Month: May 2011

So where were The Spiders?

I recently ignored good advice and sacrificed a couple of non-returnable hours of my life viewing the film Skyline. I can’t help myself, I’m a sucker for an alien invasion…and that’s possibly David Bowie’s fault.

Anyway, at one point in the film there was a tantalising glimpse of the above poster and so convincing was it, I wondered how it had escaped the notice of Bowie fans for so long.

After a bit of research I was relieved to discover it is in fact a contemporary piece created by artist Shannon Crawford and not an original 1950s film poster after all.

Check out this and a few other of Shannon’s wonderfully evocative paintings featured in Skyline, here.

Well it could have been me, Yes, it could have been me…

The June issue of popular music monthly The Word (top left), celebrates its 100th edition with a look back at all of the covers to grace the magazine since the first edition in March 2003.

David Bowie first appeared on the cover for issue #9 in November 2003 and then again in October 2009. More recently a cartoon of Rebel Rebel period Bowie shared the April 2010 edition.

However, in a feature entitled Mock-Ups And Cock-Ups it is revealed that the November 2004 edition (issue #21) was originally a great live shot of Bowie onstage at Live Aid.

It seems the author of this feature was just as disappointed on learning of a last-minute substitution as you probably are: “Epic Bowie shot inexplicably abandoned for the backside of Freddie Mercury”.

Anyway, the Bowie issues that did make it to print are still available here..

Happy 100th to The Word and well done to Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and all involved for consistently producing a quality publication.

Freddie‘s arse though…that’s a bit below the belt!

I’ll sell some lithographs* of my honey…

Obviously this is not news to any of you who tried to buy one of David Bowie’s IMAN No. 1 art prints via 20×200, immediately after receiving this notification yesterday.

The edition of ten 14″ x 11″ museum quality, archival pigment prints were priced at $800 each and at the speed they went, 20×200 could probably have charged a fair bit more for them.David Bowie created this edition to benefit Housing Works’ Get a Room program, which provides housing to people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS…you can read more about the project here.

* OK, they might not be actual lithographs, but, “I’ll sell some archival pigment prints of my honey” didn’t scan so well.

Pray tomorrow takes me higher…

As I post this, there are just a little under fourteen hours to go for this auction, which ends around noon tomorrow (Friday) UK time…

After an exciting flurry of bids when we first posted the story, (05.04.2011 NEWS: PLATINUM BOB AWARD AND PERSONALISED CD ON EBAY) the highest bid remains at £1,550.00 GBP (approximately $2,555.80 USD).

While that’s a very generous bid, it would be wonderful if there was a last-minute scramble that took it even higher. The award is a beautiful thing and the image above doesn’t really do it justice.

Don’t forget that David Bowie himself has said he will be happy to personally sign a Best of Bowie CD with a dedication to the auction winner or recipient of the winner’s choice.

You can join in the bidding here and I’ll leave you with the eBay description again in case you missed it last time…

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DAVID BOWIE ‘BEST OF BOWIE’ PLATINUM PRESENTATION DISC AND SIGNED CD

CHARITY AUCTION FOR THE BOOBY DAZZLERS 2 MOONWALK 2011

This US platinum award was presented to Julian Stockton of The Outside Organisation (@outsideorg) to commemorate RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) certified sales of more than one million copies in the USA of the 2002 album “Best Of Bowie”.

The disc measures 50″ by 48″ and comes with a letter of authenticity from the owner.

The winner of the auction will also receive a copy of the “Best of Bowie” CD personally signed to them by David Bowie.

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UPDATE: After the predicted last-minute flurry, this auction received 11 bids and increased by another £250 GBP to reach a total of £1,800 GBP. That’s almost $3,000 USD and a very welcome addition to the Booby Dazzlers’ coffers.

Way back in West Berlin… (And Paris, actually)

The headline says it all…these excerpts are from the June issue of here UNCUTwherein you will find a three-page feature, An Audience With…, which is the magazine’s regular celebrity Q&A column.

As you’ve no doubt worked out, this month’s subject is Iggy Pop, who responds to a reader question regarding The Idiot and Lust For Life, above..

Next is another reader question from a certain Anthony Visconti who hails from Brooklyn, New York. In fact, he likes Brooklyn so much he once recorded one of his own compositions which told how he still remembers the place.

Don’t listen to Iggy, Tony…chuck the tapes over to me and I’ll tell you if I think it’s worth playing them to anyone else.

Spotify could control tomorrow’s haze…

Following on from the iPhone TV ad that we told you about recently, (04.27.2011 NEWS: LOADS OF LITTLE BOWIE BITS ON THE GOGGLE BOX) in which David Bowie’s Best Of Bowie is selected from a list of different albums, Spotify have repeated the compliment with their latest TV ad campaign: Spotify says hello to the iPod.

