Month: October 2010

New York’s In Love…

Deryck Todd has been in touch with details of the annual BowieBall in NYC on Sunday, October 10th.

Click on the flyer above for a more legible version and click on the montage below to remind yourself of just how the word Bowie brings out all of the beautiful people of New York for this event.

Please do feel free to send in a report and/or pictures if you attend this year.

Just about the best you can hear…

Well it’s pretty clear what this is about. You can join in the voting fun here, though I should point out that NME has selected the shortlist, so don’t expect to find Win, Teenage Wildlife, Sweet Thing, etc., etc., but do expect Magic Dance and The Laughing Gnome!

This is the current top 20 from the limited choices available.

1. Life On Mars?
Current Rating: 9.44

2. Ashes To Ashes
Current Rating: 9.12

3. Starman
Current Rating: 8.96

4. Space Oddity
Current Rating: 8.95

5. Ziggy Stardust
Current Rating: 8.95

6. Heroes
Current Rating: 8.78

7. Changes
Current Rating: 8.77

8. Rebel Rebel
Current Rating: 8.72

9. The Man Who Sold The World
Current Rating: 8.44

10. Suffragette City
Current Rating: 8.33

11. Sound And Vision
Current Rating: 8.19

12. The Jean Genie
Current Rating: 7.98

13. Drive-In Saturday
Current Rating: 7.78

14. Under Pressure
Current Rating: 7.74

15. Golden Years
Current Rating: 7.72

16. Young Americans
Current Rating: 7.69

17. Time
Current Rating: 7.64

18. Hang On To Yourself
Current Rating: 7.54

19. Fame
Current Rating: 7.48

20. Diamond Dogs
Current Rating: 7.26

The return of the Thin White Duke…

Congratulations are due to David Bowie and EMI and everybody who worked on creating the reissue Station To Station packages.

Also thanks are due to you people for putting it at #26 in the latest official UK album chart…not bad for a record that’s been available pretty much all of the time since it’s release in January 1976.

Please let us know if you hear about any similar chart action in your country.

For I’ve never been a synth man, la di da…

Obviously Mr Buckley recommends other releases alongside David Bowie’s Low for this MOJO feature.

The other nine acts include: OMD, The Human League (twice), Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Gary Numan, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Kraftwerk.

I have to say I would have lost two or three of these in favour of records by Iggy Pop (The Idiot), Ultravox (Systems Of Romance), Simple Minds (Reel to Real Cacophony) and even the likes of The Associates and Japan…but perhaps they all rely on too many other instruments in among the synths to fit the synth pop genre…a bit like Low.

It was a day in that blue month September… Erm, and March…

There’s a great four page photo feature as this month’s FLASHBACK in the November edition of UNCUT.

In the piece, photographer Gus Stewart recalls the moment he took the shots below of Bowie and Iggy at The Rainbow in March 1977 during The Idiot Tour.

As you all know, David played keyboards on this tour and I was lucky enough to catch the show and ‘meet’ Bowie before and after the March 7th show at the Rainbow. (03.07.2002 SNIPPET: 25 YEARS AGO TODAY – BLAMMO MEETS BOWIE!)

Gus also talks about The Vibrators being the support act and mentions that Bowie and Iggy came and had a chat with him and the band before the show.

There is a shot of The Vibrators in the photo-spread too, but I’ve obscured it with a colour picture, which was the first ever snap I took of DB as he exited the stage door at The Rainbow that very night.

So I can confirm that Bowie did have on the shirt that he is pictured wearing in Gus Stewart’s shots in the UNCUT piece.

However, all of the pictures of Iggy are not only from a different night but a completely different tour!

Though Bowie wore different tops throughout The Idiot Tour, (the checked shirt was a favourite) as far as I can tell, Iggy pretty much stuck to bare torso, blue jeans and the low-slung leather belt for the duration.

The shots of Iggy in this UNCUT feature are actually from one of two more shows at The Rainbow later in the year during The Lust For Life Tour, by which time Bowie was busy elsewhere and no longer in the band.

I was at the show that the Iggy pictures were taken at too. It was either September 30th or October 1st, 1977…can’t remember which…and The Adverts supported. Which was a nice surprise after The Vibrators earlier in the year.

The pictures in UNCUT are from the night I attended as I can remember they were also used in reviews of the show at the time. Iggy had now expanded his wardrobe to include knee pads, a horse’s tail and a German helmet. He complimented the look with crudely painted wavy lines down both arms and took to sitting in a child’s chair at the front of the stage.

The theatrical effect combined with the music was mesmerising, and these shows along with two Iggy performances the next year at the Music Machine in Camden, (when I met Bowie again and Eno the previous night and where Iggy dressed in black leather jacket, leotard, fishnets and stilettos) remain among my very favourite shows of all time.

Anyway, if you’re reading this Gus, I’ll bet you can’t find any shots among your negatives of Iggy dressed as he is above, while David Bowie plays keyboards on the same stage.

Sorry UNCUT, but you were never going to get that one past us. 😉

One magical moment… Pushing thru Times Square…

New Yorkers kicked of the new month today with the glorious sight of David Bowie gazing down upon the comings and goings.

The above shot is of the PR Newswire building in Times Square this morning and for those of you that can’t quite make out the text, here’s what it says…

Any of you New York BowieNetters capture a picture of it yourselves? First one to send in a snap of it wins a Station To Station T shirt and a copy of the Special Edition Box.

Don’t lean on me man, ‘cos you can’t afford the ticket…

I’ve had a few e-mails from people concerned that their S2S Deluxe Edition Box doesn’t appear to be numbered. Not an unreasonable conclusion when one considers that the limited edition numbering was actually done on the reverse of the replica concert ticket, found inside the ON STAGE folder.

Above left is a scan of the reverse of the original ticket while on the right is a scan of a ticket from the deluxe package. As you can see, those clever chaps at EMI have replicated the original ticket numbering.

Another question asked by concerned collectors is: what’s going to stop people selling these reproductions as originals?

Well, most importantly, all of the components within both packages have a current EMI number, unlike the originals. For example, on the top left of the above deluxe box ticket is the following information…

Aside from the actual folders themselves and the two badges, all of the replica items in the deluxe box have the above code printed on them.

Hopefully that’s helped a few of you rest a little easier.