This is our last chance...
Just a reminder that you have but two hours to enter this one, if you haven't already. See the original story for details. (12.24.2005 NEWS: SPOT THE BALL FOR A CHANCE TO WIN MOONAGE DAYDREAM)
Stay tuned tomorrow for the winners and part two of this Mick Rock contest...New Year hangover head permitting, of course!
Commencing countdown...
The annual
#40 - "Heroes"
#57 - Space Oddity
#80 - Under Pressure (With Queen)
#92 - Life On Mars?
#100 - All The Young Dudes (Mott The Hoople)
#115 - Starman
#128 - The Jean Genie
#212 - Young Americans
#165 - Changes
#273 - Sound And Vision
#291 - Rebel Rebel
#364 - Let's Dance
#398 - Sorrow
#432 - China Girl
#447 - Golden Years
#455 - Lust For Life (Iggy Pop)
As you can see, the highest position for Bowie was #40. But, for what it's worth, the Top 10 goes like this: :
01 Imagine ? John Lennon
02 Hey Jude ? Beatles
03 Let It Be ? Beatles
04 One ? U2
05 Angels ? Robbie Williams
06 Bohemian Rhapsody ? Queen
07 Stairway to Heaven ? Led Zeppelin
08 Every Breath You Take ? The Police
09 Hotel California ? The Eagles
10 You?re Beautiful ? James Blunt
The inclusion of newcomer James Blunt in the Top 10 is a very frightening development and further evidence that Virgin listeners are generally not to be trusted...apart from all the Bowie songs they voted in.
NB: Due to a technicality, there were no winners of the brief contest we ran on this. By technicality I mean word blindness and poor observation on my part...a bit!
But they think that we're hiding a secretive ball...
OK - It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. This is a two-part contest, with ten copies of the recent hardback of David Bowie and Mick Rock's Moonage Daydream up for grabs in the first part, and the chance to win a single copy of the beautifully produced
All current BowieNet members are free to enter both contests...and so, without further ado, on to the first.
As I said, we have ten copies of the Cassell Illustrated 348 page hardback to give away, and each copy will contain a signed-and-personalised-by-Mick Rock postcard.
I'm sure you've already had a go at guessing the answer even before you got this far, and that's how simple this one is.
In the above shot, David Bowie, in full Aladdin Sane clobber, is relaxing with a game of table tennis during the recording of Pin Ups in 1973. DB is frozen in time having just batted the ping-pong ball away.
In tribute to a popular game of that era (at least in the UK it was) what you have to do is pinpoint the original position of the expertly-removed ball using the grid reference.
For example, if you think the ball received such an uncontrolled and ferocious forehand smash, (if such a thing exists) that it shot up to the top left of the picture, then your answer would be A-11.
If, on the other hand, you think the ball was hit with an ineffectual limp-wristed swish, then you might choose A-1...and so on. It's bloody spot-the-ball for goodness sake. You know what to do!
Send your answer to me here.
Usual rules apply: Only one entry per BowieNet account. Also, please remember you must enter using your BowieNet e-mail or at least supply your BowieNet user name.
The competition ends at midnight UK time on Saturday December 31st. We'll announce the winners on the very first day of the New Year and launch the second part of the contest soon after that. Good luck, kidz!
While colour lights up your face...
Those of you that subscribe to
Those of you that don't subscribe should read on to see if the magazine's very persuasive Peter Smit can convince you of your error...
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The December 2005 issue of 'The Voyeur' is out now!
Like always in our December issue the centrefold contains rare full colour Bowie photographs.
In this issue of "The Voyeur":
~ Watch out for "The Voyeur"
~ Welcome to "The Voyeur"
~ All fake? (about genuine and fake David Bowie stamps)
~ About the cover (The man who sold the world)
~ 'Outrageous' (Part 2 of an interview by Playboy's Cameron Crow)
~ Four page full colour David Bowie centrefold
~ Sigma Kids (An inside story by Sigma kid Marla Kanevsky)
~ Speed Of Life (About David's Borsalino hat from TMWFTE)
More details about the new edition and information on how to become a member can be found on the homepage at
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Some of you may recognise the name of Marla Kanevsky as the real name of one of BowieNet's longest serving members and real-life original Sigma Kid, zelvis. Be prepared to be overwhelmed by waves of envy as Marla recounts her experience of thirty years ago in excitingly vivid detail.
It's a story we've covered on these pages a couple of times, (07/25/02 NEWS: BOWIE PRESS BLITZ CONTINUES & 12.07.2003 NEWS: BOWIENETTER ZELVIS RECALLS HER 30 YEAR FANDOM) but it still makes for a great read.
