Month: July 2001

Don’t forget that in just a few hours (5PM EST), Saint Alphonzo will host Name That Tune – Anything Goes! in the BowieNet Chatroom. Join us for some good lyrical fun and for a chance to win an autographed poster or CD!

A variation on the usual game, Name That Tune – Anything Goes! will call for even more player involvement. Click here to see an overview of the rules!

Zoë Mendelson opens 16 July and runs till 10 August 2001
Series runs till November 2001
Tardis Studios, 52-56 Turnmill Street, London, EC1

Zoë Mendelson is the second artist to exhibit at the Tardis as part of Bowieart.com?s Window Pain Project. Zoë will utilise the space as a window; maintaining its original function rather than investing in it purely as an exhibition space. In so doing the artist brings into question notions of the urban landscape and voyeurism. Using the sexualised imagery that surrounds us daily, Zoë Mendelson creates a form of sexual window-shopping for Middle England.

Continuing themes from previous works where the artist seduces the viewer through beautifully rendered feminine imagery, the work at the Tardis will draw passers-by into the space through the installations attractiveness and charmingly crafted adornment. At first glance tasteful and respectful, Zoë?s work is a fantastical daydream inhabited by young girls bound by marvellous flora and ornamentation. However, idealised examples of innocence and beauty are not of interest to the artist and the imagery soon exposes itself as being politely and subtly soiled; with closer inspection one discovers that the work is hiding a rather more disturbing content.

As if they have the just walked out of a Country Life advertisement young women posing in an homely environment will inhabit the window on Turnmill Street. Prudish Victoriana surroundings envelop our heroines who smile out at our urban world on the street. The women and the decorative ornamentation that surrounds them both act to seduce the viewer, yet take a peek inside their world and the household possessions also appear to be seducing the women. The domestic bliss is shattered by the women?s sexual encounters with the objects that now seem to be sold to us as deviant toys.

After the initial sweetness this elaborate and fantastical installation will leave you with a bitter aftertaste which questions where the female body begins and fantasy takes over.

Zoë Mendelson graduated from The Royal College of Art last year; she has recently exhibited at Snow Gallery, and has also shown at the Proud Galleries, The Lux and Assembly, Stepney City.

You can call him Joe…

The July edition of Classic Rock has a feature about the ‘Cybernauts Live’ CD that we mentioned in our news item and interview with Joe Elliot on Monday. ((07/09/01 NEWS: EXCLUSIVE – JOE ELLIOTT SPEAKS TO BOWIENET) )

The article is accompanied by two interesting photographs. One is a live shot of Ziggy and The Spiders from 1973, and the other is of Joe and Phil Collen in a Bowie/Ronson type pose…you know the one, where David goes down…Oh I don’t have to explain, you know what I mean.

Today’s UK Sunday Times (Culture) has selected not just All Saints but also Christiane F for Record(s) Of The Week! Only six of each week’s new pop releases are chosen for review, along with one stand out album which takes the hallowed “Record Of the Week” spot on the far left of the “On Record” page. The reviewer obviously couldn’t choose between David’s two latest releases, so the section covers both albums.

The former (All Saints) draws mainly, the latter (Christiane F) exclusively, from the late 1970s, arguably Bowie’s creative peak- and the time when he showed an unerring ability to pick the right collaborators. In 1977, he chose his best-ever team: the producer Tony Visconti, reinventing the sound of a drum kit; Brian Eno; the ultra-funky rhythm section of Dennis Davis, George Murray and Carlos Alomar; and occasional guest appearances by prog-guitar-god Robert Fripp.

On All Saints : These (tracks from The Buddha Of Suburbia and ‘hours…’) fit perfectly with their more revered predecessors, making an album that has its own coherence.

It (Christiane F) will appeal because, combining as it does the sashaying funk of Stay and Station to Station with the art-pop of TVC 15 and Boys Keep Swinging, it may just be the ideal Euro-Bowie CD for the car.

The full review is also available online. Click here to read it all.

:))

Joe is awful strong, bet your life he’s putting us on…

As you know, the ‘Cybernauts Live’, album that we mentioned as far back as November last year (11/21/00 NEWS: CYBERNAUTS ARE COMING and 01/16/01 NEWS: CYBERNAUTS LIVE CD OUT NOW) is now available to buy online and very good it is too. I had the good fortune to catch Joe and the boys at both Mick Ronson memorial shows, and I have to say they were easily the best thing on the bill, in both London and Hull.

The 18-track ‘Cybernauts Live’ (16 of the tracks are Bowie songs) has managed to capture the excitement of the band in full flight. Check it out, even if Def Leppard don’t occupy the larger part of your record collection, you will be very pleasantly surprised. As if this wasn’t enough to tempt you, a bonus 7-track CD including six Bowie songs and Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Manic Depression’ is included in the bargain price of £17.99

Joe has now very kindly taken time out of his busy schedule as Def Leppard front-man to chat to me about the impact the music of David Bowie has had on his life and how that fandom reached its logical conclusion with Cybernauts. And so without further ado, I give you The Joe Elliott Interview.

