Month: July 2006

And the tracks were on TV…

Almost a year on from its original release as a region 1 triple DVD set, (05.24.2005 NEWS: DICK CAVETT DVD DETAILS, PLUS NO IOW DVD & 08.16.2005 NEWS: DB ON TWO MOVIE COMP CDS, PLUS DICK OUT TODAY!) The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons is finally released on region 2 DVD today.

If you’ve not already seen David Bowie’s appearance on the show from December 1974, you really can’t be the full ticket. Anyway, now there’s no excuse not to check out one of the more, erm, interesting David Bowie interviews from the period…as if they weren’t all interesting from that period.

Aside from the chat with Dick, the DVD also contains Bowie’s very memorable performances of 1984 and Young Americans from the same broadcast.

Switch on the TV we may pick him up on Channel Two…

No self-respecting music lover of a certain age will feel at least some small amount of sadness at the news that tonight’s hour long Top Of The Pops special (BBC2, 7:00pm) is to be the very last.

Indeed, and as I’ve mentioned on these pages many times previously, there must be a fair few of you reading this whose journey to this point started with the apparition above when Starman was broadcast by TOTPs on BBC1 on July 6th 1972.

My own curiosity had been pricked, (to put it mildly) a couple of weeks earlier with a similar broadcast on ITV’s Lift Off With Ayshea. But, it seems to be the TOTPs performance that captured the nation’s teenage hearts and minds.

Of course, David had appeared on the programme twice previously, with Space Oddity in 1969 and playing piano for Peter Noone during his performance of Oh! You Pretty Things in 1971.

David would end up making a dozen or so live appearances on the show, but would often be represented by a promotional video, or God forbid, the show’s in-house dance troupes, Pan’s People, Ruby Flipper, Legs And Co or Zoo!

Still, just remember…If we can sparkle, he may land tonight.

The solid book we wrote… (Well, the solid book Nick Pegg wrote at least)

We set a competition to win copies of BowieNetter Nick Pegg‘s revised and expanded fourth edition of The Complete David Bowie last week, (07.22.2006 NEWS: COMPLETE BOWIE COMP AND NICK PEGG IN CHAT TOMORROW) and without further ado, here are the questions Nick set again followed by each answer…

———————————————————————————————————————–

Question 1: Readers of The Complete David Bowie will know that the first section of the book consists of an A-Z of every song written, covered, performed live or in any way contributed to by David Bowie. Several songs will be making their first appearances in the new edition. So, purely alphabetically, what will be the first “new” entry in the 2006 edition?

Answer 1: Arnold Layne as performed with Dave Gilmour at the RHA back in May. (05.30.2006 NEWS: DB SURPRISE GUEST AT LONDON GILMOUR GIG & 05.31.06 NEWS: MORE EXCLUSIVE BOWIE PIX FROM RAH AND REVIEWS)

Question 2: How many years separate the two photographs that appear on the front cover (above) of the new edition of The Complete David Bowie?

Answer 2: Thirty years (The exact dates the shots were taken are February 13th 1974 and June 13th 2004)

———————————————————————————————————————–

Quite a high percentage of wrong answers on this one, but well done to the five lucky winners below who knew the answers and whose details have already been forwarded to Nick.

blueblue
bruneva
crashingoutwithsylvian
juliedawn
PrettyCranium

Your prizes will be dispatched shortly after Nick’s signing session next Saturday, August 5th. (07.17.2006 NEWS: REVISED COMPLETE DB SIGNING AND LAUNCH PARTY)

Thanx again to Nick for signing the books and for popping in to chat the other day, and to his publishers, Reynolds & Hearn for the generous supply of prizes.

Hang him on my wall…

As we promised back in March and April (03.12.2006 NEWS: TWO MICK ROCK PERSONAL APPEARANCES IN NEW YORK & 04.20.2006 REMINDER: MICK ROCK IN NYC TONIGHT – CALENDAR UPDATE) we are very proud to be able to announce exclusive details of the official 2007 David Bowie/Mick Rock calendar, produced yet again by Slow Dazzle.

