Month: November 2005

We’ve got Five Years… (and Life On Mars? and Wake Up)

Talking of the Arcade Fire & David Bowie Live EP (see yesterday’s news) and following last week’s news piece (11.23.2005 NEWS: LIVE EP TOP 10 IN 15 COUNTRIES AND #1 IN 4) it’s great to see that the EP is still selling well more than a week after its initial release.

It’s also good to see it has remained at #1 in Canada and Ireland and is even still ascending the chart in some countries.

Here’s the chart positions of the EP in the 12 iTunes territories in which it remains in the Top Ten, in alphabetical order, as of midnight, Tuesday, UK time.

Austria 10
Belgium 7
Canada 1
Denmark 5
France 3
Ireland 1
Netherlands 9
Portugal 2
Spain 9
Sweden 8
UK 5
USA 7

Good eh?

Somebody plays my song on iTunes…

The November 26th edition of NME magazine has the above piece about the Arcade Fire & David Bowie Live EP, which concludes with the slightly back-handed compliment of: “Something for all those who think Bowie lost his cool sometime in the mid-’80s.”

While we’re on the subject of NME, DB and mp3s, the magazine recently published a supplement with iTunes called: Essentials – 75 songs that defined rock ‘n’ roll. Changes was the song representing David Bowie as evidenced in the scan above.

His world is made of flashlights and films…

Speaking of photographs of David Bowie, (see yesterday’s news) the Yugoslav snapper, Brian Rasic, has an excellent solo exhibition, Flashback, in London’s East End which closes this coming Sunday.

Brian has a massive portfolio which features stunning images of all the major acts of the past 25 years, including zillions of David Bowie.

You can see Flashback until 4th December at:

The Spitz Gallery
109 Commercial Street
Old Spitalfields Market
London, E1 6BG

The exhibition is open Monday to Saturday 12 noon to 5pm and Sunday 11am to 5pm.

Prints of many of the exhibition images (including the one above) are available in limited editions of 200 and can be ordered online here.

Waiting for the gift of…

An extra bit of advance notice for this one…nothing wrong with planning ahead. Above are just two of the photographs (by Brian Aris and Ian Dickson respectively) that go under the hammer at the Sound & Vision event at London’s Abbey Road Studios next February in aid of the Cancer Research UK charity.

Here’s some stuff from the website…

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Sound & Vision…A unique music art and photography event

Date: 27 February 2006
Venue: Abbey Road Studios, Abbey Road, London

London’s world-famous Abbey Road Studios are opening their doors for one night only to offer you an unforgettable experience ? Cancer Research UK’s new Sound & Vision event, a remarkable exhibition and auction featuring some of the best music art and photography from the past fifty years.

Cancer Research UK and leading figures from across the creative industries have come together to bring you this truly unique event that celebrates rock and pop music, the people who make it, and the photographs, design and art it has inspired.

Sound & Vision has the support of some of the most respected people working in the design, music and photography industries. Those contributing work include Brian Aris, Ian Dickson, Mark Farrow, Pete Fowler, Jamie Hewlett, Nick Knight, Daniel Kramer, Gered Mankowitz, Terry O’Neil, Tommy Penton, Redferns, David Redfern, Mick Rock, Peter Saville, Pennie Smith, Snap Galleries and Roger Woolman.

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To see more of their work, visit the silent auction page by clicking on the image above. We’ll post a reminder about the event nearer the time…If I remember.

Loving The Alien…

We first told you about the TMWFTE double DVD box set that has now been released via The Criterion Collection back in July. (07.06.05 NEWS: CRITERION TMWFTE DVD WITH DB COMMENTARY) And indeed, we hinted at a competition at the start of the month. (11.01.2005 NEWS: UNCUT TMWFTE SPECIAL OUT THIS WEEK) …so here it is.

Those good people at Criterion have generously donated five copies of this beautifully packaged box set that is generally agreed by those that know to be the very best quality transfer yet.

I should point out that this is a Region 1 encoding DVD that requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV.

Anyway, this is possibly a little harder than usual, due to there being just five copies to give away, and due to the fact that it’s such a lovely package I believe it deserves to be fought for!

OK, here we go. Simply study the animation below and list the stills in the chronological order they actually appear in the film.

For example, if you think still F is the first of the seven to appear in the movie, then say F = 1…and so on for all seven.

Send your answers to me here.

Usual rules apply: Only one entry per BowieNet account. Also, please remember you must enter using your BowieNet e-mail or at least supply your BowieNet user name.

The competition ends at midnight UK time on Sunday December 4th, and we’ll announce the winners the very next day. Have fun.

