“I’m stuck with a valuable friend”
We’ve been lucky enough to receive a preview copy of David Bowie : Behind The Curtain from the folks at PSG. If you’re familiar with Andrew Kent’s photographs of Bowie, you’ll not be surprised to learn that it’s a thing of absolute beauty.
Here’s the back story explaining that title…
THE STORY
“David Bowie : Behind The Curtain” is a rare, exclusive, intimate, and very candid look at David Bowie during the rise of the Thin White Duke, his Station to Station tour, and numerous larger-than-life stories along the way. In 1975, rock ‘n roll photographer Andrew Kent landed the gig of a lifetime. He had been entrusted by Bowie to document, with unfettered access, anything and everything Bowie and his entourage encountered for the next two years. Backstage, on stage, private parties, birthday parties, limos, quiet hotel moments, dressing rooms, Berlin, Paris, New York, London, Helsinki, Moscow.
Also along during the Station to Station tour was an 18 year old Rolling Stone reporter researching a cover story on Bowie named Cameron Crowe. In 1976 Bowie took Iggy Pop, his manager Pat Gibbons, his personal secretary Coco, and Kent on an impromptu excursion by train to the Soviet Union. A mistake on the schedule at the train station caused the group to miss their return train to Helsinki leading the press to run frenzied headlines reading, “David Bowie Missing in Soviet Union!”. With his unprecedented access, Kent created a one-of-a-kind travelogue, capturing the unique and spectacular life of one of the most iconic musicians in rock ‘n roll history.
The book is available in three formats…
First Edition : $59.95. Hardcover, 11 x 13.5 x 0.8 inches, 160 pages.
Collectors’ Edition : $1,500. Hardcover, 11 x 13.5 inches, 160 pages. The Collector’s Edition box (see photos below) is an exclusive work of art limited to just 100 numbered copies. Each box is hand made by artisan craftsmen in Chicago; the box itself is solid Birdseye maple with ebony splining and lined with luxurious black leather. The box lid is numbered and engraved with a precision laser. Once opened, the box lid and base convert into a simple, but elegant, coffee table display for the book. But the trick is opening the box…which is locked, but has no apparent keyhole. The only way to open it is by using the “key” – a separate piece of wood (carved by hand) with magnetic inlays that correspond to magnets hidden inside the lid. Simple, but complex, with a secret or two…much like Bowie himself.
Edition of Five : $5,000. Hardcover, 11 x 13.5 inches, 160 pages. The Edition of Five is a very exclusive edition of this collector’s item limited to a total of 5 numbered copies. In addition to everything included in the Collector’s Edition, the Edition of Five also has included on the title page of the book an original, and very rare, backstage pass from the Station to Station tour in 1976.
Go here to peruse some of the images contained within the book and order the edition of your choice.
Swipe/scroll (or click on little dots) for images of the extraordinary Collectors’ Edition box, plus a 1976 picture of David Bowie and Iggy Pop in Red Square in Moscow, and David with drummer Dennis Davis looking on, prior to a show in Berlin the same year.
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