Month: November 2009

Ain’t that poster love?

We’ve posted a fair bit on these pages regarding Aylesbury Friars over the last year or so, (04.04.2009 NEWS: BOWIE AT FRIARS REVIEWS IN NEW ROXETTE MAGAZINE & 02.13.2009 NEWS: OFFICIAL FRIARS AYLESBURY COMPENDIUM UPDATED & 05.07.2008 NEWS: OFFICIAL FRIARS AYLESBURY COMPENDIUM IS LIVE) and now Mike O’Connor who runs The official FRIARS Aylesbury compendium has told us about his most recent interview which is with Budget Stopps, the wife of Friars promoter, David Stopps.

Budget was instrumental in putting on the first Bowie gig at the venue and she designed many of the posters, so familiar with locals, including the two Bowie related ones above. Here’s an excerpt from the interview…

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That (Groundhogs April 1971)was the saviour gig wasn’t it? Without that, there would have been no Bowie, no Mott The Hoople…

I think one of the things that helped put the club on the map was the Bowie gig in 1971. That was my connection (laughs). Nobody had heard of him, but I was a huge fan as he had written stuff for my ex husband (a musician) and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t recording it himself. I had a demo tape of Bowie which I played to David and later when we were offered him through the music business, we snapped him up and got him when nobody else knew who he was. We had 700 people at that first gig. People were coming up from London. That was the beginning really – it was the first night he had played with Mick Ronson.

I’ve heard a bootleg of that gig and what surprised me was how nervous he seemed to be.

He was a very different person then! He was with Angie Bowie and had long hair. He was wearing all these long flowing clothes. If you imagine the cover of The Man Who Sold The World album, that’s what he looked like. He loved Friars, it’s close to his heart and you should try to find him to interview him! That gig was important for us and for him.

© 2009 Mike O’Connor/www.aylesburyfriars.co.uk

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I’m presuming the ex husband that Budget mentions is Les Payne whose band, Chameleon, were given a demo of Star by Bowie in early 1971 with a view to them recording it as a single. The song was recorded by Chameleon but never released. The demo was markedly different to the version that eventually surfaced on Ziggy Stardust and you can read more about it over at The Ziggy Stardust Companion.

Stay tuned for further accounts of the Bowie Friars gigs by local man Rick Pearce and read the full Budget interview here.

I remember Sam ’cause he was like me…

As we told you last month, (10.13.2009 NEWS: MOON AWARDS, DVD AND BLU-RAY AND FRIDAY LONDON EVENT) today sees the release of Duncan Jones’ MOON on Region 2 DVD and BD.

That’s the BD above, which comes in a hard-to-scan, but very cool, embossed, metallic slipcase.

The bad news for US members reading this is that you will have to wait until January 12th for a domestic release. However, if you can’t wait until then, simply purchase the UK version as it’s multi-region and therefore playable worldwide!

Here’s the list of very impressive extras for both formats…

DVD

* 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
* English DD5.1
* English and Hindi subtitles
* Commentary with Writer/Director Duncan Jones, Director of Photography Gary Shaw, Concept Designer Gavin Rothery and Production Designer Tony Noble
* Commentary with Writer/Director Duncan Jones and Producer Stuart Fenegen
* ?Whistle? a Short Film by Duncan Jones
* The Making of Moon
* Creating the Visual Effects
* Science Center Q&A with Director Duncan Jones
* Filmmaker?s Q&A at the Sundance Film Festival

Blu-ray Disc

* 1080P 2.40:1 Widescreen
* English, Italian and Spanish 5.1
* English, Hindi, Italian and Spanish subtitles
* BD Exclusive: Concept Art Library
* BD Exclusive: How Did They Do That: Cloning Sam
* Commentary with Writer/Director Duncan Jones, Director of Photography Gary Shaw, Concept Designer Gavin Rothery and Production Designer Tony Noble
* Commentary with Writer/Director Duncan Jones and Producer Stuart Fenegen
* ?Whistle? a Short Film by Duncan Jones
* The Making of Moon
* Creating the Visual Effects
* Science Center Q&A with Director Duncan Jones
* Filmmaker?s Q&A at the Sundance Film Festival

I’m off to commandeer my son’s PS3 for a few hours!

