Month: March 2003

Perhaps you’re smiling now, smiling through this darkness…

OK – I’ll get this one over quickly without prolonging the agony for you guys that want to rush out and buy the Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars – The Motion Picture, 30th anniversary special edition DVD and double CD, and indeed the numbered red vinyl soundtrack!

We asked you “From which song in the Ziggy Stardust Motion Picture is the silhouette of Ziggy in the image above taken from?”

Well, this certainly seemed to fox a fair few of you. In fact, almost half of you answered incorrectly. The song we were looking for wasn’t Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, as fifty per cent of you guessed, but Time.

Here are the ten winners, the numbers in parenthesis are the corresponding numbers chosen by the random number generator:

DVD winners

(03) Beatgirl18
(09) theodora
(20) sheila.mc
(21) tonyday
(38) wldjareth

CD winners

(01) sandyscandy
(06) byron
(07) thealans
(11) bianca
(12) mrgrinningsoul

Well done folks. Send your real name and address to me at TotalBlamBlam@davidbowie.com and we’ll have those prizes out to you immediately.

Remember, the competition for the ultra rare copy #10 of the limited red vinyl double album soundtrack is open for a whole week from the start of the competition. If you’ve already entered, then you can not try again for the vinyl. Duplicate entries will be disqualified. Problem is, I now need a new question for the continuation of the vinyl competition, having given the answer away above… So here it is:

What were the tracks, (featuring guitarist Jeff Beck) that didn’t make the final cut of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars – The Motion Picture?

This question only applies to those of you that haven’t yet entered the competition at all. Send your answer to me by clicking here. Remember, you must enter using your BowieNet e-mail account, or you must at least provide your BowieNet user name.

The correct answers I have already recieved for the vinyl (ie, those of you that said Time) will be held over for the draw this time next week.

This competition did throw up the question of whether members would prefer a simple names out of a hat system to this kind of contest. I’m grateful to report that I think you’ve given me the thumbs up to continue how I have been running these things for the past fifty years… and I thank you for that.

As I post this item, the results of BowieNetter Angelnr12’s poll seem to echo this sentiment. The “Competition” option has outnumbered the “Just pick a name outta the hat!” option by two to one… but having said that, it’s pretty much neck and neck with the “David Bowie is gorgeous” option! };-)

Just turn on with me and you’re not alone…

Nobody can have escaped the massive amount of press coverage for the Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars – The Motion Picture, 30th anniversary special edition DVD and double CD and vinyl soundtrack, due on Monday. (Tuesday 25th in the US)

Pretty well all of the music monthlies have carried full-page ads outlining the different formats, and indeed, UNCUT magazine has two different full-page ads. The release (both sound and vision) has received lots of great reviews, below are a handful of excerpts:

UNCUT – April edition (DVD – five stars)
It’s a point-and-shoot record of a now-legendary night…Bowie’s sense of melodrama is palpable.

UNCUT – April edition (Soundtrack – four stars)
Handbags, gladrags and the tears of a pierrot. Fantastic.

Q – April edition (DVD – four stars)
The audio remastering is a revelation… The bits you don’t remember are the best of all. Bowie comparing Ronson to Suzi Quatro (that’s a bit rich). The size of Bowie’s cock, shrink-wrapped in Spandex. The bravura interpretation of My Death, where it’s impossible not to marvel at his relish for words and the charisma of his story telling.

A nation of screaming teens prepared to wear goofy gear and go potty for something as weird as Bowie in 1973 is something we may never see again. A moment worth treasuring.

Q – April edition (Soundtrack – four stars)
A rare essential live album.

Record Collector – March edition (DVD and soundtrack)
All formats are stylishly presented and boast improved sound quality.

For those of you that have managed to get through the last couple of months without reading about the formats and their extras, click on the image above to take you to the Ziggy Stardust Motion Picture mini-site. While you’re there you can watch Cracked Actor from the motion picture. You can also watch Ziggy Stardust and Hang On To Yourself over at the BBC’s 6 Music site and at dotmusic.com.

OK, on to the bit you’re all waiting for… the competition! First I’d like to thank the band… sorry, I mean Nigel Reeve at EMI (who put so much in to this whole project), for giving us five copies of the DVD and five copies of the double CD for the competition. Oh, and did I mention #10 of the numbered limited edition red vinyl?

I’m going to make this one easy as we’re only running it until Monday morning, so that the winners don’t have to rush out to buy a copy. However, the competition for the limited vinyl will stay open for a whole week.

