sleeve 45 from 1967, below.

You can read more about the event on the Love You Till Sunday facebook page and find out how to get to the venue here on The Railway Hotel site.

I’ll leave you with the line-up and setlist as it stands right now

Dave Dulake: Five Years, The Laughing Gnome, Please Mr Gravedigger
Fi Jacobs: Oh! You Pretty Things, Rubber Band
Rosie Barrett: Let’s Dance, Moonage Daydream
Stefan Redgraves: Scary Monsters, Space Oddity
Paul Hill: Queen Bitch, Suffragette City
Anne Clunn: Life on Mars?, Changes
Andrew Moore: Rebel Rebel, We Are Hungry Men, Modern Love
Tom Burgess: Song For Bob Dylan, All The Young Dudes, Ziggy Stardust
Artgruppe: Kooks, Ashes To Ashes
Duncan Leslie: Cat People, Scream Like A Baby
Dave Woodcock: Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide, There Is A Happy Land
Mark: Sorrow, The Man Who Sold The World, Across The Universe
Phil Burdett & Tom Burgess: Little Drummer Boy.
The Anthony Newley League: Waiting For The Man, White Light White Heat, Hang On To Yourself
Sophie Burrows: Quicksand
Steve Hooker: Cracked Actor, John I’m Only Dancing, Dancing In The Street
Wendy Solomon: Sound And Vision
Jude Dulake: Starman
Ian Elliot: Amazing

If you manage to get along, please do send in your report afterwards…we’ll love you till Tuesday…we might even stretch it till Wednesday.

Keeps his passport clean…

The image above is the second of several images you will need to identify from The Man Who Fell To Earth to be in with a chance of winning one of the very tasty, 40″ x 27″, specially-commissioned, Keiko Kimura-designed, limited edition posters that we told you all about last week. (07.30.2011 NEWS: TMWFTE LIMITED EDITION POSTER CONTEST PLUS MORE DATES)

The poster was created in celebration of the North American theatrical release by Rialto Pictures of a new 35mm print of The Man Who Fell To Earth, with the butchered twenty minutes reinstated to make this the viewing experience Americans should have had thirty five years ago.

Due to unprecedented popular demand, more screenings are being added to the schedule all the time, as you can see from the updated list below…

If you’ve never experienced this masterpiece at a cinema, don’t take our word for how good it is…check out these snippets from the abundance of recent reviews.

Stay tuned for the third part of the contest shortly, but remember, you won’t need to do anything until we’ve posted all of the images you need to identify.

There’s a Starman in a tin in the sky…

In conjunction with EMI and Loud Distribution, Mick Rock will be issuing the above STARMAN tin in a series of four which also includes, Syd Barrett, Iggy Pop and Glam!

The Bowie tin will house a 128-page, 45-sized, book, jam-packed with Mick’s iconic Bowie images from the thirty years between 1972 and 2002, along with a 7″ coloured vinyl 45…as pictured below.

The book features a full introduction, new insights and captions by Mick along with quotations from David, while the images inside are reproduced in stunning high quality from files that have been digitally remastered by Mick.

The exclusive 45 is a translucent red vinyl pressing of Starman/Suffragette City in a picture sleeve, as shown below.

The tins are limited to 5,000 copies and they will be available from September 26th. Here follows details of the 45s contained within the other three boxes…

Iggy Pop tin – Success/The Passenger on blue vinyl
Syd Barrett tin – Octopus/Golden Hair on yellow vinyl
Glam! tin – Virginia Plain/The Numberer by Roxy Music on clear vinyl

Stay tuned for purchase details and hopefully for a contest to win a handful of copies of the Bowie tin signed by Mick Rock.

I’ll leave you with a quotation from Mick regarding Mr B, taken from the promotional blurb…

“I experienced David Bowie above all as a piece of living artwork, constantly modulating and mutating like a series of startling reflections in a cracked mirror.

He was fascinating; Ziggy Stardust was a new breed of rock n roll operative, a rogue hitman with his own agenda, a postmodern heartthrob with destiny on his mind, a dreamer of Dada with glitter in his soul.”

We played Our songs and felt the London sky… It was ragged and naive…

As recommended by Time Out London, Saturday afternoon in London sees the third annual free David Bowie walk in the afternoon and later that same evening Bowie Night at Feeling Gloomy.

Pictured above are Darryl Croft and Andy Warhol about to lead the crowd in to another Bowie tune outside Bowie’s childhood home in Stansfield Road, Brixton at last year’s event.

You can view some of the sing-a-longs from last year here.

There are also pictures from the same event here.

Here’s the official blurb…

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David Bowie Walk Plus Bowie Night At Feeling Gloomy – Saturday 6th August

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah , nah , nah, nahhhh. For those of you with a less than musical ear that was the start of Ziggy Stardust. And the reason for this breaking out of X-Factor levels of singing? Why it’s only the return of the famous Feeling Gloomy Bowie Odyssey!

Join us first off as we set off on a FREE walking tour, taking in some of the sites of Bowie’s early life and finest hours. The tour will take in the house where the Starman was born, the site of the Marquee Club scene of a few of his finest gigs and lots of other interesting spots.

Not only will you learn some fascinating facts about Davie Jones but there will also be an honest-to-goodness Bowie impersonator there singing out some of his greatest hits!

If your poor tootsies aren’t tired enough after that then you can head down to Feeling Gloomy for Bowie night. Let’s dance to some of his greatest tunes, in amongst the normal Gloom, and put on your red shoes to dance the blues as that Bowie impersonator pops up again to serenade you. (Last time ended with a teary and beery Space Oddity).

There will be a prize for the best dressed Bowie. We will more than likely be showing Labyrinth on the screens and we’ll all have a jolly time going home singing the Laughing Gnome.

Feeling Gloomy – David Bowie Walk and Bowie Night
Walk Starts 4:00pm
Trinity Arms, 45 Trinity Gardens, SW9 8DR
FREE
Bookings: 07835 269 366

Bowie Club Night
02 Academy Islington 2
16 Parkfield St, Islington, N1.
Club: £4.50 Adv (plus bkg fee), £6 before 12, £8 after
Tickets / Info: www.FeelingGloomy.com or 0844 477 600 2000
Press enquiries: 07930 414 626

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Spaces for the guided Bowie walk, though free, are very limited and almost all gone.

And I’m certainly not suggesting you just turn up at the meeting point at 4:00pm and just tag along anyway…that would be a bit naughty, bordering on total anarchy.

There are still tickets for the evening’s Bowie bash in Islington where there will be a prize for the best dressed Bowie, Bowie tunes played both live and from disc and a screening of Labyrinth somehow.

We’ll be following up with pictures from both events as soon as we have them.

He’s so Swisher in his cotton and cap…

New York Yankees right fielder***, Nick Swisher, apparently jumped at the chance to record a children’s album for charity and among his personal selections for the project is a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes”.

Released this week, Believe is a 12-track album covering other favourites of Swisher’s and it also features former Yankees center fielder*** Bernie Williams and San Francisco Giants pitcher*** Barry Zito, who both played guitar on the album. 13-year-old granddaughter of Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig was among a group of children who were backup vocalists on each song.

A portion of the proceeds from Believe goes to Swish’s Wishes, the switch hitter’s foundation for children with health issues.

Bowie, himself a Yankees fan, was further complimented by Swisher who said his favourite songs on Believe were the Bowie cover and the title track.

*** Just because I’m a Limey, doesn’t mean I don’t know my positions.