Month: March 2004

It couldn’t be done without dogs…

A copy of the original RCA uncensored Diamond Dogs sleeve sold for an unbelievable sum on eBay today. Few of the legendary sleeves are thought to have survived and after a furious last-minute bidding frenzy the price of this particular one climbed to an astonishing US $8,988.00. This is thought to be the most ever paid for a record sleeve alone, as there wasn’t even a copy of the album with it.

Pre-release publicity surrounding the Guy Peellaert painting, (that depicted Bowie as half-human half-canine) caused such a furore at the time that all but a handful of the printed covers were scrapped to make way for the more familiar, sensitively airbrushed version that became commercially available.

Click on the dog’s cock above to go to the eBay page where you can read a little more of the history of the sleeve. While you’re there, take a look at the bid history and marvel at the extravagance, as you realise you could never afford one of these beauties… I know I can’t!

Stay tuned for an exciting Diamond Dogs related competition shortly.

Well, I might stretch it till Wednesday…*

For those of you that, for one reason or another, haven’t received an e-mail from BowieNet regarding another A Reality Tour ticket announcement on Tuesday, here’s what you missed:

Make sure you log onto DavidBowie.com on Tuesday, March 23rd at 5 PM EST for an important ‘A REALITY TOUR’ ticket announcement.

Though I can’t be any more specific about what that announcement may be, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work it out via a process of elimination.

Click on the image above or go to the A Reality Tour tickets page at aforementioned time.

*Actually, I won’t. Tuesday it is!

Sell Me A Coat…

With Christmas just around the corner, you could do worse than go take a browse around the BowieStore for the ideal gifts for friends and family. Imagine dad with his very own Reality mug, mum in a full-length Reality fleece coat, a Diamond Dogs mousemat for your little brother and an Aladdin Sane zipper fleece jacket for your trendy teenage niece.

“Sod all that”, I hear you collectively cry… “We want something for us, and we want it now!”

Well, the answer may be here with the very latest addition to the store, a BowieNet personalised plaque. (See below) Here follows a bit of the blurb about the thing:

BowieNet Personalized Plaque

Available for a limited time! Visitors to DavidBowie.com can now place their orders for this exclusive BowieNet commemorative award. With a glass inlay measuring 14.5? x 11?, the award features a photo of David, an actual member?s only LIVEANDWELL CD and a screen print of David?s signature, all in a black metal frame.

Best of all, the plaque will feature your name! We will use the name you enter in the Delivery Address field during checkout. We will not be able to change this once you submit your order so be sure your name appears the way you want it to on your plaque!

Pretty cool, eh? Remember it’s a limited offer folx, so be sure to get your order in before Monday, April 19th. Click on either of the images above to take you to the place you know you want to be.

Please Note: For those of you that thought the merchandise in the montage above was aimed at tiny little people with gigantic heads who enjoy huge mugs of tea while looking at great big art… the items aren’t in scale with each other. Shame really, I’d love some Reality patches that size! };-)

In the port of Amsterdam, There’s a sailor who sings…

Among others, BowieNetter 051060 has kindly informed me of a change to David Bowie’s scheduled appearance at the Arrow Rock Festival on June 11th. It seems that day of the festival has been cancelled and David will now play the same evening at the Amsterdam ArenA instead. Here’s the info from the Arrow Rock Festival web site:

The concert of David Bowie, that was scheduled for Friday June 11th, had been rescheduled to a different location: the ArenA in Amsterdam.

Unfortunately we were not capable of completing the Friday programm to our satisfaction, and has therefor been decided to a seperate concert of David Bowie in the ArenA in Amsterdam. The complete Friday programm in Lichtenvoorde is therefor not going to happen. We sincerely apologize for this. We understand you’ll have a lot of questions and we’ll answer them all on this website these upcoming weeks.

Your ticket for Friday June 11th will be honored on the same date in the ArenA of course, and if you don’t want to go to David Bowie in Amsterdam, you get your money back. The rest of the festival remains the same and more acts will be added to the line up soon. Check the Ticket Information on this site as well!

So there you have it. Hope this change of venue isn’t going to inconvenience too many of you.

A figure sitting cross-legged on the floor…

Today sees the release of Rodney Bingenheimer‘s Mayor Of The Sunset Strip OST CD in the US. We first told you about the film yonks ago when we also posted some footage of an interview with David shot in 1997 after the KROQ Christmas show during David’s short-lived Mohawk phase.

