Month: January 2007

Down in space it’s always 1982… (or thereabouts)

Those of you that have been waiting to buy The Best Of David Bowie 1980/1987 as a single CD since its inclusion in the triple CD Platinum Collection box set, (06.11.05 NEWS: TRIPLE CD PLATINUM COLLECTION TRACKLISTING) can now breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Bowie The Best Of 1980/1987 – Sight and Sound CD/DVD is scheduled to be released through EMI on March 19th. Despite my earlier version of this news item, the CD is the same as the original Platinum Collection version, except that the digital download version of this disc will feature a live version of Cat People from Serious Moonlight as there were licensing issues with the studio version for download.

The second disc in this package, a 15 track DVD, includes the previously unavailable The Drowned Girl and When The Wind Blows videos.

Here’s the tracklisting:

CD
01 Let’s Dance (Single Version)
02 Ashes To Ashes (Single Version)
03 Under Pressure
04 Fashion (Single Version)
05 Modern Love (Single Version)
06 China Girl (Single Version)
07 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (Single Version)
08 Up The Hill Backwards (1999 Digital Remaster)
09 Alabama Song (Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny)
10 The Drowned Girl
11 Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (Film Version Single Edit)
12 This Is Not America (David Bowie and The Pat Metheny Group)
13 Loving The Alien
14 Absolute Beginners (Single Version)
15 When The Wind Blows
16 Blue Jean
17 Day In Day Out (Single Version)
18 Time Will Crawl
19 Underground (Single Version)

DVD
01 Ashes To Ashes
02 Fashion
03 Under Pressure
04 The Drowned Girl
05 Let’s Dance
06 China Girl
07 Modern Love
08 Cat People (Putting Out Fire)
09 Blue Jean
10 Loving The Alien
11 Absolute Beginners
12 Underground
13 When The Wind Blows
14 Day-In Day-Out
15 Time Will Crawl

Knowing us, and the generosity of EMI, we’ll probably be running a contest to win copies nearer the release date.

You’re the very tough with a long past…

Managed to get my hands on a copy of the MOJO Bowie special I told you about a few days ago (01.18.2007 NEWS: MOJO BOWIE SPECIAL OUT NEXT WEEK…AND ERM, MUZ!) and last month. (12.29.2006 NEWS: MOJO BOWIE BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE DUE NEXT MONTH)

I’ve only had a flick through the text so I still can’t comment on the accuracy of many of the features, but it seems to be a well considered and affectionate appreciation of David Bowie’s first sixty years on the planet.

That’s just a rough montage of twelve of the 148 pages above to give you a flavour, and here follows the contents to give you a more specific idea…

Year By Year

6 Chapter One: 1947 to 1969
Including: How his eye changed colour (p11), That forgotten first album (p15), The Making of Space Oddity (p16)… and more.

18 Chapter Two: 1970 to 1979
Including: A man in a dress (p22), Bowie and the occult (p24), The Rise Of Ziggy Stardust (p30), Aladdin Sane in America (p36), Bowie goes soul (p52), The lost Bowie album (p57)… and more.

76 Chapter Three: 1980 to 1989
Including: Bowie and the new romantics (p78), The Serious Moonlight tour (p82), Wowing Broadway as the Elephant Man (p80), Bowie the goblin king! (p87), The ill-advised Glass Spider tour (p88)… and more.

116 Chapter Four: 1990 to 2007
Including: Bowie and The Lord’s Prayer (p118), The death of Mick Ronson (p121), Bowie the artist (p126), The Thin White Duke At 60 (p142)… and more.

