Month: January 2005

Waiting so long, I’ve been waiting so long…

I guess it serves me right for breaking my Golden Rule of never running a competition unless the prizes are in my hands. But, I’m afraid we’ve yet to receive our copies of the The Life Aquatic CD soundtrack.

Thanx to the 25 BowieNet winners for their continued patience and please rest assured we will despatch the CDs the moment we have the things. Oh well, a lesson learned.

hooked to the silver screen…

BowieNetter antonio has sent in details of another glamdammit do in New York next weekend. This seems to be a bit of a regular event now, as regulars to these pages will have noticed. Must be cool seeing all the stuff they are showing on a big screen.

Anyway, here’s the low-down:

glamdammit

twig the wonderkid and the astronettes will put their arms around your head whilst spinning early-seventies glam accompanied by glam-era video projections… special screening of david bowie and marc bolan television appearance @ 10pm!!

saturday january 22nd @ 11pm – no cover

nhk ‘heroes’ special @ 10pm – no cover

saturday january 22nd
cinema classics
332 e 11th st
new york city

If you regularly attend these events, please let us know just how much fun they are.

Young American, young American, you want the young American…

BowieNetter Chris Carter has been in touch today to say he has given his excellent the young american website “a much needed facelift”. Well, I don’t know about much-needed, but it’s certainly looking pretty cool right now.

For those of you that don’t already know, the site is “dedicated to the activities of David Bowie in America during 1974″…So it may well be worth bookmarking, as that’s a subject you just might want to swot up on for the forthcoming David Live listening party competition.

From station to station back to Düsseldorf City
Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie…*

The BBC have a couple of radio programmes that may interest you over the weekend. First up, Radio 2 has an hour-long documentary Called: EARPLUGS AND EYELINER: THE IGGY POP STORY. Here’s the blurb from the BBC site:

Chrissie Hynde tells the story of one of the greatest rock icons of our age and godfather of the punk rock movement – Mr.James ‘Iggy Pop’ Osterberg.

From his time in the Psychedelic Stooges, to the plain Stooges, then on to Iggy & The Stooges, Iggy Pop defined Punk before it even existed.

This special programme on Radio 2 features comments from Glen Matlock, Miranda Sawyer, Chris Charlesworth and the great man himself.

The show airs at 21:30 UK time on Saturday, and is sure to make mention of DB somewhere.

Meanwhile, Marc Riley has a Bowie feature in the Holy Grail section of his MINT show on 6 Music on Sunday evening. It’s a short slot, concentrating on rare Bowie releases up to Diamond Dogs.

Don’t panic if you’ve read this too late, both shows have online listen-again features that can be found at the shortcuts above.

*OK, it’s not a Bowie lyric, but you tell me another song that mentions Iggy Pop and David Bowie in the same breath. Thank the lord for Kraftwerk!

Gone, gone, the calendars have all gone…

Just to let you know that after I posted the link for the remaining unsigned calendars the other day (01.11.05 NEWS: SOME 2005 UNSIGNED CALENDARS STILL AVAILABLE) all of the remaining stock was greedily snapped up.

Sorry if you were unlucky, but you may still be able to find the thing online fairly easily. I just Googled it and found a few outlets that still seem to have it, including The Sun newspaper in the UK of all places!

And so the story goes they wore the clothes
They said the things to make it seem improbable
The whale of a lie like the hope it was…

The item above is part of a suit currently up for auction on eBay. With just one bid of GBP £750.00 (Approximately US $1,417.88) so far, I thought it would be prudent to post some extra information before a last-minute bidding frenzy ensues.

Here is the item description, verbatim:

BOWIE SUIT FROM CRACKED ACTOR TOUR. WORN BY DAVID BOWIE HIMSELF IN 1974 BOWIE LIVE ALBUM. FROM CITY LIGHT STUDIO DESIGNERS. STILL GOT THE SWEAT STAINS ON FROM DAVID BOWIE. A MUST FOR ANY DAVID BOWIE FANATIC!!!

