Month: September 2011

He’s outrageous, he screams and he bawls…

Back in July I posted a news piece regarding my quest for a colour shot of David Bowie’s performance of The Jean Genie on TOTPs. (07.04.2011 NEWS: THE QUEST FOR A COLOUR SHOT OF THE JEAN GENIE ON TOTP)

The news item was actually my feeble attempt to be clever, but it failed miserably…it seems many of you didn’t wait for the animation to load in that original story. This theory is borne out by the batch of friendly enquiries asking if I had had any success in my search!

I guess I should have just declared: “Look at this beautiful colour still I’ve unearthed of Ziggy and Ronno performing The Jean Genie on TOTPs”.

At least those of you that did get it the first time round can now enjoy the glorious colour picture above, unobscured by the black and white interruptions.

But I’ll survive your naked flame…

Despite previous fears, it seems the Gurney Slade DVD wasn’t adversely affected by last month’s distribution centre arson attack after all. (08.15.2011 NEWS: STRANGE WORLD OF GURNEY SLADE DVD OUT NOW…IN THEORY)

We fist told you about the DVD in July (07.23.2011 NEWS: GURNEY SLADE DUE FOR DVD RELEASE NEXT MONTH) and my copy dropped through the letterbox shortly after the last news piece.

So, order with confidence, I would say.

I can see it now…

We posted details regarding the official 2012 David Bowie wall calendar back in May. (05.03.2011 NEWS: OFFICIAL 2012 DAVID BOWIE WALL CALENDAR DETAILS)

Well, it’s available now at all good calendar emporiumgs and, as you know, the 16-month publication features a random grab of tasty Bowie album covers from across the years.

And so, in keeping with that theme, all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a copy is identify the dozen bits of Bowie album cover detail below.

To narrow the field a little, we’ve only selected sections from original UK Bowie studio albums. So no compilations or live LPs, etc., or non-UK variations.

However, the selections could be taken from either the front or back of the sleeve…or even from the middle of gatefold sleeves.

And, just to throw in an extra little bit of mischief, we’ve also rotated some of the selections so the orientation appears different to what you are used to seeing.

Once you’ve identified each of the twelve albums please send their titles to me here.

This contest closes on Saturday, September 24th, at midnight New York time with the winners being announced soon thereafter. That gives you plenty of time to research, just in case every inch of every Bowie sleeve isn’t already etched in to your brain…it certainly will be after this!

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.

Good Luck and happy hunting, kidz!

If you won a signed 2011 calendar, I’m afraid this contest is closed to you as you already have a complimentary 2012 calendar too. Sometimes it is worth the wait! 😉

I could do with the money…

Leafing through Portuguese magazine Noticias Sabado recently, my attention was grabbed by the above feature on 71-year-old American Paul Mawhinney and his record collection, which he claims to be the largest on the planet…unfortunately for Paul, and as impressive as it is, it’s far too big to get anybody interested in actually purchasing it.

I had read Mawhinney’s story before and I have no reason to doubt the vastness of his unique record library. However, his account of how he helped launch David Bowie’s career in 1973 may have become slightly clouded, having had to survive the journey through the disorientating pea-souper of the past forty plus years of his memory.

Even allowing for the fact that this story is from an American viewpoint, where things were slower to take off for DB than they were in the UK, the description of Bowie’s stateside failure, before ‘Mawhinney’s plan’ was implemented, is a little off the mark.

Here’s his version of events over on YouTube, which you should watch now for the rest of this piece to make any real sense….

You’re back…So, whether Mawhinney’s suggestion to RCA to re-issue 700 copies of DB’s first Mercury album ever had any influence on the company’s executives or not is not known. But if it did, it certainly didn’t happen in the 1973 time frame he suggests.

Having already signed to RCA more than a year earlier on September 9th, 1971, here’s a bit from Billboard dated October 7, 1972…

The albums followed a month later, enhanced with contemporaneous Ziggy shots, posters and lyric bags.

The releases were also backed up in the US and UK with a pretty impressive press campaign during October/November 1972…some time before Mawhinney claims he made his phone call.

There was also a Space Oddity 4-track promotional only EP (bottom right in the montage below) which was reportedly given away free at shows during Bowie’s first US tour in the closing months of 1972. It was also an in-store freebie with the Ziggy Stardust LP in a promotional carrier bag. Copies were made available for contests and magazine give-always in the same period. The sleeve featured the same image as the front of the newly re-issued TMWSTW and the lead off track was Space Oddity.

The album releases were promoted further in the US with the release of the Space Oddity/The Man Who Sold The World picture sleeve 45 in January 1973. The sleeve was a b/w version of the same Mick Rock shot as used on the re-issued Space Oddity album. That’s the single sleeve and two different trade adverts for the 45 below.

In the event the US campaign paid off, giving Bowie not only his first US top twenty single when the Space Oddity 45 reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100, but also his first US top twenty LP when the Space Oddity album climbed to #16.

Those of you that read Portumguese can read the full Paul Mawhinney feature online here.

The past it almost shimmers now…

No doubt those of you who spotted the above full-page ad in the current UNCUT (October issue) and a similar half-page ad in this week’s NME (September 3rd) have already snaffled up a copy from your local magazine bloke.

For it is this first day of September that the makers of UNCUT have published the David Bowie Ultimate Music Guide in all its 180-page Technicolor glory.

As if that wasn’t enough, they’ve also bumged us ten copies so that those of you in the uncivilised parts of the world might get your hands on a copy too. But first, here’s the official blurby stuff with a short description of the contents…

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Uncut presents David Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide – a stellar 180-page exploration of the Man Who Fell To Earth, tracing his orbit from Beckenham to Berlin, from Wild-Eyed Space Oddity to Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke and beyond. You’ll discover a series of rare, revealing interviews from the bountiful archives of NME, Melody Maker and Uncut, as well as page after page of stunning photography, new in-depth reviews of every single Bowie album (even Tin Machine!) and much, much more!

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And they’re not lying…those archives are a treasure trove indeed, with interviews from the two most important UK music weeklies published during the years from which these interviews are taken, between 1967 and 1995.

The re-evaluations of the whole of the Bowie back catalogue are presented here by a host of guest reviewers whose names you will be generally familiar with. The reviews seem generally well-considered (not had a chance to read them all yet though) and so they should be with the benefit of many years of familiarity and the understanding of their place in rock history. Obviously these luxuries weren’t afforded to the reviewers who judged them as they were released.

This is all punctuated by a feast of glorious pictures, some of which I know you won’t have seen before. Here’s just a random selection of four spreads from the ninety or so that fill the magazine.

There will be even more content in the iPad version of David Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide and we’ll let you know exactly what that content is once we have seen the final version.

Anyway, on to the reason that the majority of you are still lingering at the bottom of this item for…your chance to win one of ten copies of David Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide, kindly donated by UNCUT.

It’s one of those ‘keep an eye out but don’t do anything just yet’ contests, like the ongoing TMWFTE poster contest below.

As you know, UNCUT have called this publication David Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide…or, David Bowie: The UMG as we know it in the biz!

So, over the next week or so I’m going to be slipping the three letters umg in to my news items here on BowieNet in the form of incorrectly spelt words.

An example would be: And red mutant eyes gazed down on Humger City.

The letters umg will always be in that order and obviously all used within one badly-spelled word, with no spaces.

I’ll let you know when it’s time to start counting them up and how many in total you need to look for.

For those of you that simply can not wait for the results of this contest, you can order David Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide online here.