Again, I know it’s not a huge deal, but it’s always cool to see the Bowie name singled out from the musical soup of millions of possibilities. If you look closely above, you can see that one of the cartoon people is holding aloft a Bowie-produced album too.

You can view the full thing on this Spotify page.

Meanwhile, Spotify in the UK has the five tracks below as the current most listened to Bowie recordings…

No change at the top since we posted this same list two years ago this week. (05.16.2009 NEWS: BOWIE PREDICTED SPOTIFY AND THE LIKE SEVEN YEARS AGO)

Here’s how the same UK listing stood back then in 2009…

Life On Mars?
Ziggy Stardust
Rebel Rebel
Changes
Starman

If your local Spotify is wildly different, it would be great to hear from you to see just how great the geographical fluctuations are.

From New York to Shanty Town, There’s always something else…

We’ve had a few e-mails from folk wondering why we haven’t plugged the above event currently taking place in New York.

Well, despite some of you clearly thinking otherwise, this retrospective isn’t officially sanctioned.

As a general rule we don’t give publicity to unofficial Bowie-related stuff, including books, DVDs, etc., etc.

Obviously whenever something is posted on these pages it gives it official status, so we don’t do it.

Put your Helmet on…

Page Hamilton has been talking to Noisecreep about his experiences playing guitar with one of his musical heroes, David Bowie, on the ‘hours…’ promotional tour at the tail-end of 1999.

Here’s a bit from the interview…

“It was a huge confidence boost to play with one of my idols. One of the guys who is considered one of the Big Three, or Big Four — including The Kinks, The Beatles, The Stones and Bowie. They influenced everybody.”

Both the pictures on this page are shots of Page and DB that I took on that tour. The one above is from the now defunct London venue, The Astoria, which took place on December 2nd, 1999.

The shot below is from the last show David Bowie played in the 20th Century, which was at the Vega in Copenhagen a few days later on the 7th. Cracking shows both, as I’m sure you will agree if you were there.

You can read the full interview here, but I’ll leave you with another snippet from it including some sage advice for those of you hoping to become pop singers from David Bowie himself…

“I just listened. He called me his Quiet One, because I didn’t talk a lot. I just listened. I wanted to learn what he had to say about songwriting. One day, he turned to me at rehearsal and said, ‘Advice for budding young songwriters — I make half my songs from Danny Kaye’s ‘Inchworm.’ Danny Kaye’s ‘Inchworm’? Uh, OK. He talked about Roy Orbison influencing ‘Ashes to Ashes,’ trying to do that falsetto high melody thing.”

Arnold Corns had a strange hobby, Collecting clothes…

I’m sure you’re all more than familiar with the embryonic versions of Moonage Daydream and Hang On To Yourself released on the B&C label by The Arnold Corns in the UK in May 1971.

If you were in Holland at the time, you may even have stumbled upon Moonage Dream (sic) on Philips, in the only picture sleeve issued for the single. (See above)

The project was supposedly created as a vehicle for David’s new friend and future creator of many of the more memorable Bowie outfits over the next few years, Freddie Burretti, aka Rudi Valentino for this project. But, it was really a way of David recording new material anonymously to avoid record company complications.

Backed by Mark Carr-Pritchard on guitar, Peter De Somogyl on bass and Tim Broadbent on drums, (all members of Rungk) the lead vocal is clearly David with no evidence of Freddie on the recordings at all. There is another voice joining David on the chorus, which I suppose is most likely to be Carr-Pritchard, but I could be wrong.

The publicity material for this first single from The Arnold Corns utilised a Brian Ward shot that featured on the front of a ‘sex education’ magazine called Curious. Even the Dutch picture cover was lifted from this same shot which appears in colour above.

Thankfully, the record didn’t race to the top of the singles chart, otherwise, (following the success of Peter Noone‘s version of Oh! You Pretty Things) DB may have become convinced that his future lay in songwriting for others rather than performing his songs under his own name.

The version of Moonage Daydream recorded later in the year for Ziggy Stardust is far superior and a more vital recording than the plodding Arnold Corns version, likewise Hang On To Yourself.

Shortening the name to Arnold Corns didn’t prove any more successful for the next single, released in August 1972, for which Hang On To Yourself was elevated to A-side status. This 45 was seen as an attempt by B&C to cash-in on the success of Ziggy Stardust.

A previously unreleased song, Man In The Middle, featuring Mark Carr-Pritchard on lead vocals backed by The Spiders became the B-side…but that release isn’t forty until next year, so more of that story then.

See the Arnold Corns section on Lanky Pearson’s Visual Discography of David Bowie 7″ vinyl for label variations and general nerdy excitement.