As you can see from the images above, the 2007 calendar will be available with two different covers. The one on the left will be produced in large quantities for general consumption, while the one on the right will be produced in a limited edition of 1,000 copies only.

The limited edition will only be on sale to BowieNetters at first and any of the remaining 1,000 not sold will then be made available to the general public.

While you’ve been reading the above, hopefully the pages of the calendar (including the fronts and the back) will have had time to load in the animation below. I think you’ll agree it’s a jolly tasteful affair and beautifully designed to boot…

We’ll be posting details of how to get your hands on a copy (or two) shortly, when we’ll hopefully be announcing a contest to win signed copies too…not sure exactly who’ll be signing them just yet, but I’m certain we’ll persuade someone or other!

Remember, these limited editions really do become very collectable. Ordinary copies of the 2005 calendar are now commanding incredible prices while the limited edition signed copies are practically impossible to find.

If you are a BowieNetter I suggest you hold off pre-ordering the 2007 calendar through other outlets, as you definitely won’t be able to pre-order the limited edition anywhere else but here until the BowieNet demand has been sated.

A throwback from someone’s LPs…

THE OFFICIAL UK CHARTS COMPANY has launched a campaign to identify the definitive list of the most popular UK number one albums of all time to celebrate the official charts’ 50th anniversary… you can vote for up to fifty albums (or as few as one!) at their website.

There have been eight number one David Bowie albums in the UK, and here they are with the corresponding information for each. I.E. Aladdin Sane was the 125th number one album and it reached the top on 5/5/1973. (That’s the non-American dating system for obvious reasons)

125 ~ Aladdin Sane 5/5/1973

133 ~ Pin Ups 3/11/1973

142 ~ Diamond Dogs 8/6/1974

238 ~ Scary Monsters And Super Creeps 27/9/1980

280 ~ Let’s Dance 23/4/1983

301 ~ Tonight 6/10/1984

405 ~ Changesbowie 31/3/1990

477 ~ Black Tie White Noise 17/4/1993

It’s a surprising list when one considers what are now reckoned to be Bowie’s classic works. But record sales have never truly been about artistic value, otherwise David Bowie would be richer than Bill Gates!

Having said that, there have been nineteen other top ten Bowie albums in the UK, with fourteen of those reaching the top five. That’s twenty two top five albums in total…lord, he probably is as rich as Bill Gates!

Click on the CLICK HERE TO VOTE button above if you wish to take part, and why shouldn’t you? You can vote for fifty number one albums and there is also an opportunity to vote for a further ten that didn’t make the top spot.

Thanx to BowieNetter jungtheforeman for the pointer.

Monday, Monday, Monday born I was Monday’s Child…

I’m sure you’ll all want to join me in wishing Iman a very happy 51st birthday today.

Above is the most recent picture we have of her with her bloke, English 70s singing sensation, Leo Sayer, who used to favour dressing up just like a clown. As you can see, he’s smartened his act up a bit these days.

As I’m sure you will remember, the shot was taken at the 5th Annual Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair Party at the State Supreme Courthouse in New York City back in April. (04.27.06 NEWS: DB AND IMAN ATTEND 5TH TRIBECA VANITY FAIR PARTY)

Best wishes for a wonderful day from everybody here at BowieNet, Iman, and if you get a moment, check out this thread of well wishing started by BowieNetter, Starla.

Take a look at the Lawman, Beating up the wrong guy,
Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know, He’s in the best selling show…

Americans now have a chance to see the British time travelling detective series Life On Mars that proved very popular in the UK earlier in the year. (01.09.2006 SNIPPET: BOWIE SPACE TITLES INSPIRE VIRGIN AND BBC)

Life On Mars is described as “a cross between Back To The Future and The Sweeney”, wherein a driven and ambitious young British detective, Sam Tyler, played by John Simm, is determined to keep the streets of 21st Century Manchester safe. But after a near fatal car accident, he wakes up, dazed and confused, in 1973. Has he gone back in time? Is he in a coma? Or has he simply gone insane?

David Bowie’s 1971 classic Life on Mars? is playing on Sam Tyler’s iPod when he is hit by the car, and the song is still playing on a tinny car radio when he wakes up in 1973, hence the title.