And all your friends can see, He’ll roast him like a turkey…

Hope you’re having a fun and full up Thanksgiving to those of you that celebrate it. Obviously it means little to those outside of the US, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t join in the celebrations with a just-for-fun caption competition on the MBs. Click on the turkey above (you choose) to reach the thread.

Meanwhile, the turkey writing this needs to request again the names and addresses of the winners of our hologram competition (11.12.05 NEWS: SIGNED ‘hours…’ HOLOGRAM CONTEST UPDATE) as I lost them all in an e-mail disaster!

Here are the names once more in case any of you forgot you had won:

billyinnes
haywoodstenton
prettycranium
shakeh
Shilo65

If you would all please forward your real names and addresses to me, we’ll have your prize with you pronto, as David has now signed the holograms. Please don’t forget to include the country you actually live in when sending your address.

OK, I’m off to join in the spirit of things by getting stuffed!

He’s in the best selling show…

After yesterday’s excitement with the Arcade Fire & David Bowie Live EP reaching #3 in the iTunes US album charts, we’re sad to say that it’s now dropped a place to #4 in today’s chart.

However, this small disappointment pales into insignificance when one considers the EP is #1 in Canada, Greece, Ireland and Portugal…not to mention Top Ten placings in eleven other countries too.

Here’s the chart positions of the EP in all 21 iTunes territories in alphabetical order, as of midnight, Wednesday, UK time. (Top Ten placings in BOLD)

Australia 14
Austria 4
Belgium 4
Canada 1
Denmark 8
Finland 8
France 4
Germany 11
Greece 1
Ireland 1
Italy 11
Japan 35
Luxembourg 19
Netherlands 2
Norway 7
Portugal 1
Spain 4
Sweden 8
Switzerland 52
UK 6
USA 4

Well done to David and Arcade Fire. Here’s to further success.

Three, yeah… yeah, yeah, yeah… yeah, yeah, yeah…

Within a day of its release, the Arcade Fire & David Bowie Live EP download we’ve been telling you about (11.19.2005 REMINDER: BOWIE/ARCADE FIRE FASHION ROCKS LIVE EP DUE MONDAY) has already made it to #3 in the iTunes US album charts. (See screen grab above)

I’m sure you’ll all want to join me in congratulating David and all of the Arcade Fire members for this achievement and thanx to all of you who put this fine release where it deserves to be.

Suck baby suck…

Here are the results for the contest mentioned in the above headline that we ran last week and that ended last night.

The answer to my question of: “What country removed which track from David Live?” is, Spain removed Cracked Actor, no doubt swayed by some of the lyrical content including the example in today’s lyric quotation. Well, it is rude!

See the original contest posted last Monday (11.14.05 NEWS: DAVID LIVE AND STAGE DVD-AUDIO CONTEST) if this makes absolutely no sense to you!

Most of you got it right, but these are the ten BowieNetters that The Random Generator selected:

Arabia
cronos
diabolicalmind
giuseppetarantino
imadj
jingo
Pza
steph11
ts25
vick

If you would all please forward your real names and addresses to me, you’ll each receive a copy of both the David Live and Stage DVD-As.

Please be sure to include the country you actually live in when sending your address.

I believe in magic…

Following reports that first appeared on Variety.com, it seems the movie world is buzzing with the news that David Bowie might join the Christopher Nolan-directed The Prestige for Touchstone Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures.

Well, we can confirm that David Bowie has accepted the role of inventor and electrical wizard Nikola Tesla, based on the real-life Serbian-American inventor who discovered the rotating magnetic field.

Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine also star in the story of two rival magicians constantly trying to one-up each other.

Here’s an excerpt from the Variety report:

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David Bowie will join the Christopher Nolan-directed “The Prestige,” the Touchstone Pictures/Warner Bros. drama that stars Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine.

Bowie cameo’d in “Zoolander” but hasn’t starred in a film since he played Andy Warhol in “Basquiat” in 1996. (Blammo Note: That’s apart from Mr. Rice’s Secret in 2000 and Everybody Loves Sunshine in 1999, to name but two!)

Here he’ll play inventor and electrical wizard Nikola Tesla, who is approached by one of two competing magicians for help in pulling off the ultimate magic trick in 1878.

Bowie became friendly with Nolan when he provided the tune “Something in the Air” for the close of Nolan’s breakthrough film, “Memento.” Bowie was impressed enough by the script and Nolan’s talent to take part.

“The Prestige,” adapted from Christopher Priest’s novel by Jonathan Nolan, will shoot in January. Nolan is producing with Emma Thomas and Aaron Ryder. Kristen Burr is overseeing the pic for Disney, which has domestic distribution rights on the film. WB is taking overseas territories.

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I asked David how he was looking forward to starting the film next year and he replied thus: “It should be fun. Christopher Nolan is a great director.”

The Prestige will commence production in January 2006.