Also, as Peter says above, look out for the seasonal four page colour pullout that contains big versions of those pictures of David taken by Fernando Aceves, (at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City) in 1997 that
Got a message from the action man...
It's that time of year again, as if you hadn't noticed...and the text and headline above pretty well negates any need for further waffle from me.
I should just mention that the theme for
Whatever tradition you choose this time of year, hope you have a good one. Season's greetings from everybody at BowieNet...and don't forget to turn up the volume for that message from David before you click on the image above.
See you tomorrow, peoploids!
And our talk was old and dust would flow...
Any Bowie fan of a certain age will remember how important the weekly magazines for girls were when it came to news snippets and up-to-date colour pics of our man.
Obviously, as a young self-conscious teen, it was hard not to pretend the frequent purchases of the likes of Jackie, Diane and Mirabelle were for one's sister...the latter being an essential weekly buy for the My World column penned by David Bowie. (Not.)
Well now, as evidenced by the front-page blurb of today's Daily Express, (above) a hardcover book compiled from the pages of Jackie is proving very popular in the UK.
Jackie and Diane were similar formats (not to mention also being a John Cougar Mellencamp song, almost) and are probably best remembered for servicing the teenybopper corner of the market with countless pin-ups of Donny, David Cassidy and The Rollers and their ilk in the Seventies.
But, for a while, their pop features seemed to be of a little more substance, and indeed, were certainly responsible for many of the very earliest Bowie features.
The proof of this, (apart from several articles I have in my own archives) is in a full-page reprint in aforementioned annual of an interview with David first published in Jackie over thirty five years ago on 10th May 1970.
The interview, headed Face To Face With DAVID BOWIE - The Secret of my lost year... was illustrated with the wonderful shot below, which I'm pretty sure I've not seen before.
I know pictures from this same session were published elsewhere, but I think Jackie had an exclusive with this particular shot, as these magazines very often did with many of their early Bowie pictures.
BowieNetter, dukebox, has kindly transcribed the piece for your reading pleasure and to give you a glimpse into the mind of this promising young singer/songwriter...
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Face To Face With DAVID BOWIE - The Secret of my lost year...
What interests do you have outside music?
People. Architecture. And painting ? I used to be a commercial artist six years ago. I spent just one year at it.
What?s the best advice you?ve ever received?
To try to make each moment of one?s life one of the happiest, and if it?s not, try to find out why. I was told that by a Tibetan friend of mine, Chimi Youngdon Rimpoche.
Why was his advice so important?
Because I?d reached a crucial point in my life. I was a terribly earnest Buddhist at that time, within a month of becoming a Buddhist monk. I had stayed in their monastery and was going through all their exams, and yet I had this feeling that it wasn?t right for me.
Are you still a Buddhist?
No, though a lot of the basic ideas are still with me. But I don?t believe it?s suitable for the West in its Eastern format.
What attracted you to Buddhism in the first place?
I was very interested in Tibet while I was still at school, and wrote a thesis on it. That made me interested in the country, and I started reading about its history and its religion.
I suppose I would still like to go there, but it?s been impossible to get into the country since the Communists took over.
How did you get it all out of your system?
I suddenly realised how close it all was: another month and my head would have been shaved ? so I decided that as I wasn?t happy, I would get right away from it all. I vanished completely for a year. No-one knew where I was.
Actually, I had joined the Lindsay Kemp Mime Company. I spent a year with them and learned from Lindsay that people are much more important to me than ideas.
Have you continued this interest in theatre?
With a couple of other people, I started an Arts Laboratory down in Beckenham which is still thriving. It meets at a pub down there. We have about 600 people attached to it now ? all pursuing their own ideas: art, poetry, music, mime, writing.
We?ve done a marvellous puppet show with 7ft high puppets, and I?m trying to get them a TV series at the moment.
Are you superstitious?
I never whistle in theatre dressing rooms, because that?s something you?re told not to do as soon as you start in the theatre ? but that?s more of a habit. I?m not superstitious about it or anything else.
Who has influenced you most?
My brother, Terry. He?s seven years older than I am ? I?m 22 now, he?s 29. He was very keen on jazz when I was at a very impressionable age, and that led me into it.
I idolised John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, and learned to play the clarinet and tenor saxophone when I was 12. When I first came into the business six years ago it was as a jazz musician.