On further probing via this question: Can you provide proof of authenticity of the David Bowie David Live suit? Where you picked it up? the seller responded thus:

Well, all the proof is pretty much included in the auction detail. Mum got the suit backstage as she was a friend of one of his designers who worked for City Light Studios. Since it was a one-night-only prop suit, he had no need to wear it again, and therefore he returned it to City Light Studios.

My mum met with her friend and he told her that he had recently helped design a suit for Bowie’s Cracked Actor tour and that he had it back. My mum asked if she could have it, he pulled a few strings and they soon agreed a great fan such as herself should be able to have it.

The actual proof you ask of? Well, all I can say is that my mum later bought the album recorded from the Cracked Actor tour and they snapped a picture of him in that very suit he wore on stage as you can see from the image I have posted on eBay. Sorry I don’t however have much more proof than this.

Well, this is all very well, and I’m sure the seller thinks he has the genuine item. But, my mind wandered back to that excellent May/June 1993 edition of Arena magazine, which, among several other items of Bowie clobber, reproduced the above picture with the following description:

DIAMOND DOGS, 1974
Box jacket and speckled jumper.
As worn on the cover of “David Live” and onstage for the Diamond Dogs Tour of 1974, the jumper was worn extensively in Alan Yentob’s 1975 TV film, Cracked Actor.
Jacket buttons have since been switched from black to white.

The original suit remains in the collection of David Bowie, and, whatever it is k-jex is selling, it’s certainly not the David Live suit. Click on the top image to reach the eBay auction.

FOOT NOTE: Speaking of David Live, stay tuned for details of that Abbey Road 5:1 listening party competition, which I’ll be posting shortly.

If you want it, boys, get it here thing… (and girls, actually)

The calendar update I posted last week seemed to create more enquiries from people wanting to purchase the calendar than anything else.

Obviously those of you who have been paying attention know that signed copies sold out in around 3 nanoseconds. However, there are still unsigned copies for those of you that still want them.

Click on the cover image above to get to the order page for unsigned calendars.

I believe Andy at CalendarMart has had communications from everybody still waiting for their original order, and he is dealing with those. You can contact him via this link: info@calendarmart.com

The band was altogether…

As reported at the start of the year (01.02.2005 NEWS: GAD IN NYC ON TUESDAY AND IN LONDON ON THE 20TH) don’t forget Gail Ann Dorsey‘s solo show in London in the UK on Thursday, January 20th. Here’s some stuff from the press release:

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GAIL ANN DORSEY ? SOLO PERFORMANCE AT THE BORDERLINE, LONDON

On the heals of her outstanding solo appearance in London last November opening for Ani DiFranco at The Barbican Theatre, see Bowie-bassist, Gail Ann Dorsey, performing a solo acoustic set headlining the Thursday night instalment of the week long Singer-Songwriter Festival at The Borderline in Central London. Has the promise of being an unforgettable evening. Emily McGuire is the opening act.

The Borderline
Manette Street
London W1 UK
Thursday, January 20th 2005, 19:00
Tickets £8.00

For tickets call Ticket Master UK on 0870.154.4040, or Internationally dial 00.44.161.385.3500. You can also purchase tickets through the Astoria Box Office, London on 020.7434.9592. www.1st4concerttickets.co.uk offers Internet ticket purchase.

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Gail’s fellow band mate, Gerry Leonard, aka Spookyghost has a show in LA on January 22nd and he also be making his presence felt for a couple of days at the 2005 NAMM show in Anaheim, CA, before the LA show. Here’s the low-down for those of you not signed up for the Spooky newsletter.

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Greeting oh Ghostly ones. Ahh the joy of the snow shovel has descended on the east and a wiseghost would go west to avoid real work.

With the sun in his eyes, Spookyghost is excited to announce the first real LA show…Spookyghost Sat Jan 22nd, Club Largo, LA @ 9:15 pm.

