Month: September 2001

Join us for the next installment of BOWIE TRIVA CHAT…The Trivia Frenzy starts Wednesday, September 12th at 5pm EST. We’ll be giving away prizes like Ziggy 2002 autographed/numbered posters, copies of Emm Gryner new CD, T-shirts, CD’s plus lots of bonus points. Special Grand Prize to include actual clothing worn by David! Dry cleaning not included!!Do you know what Bowie album was released on Sept. 12th? Bone up on your Bowie Now! Join us in the Chat Room on Wednesday Night. See you there!

Look out your window I can see his light…

Luke Oxley will be the fourth artist in the Window Pain (sic) Project at the Tardis Studios window space situated at 52-56 Turnmill Street, London, EC1. Taking over from 360 Corp from next Monday the 10th September, Luke’s piece will be on show through till the 5th October 2001.

Luke is exhibiting ‘So Good Looking, The Competition Can?t Stand The Sight Of It’, an installation using ultraviolet light. The text, based on an old advertising slogan, is explained in this excerpt from the press release:

“The text implies the boastful messages offered by commercial companies while at the same time hinting at the more sinister and aggressive implications of advertising. At the same time the use of ultraviolet light alludes to the all-pervading nature of ads as it illuminates the whole work, the space and the viewer of the piece.”

And:

“Oxley playfully and critically re-works the visual and abstract signs that our consumer society bombards us with daily. In so doing he confuses our taught reading of the world and the language and meaning of commercialism, furthermore through exploiting mass production techniques and industrial materials the artist brings into question the status of the art object while distorting ideas of authenticity, simulation, originality and replication.”

“Locating this piece on street level and outside the confines of the gallery further challenges the work as an art object. In spite of this the text evokes the relationship between artists, artwork and viewer, commenting on the ego of the artist and the often-confrontational relationship between the artist and the participating viewer.”

As you all know, Bowieart.com is an art website that utilises the net to provide information and exposure to talented artists at the most important time in their careers. So go check out all of this exciting new talent now.

Though I’ll never fly so high, I’m smiling…

Tune in to BBC Radio 2 this evening at 20:00 (GMT) for the second and final part of The Kids Are All High. In this episode John Peel acknowledges the creative impact of drugs on the Beatles, Bob Marley and Billie Holiday as well as their tragic pull on Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain amongst others.

Again, no reason why you should expect any mention of David Bowie, but the programme does cover the period that David allegedly saw some drugs at somebody else’s house, and it’s always nice to hear John Peel’s voice anyway.

Who’ll love Aladdin Sane…

The latest ABSOLUT VODKA campaign seems to have stirred and even shaken a few of you up…(sorry was determined to crowbar that awful pun in somehow.) Those of you that received an invite to the company’s ‘Celebration of Music and Art from the Golden Age of Vinyl’ party last week, or have seen the full-page adverts in the US press and the back of Rolling Stone magazine, will already be aware of the image above.

Bearing the legend, “ABSOLUT BOWIE – DAVID BOWIE Looking Absolut-ly Fabulous”, the ad is part of the ‘Absolut Album Covers’ campaign which will also be utilising album covers by John Lennon (‘Two Virgins’, rear view thankfully), The Velvet Underground and Judas Priest! All of the ads incorporate the shape of the ABSOLUT VODKA bottle, and in the case of the ‘Aladdin Sane’ version the teardrop on Bowie’s shoulder is replaced by aforementioned shape. Clever eh?

Came to London town…

Occasional sightings of David Bowie in London over the last couple of weeks have been mentioned on the MBs, but have now reached silly proportions with a bit in today’s Daily Mirror. In its surveillance section the paper reports that David Bowie was spotted: “driving past the Houses of Parliament in a metallic blue Ford.” Regular visitors to BWW may recognise this particular ‘story’ posted on September 3rd.

It seems some people see what they want to see. David has not visited London in recent months, and nor does he plan to any time soon.

Put your Rex Ray gun to my head…

As promised yesterday, here’s some more stuff on tonight’s West Coasting event with contact details of each of the three venues:

Gotham (020 7243 0011)
17 Chepstow Corner
Notting Hill
London
W2 4XE

Something (020 7229 9944)
1-3 Chepstow Road
London
W2 5BL

Broadbent (020 7229 8811)
25 Chepstow Corner
Chepstow Place
London
W2 4XE

Visitors can reserve tickets to the event on any of the above numbers.

The launch event will run from 7.00 – 10.00pm tonight, (Thursday 6th September) and takes place in all three venues. The event will introduce artists Susan Freda, Henry Jackson, Rex Ray, Rocky Schenk and Tara Thacker and is in support of The Elton John AIDS Foundation. West Coasting kindly request £25.00 donation per person to attend the event. Tickets can be bought on the door, cash or cheque preferable.

A London boy, oh a London boy…

Lock up your copies of ‘No Pussyfooting’, Rex Ray, the man with an incredible artistic bent, and designer of many David Bowie posters and a couple of CDs, is in London. He is here for a few days to oversee his contribution to an event called West Coasting in London’s Westbourne Grove. The event launch is tomorrow, 6th September at 7pm to 10pm, followed by a live auction of work on display at three different venues within two minutes walking distance of each other. West Coasting will benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

If you would like to attend the event and “Coast The Triangle”, there is a minimum donation per person of £25. Worth the money just to meet Rex Ray in my opinion, and who knows who else may be there? No, not David, before you get the wrong idea, but, you know…other folk. If you would like to lend your support tomorrow, you should be OK to get a ticket on the door, but it may be sensible to call 020 7243 0011 for availability first.

I will post more information, including venue details tomorrow.

Nature Boys keep swinging…

While we’re on the subject of two versions, (see above, and: 08/27/01 NEWS: TWO BOWIE TRACKS ON INTIMACY SOUNDTRACK) you may have noticed a revamped Moulin Rouge soundtrack in your local gramophone recordings outlet. This new version of the CD, (released yesterday here in the UK in what seems to be an attempt to capitalise on the success of the number one single, ‘Lady Marmalade’) now has a different cover (see above) and another version of aforementioned smash hit tacked on the end…that version being the ‘Thunderpuss Radio Mix’ to be precise.

As if this new 16-track re-launch wasn’t enough, there seems to be yet another version circulating, possibly French, that has a ‘Josh G. Abrahams’ mix of the Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor performance of ‘Come What May’ included as a bonus track instead of the ‘Lady Marmalade’ re-mix! There is no change on any of these versions to David’s two versions of ‘Nature Boy’. There are also rumours of a karaoke version of the album to come later in the year! Confused? You am be.

I’ll stay clean tonight…

One week to go before ‘American Dream’ is released on the ‘Training Day’ soundtrack on September 11th via Priority Records (released the following week in the UK on the 17th through Virgin). There will be both a ‘clean’ version (for the more gentle among us) and an ‘explicit lyrics’ version available (for those that enjoy ****ing swearing).

Hear a 30 second preview clip of ‘American Dream’ by P. Diddy and the Bad Boy Family featuring David Bowie, by visiting the Priority Records web site. We are hoping to run some sort of competition to tie in with the release next week. So stay tuned kidz!

In a recent article in The Independent I was quietly thrilled to learn of the return of several classic episodes of The Old Grey Whistle Test, the programme which “will always have a special place in the heart of British music fans, as it was the programme that established serious rock music on our TV screens”, to BBC2 in the UK this autumn. The show will feature many memorable studio performances, including those from David Bowie, Elton John, John Lennon, Patti Smith and Talking Heads.

This story also has an eight page spread in the September 01 edition of Record Collector, which features a black and white screen grab of David and Mick, appearing in the first series on 02/08/72, and captioned : Show includes the classic performance of ‘Five Years’, ‘Queen Bitch’ and ‘Oh You Pretty Things’ taped just two days before the start of the very first Ziggy Stardust UK tour. For the evening transmission, only the first two tracks are aired. There have subsequently been several opportunities to see the recording of ‘Oh You Pretty Things’, but there are still some versions of these tracks which have never been aired.

For those (including me) who have always been puzzled by the origins of the show’s title, Richard Williams (presenter of the first series) gave Record Collector this explanation : “Before a new record is released, a rough mix is played to the grey haired doorman. If he can whistle the tune after hearing it once, it passes ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ and is released.”

The presenter of the second and many subsequent series, and the man whose name is synonymous with the show, and indeed with Rock TV altogether, ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris, has completed his autobiography to co-incide with the 30th anniversary celebrations, and also, his website tells us, with a ‘Whistle Test Week’ on BBC 2, a six part ‘Whistle Test Years’ series on Radio 2 and a double DVD release containing over six hours of sessions, interviews, clips and commentary from the entire 15 year history of the show…

More details as we get them…

:))