Terry was very Bohemian and introduced me to the writers that meant a lot to him ? like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. And all this led me into songwriting.
Do you write your own material still?
I?ve always written all my own songs. I?ve had 137 published so far and my latest L.P. is all my own. I also did another one years ago when I was the first singer to record an L.P. before doing a single.
My stage act consists entirely of my own material, apart from one or two songs that I like very much ? ?Port of Amsterdam? by Jacques Brel and ?Buzz the Fuzz? by Biff Rose.
Do your fans expect this when they come to see you?
I think most of them are a bit astonished, but they sit and listen. I?m always getting really nice letters from people saying the like what I do.
What has been your most embarrassing moment?
When I was singing with a group called The Buzz four or five years ago. I forgot the words to three songs in a row. That was dreadful.
Have you been surprised by fan reaction? I stand bemused by it all. I would never have believed in a million years that people would scream at me. I?m really incredulous.
The first night it happened to me was in Perth ? as I was singing a number called ?Wide Eyed boy from Free Cloud?. I suddenly heard three or four screams from a corner of the theatre!
Now I?m always getting presents, gonky things with big eyes, and funny little love letters.
What is your most treasured possession?
There?s no one possession that I couldn?t part with quite easily. I?ve never attached too much importance to material things.
Do you expect to stay in pop music for a long time?
I don?t know. I never plan ahead, and I?m very fickle. I?m always changing my mind about things. If I thought another media would mean more to me, I would move into it.
I never expected ?Space Oddity? to be the success it was, and it?s all rather overwhelmed me. I couldn?t tell you what I?ll be doing this time next year, but I?m quite happy at the moment.
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Well, BowieNetters, I have to admit that the last answer is a little worrying, let's hope he decides to stick with music for a while.
You better look out below!
I don't need to say much more than you can read above, but yes, I did notice the Fashion Rocks caption illustrated with a SummerStage picture.
Anyway, #2 in a year of absolutely gazillions of available downloads is very cool indeed, even if Rolling Stone did get it wrong by one place! };-)
The children of the SummerStage...
David Bowie and
"The Canadian art-pop septet were a thrill just by their own exuberant selves, but when the Thin White Duke stepped up to sing his "Queen Bitch" and Arcade Fire's "Wake Up," the crowd went wild."
Here follows the complete list:
PLUGGED IN: BEST CONCERTS 2005 - By MARY HUHN
Here are the most riveting pop performances of 2005, in chronological order.
1 Luna: Bowery Ballroom, Feb. 25-28
2 Gris Gris: Kingsland Tavern, Brooklyn, April 9
3 Allen Oldies Band: Maxwell's, May 7
4 Gang of Four: Irving Plaza, May 18
5 Kaiser Chiefs: Webster Hall, July 21
6 Bettye LaVette: Joe's Pub, Sept. 8
7 The Arcade Fire with David Bowie: Central Park SummerStage, Sept. 15
8 Allen Toussaint: Joe's Pub, Sept. 25
9 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Irving Plaza, Sept. 26
10 Lee Ann Womack: Cipriani's, Oct. 4 & Bowery Ballroom, Nov. 11
Well done to both artists. What a winning team they make.
But now I lay me down to sleep, And now I close my eyes...
Following a post yesterday from his friends and family that BowieNetter
Though I had no personal contact with James, it's clear from the posts on the MBs that he was loved by a great many BowieNet members and he will be dearly missed.
Our thoughts are with his friends and family at this terrible time.
Described by many of you as beautiful, the 19-year-old was passionate about music and art and was a prolific poster to The Gallery with almost 200 contributions since 2003!
Here's one of his pieces, a portrait of David Bowie...
James also had a band called
I'll leave you with a quote from
"Beauty is a form of Genius --- is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation." - Oscar Wilde
And the legendary curtain call awards...
We reported on the work of
It seems from published reviews and from BowieNetters who made it along at the time, that the play was a resounding success and it was quickly followed by Mark's next play, the equally popular Sequinned Suits and Platform Boots.
Mark has been in touch to tell us that both plays have been nominated for some awards, more of which I'll hand over to Mark himself to tell you about...
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Blam... am really pleased to let you know that our productions have been nominated in the South Of England CURTAIN CALL AWARDS.
Anthony Jennings for Shakey Threwer (Best male Youth performer) SEQUINNED
Alex Chalk for Norman Threwer (Best supporting Youth Actor) ZIGGY'S BAND
Charlotte Wells for Doris Threwer (Best Supporting Youth Actor (female) SEQUINNED
Georgina Mattack for Gilly Threwer (Best newcomer) ZIGGY'S BAND
Over 100 productions are up for these awards, so Oaklands Youth Theatre have done particularly well. I'm well chuffed. We've only ever had two nominations in one year before, and only twice before had any nominations at all!!!The awards are dished out on the 27th Jan... I'll let you know if we're successful.
