Month: October 2009

Do you remember a guy, from such an early song…

David Bowie recorded his first ever TOTPs performance at the BBC in Shepherds Bush on October 2nd 1969. He was accompanied to the studio by manager Kenneth Pitt and he took his mother along for the experience too.

As producer of the single, Gus Dudgeon was on hand to oversee the recording of the backing track that David would sing his live vocal over.

The performance was broadcast the following week on October 9th, by which time the record had risen on the UK singles chart from #20 to #13.

The same appearance was rebroadcast on TOTPs on October 16th, helping the record climb even further up the chart to #8…and it didn’t stop there.

Stay tuned for more memories of Major Tom shortly.

This is Ground Control to Major Tom, You’ve really made the grade…

Neil McCormick has written a thoughtful piece in the Telegraph regarding Space Oddity, the song and the album. Here are a couple of lines from it…

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The album he subsequently recorded may not have proved a major success, but it freed Bowie to confidently embrace new musical ideas rather than chase trends, essaying many of the themes he would explore in his stellar Seventies incarnations, along with a kind of cynical bewilderment at the fading of Sixties ideals.

Critics generally portray Bowie?s true career arc starting with 1970?s ?The Man Who Sold The World?, but re-released next week as an anniversary double CD edition with bonus tracks, demos and alternative versions, ?Space Oddity? (the album) is revealed not as a pallid foreshadowing of his genius, but an elegiac lost masterpiece.

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You can read the full thing here.

Strip you down and take you to pieces…

Those of you who have been here for the long haul may remember the Building Hours panel (above) in the Special Features section of BowieNet of BowieNet.

Ten years ago the David Bowie album ‘hours…’ was released (October 4th UK – 5th USA) and to celebrate the release here on BowieNet, we launched Building Hours to preview both the album sleeve and the tracks on the album in a two week run up to the release.

To mark this tenth anniversary we are offering up the package below for one lucky BowieNetter in our latest contest.

The package consists of one empty ‘hours…’ signed by Bowie in 2000 press folder, plus the four associated card sleeve UK promo CDs:

1 – Ten-track ‘hours…’ promo album (CDVDJ2900)
2 – Three-track Thursday’s Child promo single (VSCDJ1753)
3 – Two-track Survive promo single (VSCDJ1767)
4 – Four-track Seven promo single (SEVENDPRO1)

So, this is what we did for your contest pleasure….we took the twenty five tiles used in Building Hours, jumbled them all up and then removed five of them.

Using the above grid for reference, what you have to do is determine which five tiles we have removed from the grid below.

For example, in the grid below you can work out that the tile at top left is the tile named C2 in the grid above…So C2 can’t be one of the missing tiles.

It’s probably easier than it looks and sounds!

Now all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this great prize is email me here with the names of each of the five missing tiles.

We’ll give you a couple of weeks for this contest by running it until midnight New York time, Friday October 23rd, with the winner being announced shortly thereafter.

Usual BowieNet rules apply: Only one entry per BowieNet account and please remember you must enter using your BowieNet e-mail or at least supply your BowieNet user name. If you do neither of these things you won’t be eligible to enter.

Happy spotting, kidz!

She opened strange doors that we’d never close again…

Regular visitors to these pages, and residents of Vancouver with their fingers on the pulse, will know all about the Bowie Glam Ball organised by BowieNet’s very own Vernard…so I’m sure I don’t need to sell it to them.

However, go here for more info and ticket details and stay tuned to BowieNet for another round of wonderful pictures of Vancouver’s prettiest things in full Bowie mode from the event.

Hold on to anyone, Hold on to anyone, But LEGO of me?

This one really seems to have caught people’s imaginations…I’ve had lots of email already, some from excitable types looking forward to it and a couple more from folk incredulous that David Bowie and Iggy Pop are to feature in LEGO Rock Band, due early next month.

I’m sure the majority reading this understand the premise of both LEGO and Rock Band, well I don’t particularly, so here’s some guff…

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MTV Games, Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment are pleased to reveal that none other than Mr David Bowie himself is to grace Christmas blockbuster video game LEGO Rock Band ? fully LEGO-fied.

Gamers of all ages and abilities will be able to strum, drum or sing along to 80s hit ?Let?s Dance?. Bowie joins Iggy Pop in the line-up of stars immortalised as LEGO minifigures in the game.

LEGO Rock Band is the family friendly music action game with an unmatched collection of rock and pop hits ? no obscure heavy metal in this game! With new Super-Easy mode for younger players, LEGO Rock Band works with existing Guitar Hero and Rock Band peripherals and features all the customisation, humour and building you’d expect from the award winning LEGO game franchise.

Released on Sony PS3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii & DS, it?ll hit retailers shelves in November 2009 and is sure to be a massive hit with the whole family.

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As they say, the Bowie track in the game is the 1983 worldwide smash, Let’s Dance. The Iggy Pop song is The Passenger, one of only two songs on Iggy’s 1977 Lust For Life album that DB didn’t have a hand in writing. However, he did co-produce the album and he does provide backing vocals on the track.