The Interviews
38 On The Road With Ziggy Stardust, April 1973
94 Teaching Iggy Pop to Ski, June 1987
124 The Renaissance Man, October 1994
130 The ’70s Remembered, July 2002

The Albums
26 Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory
48 Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Pin Ups and Diamond Dogs
58 Young Americans, David Live and Station To Station
70 Low, “Heroes”, Stage and Lodger
79 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
92 Let’s Dance, Tonight and Never Let Me Down
98 Tin Machine, Tin Machine ll and Oy Vey, Baby
122 Black Tie White Noise and The Buddha Of Suburbia
128 1.Outside, Earthling and ‘hours…’
138 Heathen and Reality

Plus
74 The Best Bowie Songs Of The ’60s & ’70s
100 The Best Bowie Songs Of The ’80s
102 The Greatest Bowie Pictures Ever Seen
140 The Best Bowie Songs Of The ’90s & ’00s
146 Win a limited Ziggy Stardust print – signed by Bowie

There does also seem to be evidence of the promised unpublished photos, including a shot I don’t think I’ve seen before of David at The Three Tuns art lab in 1969 with The Strawbs.

Unpublished or not, the magazine is packed with tons of great shots, not least of all this live one I’ve posted on the MBs from 1974…I think the skull used in Cracked Actor had more flesh on its bones!

MOJO’s 60 Years Of Bowie Special Birthday Tribute will be the coolest thing in your newsagents from Wednesday the 24th February and it will set you back a mere £5.99.

If you’re outside of the UK you can order online here.

I believe in magic…

The region 1 DVD and the Blu-ray disc of The Prestige are released in North America a month from today, on February 20th. Extras include the following…

~ Available Subtitles: Spanish, French
~ Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0)
~ The Director’s Notebook: The Cinematic Sleight of Hand of Christopher Nolan
~ The Art of the Prestige Gallery

Those of you in Europe that haven’t got around to seeing the film at the cinema yet (11.06.2006 NEWS: PRESTIGE OPENS NATIONWIDE IN THE UK FROM FRIDAY) may now want to wait for a few more weeks for the region 2 DVD which is released on March 12th. There is also an HD-DVD rumoured for release on the same day, but I’ve not yet had official confirmation of that.

Following on from the region 1 (07.06.05 NEWS: CRITERION TMWFTE DVD WITH DB COMMENTARY) and French region 2 (09.13.05 NEWS: L’HOMME QUI VENAIT D’AILLEURS DBL DVD OUT NOW) versions of the double disc DVD of The Man Who Fell To Earth, Optimum Home Entertainment is to release a region 2 version of the same in the UK on January 29th.

Stay tuned for more regarding this release when we’ll be running a contest to win copies of the DVD shortly.

I could make it all worthwhile as a rock ‘n’ roll star…

Author Peter Haywood (That’s him posing as Ziggy above) has been in touch with details of his self-published book, Catch A Falling Star. Here’s a brief synopsis:

The novel is set in Melbourne in the early 1980?s, and tells the tale of a Bowie-obsessed young man named Nicholas (Nicky Nova) Walpole, who moves into a run-down share house in Lygon Street with a bunch of musician friends, forms a band, and dreams of following in his hero’s footsteps by becoming a world famous rock ?n? roll star. But is the band as hell-bent on fame and fortune as their singer?

Here’s a few excerpts from Catch A Falling Star…

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Then when I turned twelve, my head was spun around seven ways to Sunday by David Bowie when Ziggy Stardust first burst onto the scene. It?s often been said that Bowie didn?t have fans so much as acolytes and that was definitely the case with me. At that age, I think I only understood on a subliminal level that here was an artist who spoke directly to my concerns by going against the prevailing phony rock?n?roll conceit of the time that stardom was un-cool and nothing to aspire to.

He didn?t sing about overthrowing the government. His politics were only about personal liberation through self re-invention, inspiring a generation not to “get off on that revolution stuff” because “it?s just a drag, too many snags.” Furthermore, he looked bizarre and otherworldly, which immediately struck a chord (an E major I think) with kids like me who had always felt alienated and strange. All I knew was that I craved stardom, fame, adulation, and acceptance.

When Bowie had last toured Australia in 1978, I was a wide-eyed seventeen year old at my very first concert, and I remember spotting them all. There was a smattering of Ziggy and Aladdin clones, their mascara and hair dye running in the driving rain of that damp November night at the MCG. A cluster of emaciated suburban soul boys, looking as if they?d just fallen to earth, and landed on Moonee Ponds, and Ferntree Gully.

A fair contingent had opted for the French waiter look of the Thin White Duke period. Their hair was slicked back, strangled into place with copious amounts of gel, and painted traffic cone orange. And naturally, an obligatory packet of Gitanes protruded ever so slightly from their waistcoat pockets (I myself had briefly opted for this particular brand of cigarette, at least until the potent little filter-less marvels began to play merry hell with my throat.)

Others still had chosen the then-current jaunty sailor look, complete with nautical cap, and five-pleated trousers. These voluminous pants never seemed to hang off their hips with the same sense of style, and grace as they did from the walking clotheshorse named Bowie. Instead, they seemed to sag and crumple beneath already expanding waistlines, as gravity tugged them inevitably towards the ground.

?But whichever look was adopted by us committed copycats, the one unifying factor was that we were all outsider kids, suburban misfits and freaks. Outcasts from our peers at school and work alike, we found solace in dressing up in natty threads, and role-playing.

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Thanx for that Peter. Catch A Falling Star is available online at www.lulu.com.

As she walks through her sunken dream…

You’re probably already aware of this one, but for those of you that aren’t, Factory Girl is another film centred around Andy Warhol‘s Factory, which more specifically deals with the tragically short life of Warhol Superstar, Edie Sedgwick.Here’s the synopsis…

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FACTORY GIRL imaginatively unfolds the comet-like rise and fall of 60s ?It Girl? Edie Sedgwick, the blazing superstar who came to define both the glamour and the tragedy of our celebrity-obsessed culture. Sedgwick appeared to be the quintessential American princess, with her blue blood, her trust fund and her Harvard education, not to mention her ethereal beauty and vivacious charisma. But she was also a lost and fragile little girl; and when she met up with counter-culture anti-hero Andy Warhol, everything changed. Suddenly, Edie found herself at the center of a Pop Art universe bursting with sex, drugs, style and rock ?n? roll — and a mad rush for fame and fabulousness that was destined to spin out of control.

Arriving into the chaos of mid-60s New York, Edie (Sienna Miller) is taken under the wing of the famously deadpan artist Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce) who sees in her untamed vulnerability the makings of an irresistible muse. Warhol invites Edie into the wild world of The Factory, a former downtown hat factory he has transformed into a bohemian paradise. Here, a rag-tag mix of musicians, poets, artists, actors and misfits gather to create avant-garde movies during the day and throw glam parties all night long. Edie quickly ascends to become the star of Warhol?s movies, an idol at The Factory and a media darling. She is on top of the world when she falls in love with a larger-than-life rock star (Hayden Christensen). But when Edie becomes caught between Warhol?s world of sexy surfaces and her new love, she winds up rejected by both ? and once again, set adrift in the modern world.

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Factory Girl has a theatrical release date of February 2nd in North America, and the soundtrack contains David Bowie’s Life On Mars?, as evidenced in the trailer which you can find on the official Factory Girl site.

Sees the pictures of himself, Every magazine on every shelf…

MOJO magazine has released the front cover of their Bowie special we told you about last month, (12.29.2006 NEWS: MOJO BOWIE BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE DUE NEXT MONTH) along with more details regarding the content. Here’s a bit from the MOJO site…

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“I was sitting in my bath, submerged in bubbles, when I heard David Bowie for the first time…” writes superfan Kate Bush…

60 Years Of Bowie

THIS MOJO Classic Special Edition magazine is a month-by-month, year-by-year celebration of one of rock music’s greatest icons. Containing eyewitness stories, previously unpublished photographs, classic interviews, album reappraisals, the best Bowie songs from each era, plus a specially written Foreword by Kate Bush.

On sale 24 January 2007. Available in all good newsagents or by ordering online from HERE.

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I can’t comment on how good or bad this edition is just yet, as I haven’t seen a copy, but, fingers crossed…

Also, BowieNetter Stefano from www.velvetgoldmine.it has kindly been in touch again (12.29.2006 NEWS: ITALIAN RS HAS BOWIE COVER AND RETROSPECTIVE) with a scan of the front of the January/February bi-monthly MUZ magazine, which he informs me has a 10-page retrospective with nothing particularly exciting to recommend it.