The new one act play (SEQUINNED SUITS AND PLATFORM BOOTS which is a tribute to the glam rock years but still includes references and general genuflections to the MainMan) is going to be presented at various Festivals in the South Of England next March/April and then will be performed, all being well, at Edinburgh Festival week two Aug 2006. - Mark Wheeller
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For details of other plays by Mark Wheeller please visit:
Boys keep swinging backstage at David Bowie's Meltdown in 2002. From left to right: Irish singer, Bono; English singer, Veronica Lake; Italian Painter, Francesco Clemente; and a couple of lovely Duranies.
Became the special man...
First up, in one of the Saturday newspaper supplements in the UK, Simon had this to say about our man in a regular feature entitled: I Didn't Get Where I Am Today Without...
David Bowie
"He's always been God to me. I love everything he's done. He was so important to me growing up, and helped me towards a sense of identity. And having been lucky enough to get to know him a little, I can say that he's a proper gentleman and hasn't in any way disappointed me.
He's a proper artist. It's all about the music, and the attendant fame means nothing to him. He always conducts himself perfectly too, which is inspiring in itself. You worry about meeting your heroes, but with David there's been nothing at all to fear."
How lovely. That's a very cool thing to say, Simon. According to the piece by Alan Jackson, the other things that helped get Mr Le Bon get where he is today were: His mum and dad, the spirit of punk, keeping perspective and being satisfied with his lot.
The fabulously flamboyant Nick Rhodes expressed similar sentiments on the TV earlier in the year when he appeared on the Orange Playlist in the UK. For those not familiar with the format, Orange Playlist was presented by the delicious Lauren Laverne (a wasted talent if ever there was one) who invites a celebrity guest to choose five tracks that best suit five different categories, and these were Nick's choices:
Past = Kraftwerk - The Robots
Present = The Killers - Somebody Told Me
Future = Snoop Dog & Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot
Dedication = The Velvet Underground - Venus In Furs
All Time Favourite = David Bowie - Life On Mars?
Mr Rhodes praised DB a few times during the show, but he explained his reasons for choosing Life On Mars? as his all time favourite song thus:
"I think David Bowie owned the 70's. When you think of what he did it's just such a mind-boggling amount of work. I think David, more than anyone, allowed artists the luxury of being able to experiment.
For his bravery alone I think we should play a David Bowie song. I could have picked any one of them but I've picked this one because of the video. It's a great song."
Well, David Bowie may not have made the best music of his own career during the eighties, but the best music of the eighties certainly couldn't have existed without his influence.
Apart from
Tin Machine, Tin Machine...
Received lots of e-mail from BNetters asking about the Diamond Dogs tin (above) when I posted a bit about recent additions to the
And so now, you can view a few more of these handy Bowie album cover tins, above. Not sure if they're in scale to each other, or even how big they are to be honest...but they are nice, aren't they?
Oh, almost forgot, you'll actually be able to purchase them shortly too. Keep an eye on the
Surely the perfect Christmas present or holiday season gift for the Bowie fan in your life that needs to tidy away all those little bits that normally get lost in the laundry, such as spare buttons, brooches, socks and jam.
It was cold and it rained, so I felt like an actor...
BowieNetter jungtheforeman has been in touch with news regarding the launch of
The latest issue of Living Venture's large format, glossy magazine, Living, (see above) features the Ziggy sleeve on its front cover in celebration of the launch. Inside there's a feature on the Heddon Street opening in which designer Shideh Shaygun talks about the decor of
Despite the lack of a "spaceship theme", it does look like a particularly stylish establishment, which you can judge for yourself by clicking on the cover above. There's even the opportunity to download a 20 per cent discount voucher if you like the look of the place.
Elsewhere in the mag, the Ziggy album cover is pictured again in a feature about Nick DeVille's new book, Album: Style and Image in Sleeve Sleeve Design...and rightly so, seeing as it has been scientifically proven to be the best album cover of all time.
Sold them to the likes of you...
It hardly seems like a whole year since the compilers of the
Anyway, the top ten artists remain the same, albeit in slightly adjusted positions, with last year's placings in brackets:
1 (1) Elvis Presley
2 (2) Cliff Richard
3 (4) