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It can now be confirmed that ‘Blackstar’ is the forthcoming single and album from David Bowie.
Contrary to inaccurate reporting on the sound and content of the album, only the following can be confirmed:
The single will be released on November 20th and is not part of David’s theatre piece ‘Lazarus’.
The album will be released on David’s birthday, January 8th 2016.
#Blackstar #NewBowieAlbum
“I could make it all worthwhile as a Rock&Folk star”
In celebration of the release of David Bowie’s (Five Years 1969 – 1973) box set last month, the November edition of French magazine Rock&Folk, has an interview with super-talented producer/player, Tony Visconti, by Jérôme Soligny.
Obviously the interview is published in French, but Jérôme has kindly provided a portion of it in English exclusively for us. Over to you Jérôme…
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Whenever some big reissue is coming out, my first idea is to talk to the subject of the reissue. In the case of David Bowie, we all know now he won’t talk so we have to come up with something else. Regarding The Five Years boxset, Tony Visconti and Ken Scott are the ones you want to talk to. Having translated Tony’s autobiography in French, and after reading the liner notes of the boxset weeks before it was released, I already knew quite a lot about the making of Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World, two of the albums included in the boxset. Still, I asked Tony if he would answer a few more questions and he kindly agreed. Rock&Folk and I are proud of this as we know Tony didn’t give much interviews this time. I guess, at least for France, it’s an exclusive one! Also, in the same issue (579), Patti Smith, featured on the cover, gave me an exclusive interview. So it’s quite an issue for me !
Here are 5 questions/answers in English taken from Tony’s interview and please note that the first one finally didn’t make the article (for space reason…) so it’s exclusive to BowieNet 😉
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JS: You mention The Beatles in the first lines of the Space Oddity liners notes. Many Bowie fans often wondered how big a Beatles’ fan David was. Was he impressed by Beatles’ songs? Is it something he discussed and did he have a favourite Beatle at the time?
TV: David and I were both Beatles’ fans. Most musicians our age were at the time. We lived in their shadow and always were in awe of them. A topic of discussion would be, “How did they make that sound?” Their song writing influenced all of us, especially coming up with “Beatlesque” chord changes. I know my favourite Beatle was John, and perhaps he was David’s too, after all, he eventually recorded Fame and Across The Universe with him years later. I don’t recall, however, that David said he had a favourite Beatle.
JS: During these few months following the Deram drop, did David show signs of disappointment? Were there times when you saw him close to giving up fighting for his art and music?
TV: After David was dropped from Deram he didn’t stay disappointed for long. He had other things in his life that he was pursuing, like his mime performances with Lindsay Kemp, his Feathers group with Hermione and Hutch and even romance with Hermione herself took up much of his time. I found him very optimistic, actually.
JS: Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World are crucial albums in David Bowie’s development and can be considered as templates to what would happen with his music in the 3/4 years to follow…
TV: They are very important albums. He was simultaneously learning new writing and recording techniques at a very rapid rate. He was forming his very complex style that encompasses many genres. You must remember he already had an earlier education in Musical Theatre (Anthony Newley, Lionel Bart) and Jazz (Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan) and Rhythm and Blues (early Blues everyone his age got in touch with and the earlier Little Richard’s commercial forms of R&B). Eventually he would feel comfortable throwing himself in to great albums that were extremely diverse like Young Americans and Heathen. If you represented David Bowie as a tree trunk you would need to have many limbs and branches growing out of him to display all the styles he has not only mastered but also created, spawning new genres of Pop music.
JS: A lot has been said about Mick Ronson’s contribution to David Bowie’s music during these five years…
TV: The Man Who Sold The World wouldn’t be the great “dark horse” album it is without Mick Ronson. He inspired the rest of us to rock out like we’ve never done before. I think both David and I knew we had to do something more dramatic and powerful for the next album and being introduced to Mick was our good fortune. Mick also introduced us to Woody Woodmansey. We quickly evolved into a power trio with the best lead vocalist in the UK. I know, not many fans agreed with us at the time but that was how we felt. I can’t understand how any Bowie fan would minimalize Mick Ronson’s role for this and the next 3 – 4 albums!
JS: Having been a member of The Hype, the embryo of The Spiders From Mars, is one of the many achievements of your career. How did it feel to recreate this emotion in 2014 (and 2015) when you decided to join with Woody and friends to play The Man Who Sold The World again?
