More Rumours Quashed By Db Himself!

A frustrated DB photographed by Sukita back in '77,
during a severe bout of particularly silly rumours.

Round and round the rumours fly...

For those that don't regularly visit the message boards, I feel duty-bound to report that David has dismissed a couple of the sillier recent rumours, pooh-poohing the Daily Telegraph's retirement speculation in particular as "absolute codswallop"! This is how he tackled the rumours on the MBs earlier today:

Rumours et al

Couple of squashes for you.

1. I have no plans to retire.
2. I have not been approached to play a show in Bali.
3. I am writing like crazy for the next album.

Happy New Year.

Sailor.

So there you have it, straight from the old goat's mouth, so to speak.

Bowienet Bob Competition Winners

(There's gonna be sorrow) try and wake up tomorrow...

The Best of Bowie competition winners are here. (Sorry for the delay, one of my arms fell off... I got better!) Those of you who entered know there was nothing to actually answer on this one, which may explain the extraordinarily high turn out.

You may remember that you were only allowed to enter for one of the four different items up for grabs. The good news for those of you after the ultra-rare withdrawn poster, is that this was the least entered of the four competitions... but, that still means you only had a 1 in 101 chance of winning!

Anyway, without prolonging the agony, here are the 16 winners who should all send their real names and addresses to me at TotalBlamBlam@davidbowie.com with a heading of "I won a BoB thing".

5 copies of the UK Best of Bowie double CD

surrealkiller
anddancetheblues
mlloydabc
RuneKJ
squeakie

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 copies of the UK Best of Bowie five-track promo CD

linda
dez
Cartesian
ozzy
cheesey

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 UK Best of Bowie posters

dbfan1847
lucidpoetress
darkside
nick1
flat5

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 ultra rare UK withdrawn Best of Bowie poster

kimchoppie

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well done you lot, we'll have your goodies with you pronto!

Flaming Lips Lick Bowie

er... LIKE that is..

NME.COM has a funny bit with Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne

The bit about Bowie is excerpted below:

The Flaming Lips singer says he now wants to perform more joint tours, and he has singled out Bjork and David Bowie.

He said: "If you run into David Bowie, tell him we're doing this with Beck and we want to go on tour with him. We'll play what we feel are his best songs, kick him into shape."

That Wayne.. what a kidder.

Click Wayne's megaphone to read the full article.

Bowienet News Archive Updated

And I'm gone through a crack in the past...

Susans has just completed a massive update to the BowieNet news archive that covers the last few months. Due to a very busy following-Bowie-about schedule, the last update previous to this one was possibly as far back as June, but whenever it was, it's all up to date now. It's a great little tool when you need to find something that you know you've seen on BNet, but can't quite remember when and where it was.

Click on the screen grab above to take you to October's archive, from where you can navigate back through the months and see yet again what makes BowieNet the most frequently updated, the sexiest, and all round best place in the known universe to be... probably. Thanx again to Susans for performing this thankless task... well, not thankless, because I just thanked her, but you know what I mean!

Reminder - Bowienet Bob Comp Ending Soon

(There's gonna be sorrow) try and wake up tomorrow...

The Best of Bowie competition I set last week (11/10/02 NEWS: BEST OF BOWIE ENTERS UK TOP TWENTY!) ends tomorrow morning at 8:00 am UK time... which is something like midnight tonight in San Francisco, and, confusingly, around 8:00 pm tomorrow evening in Australia... Don't blame me if those translations are wrong, I'm only guessing! };-)

Anyway, I can't imagine there are too many of you left to enter, this has been an incredibly popular competition. Surely the very high number of entrants isn't just because there were no questions to answer? You lazy buggers! The winners will be announced the day after tomorrow sometime. };-)

The Quest For K West

"It was cold and it rained..." Ziggy is beamed thirty years
forward to another K WEST, Richmond Way, London W14.
Photograph and image manipulation by Total Blam Blam.