The Spook will perform a forty minute set opening for Glen Phillips. Cover $15.

And for any gear heads, Spooky will also be at the 2005 NAMM show in Anaheim, CA. Here are the times:

Thursday 20th at the “PRS Guitars” booth @ 11 am / 1 pm / 3 pm / 5 pm
Friday 21st at “PRS Guitars” booth @ 12 noon / 2 pm at “M-Audio” booth@ 4 30 pmand Friday night @ 8:55 pm as a guest at the “PRS party” at the Grove. Lots of tweaking will abound.

Best, Mr Ghostly

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And finally, the longest-serving member of The Bowie Band, Mike Garson, (some say he’s been in the band longer than David himself!) has updates-a-plenty on his official site. Here’s a few of them as outlined in the latest edition of the GARSON GAZETTE which you can subscribe to by clicking here.

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MIKE FEATURED IN YAMAHA’S “ACCENT” MAGAZINE

Mike’s use of the Yamaha Disklavier® GranTouch? DGT2A on David Bowie’s “A Reality Tour” is featured in the Fall 2004 issue of Accent ? The Official Publication of the Yamaha Piano Division. A long-time Yamaha artist, Mike made sure to bring his trusted equipment with him on the yearlong Bowie tour.

“I’ve been a Disklavier fan for years, and as a songwriter, it literally changed my way of working and writing…The GranTouch adapted very easily to the road. The Graded Hammer Action feels and responds like an acoustic piano, and the sound is quite realistic. It was also a practical alternative to carrying a large grand piano from venue to venue,” Mike explained.

Go here to read the full article.

ADDITIONS TO THE “ARCHIVE” AND IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PHOTO GALLERY!

In our ongoing quest to improve your experience, we have added several new items to the Archive:

– Fall 2004 Yamaha “Accent” Magazine Profile of Mike’s Touring Keyboard

– January 2004 Keyboard Magazine: Cover Story on Mike

– January 2004 Keyboard Magazine: M-Audio Full Page Ad Featuring Mike

– August 2003 Performing Songwriter Feature on Mike’s Home Studio

We have organized the photo gallery by decade in anticipation of adding several new photos ? many of which were personally taken by Mike while on the road with David Bowie and band mates from the “A Reality Tour.”

Also, be on the lookout for some one-of-a-kind new videos in the coming months, including footage of Mike and his Bowie band mates joining The Dandy Warhols for an impromptu jam session that happened in Portland, Oregon in April 2004!

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Thanks for that Mike…Looking forward to those promised additions.

Nothing’s gonna touch you in these golden years…

There’s a new poll! Click on the DISCOURSE tab above to join in now…only if you want to mind.

I can’t trace time…

When one considers how long it’s already been January the 8th around the world, I think we’re about half way through David Bowie’s 58th birthday right now.

World time zones aren’t my strongest subject, but, January the 8th started somewhere near the Christmas Island of Kiritimati at some ungodly hour yesterday morning, and it will end sometime tomorrow morning somewhere around Anchorage in Alaska, where folk are just getting up on the morning of Saturday, January 8th! (It’s about 25 hours later in Kiritimati than it is in Anchorage…confused?)

Anyway, following on from an idea by BowieNetter Steph11, the BowieNet community has been wishing David well on the BowieNet message boards via a 20-page (so far) thread for hours now, and will no doubt continue to do so for a similar amount of time.

So, if you’re a BowieNetter and you’ve not already sent your birthday wishes to DB, you can do so by clicking on the wonderful image above, supplied by the very generous BowieNetter, Colinz.

Hope you’re having a great day, David, much love from everybody here at BowieNet, and here’s to whatever you have planned for us in 2005.

STOP PRESS: Received a communication from Heather M of the Speed Of Life fansite who pointed me in the direction of a non-BowieNet thread of well wishes for David on his birthday. If you’re not a BowieNet member, perhaps you’d like to contribute to the thread here.