As we also told you way back when, the 23-track CD contains a previously unreleased acoustic version of All The Madmen, which was recorded as David sat cross-legged playing on the floor of Tom Ayres‘ Hollywood Hills living room, to a most privileged little gathering in 1971. Apparently After All was recorded at the same session.

While it’s a great version of All The Madmen historically, (albeit a very poorly recorded one) sadly, the whole track isn’t reproduced here and it soon segues into the normal studio version before you get the chance to tire of the poor quality recording.

Anyway, here follows the track listing for the Mayor Of The Sunset Strip OST CD. Those of you outside the US can still easily purchase the CD online at the usual outlets. You can listen to a short snippet over at Tower Records by clicking on the CD cover below.

Mayor Of The Sunset Strip (OST)

01 Let’s Find Out About Rodney – Film Dialogue
02 Rodney On The ROQ- Brian Wilson
03 Los Angeles – X
04 My Back Pages – The Byrds
05 It Was A Real Eye Opener – Pamela Des Barres
06 Welcome To Hollywood – Leon Russell
07 All The Madmen (Live In Hollywood/Studio) – David Bowie
08 Get It On (Band A Gong) – T. Rex
09 School’s Out – Alice Cooper
10 What Kind Of Music Is This?” – Rodney Bingenheimer
11 I Wanna Be Sedated – Ramones
12 London – The Smiths
13 He Picked This Song- Chris Carter
14 Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You) – Dramarama
15 Jennifer Love Hewitt – Ronald Vaughan
16 Parklife – Blur
17 I Stalked Him- Courtney Love
18 Malibu – Hole
19 Good Souls – Starsailor
20 Yellow (Live In-Studio Performance) – Chris Martin (of Coldplay)
21 Who Is Rodney Bingenheimer – Anthony Marinelli (and Clint Bennett)
22 Mayor Of The Sunset Strip – Marizane
23 I Hate the ’90s (Bonus Track) – Rodney & The Tube Tops

Now all we need is the full-length version, and the aforementioned version of After All from the same source, and all will be right with the world.

I?d like to be a gallery, Put you all inside my show…

An interesting piece regarding the patronage of Glasgow?s aspiring artists by David Bowie and Bowieart.com appeared in The Sunday Times Scotland last week. Illustrated with a live shot of DB and a detail from Ben Woodeson‘s tomato-powered radio, the piece by Jay Richardson can be read online in its entirety by clicking on the image above.

Here’s a few lines from the piece anyway:

Funded from his own pocket and charging no commission fees to the artists, one such beneficiary of Bowie?s altruism is Ben Woodeson. A 2002 graduate of GSA?s Master of Fine Arts course, his work (a small radio powered by the acidity of hundreds of tomato cans) featured in the site?s exhibition at London?s Piccadilly Underground station that year.

?Doing that show brought me contacts with people who would be unapproachable otherwise,? he says. ?The name certainly helps, but I think Bowieart?s strength is the integrity and quality of the organisation.?

Last year the site expanded to allow artists to remain on its pages after graduation for a nominal fee. ?Hopefully,? says Bowie, ?the new moves within Bowieart will provide even greater access to the work of younger artists.?

Charlotte Edwards, deputy editor of Art Review magazine, believes the site has assumed ?the patronage of yore?. ?It?s a proper resource for artists who have no other way of getting a footing in the dog-eat-dog world of contemporary art,? she says. ?You could view Bowie as a latter-day Medici, someone who?s investing in the future of people without trying to exploit them.

?He?s hugely respected. And he?s working with really innovative young curators. The art-world attendance at any Bowieart event speaks for itself. Everyone pays attention to what they?re doing.?

With the launch of the Bowieart exhibition next year, that audience can only soar.

We’ll bring you details of that exhibition when we get them. In the meantime you can view a whole bunch of exciting new stuff by checking out the Student Artists section of Bowieart.com here.

Don’t fake it baby…

The Far Eastern leg of David Bowie’s A Reality Tour ended with a final show at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wanchai, Hong Kong, tonight. The set list comes courtesy of a complete gaggle of BowieNetters: LordOfTheThings, SoniaH and LoveLow… Confirmed officially, as ever, by HNB (Handsome Nick B).

According to aforementioned Netters, it was a great show with lots of chat and hilarity from David, including a bit about young Nirvana fans approaching him at festivals and congratulating him on covering Nirvana’s The Man Who Sold The World, to which David would point out that he actually wrote the song…along with Smells Like Teen Spirit!