Nothing could be harder than the kwest for fun...

On the way home from a jolly good Suede concert at Shepherds Bush last night, (at which I met a couple of BowieNetters) three large neon letters caught my eye. K WE. Could it be, I thought to myself. I asked my driver, Simon, to edge forward a little, and sure enough there it was, big and electric blue, K WEST!

Obviously I wasn't going to miss out on a photographic opportunity such as this, the conditions were perfect, dark, wet and extremely Heddon Street-like. And so the picture above, with the PhotoShop addition of Mr Ziggy Stardust himself, is the fruit of my labour.

After a little research this morning, it transpires that this particular K WEST has no connection with the company of the same name on the original Ziggy album sleeve. The above K WEST is actually a flash new hotel that was formerly know as KENSINGTON WEST. Anyway, my photographic reinterpretation is a spoof record sleeve just waiting to happen. You read it here first.

Click on Ziggy's head if you want to see a larger version of this picture, where you can also just make out the car's personalised license plate. Well done to those of you on the MBs that sussed out what this picture was all about... Oh what fun! };-)

Bowiephiles

I've seen the best man of my generation

Dot Music are streaming the BoB DVD versions of 'Life On Mars?' and 'Let's Dance' as part of a competition to win a complete set of all the international CDs, or one of five CD's and DVD's. The Times described the BoB DVD as a mighty body of work in their review last weekend, and our message boards have been filled with your delight all week - either at re-discovery, first time viewing, finding the 'easter eggs' or just being blissed out at finally being able to watch a clean and audible print. So, if you haven't got your copy yet, or you just fancy your chances, you can go here for more and to enter the competition.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm gonna *sing* a poem

The latest Lou Reed album 'The Raven' which we mentioned just a little over a year ago (11/05/01 NEWS: BOWIE CONTRIBUTES TO NEW LOU REED ALBUM) will finally be released in January 2003. You can find more details including download at Lou's website, and you can listen to some snippets from the album via Aol Keyword: Lou Reed. David has supplied the lead vocal for "a snappy little ditty called Hopfrog" (presumably based on the Poe short story 'Hop-Frog or The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs') and his contribution to the album is mentioned in both Rolling Stone and NME

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Create me again and again

"Why are you creative?" is an exhibition of drawings and orginal artwork from DAVID BOWIE to the Dalia Lama and runs till the 24th of November in Frankfurt, Germany at the Museumsufer at the Museum of Kommunikation.

Hermann Vaske spent seven years travelling through 6 continents and 40 countries asking artists, philosophers and musicians "Why are you creative?" 300 answers, which are either verbal or pictorial, can be seen at the museum in Frankfurt along with a film of the material. (Thanks to Bianca for translating this and mailing in the story)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lay me place and bake me pie..

and finally, BowieNetter NancyH emailed in with a link to a Thanksgiving story about db. If you check out Pie In The Sky.org, you will see details of their annual Thanksgiving fundraiser which delivers meals to those with AIDS.

The Boston Herald says:- Place an order with Community Servings' annual Pie in the Sky fund-raiser and these sweet creations can grace your Thansgiving table and help others at the same time. Restaurants and bakeries like Aujourd'hui, Clio, and Rosie's Bakery - plus a few celebrities like DAVID BOWIE and Dame Edna- donate pies. (Thanks Nancy)

:))

Homer Simpson As The God Of Glam

"You can always phone Homer..." Doh! It's Homer Simpson As Aladdin Sane!
The Simpsons TM and © 2002 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

I'm Homer, lost my job, and incurably ill...

Yet another version of David Bowie's iconic 'Aladdin Sane' has reached me in the shape of everybody's favourite 'toon dad, Homer Simpson. This is the third use of the image by a big name in just over a year, (09/07/01 NEWS: CLASSIC BOWIE IMAGE FOR ABSOLUT VODKA CAMPAIGN & 08/02/02 NEWS: DREW BARRYMORE GETS THE ALADDIN SANE TREATMENT) and brings the total up to, erm... quite a lot!

'Aladdin Sane' is one in a series of album sleeves that you can view courtesy of RollingStone.com by clicking on Homer's cute little cartoon nose above. };-)

Limited Edition Heathen Re-release

Don't let it Slip Away...

The limited edition version of Heathen includes:

-Digi-pak with full length Heathen CD plus a 2nd bonus disc which features:
-Air remix of "A Better Future"
-Moby remix of "Sunday"
-An alternative take of "Panic In Detroit"
-The rare track, "Conversation Piece" from the never released Toy album.

Order the limited edition version of "Heathen" and you`ll get a FREE 30 day trial to BowieNet!

BowieNet is the premier online fan club for Bowie fans. As a BowieNet member you`ll have exclusive access to all things Bowie: his online journal, exclusive ticketing, Members only chats and events and much more!

Order Heathen now and you`ll get a FREE 30 day trial to BowieNET!
Details will arrive with your order.

Click here for more info

Bowie Party And Photo Auction In Italy Friday

Freak out in a Moonage Daydream...

Daniele of new Italian website, Moonage Daydream, and photographer Philippe Auliac have informed me of a very special Bowie fan get together this Friday the 15th in Bassano del Grappa (Vicenza), Italy. This is the 5th annual party the organisers have staged, and you can read all about the event by clicking on the above grabs from the Moonage Daydream site.

There is an English language version of the party page if you have a problem navigating, which you shouldn't have as it's very easy to find your way around the Moonage Daydream site. The site is at an early stage in its development, but among the features promised for the future is a David Bowie virtual museum which promises to house a comprehensive collection of Bowie collectibles and rarities.

Apart from all the fun promised for this Friday, Philippe has a new exhibition of his brilliant Bowie pictures, some of which you can bid on by clicking on the image above. The photo auction has been arranged to collect money for those families hit by the terrible earthquake in Molise recently. So if you can afford a minimum bid of ?40.00 why not join in the auction and place a bid on one of the twelve excellent pictures on offer to help this noble cause.

Have a good look around the site for details of all of this and more, and if you do go along on Friday, please tell us how it went.

Win Tmwfte On Dvd Now... Or Sometime In The Future?

No mistake here... If you know what to do, good luck. If you don't, you need to look around!

Best Of Bowie Enters Uk Top Twenty!

A poster similar to this is just one of the Best of Bowie
goodies up for grabs in our comp. Click for big version.

Got to keep searching and searching...

The Best of Bowie went straight into the UK album chart today. The compilation has entered the chart at number 11 in its first week of release. To celebrate the fact, we've got a bunch of goodies to give away, including:

5 copies of the UK Best of Bowie double CD

5 copies of the UK Best of Bowie five-track promo CD

5 UK Best of Bowie posters that utilise the image above

1 ultra rare UK withdrawn Best of Bowie poster

All self-explanatory, apart from the last prize, which I'll tell you about now. This withdrawn poster features the album cover and release date information, which is wrong! The album's release date was put back after posters were produced, and all but a handful of these collectibles were destroyed.

This competition couldn't be easier to enter, you simply e-mail me telling me which of the items you would prefer to win. There is one catch... you can only enter to win one of the items. You must also supply your BowieNet user name, or you will be disqualified.

So once you've decided which of the four items you fancy your chances with, just click on the relevant shortcut above, type your BowieNet user name and click send. It's really that easy...no questions or complicated tasks, just enter. I'll announce the winners around this time next week

Don't forget the Best of Bowie two DVD set is out tomorrow, and it's quite brilliant. I've been watching it all week and it's so good to finally have all this stuff in this sort of quality...Right, I'm off to the BowieNet party in Soho...see ya there! };-)

Who Stole The Jackalope?

A living breathing Jackalope graces the cover of the
'Looking For Jackalopes Europe Fall 2002' tour schedule.

Got to keep searching and searching...