Carry the news…

World famous BBC presenter and notorious underwear collector, Marc Riley, is among the DJs set to “rock da house with good vibes” (as he puts it) at COMMON in Manchester this coming Friday.

From 9:00pm, a collection of Northwest DJs including Richard Hector Jones, James Holroyd and aforementioned Riley, will be rinsing (it says here) Bowie and Bowie related tunes until 2:00am.

The evening goes under the banner of All The Young Dudes and is in honour of DB’s recent birthday.

Here’s the details for those intending to get along…

All The Young Dudes
Friday January 19th
9:00pm to 2:00am
COMMON
39 to 41 Edge Street
Northern Quarter
Manchester M4 1HW
0161 832 9245

Knowing Mr Riley, I’m sure if you approach him and say you’re a BowieNetter, he’ll buy you a drink…probably.

Pug, pug, pug, pug…

I doubt there’s anyone reading this who hasn’t seen David Bowie in EXTRAS yet.

But, as we told you back in October, (10.06.2006 NEWS: EXTRAS ON HBO FROM JANUARY) in case you haven’t and you do have access to HBO, then click on Andy‘s pug nose in the picture above to see their upcoming schedule for repeated showings of the Bowie episode.

There’ll be others on the line filing past, who’ll whisper Low…

Much has been written about the brilliance and braveness of the music on Low, and rightly so. But, I thought I would instead just recall a couple of the things that I remember about the album’s release as a sixteen-year old in the UK.

If ever the hackneyed phrase ‘unleashed upon an unsuspecting public’ was worth trotting out, the release of Low on RCA on January 14th 1977 probably warrants it. Like many fans at the time, I was totally taken by surprise by the album…and what a wonderful surprise it was.

I think adverts for Low must have appeared ahead of its release, but the earliest one I can find in my archive now (above) wasn’t actually published until two weeks after it was released. Indeed, it seems that RCA really weren’t behind the record at all, as, apart from the trade advert above, I don’t recall any music press ads much before mid February, when the album had already proved a success by reaching #2 on the UK album chart without the help of advertising.

It’s been well recorded that Low was a record RCA didn’t want to release and this advertising strategy would bear that out, and, unusually, there wasn’t even a single released ahead of the album.

I can clearly remember buying Low on the day of release and thinking the cover seemed like it had been a little rushed.

The image on the sleeve was the first surprise as it had already been used with an identical background for the US adverts for The Man Who Fell To Earth six months earlier, (above) and the tracklisting on the reverse almost seemed like an afterthought the way it appeared on an orange sticker which had been slapped down by hand at a jaunty angle. Inside, a simple insert on white paper outlined who did what on each of the album’s eleven tracks, and initial copies included a fan club application.

Actually, the previous album, Station To Station, had received a similar treatment: A still from The Man Who Fell To Earth on the sleeve and another simple insert with the album’s personnel, and no lyrics!

In fact, there hadn’t been a full set of lyrics with a Bowie album in the UK since Aladdin Sane, and before you write in, the lyrics to Young Americans weren’t included in UK copies of the album until long after the album’s release. Lyric inners would return later in the year with the next album, “Heroes”.

I don’t think I got the visual pun of the sleeve until a long time afterwards (Low profile), and even the title seemed a last-minute change as the album had been listed in my January 1977 HMV new release schedule as New Music Night And Day. (See below)

Anyway, any misgivings about the cover (I actually think it’s a classic sleeve now) were soon swept away by the musical content, and, more than anything, I can vividly recall being absolutely blown away by how impossibly futuristic the record sounded.

Apart from the obvious slicing of the album into two distinct sides, (reflected better in the original title) it’s probably hard to imagine how absolutely unique Low sounded unless you were there listening in 1977.

Co-producer Tony Visconti (It was a Bowie/Visconti production, and not Brian Eno as widely misreported.) gifted the album that distinctive gated snare, revolutionary back then, and though Low was a record supposedly informed by the likes of Kraftwerk and other synthesiser based outfits, to my ears it sounded far more organic and not at all mechanical.