TV: We are currently not playing the album exactly the way it was recorded, note for note. Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17, our vocalist of choice, puts a lot of swagger into these songs, more weight as a mature baritone, unlike the clear sharp tenor of a 23-year old Bowie. I’m really pleased with that, we never tried to come up with a Bowie clone as a singer. Holy Holy is very faithful to the original but we can’t hold back from evolving the songs further. To the credit of our guitarists James Stevenson and Paul Cuddeford, they are both Ronson experts and they have learned most of the solos exactly as Ronson played them on the record. I am so happy to be doing this because it is not just a tribute to a past album! We have played to thousands of Bowie fans who would shout in delight after each song, we have their approval. This was a worry before we played the first show, but with Woody and I in the band, the original drummer and bassist, I think we were expecting a lot of positivity from the audience anyway. For me, I just wanted to know if I still had it in me. I answered that question to myself, I do! The 2014 shows were really, really good. The 2015 shows in the UK and Tokyo, were excellent! As a band we are thrilled to be playing together and we expect to take the show on a tour of Europe and the United States. The Japanese have invited us back.
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Thanks Jérôme and Tony, much appreciated. The November issue of Rock&Folk, which also includes a review of Five Years 1969 – 1973 is out now.
Meanwhile, for the French readers among you, Jérôme has a lengthier review of Five Years 1969 – 1973 on his own site: crueltobekind.fr
#FiveYearsBox #RocknFolk #TonyVisconti #Crueltobekind
“You’re the blessed, we’re the Spiders from Mars”
Today is the 43rd anniversary of a legendary date on Bowie’s first American tour in the autumn/fall of 1972 which produced the first, and one of the most popular live Bowie bootlegs of all time.
October 20 1972 was the first of two Bowie dates at the Civic Auditorium, in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California. The show was broadcast live by local station KMET-FM, and this broadcast became the source of the original bootlegs.
Santa Monica was released officially by EMI thirty six years later in 2008 as Live Santa Monica ’72. It’s a wonderful snapshot of a slightly nervous but confident Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, with a well-honed Spiders From Mars augmented by brilliant new boy, Mike Garson.
As a Bowie fan you probably know the album well, but that’s no reason not to go listen again right now.
#DavidBowieSantaMonica #SantaMonica72 #ZiggyStardust
“Singing old songs we loved”
Pin Ups, David Bowie’s album of 60s cover versions, was released 42 years ago today, and was possibly the last great glam rock album of all time. (Discuss)
Either way, it still sounds amazing and if you’ve not heard it in a while, reacquaint yourself with Pin Ups on Spotify now.
Also, don’t forget the Pin Ups Radio Show (PURS) contest that we told you about last month.
If you’re signed up to the official David Bowie mailing list look out for the contest email tomorrow (Tuesday) for your chance to win a 10″ acetate of PURS, or a 10″ test pressing (TP).
Even if you’re not already subscribed, there’s still time to participate by signing up to the official David Bowie mailing list now.
#PURS #BowiePinUps
“So I said “So long” and I waved “Bye-bye””
As the David Bowie is exhibition at The Australian Centre for the Moving Image enters its final fortnight, there’s still tons more fun to be had with a whole raft of Bowie related events to come.
Not least of all among those events is the Liner Notes focus on the Ziggy Stardust album on Saturday evening:
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015
7:30PM
ACMI CINEMA 2
For regular updates on general Bowie stuff happening down there, don’t forget to bookmark Adam Dean’s very informative BowieDownUnder – The David Bowie Community of Australia and New Zealand.
#BowieACMI #DavidBowieIs #BowieDownUnder #LinerNotesACMI
“Commencing countdown”
As we mentioned last week, after selling out the initial engagement in just three hours, New York Theatre Workshop announced an additional three weeks of performances of LAZARUS by David Bowie and Enda Walsh.
The run will now end on January 17, 2016, and tickets for the additional performances go on sale here from 12:00PM EST today.
#Lazarus #LazarusNYTW #TJNewton #TMWFTE
“In the world of today, for tomorrow’s man”
The advertising strapline ran with the legend: “Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Can Hear It Coming”, which is ironic considering it seems like “HEROES” was only released yesterday, not 38 years ago!
The Bowie/Visconti produced “HEROES” peaked at #3 in the UK album chart in November 1977, a year in which it was also named Album Of The Year in both NME and Melody Maker. No mean feat considering the stiff competition it was up against at the time.