Over the last few weeks, I've received numerous enquiries regarding the fate of David Bowie's Jackalope. The creature first made an unidentified appearance as far back as August (08/11/02 SNIPPET: ON THE ROAD) when it was pictured acting the erm... goat with Mr Earl Slick. It then enjoyed even more of the limelight when I posted a beautiful photographic portrait of the potentially dangerous animal, taken during rehearsals at Hammersmith. (09/17/02 NEWS: BLAMMO REPORTS FROM BOWIE REHEARSALS)

The beast could clearly be seen during the next day's Radio 2 performance at Maida Vale on September 18th, and indeed it became a regular favourite with fans right up until that fateful day on Friday the 27th in Bonn. It transpires that some mean-spirited sort decided this particular Jackalope should be liberated.

Once the alarm had been raised, the road crew and members of the band (and possibly even David, perhaps) hunted high and low until the early hours, but alas, their efforts were in vain. It was looking like the remainder of the shows on the prophetically named 'Searching For Jackalopes Tour' would be played Jackalope-less.

And then, as mysteriously as it had vanished, the funny-faced little thing was back again, as evidenced in our Philly rehearsal shot supplied by Mark Plati. (10/25/02 NEWS: BOSTON PIX AND REVIEW ROUND UP) I asked Mr Plati if he could explain, and this is what he told me: "Andrew Burns, the bass/guitar tech, went to the trouble of having another Jackalope flown in from Wyoming." So now you know. (Click on the image above to take you to the Wyoming based jackalopejunction.com)

The casual observer could be forgiven for thinking they had witnessed the return of the original article, (After all, the two Jackalopes were identical twins) but the sad truth is that the thief is still at large, and who knows what cruelty the original Bowie Jackalope is being subjected to. Obviously there is a substantial reward on offer for information leading to the return of this most unusual and much-missed mammal. };-)

David G On David B

I, I *should* be King..

Dot music interviewed David Grohl of the Foo Fighters recently, about the making of their new album 'One By One'. David was asked about his predilection for working with other artists, notably Queens Of The Stone Age and our hero. He had some fascinating gossip to offer about his recent work on 'Heathen' which is very much worth repeating here for you:-

Q: You recently played guitar for David Bowie's 'Heathen' album; was that years ago?

DG: "No, that was recently, that was maybe five or six months ago; he just called and asked if I'd play guitar on a song. And I said, yes sure; he sent me the copy of the songs, I played guitar and sent it back. I mean, I went and bought the album last week and it sounds pretty good.

"I recorded something for Reeves Gabriel's (Bowie's guitarist who formed part of metal-experimental Tin Machine) solo record and it was Reeves, Charles from the Pixies, Frank Black, David Bowie and me, we did one song, called 'My Face'. That was a trip, that was pretty amazing, just to be in the studio with Bowie for that.

TH: Didn't he let you have his lyrics?

DG: "No, he left. He came in to write lyrics, he sat down on the floor and spread postcards and pictures of things, all over the floor."

TH: "Very Bowie"

DG: "And sat down and started writing down lyrics and the song was called 'My Face' and it says 'I'm nothing without my face'. So, he wrote the lyrics on a notebook paper, and then on the bottom he did a self-portrait of himself. We recorded the songs and by, like, 2 o'clock in the morning everyone was leaving and I looked on the ground and the lyric sheet was just sort of lying there. It was an almost like that last pork-chop on a boat of starving people, everyone was standing there starring at this f**king lyric sheet on the ground, like - who's gonna get it? who's gonna grab it? and I f**king grabbed it and I gave it to my sister, she is a huge David Bowie fan; so, she has it framed in her house. It's f**king cool."

CS: "That's f**king unbelievable."

DG: "It's pretty awesome. But, he is a great guy, I mean, he is the consummate gentlemen and he seems like he should be f**king King, and not a rock star. So, he is very nice. The fact that it was a Neil Young cover ('I've Been Waiting For You') on the ('Heathen') album, made it more, even more inviting."

