Month: June 2014

 

“That rock ‘n’ roll lady takes a space-ship ride”

 

Daphne Guinness and Kevin Armstrong will be guests of Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey for the Holy Holy show at The Garage in London on September 17.

Daphne is an artist, actress, model, designer and singer who has recently recorded with Tony, though Bowie fans may be more familiar with her beautiful face via a photoshoot she did for Vogue Germany (January 2012), which included striking Bowie-flavoured recreations from Aladdin Sane through TJ Newton. (http://smarturl.it/DaphneBowieVogue)

Guitarist Kevin Armstrong worked with David Bowie from 1985-1995 including on Absolute Beginners, the Tin Machine I album and attendant tour, on 1. Outside – co-writing the title track with Bowie – and also as musical director at Live Aid and the Bowie/Jagger version of Dancing In The Street.

Kevin will be reunited on stage with Erdal Kizilcay at The Garage; Kevin and Erdal recorded together with David Bowie on Iggy Pop’s 1986 Blah Blah Blah album. The pair also performed the 1988 version of Look Back In Anger live with David Bowie and Reeves Gabrels at the Dominion Theatre in July 1988, as part of the Intruders At The Palace benefit concert for the ICA.

There will be a further surprise guest appearance at the Garage.

 

For those that haven’t bought tickets already, the Holy Holy tour dates are:

 

Talk

Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey: The Making of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World

September 16 ICA London – http://smarturl.it/TVandWWtalkICA

 

Gigs

September 17 London – SOLD OUT!

September 18 Sheffield – http://smarturl.it/SheffieldTMWSTWtix

September 20 Glasgow – http://smarturl.it/GlasgowTMWSTWtix

September 22 London, with Marc Almond – http://smarturl.it/London2TMWSTWtix

 

Holy Holy will release their debut limited edition double A side picture disc single on September 15: We Are King / Holy Holy, via Maniac Squat Records.

 

Colour photo by Mark Wardel – Mono photo by Bryan Adams. 

 

“Get me to The Doctor”

 

According to The Sunday Express, Peter Capaldi’s take on Dr Who has a bit of a Bowie influence. Here’s a bit from the online version.

 

 

The Thin White Doc: New Doctor Who based on David Bowie

 

EVERY new Doctor Who puts a unique spin on the character – and Peter Capaldi is no exception.

By: Jaymi McCann – Published: Sun, June 29, 2014

 

David Bowie has inspired Peter Capaldi’s version of the inconic Time Lord [BBC/PH]

The 55-year-old took inspiration from music legend David Bowie when embarking on his tenure as the 12th incarnation of the Time Lord.

His sleek costume was praised when it was previewed in January but the decision to include a buttoned-up white shirt was inspired by Bowie, according to insiders.

The singer sported a similar look as the Thin White Duke, his persona on the Station To Station album cover and in the film The Man Who Fell To Earth.

The source said Capaldi had decided Bowie was the ideal template for his Doctor: “He explained he drew inspiration for his Doctor Who look from his ‘scrapbook of ideas’. He thought Bowie was the perfect look.”

It was no secret that Peter was a Ziggy Stardust fan, and the actor revealed last year he attended three out of four Bowie concerts as a young fan in Glasgow, missing the last one only because he couldn’t afford it.

 

 

The first episode of the new series airs on August 23 on BBC One.

Our insert picture of David Bowie is the buttoned-up TJ Newton, showing off his sonic screwdriver on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth.

Original picture of Bowie taken by Geoff MacCormack in 1975. View this and many other of Geoff’s incredible Bowie pictures in Genesis Publications’ brilliant STATION to STATION – Travels with Bowie 1973 -1976.

 

“Memory Of A Meltdown Festival”

 

Hard to imagine that it was exactly twelve years ago this very night that David Bowie closed the tenth Meltdown Festival (which he also curated), with an evening called The New Heathens at The Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank.

Performing both 1977’s Low album and the new release Heathen, he hadn’t gigged at the venue for thirty years, when he played the Save The Whale benefit on July 8 1972. His guest that night was Lou Reed.

For the 2002 show, Bowie and band played to a highly appreciative audience of fans and celebrities and this festival finale was considered the highlight of the whole two-week run,.

Aside from Low and Heathen, the five-song encore included a version of The Velvet Underground’s White Light, White Heat performed with support, The Dandy Warhols, in a nod to that 1972 performance with Lou Reed.

David is pictured here at rehearsals at the venue earlier the same day.

