Month: December 2000

Here are the remaining three segments of Emmanouil’s interview with Gail Ann Dorsey! Thanks again to Emmanouil “the Troll” for this excellent interview!

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Thanks, Emmanouil!

Who’ll love a lad from Spain?

El Ves, the Mexican Elvis Presley, and lover of Capricorns (those born on January 8th particularly), has a new album aimed at the Christmas market released on Alan McGee’s new Poptones label this week. But, as charming as the release is, the mad Mexican’s previous Poptones’ album, ‘Pure Aztec Gold’, is possibly of more interest to you people. Go here for more.

Total Blam Blam (European Correspondent)

BowieNutter Emmanouil, who is the Program Director for WRGM (George Washington University Radio) had the privilege of interviewing our dear Gail Ann Dorsey on his radio show last month. He has been kind enough to share this interview with us – way to go, Troll! Here are the first three parts, more to follow tomorrow:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Thanks, Emmanouil!

Take a look over at Bowieart, and you will see that David and the other judges have chosen some of their favourite submissions. You are invited to send in your comments on their choices, and the best of these will be published at Bowieart.

The winner, who will have his or her art work made into a limited edition print, will be announced next week.

Go and check them out!

Thanks, Spaceface!

The readers of the monthly publication Alternative Press have voted David Bowie as the first inductee into their “Hall Of Fame” during their year-end Readers Poll Awards. David had the following response:

“I write songs and make records. I love my wife, my children, my family, my friends and those who I work with. I’ve virtually done everything I’ve dreamt of doing. On occasion people have said extremely nice things about what I do. And now I get voted into your ‘Hall Of Fame’. What an extraordinarily lucky fellow I am. Thank you.”

– David Bowie, December 2000

Check out the February 2001 issue (on stands January 4th) for more Readers’ Poll results, or log on to www.altpress.com

I’m the space invader…you’re squawking like a pink monkey bird…

Well, perhaps this one wasn’t quite as easy as I thought, it’s always easier when you know…he crassly stated. Lots of wrong answers early on prompted me to post another clue, which seemed to do the trick. Perhaps Space Invaders (the popular arcade game of the early Eighties) wasn’t quite as popular outside of the UK. The idea was that you would recognise the clever clue above as a screen grab from the game. The invaders themselves were Bowie heads. The dates in the scores were 1972 and 2002, the release of ‘Ziggy Stardust’, and the thirty-year celebration date of Ziggy, the album the song ‘Moonage Daydream’ came from.

The second clue (click on the picture above if you really want to see it again) was a comic reference to ‘pink monkey bird’. Again the term ‘bird’ may have been a little too colloquial, but this clue certainly translated into an influx of correct answers. One of those correct answers was sent to me by the technological wonder that is The Random Selector.

As this is the last competition before Christmas, changescat@davidbowie.com (Catharine Chen) gets to choose the prize of her choice, from this list. Your choice will be winging its way to you as soon as you have furnished me with your real world address Catharine.

Go here for this month’s competition picture that was chosen purely for its very vague Christmas connection.

Total Blam Blam (European Correspondent)

Q is out of sight and out of sounds…

…It’s not actually out of sounds, in that Q has a free CD this month (January 2001) but what other lyric would have worked? OK, OK…That’s not an invitation* (Go to end of report on pop-up page). While the CD alone is worth the cover price, (a best of the year affair with the likes of U2, The Dandy Warhols, Badly Drawn Boy, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Grandaddy and ten others) it is the best of the year section inside the magazine that is of most interest here.

Total Blam Blam (European Correspondent)

Grandaddy talked to Radio 1 before their show at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire last week. Jim said David was very vocal in his encouragement at their recent New York gig.

Go here for the snippet.

Thanks, Spaceface!

…Lennon’s on sale again

The MOJO John Lennon special, (that I think we may have already mentioned in these pages?) is the excellent follow-up to the Bob Dylan special, also produced by MOJO, and it is in the shops now. This 148 page silver-embossed beauty is available for £4:99 in a numbered limited edition of 89,000, a tradition possibly started with The Beatles (The White Album) ironically enough, but probably not.

MOJO Lennon features: “Many previously unseen pictures from every part of John’s career…Countless new insights from friends, musicians and associates…A who’s who of all the important people in John’s life. (Including Bowie) …A track by track guide to every solo Lennon song…40 fans from David Bowie to Paul McCartney, Tina Turner to Liam Gallagher, celebrating their favourite Lennon songs.”

The song that David chose in the ‘My favourite Lennon’ section was ‘I Am The Walrus’, and this is what he had to say about The Beatles’ classic: “I Am The Walrus’s ‘otherness’ was transporting in a way that nothing before it had even approached. A one-way ticket to ride out of Bromley.”

Oompa, oompa, stick it up yer jumper!

Total Blam Blam (European Correspondent)

Last week’s ‘Culture’ section of The Sunday Times ran a full page feature about Christmas songs. The story line was that there are some artists who have taken on the challenge of creating a cool Christmas song and succeeded. They cite the ‘Its A Cool Cool Christmas’ album which Blam wrote about recently, saying “its a fine fine album”.

The article opens with a long analysis of David’s duet with Bing Crosby, Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy. Mark Edwards had this to say about it:-

The version of Little Drummer Boy by David Bowie and Bing Crosby is actually rather beautiful. There are those among you who found the whole idea ridiculous: Bowie – at the height of his brutal, avant-guarde European phase – standing there, next to Crosby, who was clearly wondering what happened to the days when he could duet with Frank or Nat or Perry.

But for those of you who are able to stand back for a moment from the initial apparent absurdity of the duet, and acknowledge that, once he warms up, Bowie actually gives a rather fine vocal performance, that in fact their voices merge surprisingly well, that the mixture of under-rehearsed lo-fi and slick light entertainment production has its own charm, that, sadly, the line “Peace On Earth – will it be?” always seems to need to be asked, well, you probably agree with Bing’s summation; “It’s a pretty thing (sic), isn’t it?”

Thanks, Spaceface!