You can read the whole thing online, here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who knows? Not me

David Grohl is also very much involved in the Nov 11th (UK) release of the new 'Best Of Nirvana' album, which includes their 1993 'MTV Unplugged' cover of one of David's best loved songs 'The Man Who Sold The World'

NME has a special Nirvana issue this week, which is an excellent read and includes what they describe as 'an impeccably cool list of the band's Top 50 albums of all time'. And of course, the album 'The Man Who Sold The World' features on the list. Sort of questions Paul Du Noyer's hotly debated ranking of db's output (11/06/02 NEWS: Q GOES BOWIE BONKERS FOR DECEMBER), don't it? ;-)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnote: BowieNetter MickQ was quick to spot the *deliberate* mistake in the original 'What's New' description for this item. The song 'My Face' was in fact re-named 'Jewel' and released by Reeves Gabrels on 'Ulysses (Della Notte)', his second solo album. You can check out the lyric at MickQ's message board post, here.

:))

Iman - 'she's Got It'

Photograph : Colin Bell

She got everything

Talking of last week's Sunday Times (11/04/02 NEWS: UK BOB IS RELEASED TODAY ); as well as the 'Outstanding', three star accolade for BoB, Mrs Bowie was the subject of a three page feature in the Style section. This included a couple of gorgeous new photographs, one of which is on show above, and also a recent and very quotable interview. The magazine describes her as:-

IMAN. Model, mother, business woman, rock-star wife - and purveyor of the perfect British fry-up.

Here are a couple of snippets from the interview:-

"The most exciting thing at the VH1 Fashion Awards was meeting our heroines, Venus and Serena Williams. God, they are tall! David was so thrilled, he had our pictures taken with them."

"We enjoy eating in, and I?m a great cook. It amazes me that David doesn?t get fat. He loves things like shepherd?s pie, and insists I cook him a fry-up on Sunday, so he can eat it while reading the British newspapers. He still gets them all."

"My home is wherever David is. He is my soul mate and we are amazingly alike. And, of course, I still fancy him! Who wouldn?t?"

You can read the whole thing online, here.

:))

Everyone Says Hi In Frequency 2

David's "Metro Mix" of Everyone Says 'Hi' is being used in the upcomnmg Spring 2003 release of FREQUENCY 2, A music based video game for the Sony Playstation 2.

The player tries to recreate the original mix of a song using elements from the original mix. Upon recreating the mix, the player can utilize "jam mode" and create a new mix that they can take on line to battle other players.

David is one among many artists who's music has been incorporated into this interactice game.

You can read more about Frequency 2 HERE

Watch this space for a possible contest to win a copy of Frequency2 and more....

Q Goes Bowie Bonkers For December

Q is out of sight and out of sounds...

The current edition of Q magazine (December 2002) goes far beyond it's usual gratutious reproduction of a Bowie picture, by instead using no less than... bloody loads of pix! There are loads of reasons for the Bowie fan to check out this edition, and I've tried to break them down below, with excerpts when relevant...

Cover mounted CD: The Best Tracks From The Best Albums From 2002

The title is a clue to the content here. Of course, the whole world knows 'Heathen' was among the very best albums of 2002, and Q have confirmed this fact by including 'A Better Future' on this CD.

Page 5 - Blurb about aforementioned CD with 'Heathen' cover session shot

The bit about 'A Better Future' and 'Heathen', which applauds this latest work as "proper Bowie", ends with the line: Want more? You'll be wanting the "all good" album, Heathen.

Page 10 - Contents with early Ziggy photograph

A teaser for page 136 uses a colour version of one of those beautiful Michael Putland shots from that very early Ziggy session... you've seen it before, but it's always worth another look.

Page 19 - Moby Cash for Questions

Moby sings David's praises in this regular Q feature. When asked about a possible Morrissey colaboration, Moby replied: ...I would love to collaborate with him, but I don't have the time. The only person I continually make exceptions for is David Bowie, because he's my favourite musician of all time.

