Month: August 2015

 

“Became the special man”

 

This week we’re looking at 1972’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars album, ahead of the release of the David Bowie (Five Years 1969 – 1973) box set (due September 25th).

In January 1972 it seems BW was the first photographer to capture for eternity the beautiful creature we know as Ziggy Stardust.

Whether that BW was Brian Ward with his iconic Ziggy Stardust album sleeve session in Heddon Street or Barrie Wentzell’s pictures for Melody Maker, we’re not quite sure.

Either way, the Melody Maker piece (cover date January 22nd) was the first glimpse of Ziggy as the album sleeve wasn’t pictured anywhere for several months yet.

The popular British music weekly ran the first significant Bowie front page feature of the Ziggy era with their OH YOU PRETTY THING interview with Michael Watts. Two Wentzell shots were used, one on the cover and one inside accompanying the feature.

The session took place in the Gem Music offices, and, as you can see from our montage, the front cover picture was reversed, as indeed was the other picture inside.

The feature was possibly the first to mention the forthcoming album title, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, too. The album played in the background during the interview, even though Hunky Dory had only been released the previous month.

The following year in another MM interview, Bowie highlighted the significance of this interview, stating: “Yeah, it was Melody Maker that made me. It was that piece by Mick Watts.”

Ziggy Stardust wouldn’t be released for another six months and in the meantime, there were many more sightings of Ziggy, including the first public performance of Ziggy with The Spiders (even if they weren’t billed as such yet), the following weekend at Aylesbury on January 29th.

Listen to Ziggy Stardust here.

 

#FiveYearsBox  #DavidBowie  #ZiggyStardust

 

“Hey that’s far out”

 

Yesterday we mentioned Brian Ward’s January 1972 session for the sleeve of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars album in London’s Heddon Street.

Today’s picture is from a subsequent session with Ward which created the images used for the promotion of Ziggy Stardust and the Starman release. More of which, tomorrow.

Listen to Ziggy Stardust here now.

 

#FiveYearsBox  #DavidBowie  #ZiggyStardust

 

“Fame, makes a man take things over”

 

Congratulations are due to David Bowie on the news that the 40th anniversary picture disc of Fame (released July 24), has gone to #1 on the latest UK Official Vinyl Singles Chart Top 40.

Having entered the chart at #2 last week, steady sales have meant the limited edition has now taken the top spot.

Fame was David Bowie’s very first #1 single when it topped the American Billboard Hot 100 during the week of 20 September 1975.

It seems Bowie fans are on a soul trip right now, with the following three bits of plastic in the Top Thirty:

 

#01 FAME

#21 YOUNG AMERICANS

#25 KNOCK ON WOOD

 

Plastic Soul pun fully intended.

 

#DavidBowie  #Fame40th  #FameNumberOne

 

“Under the moonlight, this serious moonlight…“

 

Tomorrow (Sunday) sees the Australian big screen premiere of Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under (a film by Ed Gibbs and Rubika Shah), at the 64th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF).

This follows the film’s premiere at the 65th Berlinale earlier this year.

See the Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under Facebook page, for further info.

We’ll leave you with the synopsis.

 

The remarkable, forgotten story behind David Bowie’s biggest-ever hit record – and how an unlikely journey deep into the Australian outback led to its unprecedented success.

An early pioneer of music video, Bowie’s visual legacy hit a new peak in 1983, on the newly launched MTV. With rare political insight, Let’s Dance told the story of a young couple’s struggle with assimilation in the New World – one of the few times Indigenous Australians had been seen on global television by a mainstream audience.

Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under looks back at this oft-overlooked period of Bowie’s celebrated career, exploring his sudden appearance in the outback, the social and cultural issues of the time, and the legacy of a remarkable work that still resonates today.

 

#LetsDanceBowieDownUnder #LetsDance #BowieDownUnder

 

“I’m just the space cadet…he’s the commander“

 

Canadian Astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield’s debut album, Space Sessions – Songs From A Tin Can, is scheduled for launch on Friday October 9th, 2015 and it includes his world-famous rendition of David Bowie’s Space Oddity as a bonus track.

Space Sessions – Songs From A Tin Can is apparently the first album recorded entirely in space, or at least it is as far as we are aware. Hadfield recorded the 12-song collection while serving as commander of the International Space Station during Expedition 34/35, which ran from December 2012 to May 2013.

He announced the album and several music-merchandise combinations via twitter, saying that they are all now available for preorder from his Shopify site, which indeed they are.

 

FOOTNOTE: For those of you that don’t recognise it, today’s ‘lyric quotation’ is in fact a line delivered by an American fan regarding Bowie, from Alan Yentob’s classic Cracked Actor documentary.

 

#SpaceOddity #SpaceSessions #ChrisHadfield

 

“Waiting Geelong, I’ve been waiting Geelong“

 

Following a six week stint in Melbourne, David Bowie Heroes (the exhibition of Masayoshi Sukita’s Bowie photographs), is launched at the Charles Rose Gallery in Geelong in Victoria on Thursday. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Go here for more details and links.

 

“…gaze a while down the old street“

 

For those of you that follow our Instagram page, you may have noticed that we’ve been teasing Parlophone’s rather nice alternative Ziggy Stardust cover, pictured here in its full glory.

The artwork features an alternative Brian Ward shot from the original Ziggy sleeve session in London’s Heddon Street and it has been coloured in the style of Terry Pastor’s original colour scheme.

The sleeve houses Ken Scott’s 2003 mix of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (previously only available with the Limited Edition 40th Anniversary Vinyl version of the album), and it’s included with both the CD and vinyl versions of the David Bowie (Five Years 1969 – 1973) box set, due September 25th.

Next week we will be focusing on David Bowie’s classic 1972 Ziggy Stardust album.

#DavidBowie  #FiveYearsBox  #ZiggyStardust  #AltZiggy  #KenScottMix