David also informed the audience after his usual “interpretative dance” bit in Ashes To Ashes that he had learned his moves half an hour previously in the street, surrounded by handbags! At some earlier juncture David also explained that he had in fact bought Iman a fake snakeskin handbag, a theme he continued after Slip Away when he stated that he hadn’t used his original Stylophone, but a cheap fake he had purchased earlier that day in Hong Kong! …or words to that effect.

Other bits included mention of the statue standing proud in the other-worldly city of Brasilia that, among other things, was part inspiration for The Loneliest Guy. There was more, but you’ll just have to wait for the boot…not that I’m condoning that sort of thing.

The 30-song set list was another goodie, who else gives such value for money nowadays? ..that’s what I’d like to know.

Hong Kong March 14th 2004

01 Rebel Rebel
02 Hang On To Yourself
03 New Killer Star
04 Fame
05 Cactus
06 All The Young Dudes
07 China Girl
08 Reality
09 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
10 The Man Who Sold The World
11 Hallo Spaceboy
12 Sunday
13 Heathen (The Rays)
14 Under Pressure
15 Slip Away
16 Looking For Water
17 Quicksand
18 The Loneliest Guy
19 Be My Wife
20 Sound And Vision
21 Breaking Glass
22 Fashion
23 Ashes To Ashes
24 White Light, White Heat
25 I’m Afraid of Americans
26 “Heroes”

(Encore)
27 Let’s Dance
28 Five Years
29 Suffragette City
30 Ziggy Stardust

HNB kindly sent in another of his holiday snaps, above, of David dressed as a fake local. For the approximation of the traditional Chinese costume he is modelling, David is utilising a lampshade (liberated from HNB’s hotel room) as a hat, Earl Slick‘s Dracula cloak as a lovely all-in-one thing, Mike Garson‘s Long Johns as the kind of things one wears on ones legs in Hong Kong, and finally, Sterling‘s sandals, (Sterling has to wear them due to severe athlete’s foot) as sandals!

It’s either that or a fake David Bowie pretending to be David Bowie pretending to be a fake local. I guess we’ll never really know.

Well, the fun stops there for a short while as David and the band take a well-deserved two week break, after which A Reality Tour continues in Philadelphia on Monday the 29th of March.

Come see, come see, remember me?

As regular visitors to this page know, BowieNetter silhouette won her heat in her Stars In Their Eyes debut when she performed a stunning version of Nothing Compares 2 U as Sinéad O’Connor back in January. (01.14.2004 NEWS: BOWIENETTER SILHOUETTE ON THE BOX)

This win gave her an automatic place in tomorrow’s live final, which commences at the earlier time of 17:30pm (UK time) on ITV1. I know you’ll all want to join me in wishing good luck to Lisa… come on girl, you can do it!

Shinbun wa kaki tateru…

DB’s final Japanese show, (for the time being at least) at the Castle Hall in Osaka has ended, and BowieNetter Celine was there yet again to get the set list and a couple of great shots for us.

According to Celine, among the highlights this evening was a Stylophone freak out which the band joined in with to a marvellously cacophonic effect… and that DB enjoyed so much, they performed it again!

There was also lots of amusing interaction from David as ever, but I can’t help thinking lines like: “Earl Slick spends a lot of time in Japan as he works in a Japanese restaurant, but not a Nobu!”, may be lost on a certain percentage of this audience… I could be wrong.

A similar set to the last Tokyo show and a jolly good one at that. 28 songs in total, sent in by Celine, double-checked as usual by Luis and Lydia and officially confirmed by Handsome Nick B:

Osaka March 11th 2004

01 Rebel Rebel
02 Hang On To Yourself
03 New Killer Star
04 Fame
05 Cactus
06 All The Young Dudes
07 China Girl
08 Reality
09 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
10 The Man Who Sold The World
11 Hallo Spaceboy
12 Sunday
13 Heathen (The Rays)
14 Under Pressure
15 Slip Away
16 Looking For Water
17 Quicksand
18 The Loneliest Guy
29 Be My Wife
20 Sound And Vision
21 Ashes To Ashes
22 I’m Afraid of Americans
23 “Heroes”

(Encore)
24 Bring Me The Disco King
25 A New Career In A New Town
26 Five Years
27 Suffragette City
28 Ziggy Stardust

Speaking of Nick B, see the Tokyo#2 entry from a couple of days back for a photo update from him, and indeed, from Celine. A Reality Tour continues with a final Far East show in Wanchai, Hong Kong at the Convention and Exhibition Centre on Sunday March 14th.