Scary Monsters, And super creeps, Keep me running, Running scared…

I wondered if they would have a relevant Bowie cover for the Scary Monsters and Super Creeps episode of FlashForward. (10.28.2009 NEWS: FLASHFORWARD EPISODE NAMED AFTER BOWIE SONG) But since it aired in the UK on November 2nd I hadn’t been able to find out exactly who it was performing the appropriately placed cover of Scary Monsters.

Shazam couldn’t recognise it and after spending far too long comparing the various cover versions of Scary Monsters on iTunes to no avail, I almost gave up.

Well the good news is that I eventually found out that the band responsible for the cover is Sea Wolf. But the bad news, if you’re hoping to purchase a full-length version, is that it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere as of yet.

Perhaps whoever’s doing Sea Wolf’s PR should be reminded about good timing!

Heaven loves ya, The clouds part for ya, Nothing stands in your way…

Hot on the heels of Cheryl Cole‘s Fight For This Love, Sarah Harding of Girls Aloud is the second member of the popular singing group to record solo material.

Working with long-time Girls Aloud producers Xenomania, Sarah has recorded three songs for the soundtrack to her new film, St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold, in which she is playing the character of Roxy

The three exclusive tracks are Too Bad, Make It Easy and David Bowie’s Boys Keep Swinging, all due for a December 14th release on the soundtrack album. The film will be in UK cinemas from December 18th.

Sarah has never made secret of her appreciation of David Bowie (see pictorial evidence above) and neither is it the first time she has sung on a David Bowie cover version.

You may remember that in August 2007 Franz Ferdinand revealed that they too were working with Xenomania and they recorded a cover of Sound and Vision for a Radio 1 40th anniversary album. (08.16.2007 NEWS: FRANZ FERDINAND AND KEANE COVER BOWIE FOR RADIO 1 CD & 09.10.2007 NEWS: BOWIE ON RUN, FAT BOY, RUN SOUNDTRACK PLUS FRANZ UPDATE)

And just who did the boys drag in from an adjacent studio to contribute backing vocals? That’s right, Girls Aloud!

Among the twilight and stars, Like a rocket to Mars…

You may have seen reports of the upcoming brand new Doctor Who episode, The Waters of Mars, which airs this Sunday at 19:00 on BBC One. The action takes place in a permanent space station on Mars called: Bowie Base One.

Knowing what fans they are of David Bowie over at Doctor Who, (08.29.2007 NEWS: KNOCK KNOCK. WHO’S THERE? DOCTOR. DOCTOR WHO?) I guessed that the inspiration for Bowie Base One was our man, as opposed to Jim.

However, after fruitless attempts to glean more information from Doctor Who’s PR company, I decided to enlist the help of one of the Doctor’s deadliest enemies, Nicholas Pegg.

I’m sure you’ll remember that not only is Nick the author of The Complete David Bowie, but he is also an actor, and has made several appearances in Doctor Who himself, inside the shell of a Dalek. (See above)

Anyway, Nick didn’t disappoint. Using his Doctor Who contacts he came up with the following snippets…

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Hi Blam, As promised, I’ve made some enquiries, and I have news for you…

This Sunday’s episode, The Waters of Mars, is co-written by Phil Ford and Russell T Davies. I dropped a line earlier to Phil Ford (a veteran scriptwriter of, among other things, Bad Girls, Waterloo Road and Coronation Street), who tells me that the name “Bowie Base One” was his idea. Phil says:

“Yes, I’m a Bowie fan, so how could I miss an opportunity like that? I think the name of the base was probably the first thing I thought of. Life on Mars. What else would you call it? So cool.”