Iggy Pop will also voice the in-game tutorials for LEGO Rock Band.

You can view a video of the LEGO Bowie performing Let’s Dance on the Guardian website.

God knows it’s good…

BowieNetter TP pointed me at this BBC review of the Space Oddity 40th Anniversary Limited Edition by Chris Roberts a couple of days back…I was hoping to save it for a round-up of reviews but they don’t seem to be forthcoming just yet…do let us know if you spy any on your cyber travels or elsewhere.

Anyway, it’s a lovely piece, from which this excerpt…

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It sounds extraordinary today, so flecked with genius that the wonder is not that Bowie broke big afterwards but that he didn?t sooner. Perhaps the last great 60s album, with shades of prog and sprinkles of Sgt. Pepper?s, it?s an elegy to that decade?s corroding ideals. The climactic Memory of a Free Festival perfectly captures the desire for escape from society?s shackles that coloured the times yet also seems smart enough to mock itself, knowing that bliss is, as he puts it in another lovely ballad, An Occasional Dream.

In this blend of abandonment and self-awareness lay Bowie?s genius (a blend which later culminated in Young Americans, both completely fabricated and completely soulful). He never accepted that the textbook doesn?t allow you to be simultaneously arch and angst-ridden, and his innate ambivalence fuelled songs which proudly endure.

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You can read the full review on the BBC website here…and that’s the UK press ad above in case you hadn’t already worked it out.

David Bowie’s Space Oddity 40th Anniversary Limited Edition is released in the UK next Monday, October 12th, as a double CD and a digital download, with the 180gm vinyl following the week after.

As previously reported (09.22.2009 NEWS: SPACE ODDITY RELEASE MOVED TO NOVEMBER IN USA) the release has been moved in the US from October to November 17th.

I thought you died alone, a long long time ago…

Probably the best known of all Bowie covers is Nirvana‘s 1993 MTV Unplugged version of The Man Who Sold The World. Released on the band’s MTV Unplugged In New York album the following year, a promo single of the track enjoyed massive airplay around the world.

Despite the airplay it was never released as a single (aside from the promo CD and an Italian promo 45) though it was also included on Nirvana, the band’s best of compilation album.

Kurt Cobain spoke of “the debt we all owe David” during the MTV taping and the band continued to perform the song live until Cobain’s death in 1994.

David has long acknowledged that there is a generation of fans who seem to consider the song a Nirvana original, commenting with much humour, more than once, that after his own live performances of the song “kids would come up afterwards and say, ‘It’s cool you’re doing a Nirvana song.’ And I’d think, ‘Fuck you, you little tosser!'”.

SPIN magazine has now voted this version #1 in its poll of The 50 Best Cover Songs, commenting thus: Kurt Cobain’s pained vocals on Nirvana’s unplugged rendition of this cosmic 1970 Bowie tune sounded even more haunting after the song became a posthumous rock-radio staple.

You can see the full list of fifty songs here.

And I looked and frowned and the monster was me…

BowieNetter, French Eric, pointed me in the direction of the above Pets Rock 2010 calendar, for which I thank him, I think.

Actually I don’t, it’s bloody ‘orrible and The Telegraph in the UK haven’t made matters any better by captioning the little beast above: The Gene Guinea (pig)!

You can view the whole collection of absurdities at this picture gallery on the Telegraph site.

Somebody send me (Oh, somebody send me)…

The thirty five winners of our Rebel Rebel 35th anniversary contest will be pleased to learn that all of their prizes were sent out in September.

I know many of you have already received yours, but with the disruption to the UK postal system right now there may be a few stragglers.

If you haven’t received your package by October 19th, mail me and I’ll see what we can find out from this end.

The main reasons for the delay with these prizes were mostly production problems…aside from the original batch of sleeves being mistakenly trashed (unsigned fortunately) we felt the Bowie signature worked better on the glossy postcards we had printed rather than the flimsy paper sleeves.

Anyway, we finally got there and each winner should have received the Rebel Rebel 45 with a numbered sleeve and an accompanying signed postcard, numbered on the reverse with the same number.

You should also find a copy of the above congratulations postcard in your package (09.28.2009 NEWS: BOWIENET PRIZE WINNER’S POSTCARDS AND MONTHLY DRAW) along with a 2002 Meltdown aftershow pass from the night Bowie played as a little thank you for your patience.

A handful of the passes were signed by Bowie in 2002 and randomly placed in about half of the packages.

The passes are perhaps more valuable than you would imagine as they will entitle you to get backstage after the Bowie Meltdown performance at the RFH on June 29th 2002.

Admittedly that date has passed, but if you ever manage to get access to a time machine just ask for me when you get there and tell me that I sent you from the future and I promise to get you in somehow.

Btw, skyline is the winner of September’s Winners’ Contest (see aforementioned news item) and she has already been informed.

PRIZES UPDATE: We are finally getting on top of the backlog and will be looking back at the token contest, among others, next…so don’t worry Chas, you’re not being victimised.