David Bowie rehearsing for the Michael Parkinson show at the BBC. Picture by Total Blam Blam.
Where there's trouble there's poetry...
More than four months after the show was originally broadcast in the UK, USA viewers are finally to have the chance to see David Bowie's interview and performance on popular UK TV chat show Parkinson. (09/21/02 NEWS: BOWIE INTERVIEW AND PERFORMANCE ON PARKY TONIGHT). The show airs on BBCA at 8.00PM ET on Saturday 1st February. To whet your appetite, do take the time to check out Blammo's original piece which contains a couple of his excellent and exclusive rehearsal shots and this quote:-
As most of you know, David performed Life On Mars? as well as Everyone Says 'Hi', and they were really quite emotional versions of both. The interview itself was absolutely fascinating, and David talked quite freely about his formative years and early musical influences. Without giving too much away, subjects lurched from parental effects on the psyche, Little Richard, Tubby the Tuba, Earnest Luft - the boy soprano, Philip Larkin and much more.
Set your programme reminders now, and don't miss this!
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In the port of Amsterdamthere's a sailor who sings...
An article in The Guardian highlights a series of exhibitions, collectively known as 'Brel Brussels 2003'. Most of you will be aware of David's interest in singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, whose songs Amsterdam and My Death he has covered.
(Blammo notes: The soundtrack to Brel's 60's off-Broadway show, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris which contained both Amsterdam and My Death, was most likely the trigger for the punch line in this quote from David in 1977 regarding David Live : "God, that album...I've never played it. The tension it must contain must be like vampire's teeth coming down on you. And that photo on the cover. My god, it looks as if I've just stepped out of the grave. That's actually how I felt. That record should have been called 'David Bowie is alive and well and living only in theory.'")
At just one of these exhibitions you can:-
...find yourself backstage in a scene from many decades ago: an evening with Brel on tour. The first stop is the changing room; on the dressing table lie train tickets, song sheets, a half-eaten baguette and all the paraphernalia of a life spent on the road. As if in the mirrors of the dressing table, a video of Brel in interview recounts his opinions.
Through the dressing room you arrive in the wings, where the silhouette of Brel in the spotlight falls on the heavy curtains. It's cleverly combined with grainy black-and-white footage of the man himself in concert, playing on the other side of the drapes: a distinctively contoured face, all teeth and ears, and his shortish figure straining forward in his suit, arms flying out as if battling against some centrifugal force.
Beyond, there's further footage of a sweat-soaked Brel coming offstage, straight into an interview and a cigarette. The final port of call is a recreated station bar where you can play all your own favourite Brel tracks on the jukebox.
If you are planning a summer in Europe, this sounds to me like an amazing addition to your tour itinerary.
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I'll dance my little dance till it makes you smile...
The December/January 2003 issue of German music magazine Eclipsed has several pages devoted to an excellent review and photographs of David Bowie's September 2002 show at Munich's Olympic Hall. They say:-
The sound is very clear and very dynamic from the beginning of the show. The choice of songs is quite excellent - a bit 'best of' mixed with many Heathen songs and also a pretty good selection of his exquisite experimental songs. At the very beginning David gives us Ashes to Ashes and with this it becomes clear that the variety of songs David has to choose from is more than full. He doesn't need to save this classic song till the end.
As the 15th song David Bowie plays the fantastic 5.15 The Angels Have Gone. And Bowie doesn't stop smiling. "You know, it's only a show, not life threatening. So smile!"
In Absolute Beginners he performs a wonderful duet with his brilliant bassist Gail Ann Dorsey.
Totally surprisingly he shows us more facets of his art by performing Brecht's Alabama Song.
But David Bowie hasn't finished yet. A full 8 encores follow! This Is Not America, Moonage Daydream, A New Career In A New Town (instrumental), the new single Everyone Says 'Hi' , a magic version of Sound and Vision, a technotronic Hallo Spaceboy, a nearly acoustic version of Let's Dance and at the end Ziggy Stardust.
(Thanks to Bianca for the translation and scan)
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My reputation swept back home...
Last Sunday's Observer carried an evocative review of Moonage Daydream - the book which is currently dropping through BowieNetters' letter boxes at a rate of knots. Here are a couple of quotes:-
In a moment of utter reinvention, the erstwhile mime artist and folkie swept aside the hippie trappings that had defined rock music since the mid-Sixties, and underwent the first of many persona changes whose collective impact still resounds 30 years later.
Bowie was nothing if not a disseminator: of styles, sounds, ideas. Everything he borrowed, though, he transcended.
These photographs trace the birth of one of the biggest, most influential pop ideas ever.
For all its futuristic trappings, though, it looks like an impossibly distant time and place. It looks like another planet.
Click on the image for the whole review. As you all know, the book is available via Genesis Publications.
:))