So there you go – straight from the horse’s mouth. By the way, this isn’t quite the first Bowie reference there’s been since Doctor Who made its big comeback: in the 2005 Christopher Eccleston episode Aliens of London, the familiar strains of ‘Starman’ could be heard in the background at one point…

Hope this helps! Nick.

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As if that wasn’t enough, Nick kindly came straight back to me with the following…

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Hi Blam, Further to my earlier email – I don’t know if this is of interest, but it has just occurred to me that there’s another little Bowie connection regarding Sunday’s episode ‘The Waters of Mars’.

It is directed by the brilliant Graeme Harper, who is a bit of a Doctor Who legend and a really smashing chap to boot (I’ve had the good fortune to work with him on several of the Dalek episodes). Graeme’s earliest directing credit on Doctor Who was back in the 1980s, when he directed Peter Davison’s final adventure as the Doctor, ‘The Caves of Androzani’. To play the role of the story’s central character, a masked and disfigured ‘Phantom of the Opera’ figure called Sharaz Jek, Graeme later revealed that the name at the top of his wish-list was David Bowie. With our hero busy on the Serious Moonlight tour at the time of the production in late 1983, it would never have been possible, but it goes to show that there’s more than one admirer of Mr Bowie’s talents involved in this Sunday’s episode…

To wander even further off-topic, you may be interested to know that the role of Sharaz Jek was eventually played, quite superbly, by the ballet principal Christopher Gable, and that earlier this year ‘The Caves of Androzani’ was voted the greatest ever episode of Doctor Who by the readers of ‘Doctor Who Magazine’…

Best wishes, Nick

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Thanks so much for that Nick, very informative.

For those of you wondering about the handsome chap above, it’s how David Bowie may have looked as Sharaz Jek in 1983. I’ve also thrown in an approximation of a far scarier version from 1995 with vicious new teeth!

The Waters of Mars is on BBC One at 19:00 this coming Sunday, November 15th.

“You know who I am,” he said, The speaker was an angel…

Sketchy details of this story first broke at the end of last month, but Peter Gabriel has now confirmed details of his Scratch My Back LP, due on January 25th, 2010.

The 12-track album will contain orchestral versions of songs dear to Peter and it has to be said he’s made some brave choices of songs to cover.

Here’s the tracklisting for Scratch My Back, with the original artists in brackets…

‘Heroes’ (David Bowie)
The Boy In The Bubble (Paul Simon)
Mirrorball (Elbow)
Flume (Bon Iver)
Listening Wind (Talking Heads)
The Power Of The Heart (Lou Reed)
My Body Is A Cage (Arcade Fire)
The Book Of Love (The Magnetic Fields)
I Think It?s Going To Rain Today (Randy Newman)
Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)
Philadelphia (Neil Young)
Street Spirit (Radiohead).

The suggestion is that the album will be followed up by a collection of Gabriel-penned songs covered by other artists, presumably entitled I’ll Scratch Yours. Work is already well underway on this album too, with Gabriel working with arranger John Metcalfe and producer Bob Ezrin at Air Studios in London.

The first public airing of anything from the Scratch My Back project came in the summer when Gabriel performed Paul Simon‘s The Boy In The Bubble with string accompaniment at this year’s WOMAD Charlton Park festival.

However, it seems the spark for the whole project may go back as far as 2005 when he provided a lovely orchestral cover of The Magnetic Fields song, The Book Of Love, for the Shall We Dance soundtrack. I’m not sure if the same version appears on Scratch My Back or if it has been re-recorded.

You may remember that the Shall We Dance soundtrack also included Mya‘s take on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance.

Funk to funky…

David Bowie is among a list of eight celebrities who have each contributed a word to be woven into a line of hand-knitted pashmina scarves for Michael Daube‘s Citta charity, on sale now through Tonic.com.