Bowie style : Associated press : 6/25/01 On Milan spring/summer 2002 menswear collection. Rock star David Bowie look-alikes showed off the new Versace style made up of pastel-colored silk brocade suits with tight jackets and flared trousers, worn with sheer silk embroidered T-shirts, matching lace-up shoes, and a sash – sure to be the hot accessory item for next season.

and : Corriere della Sera : 6/24/01 “Bowie e Rocky ispirano la moda uomo. Il cantante nei sogni di Versace. Il pugile nella fantasia di Dolce & Gabbana” (Bowie and Rocky are the inspirations of the male fashion. The singer is in the dreams of Versace. The boxer in the imagination of Dolce & Gabbana) In the article it is said that even if Elton John and Ron Wood were the only rockstars at Versace defilè, the real guest has been David Bowie, whose look has been the inspiration of the new Versace collection.

David Bowie : Sunday Times : 07/01/01 From an interview with Prefab Sprout whose new album is produced by Tony Visconti. “He called Young Americans his ‘plastic soul album’; well this is my ‘plastic country album’.” “McAloon talks in awe of Visconti’s tales of Bowie turning up at the studio mid-afternoon, announcing that he had to leave for the theatre by 6pm, and bashing through two or three songs before the limo came to pick him up.”

Ziggy : Q : August 2001 From a letter taking issue with an article in July’s Q, entitled “Why Is Pop So Gay?”. “You seem to forget that….the gay movement is inseparable from the rise of rock ‘n’ roll. Where would rock culture be without Ziggy Stardust?”

Man Who Fell To Earth : Telegraph : 06/30/01 From an interview with Perry Farrell – former frontman with Jane’s Addiction. With his startling facial features (elfin jawline, hooked nose, satellite-dish eyes) and his outlandish garb (skinny-rib orange T-shirt, purple shades), he’s every inch the Bowie-style “Man Who Fell to Earth”, a rock star-cum-space cadet.

(contributors : queen janine, pozie, velvet goldmine, spaceface)

:))

Something getting hard when you rock it up…

The BBC’s Radio Two have a preview of the upcoming two-parter: ‘The History Of The Marquee Club’. Scheduled for the 14th and the 21st of July, the rocumentary features contributions from many of those who played there, including David Bowie, Charlie Watts, John Mayall, Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Peter Frampton, Brian May of Queen, Bob Geldof, Manfred Mann, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, Marianne Faithfull, Rick and Francis from Status Quo and the club founders Harold Pendleton and Chris Barber.

Go here for a bit of David’s fascinating contribution from where I have lifted the priceless snippet below:

?There were a lot of clubs to go to in the Soho scene in the 60?s but The Marquee was top of the list, because musicians did hang out there, pretending to talk business and picking up gigs – but picking up girls mostly. One of my keenest memories of The Marquee in the ?60?s was having a permanent erection because there were so many fantastic looking girls in there, it was all tourists, especially in summer, all flocking to London to get an R&B star.?

We will be posting a piece with, hopefully, some unpublished pictures nearer the broadcast of the first part of ‘The History Of The Marquee Club’.

In a Guardian interview last week to promote his new self-produced album Move Me, Midge Ure discussed his influences and in particular, production techniques which have inspired him.

It soon becomes clear that Ure is inspired by production as much as anything in music – Bowie‘s 1977 album Low is a case in point. “When I first heard Sound and Vision, I remember having never heard anything quite like the drums – they sounded like they had been recorded on dodgy 1960s technology. Bowie had put this thing called a harmoniser on the drumkit, which nobody had ever done before, and tuned the drums into the harmoniser to make this funny snare sound. That mixed with Brian Eno’s synthesisers – and Bowie‘s hundreds of telexes to the producer Tony Visconti saying how the album should be mixed – created this groundbreaking piece of music, in the year that the Sex Pistols were knocking down dinosaurs everywhere.”

Click here to read it all.

:))

The July issue of Record Collector, magazine has a round up of current and future Bowie projects, with nothing much to add to BowieNetter’s knowledge of what’s going on in the world of DB product.

However, they do use a small but perfectly formed live shot of Ziggy strutting his stuff in ’72 to accompany the piece. For copyright reasons I can’t post it here, but I just bet some naughty tinker posts it on the MBs!

Anyone remember “I’m Too Sexy”? Yeah, it was the early Ninties. A band called Right Said Fred. Errr…. you don’t remember? Well you guys being you, I’m sure you’ll remember a bassist looking like a dodgy porn producer in the video for “Blue Jean” then. That was Richard Fairbrass of Right Said Fred. They’re back now with a hit called “I’m Your Mate” here in Central Europe. I talked to Richard earlier this afternoon. And of course I also asked him about working with David. Check out the audio clips below!

Clip 1

Clip 2