With this in mind, it’s difficult to understand why the title track, released in September 1977, only made it to #24 on the UK single chart, particularly considering how the track has achieved anthem status these days…the 2012 Olympics being the most recent example of its massive popularity.
Anyway, if the album has thus far escaped your ears, prepare yourself for magic.
#BowieHeroes
“Your high class games of sorrow”
Originally released on October 12th 1973, Sorrow was Bowie’s inimitable take on The Merseybeats’ version of the song originally released by The McCoys.
The single reached #3 in the UK, staying in the charts for 15 weeks, and was the perfect taster for Bowie’s upcoming covers album, the too frequently underappreciated, Pin Ups.
Bowie’s version is an exceptional interpretation of a fine song, so successful in its execution that it has become THE definitive version.
Don’t forget the Pin Ups Radio Show with exclusive recollections from Bowie made to promote Pin Ups in 1973.
#DavidBowieSorrow
“You’ve really made the grade”
Forty years ago this very week, (October 11, 1975) David Bowie’s reissued Space Oddity entered the UK singles chart at #23, eventually ascending to the top spot.
Today, the 40th anniversary picture disc of Space Oddity (released worldwide last Friday), has entered the official UK chart at #1. (http://smarturl.it/OCC45sDBoct09)
Thanks to all of you that helped get this record into the UK top 5 for the third time. (It reached #5 in the UK in November 1969)
Official Vinyl Singles Chart Top 40
09 October 2015 – 15 October 2015
#01 Space Oddity
#06 Fame
#38 Young Americans
Don’t forget that the extremely limited Space Oddity 40th Anniversary T-shirt/Pic Disc bundle is available to order here now.
FOOTNOTE: Our montage shows the Yugoslavian 1975 issue top left, the 1975 UK release bottom right and the current UK #1 vinyl single top right.
#DavidBowie #SpaceOddity40 #OCCvinyl45s
“You want more and you want it fast”
LAZARUS WILL EXTEND RUN FOR THREE WEEKS AFTER SELLING OUT INITIAL ENGAGEMENT
MUST END JANUARY 17, 2016
EXTENSION TICKETS ON SALE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14 at 12:00PM EST
After selling out the initial engagement in just three hours, New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) (Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director Jeremy Blocker) has announced an additional three weeks of performances of LAZARUS by David Bowie and Enda Walsh (Once, Tony Award), inspired by the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, and directed by Ivo van Hove (Hedda Gabler, More Stately Mansions, Obie Awards). LAZARUS begins previews on November 18, officially opens December 7, 2015, and will now run through January 17, 2016 at New York Theatre Workshop (79 E. 4th Street New York, NY 10003). Tickets for the additional performances will go on sale beginning Wednesday, October 14 at 12:00PM EST on www.nytw.org or by calling 212-460-5475 (Monday noon-6pm; Tuesday-Sunday noon-curtain time).
Tickets for performances from December 29 through January 17 start at $95. In addition, New York Theatre Workshop will be making $25 CheapTix available for every performance during the December 29 – January 17 extension period via a CheapTix day-of lottery. Additional details about the lottery will be announced at a later date.
The standard performance schedule for the extension is: Tuesday and Wednesday at 7pm, Thursday and Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm and 7pm. Exceptions: Tuesday, January 12 and Wednesday, January 13 will begin at 8pm.
The cast of LAZARUS includes Golden Globe winner and six-time Emmy nominee Michael C. Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, “Dexter”) as Thomas Newton, Tony Award nominee Cristin Milioti (Once) as Elly, and Michael Esper (The Last Ship) as Valentine, as well as Krystina Alabado (American Idiot), Sophia Anne Caruso (The Nether), Nicholas Christopher (Whorl Inside A Loop), Lynn Craig (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Bobby Moreno (Year of the Rooster), Krista Pioppi (Spring Awakening Nat’l Tour), Charlie Pollock (The Wild Party), and Brynn Williams (Bye Bye Birdie).
Following his revelatory production of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, the internationally acclaimed director Ivo van Hove returns to New York Theatre Workshop with LAZARUS. Mr. Walsh makes his return to NYTW after the successful run of Once. LAZARUS features songs specially composed by Mr. Bowie for this production as well as new arrangements of previously recorded songs.
#Lazarus #LazarusNYTW #TJNewton #TMWFTE