Here’s a bit of background, edited from Tonic.com…

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Tonic hand-knit pashmina sûtra scarves by Citta

Citta and Tonic are pleased to announce our new, two-ply, 100 percent pashmina Sûtra Scarf, hand knit by the women of the Citta Himalaya Women’s Center in Nepal. In Sanskrit, the word Sûtra means “a thread or line that holds things together” ? a fitting image for a project uniting a very special community of women.

Designer Lucy Barnes provided her expertise to these luxurious pieces, available in mottled grey or camel and hand embroidered with special messages chosen by celebrity supporters. From David Bowie (who chose “funk”) to Susan Sarandon (“awake”) to Queen Latifah (“strength”), eight actors and musicians shared words that speak to their hearts. A Berkeley scholar then translated each one into Sanskrit and passed them on to the artisans from Citta’s Women’s Center for the finishing touch on this perfect winter accessory.

Citta founder and spearhead of the Sûtra scarf project, Michael Daube talks about the stars he knows ? and the words they chose.

He says, “To me, all of these artists are people who are very grounded, very successful and have a very powerful and passionate way of putting words into the world.”

David Bowie: Funk
“It’s interesting because his definition is: It’s an inner rhythm, or soul. Funk as in music, as a beat. So I was happy to figure that one out because there are several different meanings for Funk.”

David Byrne: Dust
“First of all, it kind of took me back and I thought, ‘Interesting,'” says Daube. “But it really made me think. I thought, ‘What a small, minute thing that covers everything, is pervasive.'”

Scarlett Johansson: Reuse
“It has a very poignant meaning now because people are very wasteful. They don’t think enough about consumption … and the effect that we have on different parts of the world. When it was translated, it was very interesting because it came up as ‘a respect for material.'”

Queen Latifah: Strength
“It just fit her and I thought, ‘What a perfect word for her to come up with.’ Then we put it to the Sanskrit professor at Berkeley and one of her meanings was ‘shakti.’ And shakti means strength from a female perspective, a female energy. And I thought the whole amalgamation of these choices was perfect.”

Natlie Merchant: Silent
“That was easy to translate into Sanskrit because it’s a very profound, descriptive word.

Thandie Newton: Surrender
“When it went to be translated by the Sanskrit scholar, it meant, ‘when you take on a new understanding that absorbs your entire being.'”

Susan Sarandon: Awake
“She said, ‘First you have to be awake to do anything in your life; to have an intimate relationship, to be engaged in your life, to have dialogue with anything ? you need to be awake.'”

Sting: Resolve
“His word was also very fitting for him to come up with because it’s ‘a sense of determination or purpose in life.'”

YOUR IMPACT
By purchasing one of Tonic and Citta’s limited-edition pashmina Sûtra Scarves, you are not only treating yourself to a beautiful new piece of wearable art, you are also helping to support the women who made them. The artisans at the Women’s Center in Bhaktipur, one of Citta’s beneficiaries, gain skills that they can use to provide for their families while keeping their cultural traditions alive.

Due to the economic state of Nepal, many of the women there have survived hardships (such as the loss of a husband) or may be sole breadwinners for families plagued by alcoholism or violence. Trained in knitting, embroidery, beadwork, quilting and jewelry-making, they’ve been able to reclaim their independence, self-sufficiency and sense of healthy community.

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So there you go, enjoy the luxury of a hand-knit pashmina sûtra scarf just in time for the cold snaps around the corner and why not make a gift of one to someone close to you as we approach the holiday season.

Have a trawl around Tonic.com to find out more about this project and watch a video of Michael Daube talking about Citta and the celebrity contributions.

Or if you simply want to buy a scarf before they sell out, click on your preferred scarf above to get directly to the ordering page.

Don’t fake it baby, lay the real thing on me…

Serious Bowie collectors would generally be happy to own the above promo and promo information sheet for the UK Philips Space Oddity 45.