Appropriately enough, the very next question, (posed by Karen Kegel) asks: Any Moby/Bowie collaborations slated for the near future? Moby responded: However busy I am, if David Bowie asks me to do something, I have to say yes. I've done two remixes for him, and I played guitar and piano on some tracks he's recorded and I played guitar with him at Carnegie Hall [Tibet benefit]. So we've collaborated a lot already.

Page 39 - Harman/Kardon advert

This full-page ad for Harman/Kardon hi-fi and audio-visual seperates uses a small live Bowie shot as part of a montage.

Page 48 - Album charts

This feature highlights the top 40 album chart for the week ending 6th October 2002. Three albums are singled out for analysis, Elvis Presley's 'Elvis - 30 #1 Hits', Suede's 'A New Morning' and David Bowie's 'Heathen'. At number 1 in this particular chart, 'Elvis - 30 #1 Hits' is further proof of the King's enduring popularity, while 'A New Morning' is evidence of the sad fact that Sude's fortunes are most definitely on the wain...the album didn't even make the Top 20 here.

With a headline of "Golden Year" and using a recent live shot to illustrate the piece, 'Heathen', on the other hand, is praised by the magazine thus:

Showing the way forward for established acts with new albums, David Bowie has managed to reverse his own commercial decline. His tactics were simple ? make a decent record and work hard at promoting it. Bowie's last few albums have charted high in the first week and then fallen rapidly, but this time he's managed to keep Heathen in the charts for four months thanks to a promo schedule as intense as any he's ever previously attempted.

Aside from his Mercury Music Prize nomination, Bowie's recorded sessions for Radio 2 and Later With Jools Holland, appeared on TV shows hosted by Jonathan Ross and Parkinson; curated the Meltdown Festival and chatted on just about every major radio station. He even did an in-store signing at HMV's London store. How keen is that?

Page 64 & 65 - The 50 best albums of 2002

There are two Bowie pictures on the first two pages of this six page listing, and a brief appreciation of 'Heathen' that ends with the observation: He's still ever so good, isn't he?

Page 95 - First page of Review section

Another plug for that feature on page 136 uses a 'Rebel Rebel' pirate shot.

Page 120 - Q Review Re-Releases

A five-star review of the Best of Bowie brings the total of Bowie pictures used in the magazine so far up to eight... and we're not even at Page 136 yet!

Page 136 - Q Review Buyer's Guide

A three-page guide to the Bowie back catalogue. Paul Du Noyer points the uninitiated in the direction of Bowie's best work, even if it is a futile excercise. How could we all possibly agree on the opinion of one mere mortal. Whatever, Paul's choices are bound to start some heated debate on the MBs. Many of the albums have a couple of paragraphs written about them, and though there's not room enough to tell you much more than that, (you still awake in the back?) here follows the gospel according to Paul Du Noyer:

Indispensable. Truly exceptional

Ziggy Stardust, Low, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, Best of Bowie

Excellent. Must buy

TMWSTW, Diamond Dogs, Station To Station, "Heroes", Lodger

Good. Not for everyone

Tin Machine, Heathen, Young Americans, Scary Monsters, Let's Dance, 'hours...'

Approach With Caution. Please be careful

1.Outside, David Bowie (Deram) Space Oddity, Pin-Ups, Santa Monica '72, Tonight, Black Tie White Noise, The Buddha Of Suburbia

Poor. For collectors only

Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine ll, Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby, David Live, Stage, Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture, Earthling.

So there you have it, how much of that do you agree with? I have to say it was refreshing to read Mr Du Noyer's appreciation of the first Tin Machine album, when he said of the release: That it's the most derided of Bowie albums says more about the pack mentality of rock opinion than the record's true merits. Hear! Hear! Well said sir...I feel the same way about 'Earthling', as I'm sure David does about 'The Buddha Of Suburbia'...over to you lot!