If you’ve not listened to it for a while, stick Low on now and prepare to be transported by its gloriously uplifting melancholia and musical language from another time and place.

Low sounds as fresh today as it ever did…thirty nine minutes of untouchable genius.

Come together, party…

Here’s another round-up of the remaining fan-organised Bowie birthday evenings thatwe’re aware of.

As ever, I have to point out that none of the following are official or endorsed by BowieNet, but here they are anyway in the order they are taking place… Skates on for the first two if you intend going…they take place this evening!

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Saturday January 13th, Berlin, Germany

The davidbowie.de members will celebrate David`s birthday on Saturday, 13th in Berlin at the “Neues Ufer” former “Anderen Ufer”.

After David had lived in LA for years, he came to Berlin in 1976 and rented an flat in Berlin-Schoeneberg, Hauptstrasse 155, being fascinated by the “wall-city”. Here in Berlin he produced two of his most important records, Low and “Heroes”.

Today this address is legendary, fans from over the world come to the house and the nearby cafe “Neues Ufer”, where Bowie was a regular customer, having his breakfast after recording nightsessions in the Hansa-Studio.

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Saturday January 13th, NYC, USA

Glamdammit is pleased to celebrate the David Bowie 60th birthday bash with rarely-seen Bowie footage projected throughout the evening, Bowie give-aways, and a Bowie beauty pageant… DJs will include Twig The Wonderkid [Glamdammit, Trash!], Carin Shock [Thunderkunt, BRL], Mathilde Hildebrandt [Death Disco, Catfight], and others!!

David Bowie beauty pageant @ 2am hosted by the legendary Miss Guy [Toilet Boys, Rocket Queen]… special edition Bowie DVDs for the best-dressed Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke, and Scary Monster!!

Saturday, January 13th @ 10pm
Open bar 11pm to midnite
No cover 21 + ID
glamdammitnyc.com

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Saturday January 20th, London, UK

BowieNetter Nikkie Amouyal has been in touch with details of her successful London club night, Rockabaret…

My club night Rockabaret will celebrate the Thin White Duke?s 60th birthday in our WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT theme on Saturday 20th January 2007.

?IT’S RARE THAT A CLUB LIVES UP TO ITS HYPE, BUT ROCKABARET IS EXACTLY AS IT DESCRIBES ITSELF ? A DECADENTLY GLAMOROUS ROCK STAR PARTY’ – ?Alternative Magazine?

Rockabaret is a decadently glamorous rock-star party with live art performances on a 40 foot stage in an authentic Victorian ballroom! Nikkie Amouyal (Les Incroyables ? Paris) directs fire eaters, burlesque acts, catwalk parades, Brechtian cabaret and circus shows for your entertainment: there is one show every 30 – 45 minutes, and each show lasts around five minutes or so. Then it is back to the partying with DJs Tony Maggs (Stay Beautiful – London) and Monzu playing David Bowie to Marilyn Manson, Serge Gainsbourg to Klaus Nomi.

This month our performances we will include fire eater, burlesque acts, drama, real white snake in our photo studio, characters on stilts, mime, etc.

IMPORTANT: Entry to the gloriously ornate Cobden Club is restricted to members and their guests, so be a guest of RocKabaret by emailing your name to door@rockabaret.co.uk

Entrance: With flyer (downloadable by clicking on image above) £6 B4 9.30, then £8. Without flyer: £7 before 9.30, then £9.

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Thursday January 25th, London, UK

Monthly retro club night “Pretty In Pink” is hosting a Bowie special on January 25th, as a joint celebration of the great man’s 60th birthday and the 30th anniversary of “Low” this month.

Admission is completely free and we’ll be playing lots of extra Bowie classics throughout the night on both floors, as well as screening plenty of vintage Bowie videos and performances.

It’s at The Fly, 36-38 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1EP (near Tottenham Court Road tube) from 7:30pm and full details can be found on the Pretty In Pink website.

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Click on any of the above fliers for more information regarding each event.