(Scroll the images here for pictures from the show and the aftershow)

 

Canadian newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen, has just posted an apology to David Bowie regarding the removal of Chris Hadfield’s Space Oddity on YouTube.

 

Here follows that apology in full.

 

 

Apology to David Bowie

 

On May 16, 2014, The Ottawa Citizen published a prominent commentary piece written by Blayne Haggart on our op-ed page that David Bowie was responsible for the removal from YouTube of astronaut Chris Hadfield’s video version of “Space Oddity” which was viewed over 22 million times. The commentary erroneously claimed that Mr. Bowie refused to renew a one-year license previously granted to Commander Hadfield, ultimately forcing the video to be removed from worldwide distribution.

 

That was incorrect. Subsequent to running this piece, we were informed by Mr. Bowie of the following facts: In April of 2013, while Commander Hadfield was still in space, his people contacted Mr. Bowie to seek permission to make the video.

 

They were informed that while Mr. Bowie would give his full support to the use of the song by Commander Hadfield, Space Oddity was the only one of more than 300 songs he has written and recorded for which he did not own or control the copyright. Mr. Bowie offered to have his people call the publisher and convey his strong support, but he had no ability to personally dictate any of the terms of the license or even require the publishers to issue one.

 

Immediately thereafter, Mr. Bowie made contact with the publisher of the composition expressing his wish that they allow Commander Hadfield the right to record and synchronize his recording to the video he was proposing to make. Mr. Bowie strongly suggested that the license be immediately issued at no charge and that the creation of this video had his enthusiastic support.

 

One year later, the Citizen erroneously published that Mr. Bowie had granted the original license but failed to renew the license after one year. The commentary published by the Citizen also erroneously implied that Mr. Bowie was the reason the video had to be removed from YouTube and questioned how his actions could have “made the world a better place.” The article caused an immediate reaction by thousands of fans worldwide, and this incorrect information was picked up by hundreds of other news sources around the world.

 

On behalf of Blayne Haggart and ourselves, we regret the error and we sincerely apologize to Mr. Bowie as well as all his fans around the world.

 

The Ottawa Citizen, June 24, 2014

 

 

View the online version here. 

 

“Divine symmetry”

 

Around about exactly fourteen years ago tonight, thousands of peoploids were marvelling at David Bowie’s triumphant return to Glastonbury after an absence of a mere twenty nine years.

In our pictures (which are only separated by around two hours) you can see that he sported a similar hairdo to his June 23 1971 appearance.

Though it has to be said the Alexander McQueen coat probably cost a few bob more than the ‘magic cloak’ he wore for his first visit. (Scroll images for comparison)

This set was witnessed by considerably more people in 2000 than in 1971 and didn’t every one of us have a blast?!

 

“Somebody plays my song in tune”

 

Extraordinary amount of press covering the current run of David Bowie is in Berlin. Pictured here are a few of the front covers, and as you’ve no doubt noticed our headline is the translation of the zittyBERLIN exclamation.

An interesting item came with the May issue of German Rolling Stone (http://smarturl.it/GermanRS) in the shape of a cover-mount CD accompanying the 8-page feature inside..

The CD features ten exclusive Bowie covers and very good it is too. Here’s the tracklisting…

 

DAVID BOWIE – RECOVERED

 

01 – Lambert – Art Decade

02 – King Khan & The Shrines – Suffragette City

03 – Chuckamuck – Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide

04 – Erfolg – Fame

05 – Phia & Josh – As The World Falls Down

06 – Brace / Choir – Candidate (Demo Versions)

07 – Kool Thing – Station To Station

08 – Emika – Let’s Dance (Shoklee-Emikaized Version)

09 – Andrea Schroeder – “Helden” (Radio Edit)

10 – Mary Ocher – Where Are We Now?

 

We had the good fortune to attend the Berliner Festspiele Bowie Day last weekend, during which the majority of the bands on the CD performed at the evening gala on Sunday.

Below is the full line up of the presentation with bands marked thus* that played at the gala, but sadly weren’t on the CD.

 

Chuckamuck – Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide

Kool Thing – Station To Station

Auf – “Helden”

Lambert – Art Decade

 

Fashion show from the participants of the workshop “MGB Impuls²” of the Martin-Gropius-Bau.

 

Gemma Ray – The Man Who Sold The World *

Black Cracker – Changes *

Erfolg – Fame

 

Short video clip compilation of the social media action “Cover your favourite David Bowie song” View the full length videos here.

 

Mary Ocher – Where Are We Now?

Emika – Let’s Dance

Jemek Jemowit – DJ *

 

The ten artists played to a very appreciative audience and generally tried a different approach to the Bowie songs than you might expect.