For many years there was no debate about this and it was presumed this was the only version of a UK promo to exist.

However, at least ten years ago, or more, the item below appeared, purporting to be an unissued sleeve for the UK promo.

I wrote about it at the time and I have always doubted the authenticity of the sleeve, which I did another piece about in 2004 (12.09.2004 NEWS: SPACE ODDITY IN ALL TIME TOP 10 MOST EXPENSIVE DISCS) when Record Collector valued it at £3,000 GBP…without ever actually seeing a copy in the flesh.

I won’t rant again about Record Collector or spell out my original reasons for not believing the sleeve to be genuine, see aforementioned news piece if you’re interested.

However, thanks to the diligence of Bowie expert, Kevin Cann, new information has come to light that places further doubt as to the authenticity of this sleeve.

In his timeline for the 40th Anniversary issue of Space Oddity, Kevin has the following entry for August 25th 1969…

“Travels to Holland to perform ?Space Oddity? for a TV appearance on Doebidoe. Interviewed for Het Parool newspaper by the late Jojanneke Claassen at her flat in Amsterdam. David is photographed sitting cross-legged on the floor strumming his guitar, the pictures widely used for promotion by Philips.”

This begs the question, why would a sleeve be printed up in September (it would take a good couple of weeks from when the photograph was taken to getting the sleeve into production) for a promo that was made in June?

I challenge the men behind this ‘find’ to let us have a sixties specialist (with a superb knowledge of the Philips label) to take a good look at this sleeve. Either that, or just come clean!

There’s a Sailor who eats, only Phish heads…

Those mischievous scamps, Phish, sent Bowie fans’ hearts racing last week when they published an advert (above) suggesting that David Bowie would be performing four shows in Miami together with UB40 at the end of the year.

The advert appeared in the band’s programme (inset above) for their Halloween show in Indio, CA, on October 31st, where they performed The Stones‘ Exile On Main Street. (Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Scary Monsters were all on the shortlist)

The publication took the shape of a PLAYBILL style programme with the Bowie advert on the inside cover.

Of course, most Phish fans realised that the advert was actually promoting end of the year shows for the band, whose song David Bowie contains the sole lyric: David Bowie UB40!

Not being a follower of Phish, I’ve never really grasped the intent of the lyric. However, I like to think it’s a punning birthday greeting written for David in 1987, in the earliest days of Phish’s career.

And Lady Gaga sang her songs…

Lady Gaga (above right) has elaborated on her David Bowie obsession since our last story in September. (09.06.2009 NEWS: GAGA, SPIDER, DANCER…ALL IN TODAY’S OBSERVER)

Here follows an excerpt from an interview she did with Alexa Chung on MTV this week, wherein LG was describing the various double disc collector editions of her debut album, The Fame, which are due in a couple of weeks.

She became quite animated describing the different versions and so Alexa asked her if she collected stuff herself…

AC: Are you like that about anything? Are you an avid collector of any musician’s…

LG: David Bowie!

AC: Oh really? Amazing. I’ve got an amazing print of him. It’s his old passport photo, don’t know if you’ve seen it, someone took it in the sixties.

LG: I used to sit in my apartment for hours and do his make up on myself over and over again.

AC: Awesome!

You can see the full interview here.

The sixties passport print that Alexa mentioned was in fact taken by Ray Stevenson in Beckenham following the instruction from David: “Everyone looks so bad in their passport photos, so lets do a really bad one!”.

In Ray’s book, Photo Past, there’s a frame from the same session where David is looking far more manic than the shot eventually chosen for his passport, above.

you can purchase a copy for yourself from rockarchive.com where prices start at £258.75 for an A3 print on 308gm fine art matt archival papers, with the most expensive being £1,380.00 for a huge AO size print.

Let’s be honest though, would you shell out almost one and a half grand for a bloody great big print of that scruffy, unshaven sod? I know I would.