Check out the BBC America Life On Mars mini-site where you can view a playlist of some of the songs played in the series, including, according to the website: The Jean Geanie (sic).

Music may change…

Last Sunday’s Observer in the UK ran a feature on the 50 albums that changed music. Needless to say the publication considered a Bowie album worthy of the accolade.

A hard choice in my opinion, there are several Bowie albums that would fit the bill. Nevertheless, the paper settled on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and here’s what they had to say about it…

———————————————————————————————————————–

David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)

Bowie’s revolutionary mix of hard rock and glam pop was given an otherworldly look and feel by his coquettish alter ego Ziggy. It’s not so much that every act that followed dyed their hair orange in homage to the spidery spaceman; more that they learned the value of creating a ‘bubble’ of image and presentation that fans could fall in love with.

Without this … we’d be lost. No Sex Pistols, no Prince, no Madonna, no Duran Duran, no Boy George, no Kiss, no Bon Jovi, no ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ … I could go on.

———————————————————————————————————————–

In celebration of this recognition, we’ve decided to give away five copies of the quite wonderful Ziggy Stardust SACD (courtesy of EMI) which was mixed for 5.1 by Ken Scott back in January 2003, and released in September of the same year. (09.29.2003 NEWS: THREE MORE BOWIE SACDs RELEASED TODAY)

And so in the spirit of Ziggy Stardust changing music, I decided to change Ziggy Stardust. All you have to do is spot the five differences on the version of the cover I’ve posted on the MBs compared with the normal version above.

Simply list the five alterations I’ve made, for example: 1 = Hair is now green, was yellow. 2 = Extra box of rubbish in foreground of pic.

Those are examples of the kind of things you should be looking for…obviously they aren’t actual examples of real changes, but that’s how obvious the five changes are.

When you’ve tracked down all five, send them to me here. The contest ends two weeks from now at midnight UK time on Sunday August 6th, and the winners will be announced soon thereafter. Happy spotting, kidz!

For just one time, Tomorrow night, Tomorrow night…

We told you about BowieNetter Nick Pegg‘s revised and expanded fourth edition of The Complete David Bowie at the beginning of the week, (07.17.2006 NEWS: REVISED COMPLETE DB SIGNING AND LAUNCH PARTY) when we also promised to run a competition to win signed copies of the book no self-respecting Bowie fan should be without.

But, before the contest, it is with much pleasure that I can announce that Nick will be popping into BowieNet chat tomorrow evening (Sunday 23rd) at 6:00pm UK time. It’s an informal thing that we are aiming to run for an hour or so, but we’ll see how it goes.

And so, onto the contest which consists of two questions set by Nick himself, and here they are…

———————————————————————————————————————–

Question 1: Readers of The Complete David Bowie will know that the first section of the book consists of an A-Z of every song written, covered, performed live or in any way contributed to by David Bowie. Several songs will be making their first appearances in the new edition. So, purely alphabetically, what will be the first “new” entry in the 2006 edition?

Question 2: How many years separate the two photographs that appear on the front cover (above) of the new edition of The Complete David Bowie?

———————————————————————————————————————–

We have five signed copies of the book to give away. In the event that your are one of the lucky winners and you would prefer your copy personalised to you from Nick, you must say who you want the dedication made to in your competition entry.

The contest ends at midnight on Friday 28th July to give us time to organise the signing of the winners’ books with Nick at the aforementioned signing session in London on Saturday, August 5th. The books will be dispatched soon after that date.

So, send your two answers to me here with your dedication (if you want one) and your real name and address to speed your delivery up a bit.

Don’t forget to come and talk to Nick in BowieNet chat at 6:00pm tomorrow…but don’t expect any help with those questions!

Now I’ve found it out you see, Another man standing next to me…

One of the stills in the animation above is from David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, the other is from the Gnarls Barkley video for their new single, Smiley Faces.

According to the Gnarls Barkley video, the guys have been in on some quite historical musical moments over the years…clever what they can do with computers these days, ain’t it?

I’ll leave it to you to figure out the impostor.

Thanx to the music TV addicted Holly Blam Blam for the pointer!