We hope to bring you a more in-depth report with pictures shortly.

 

“Mars happy nation”

 

David Bowie’s Life On Mars? 45 was released forty one years ago yesterday in the UK. The 40th anniversary picture disc was released a year ago tomorrow.

The track was taken from the 1971 album, Hunky Dory, but was released as a single in 1973 in the UK to capitalise on its popularity as a live number during the Aladdin Sane Tour of the same year. It reached #3 on the UK singles chart.

In an article that accompanied the June 2008 issue of The Mail on Sunday’s free cover-mount CD, iSELECTBOWIE, Bowie described the creation of the song:

 

“This song was so easy. Being young was easy. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. ‘Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap’. An anomic (not a ‘gnomic’) heroine. Middle class ecstasy. I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn’t get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road.

 

Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain priced art nouveau screen (‘William Morris’ so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon. Nice. Rick Wakeman came over a couple of weeks later and embellished the piano part and guitarist Mick Ronson created one of his first and best string parts for this song which now has become something of a fixture in my live shows.”

 

Mick Rock shot the iconic and quite beautiful video for the original single release. View it here.

 

“It’s a dog’s tomorrow”

 

Forty years ago today, David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs 45 entered the UK singles chart at #37 (eventually climbing to #21), to give him his eleventh Top 30 hit to that date. (Those eleven hits included seven which made the Top 10.)

So that’s pretty good timing to remind you of tomorrow’s very tasty limited edition 7″ picture disc release of the 40th anniversary issue of Diamond Dogs. (Regional variations apply)

See the original news item and press release here.

 

FOOTNOTE: For those of you that don’t recognise today’s lyric quotation, it’s from I Pray, Olé, a bonus track on the 1991 Rykodisc reissue of Lodger.

 

“You got me spinning, baby”

 

September 22nd sees the release of another very special limited DAVID BOWIE 7″ picture disc release, the 40th anniversary edition of ‘KNOCK ON WOOD (LIVE) / ROCK ‘N’ ROLL WITH ME (LIVE)’

Originally released in Autumn 1974 and taken from DAVID LIVE, these two 2005 mixes by Tony Visconti are making their vinyl debut. The original DAVID LIVE single mix of KNOCK ON WOOD was a UK top 10, however the US went with ROCK ‘N’ ROLL WITH ME also from DAVID LIVE in response to Donovan’s recent cover version there.

 

DAVID BOWIE – KNOCK ON WOOD (LIVE) / ROCK ‘N’ ROLL WITH ME (LIVE) LIMITED EDITION 40th ANNIVERSARY 7″ PICTURE DISC.

 

A-Side Knock On Wood (David Live – 2005 Mix)

(Steve Cropper/Eddie Floyd)

Produced & mixed by Tony Visconti

Recorded live at Tower Theater, Philadelphia, July 1974

 

AA – Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me (David Live – 2005 Mix)

Produced & mixed by Tony Visconti

Recorded live at Tower Theater, Philadelphia, July 1974

Catalogue Number DBKOW40

 

The images used on this release are both live photographs from the 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour. The A-side is a delicious shot which was used for the picture sleeve of the original French release, whilst the AA-side features a rarely seen live image.

 

KNOCK ON WOOD (LIVE) / ROCK ‘N’ ROLL WITH ME (LIVE) is released on Parlophone September 22nd 2014.

 

 

“It was ragged and naïve, It was Heaven”

 

The headline says it, but here’s a bit of background from the folks at PopUp Chorus℠.

 

Recorded on Monday, June 2, 2014 at DSI Comedy Theatre in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At each PopUp Chorus℠ event, we invite everybody and their brother to come out and sing two themed songs. Friends and strangers show up to join this random gathering we call PopUp Chorus℠. There’s no audition, no weekly commitment and no prior experience necessary to participate. Each song is rehearsed for about 45 minutes before we film and record. This is truly a chorus for everybody that embraces the idea that something does not have to be perfect to be beautiful.

PopUp Chorus℠ is brought to you by Community Chorus Project, owned and founded by arts adventurer, Lauren Bromley Hodge and is the joint brainchild of conductor Seamus Kenney and Arts Organizer Lauren Bromley Hodge.

All songs are recorded and engineered by Al Wodarski and Mastered by Matt Molchany for Feater and Tape Studios. Dave Yarwood accompanies the chorus on acoustic guitar, with Noah Goyette on drums and percussion for certain songs.

Videos filmed and edited by Michael Lucas

 

Go watch the video and read more about this charming outfit, here.