Here’s the question: From which song in the Ziggy Stardust Motion Picture is the silhouette of Ziggy in the image above taken from?

Here’s how to enter: You may only enter the competition for one of the formats, be it one of the five DVDs or CDs, or the one copy of the vinyl LP. Click on only one of the formats below to automatically mail me with your answer. If the links don’t work for you, then just mail me with the answer and your preferred format. You must mail from a BowieNet account.

DVD

CD

Vinyl

The competition for the DVDs and CDs will close at 7:00am UK time on Monday morning (24th) and all ten winners will be announced one hour later. The competition for the vinyl will close exactly one week later, with the result announced later that day. Obviously it’s the same answer for each of the formats, but remember you may only try for one of the formats. Multiple entries may be disqualified. Good Luck.

So you train by shadow boxing…

If the shirt and gloves above look familiar to you, that’s because you’ve seen them before. The items were first sold off in a BowieNet/ebaY auction last year. (02/04/02 NEWS: FOURTH BOWIENET/EBAY AUCTION & 03/11/02 NEWS: EXTRA SPECIAL ITEM IN 9TH BOWIENET AUCTION) But, unfortunately for the original bidder he could do with the cash right now… so, we’ve agreed to try and sell them for him.

Both the signed shirt (which was actually worn by David at some point too) and the promotional Let’s Dance boxing gloves, are in the same great condition that they were originally sold. If you think you can offer either of these very collectable pieces a good home, click on the image above to take you to the BowieNet/ebaY auction page.

If you have more money than you can shake a stick at, why not bid on the Outside mannequin at the same time… The poor thing is screaming out for a get-up just like this! };-)

The lady from another grinning soul…

Loads of GAD stuff for you all… Particularly the NY BowieNetters among you. First up, Gail has sent in a message about a live broadcast of a Joni Mitchell Tribute concert tomorrow (Saturday), that she will be performing a couple of songs at. Here’s a bit directly from the lovely lady herself:

Hello New Yorkers!

For those of you who might have the luxury of listening to the radio this Saturday the 22nd from 1:30 PM to about 2:15, please tune in to hear me on WFUV 90.7 FM, at The Wall-To-Wall Joni Mitchell Tribute Marathon broadcast LIVE from The Symphony Space at 95th and Broadway. I will be doing two very obscure but important songs from Joni’s back catalog.

The concert is FREE, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood, do stop in. The event starts at 11:00 AM and finishes at 11:00 PM. That’s right! A genuine marathon! It will also be streamed on the internet at www.wfuv.org, so you have many opportunities to check out the genius of Joni Mitchell as interpreted by Laurie Anderson, Ute Lemper, Don Byron, and the Mingus Big Band as well as yours truly… GAIL ANN DORSEY.

Peace to you all.

While we’re on the subject of GAD paying tribute to female singers she admires, she is due to perform at the New York Dusty Day 2003 celebrations on 14th April. BowieNetter Nicky Young sent in the following information:

Gail Ann Dorsey will be performing at the New York Dusty Day 2003 celebrations on 14th April. Tell the good burgers of NYC to shake their tail feathers and hot foot it down to Joe’s Pub, Manhattan, where they will be guaranteed to have a super arm waving day.

Ticket money ($25) and raffle money raised will go to the Royal Marsdon Hospital charity.

For any UK Dusty/Bowie fans (I think I’m on my own here), we are celebrating in The Queen’s Head, 30 Duke Street, Henley-on-Thames. Tickets £11. More info on www.simonbell.com.

You can read more about either of these events by clicking on the appropriate image.

Finally, the chat transcripts for both the recent Gail Ann Dorsey chat and the Catherine Russell chat from the end of last year have been posted. You can reach the BowieChat transcripts page by clicking here.

No-one can burn like me…

Hot Hot Heat are the latest band to feature a David Bowie song on their ultimate compilation CD for this week’s NME Burn It feature.

Steve Bays chooses Five Years.

One or two songs on a mix tape have to be anthemic. It’s like the theme from a great coming of age movie. The arrangements are epic and a bit different to most pop songs.

Last week’s Burn It, from ‘punk-pop’s blonde bombshell’ Harry also included one of David’s songs. This time it was Cracked Actor.

I love the lyrics – “Crack baby crack… smack baby smack… suck baby suck’. I love that Bowie period, it’s really hard to choose a track but it’s the one I’ve been listening to this week.

These two add to a long and still growing line of bands and artists who have all selected a Bowie song for ‘Burn It’. As is only fitting for the person NME chose as Most Influential Artist Of All Time. You can check out more ‘Bowie’ Burn It selections in these earlier BowieNet News items.

Princess Superstar on Station to Station. (02/27/02 NEWS: PRINCESS PICKS BOWIE FOR NME)

I love this track and ‘TVC15’ – in fact the whole ‘Station To Station’ album is so crazy and funky and conceptual. The track is long – you can put on your make-up and be done by the end of the song. It’s from his real, mid-’70s cocaine period.

The Dove’s Jimi Goodwin on Quicksand. (07/26/02 SNIPPET: BOWIEPHILES)

If there’s an afterlife I’m buying Bowie’s version ? ‘Don’t believe in yourself/Don’t deceive with belief/Knowledge comes with death’s release’. That’s not fatalistic. It’s fucking Zen-like! Quicksand should be taught at primary… OK, maybe secondary schools! Sing it at morning assembly.

Danny Goffey of Supergrass on In The Heat Of The Morning. (09/01/02 NEWS: THE STARS COME OUT FOR DAVID BOWIE)

It goes (poor Bowie warble), ‘In the heat of the mo-ho-rning-ah!’ and it’s got this mad organ solo. It’s from the 60’s, I think it was on a rarity album, before Ziggy and all that. It’s weird it was never more popular. We tried to cover it, we’re in the process of maybe covering it live.

Corey Taylor of Slipknot on Ashes To Ashes. (09/01/02 NEWS: THE STARS COME OUT FOR DAVID BOWIE)

I don’t give a fuck what anybody else says, David Bowie is fuckin’ awesome. Sure, he’s had his days where you just look at him and go, ‘Dude, what were you thinking?’ But this is just a great song.

Sym Gharial of The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster on Moonage Daydream (12/30/02 NEWS: MATCHBOX B-LINE DISASTER FOR BOWIE)

When I was in the biggest psychosis of my life, it was the light at the end of my long, dark, twisted tunnel.

Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips on “Heroes” (01/15/03 NEWS: WAYNE COYNE CHOOSES BOWIE FOR NME’S BURN IT)

Even though I’ve listened to it a million times, I don’t know what he’s getting at. But it’s an uplift either way and at the end you feel satisfied, either with fighting the fight or fucking the fuck.

Anthony Roman of Radio 4 on “Heroes” (03/01/03 SNIPPET: BOWIEPHILES)

Quite possibly the best vocal ever put to tape. The peak of the Bowie/Eno relationship which continues to fascinate us all.

Thanks to Blammo for all of these stories.

:))

Changes are taking the pace I’m going thru…

Tonight’s TOTP2 on the BBC here in the UK (BBC2 6.20pm) is showing an archive performance of David Bowie’s song Changes. On their listings page, TOTP2 have illustrated a blurb about the song with a 1974 live shot. Here’s an excerpt from that blurb:

“It started out as a parody of a nightclub song, a kind of throwaway,” said a humble Mr Bowie of ‘Changes’ – which by some criminal twist of fate, never made the Top 40 despite constant appearances on Bowie’s many compilations.

Anyway, the picture they used got me to thinking that perhaps they were going to show Changes from David’s September 5th 1974 concert at the Los Angeles Universal Amphitheatre, a show that was filmed by the BBC for their Cracked Actor documentary.

But, a little more detective work has uncovered the fact that the version being shown tonight is in fact from the Ziggy Stardust Motion Picture. Oh well, not quite as exclusive as the ’74 show perhaps, but it’s still Bowie on the box, and a good ad for the DVD.

While we’re on the subject of Changes, the April edition of MOJO magazine has a free booklet entitled Ultimate Jukebox – The 100 Singles You Must Own. It’s another one of these hotly debated (and frankly pointless) lists that emerge every other month and get music fans across the globe riled.

At number 30 in the list, Changes is the Bowie single you must own, and whatever you may feel about this selection, this is what the publication had to say about the release:

He’d had three UK flop singles Space Oddity, and this fared little better in the charts. His debut single on RCA – and the opening track on the Hunky Dory LP – represented a sea change for both Bowie and pop music.

A charged accusatory lyric, a colourful volley of piano and sax and then you’re into that irresistible chorus. Guaranteed to stop any pub dead in its tracks, the ch-ch-changes stutter is a real masterstroke.

The B-side, Andy Warhol, reflected Bowie’s fascination with the avant garde and enhanced his sense of mystery and danger all the more.

So there you have it. What would you have chosen if you could only own one Bowie single? After much deliberation I’ve finally settled on Space Oddity/The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud. No hang on, what about Life On Mars?/The Man Who Sold The World… or “Heroes”/V-2 Schneider? Oh, I give up! };-)

Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal…

We are tremendously pleased to announce the return of the BowieNet/ebaY auctions, and we’re kicking off this new round with our most incredible item yet. We first mentioned this a few weeks ago, (02/22/03 NEWS: BOWIENET/EBAY AUCTIONS TO RESUME SHORTLY) but due to the possibility of a win by an overseas bidder, it has had to spend a little time in quarantine*.

Yes, you guessed it, we’re auctioning off the chap in the picture above (only the one on the left mind), well one of his chums at least. The mannequin we are offering is one of the original props used by David Bowie on his Outside tour of 1995/1996.

If you were present at any of the shows, you would have seen these “boys” (I hesitate to sex them actually, as they seem to be of non-specific gender…in a Ken kind of way) hanging from ceilings, hiding under canvas and generally just standing around looking a bit menacing. They added a sinister air to the stage scenery, and helped flavour the whole art crime vibe of the tour.

The mannequins were produced in different poses, but as you can see from the picture above, this particular one is standing erect in his stockinged feet, (not that it comes with stockings of course) and towers to a magnificent 5′ 8″ (approx.)

This boy is fit, and weighs in at approx. 90 pounds, 45 per half, and indeed will be shipped to the winner in two halves, via UPS. Shipping charges will be in addition to the auction price and based on the buyer?s address.

Click on either of the images above to take you to the BowieNet auctions page, where this item will be made live a little later today. Don’t miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime chance to own an original piece of rock ‘n’ roll history!

*This is a lie

Who’ll love Aladdin Sane…

Many BowieNet members (including myself) have received an e-mail from a UK online record store regarding the Aladdin Sane double disc reissue, that we first told you about at the beginning of last month. As is often the case with these things, the information contained within the mail-out was not 100 per cent accurate.

The reissue follows the same format as last year’s Ziggy Stardust 30th anniversary edition, two discs in the same sort of packaging, including extensive liner notes and rare photographs. The first disc is obviously the same tracklisting as the original vinyl issue, which, for those of you that don’t already know, went something like this:

01 Watch That Man
02 Aladdin Sane
03 Drive In Saturday
04 Panic In Detroit
05 Cracked Actor
06 Time
07 The Prettiest Star
08 Let’s Spend The Night Together
09 The Jean Genie
10 Lady Grinning Soul

The ten track bonus disc will contain the following tracks:

01 John, I’m Only Dancing (Aladdin Sane session version)
02 The Jean Genie (Original UK Single mix)
03 Time (single edit)
04 All The Young Dudes
05 Changes (Recorded live at the Music Hall, Boston 1/10/72)
06 The Supermen (Recorded live at the Music Hall, Boston 1/10/72)
07 Life On Mars? (Recorded live at the Music Hall, Boston 1/10/72)
08 John, I’m Only Dancing (Recorded live at the Music Hall, Boston 1/10/72)
09 The Jean Genie (Recorded live at Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica 20/10/72)
10 Drive-In Saturday (Recorded live at the Public Hall, Cleveland on 25/11/72)

The mail-out tracklisting I mentioned above included a track known to fans as A Lad In Vein (aka Zion), but, as I’m sure many of you already know, this unfinished recording wasn’t even made during the Aladdin Sane sessions.

We’ll give you a more specific date for the release of the Aladdin Sane 30th anniversary edition as soon as we have it.

Constantly, fervently, firmly, Revolutionary…

David Bowie has co-written a brand new track for Earl Slick‘s soon-to-be-released album, which has a working title of Newfs*. The song is called Isn’t It Evening/The Revolutionary and the good news is that David has provided the vocals on this recording.

The Mark Plati produced album features other Bowie cohorts such as Sterling Campbell on a couple of tracks, and Mike Garson on another. Obviously Mr Plati, apart from producing, has some considerable musical input too.

Other guest vocalists include: Royston Langdon of Spacehog, Summer Rose, formerly of The Snapdragons and Martha Davis of The Motels. Singer Robert Smith also makes an appearance on a reworking of The Cure‘s classic, A Forest.

The album is due on Sanctuary records, and we’ll give you more info as we get it.

* Dog lovers among you may know that the term Newf is an affectionate name given to Newfoundland Dogs by folk who are keen on them, such as Earl Slick!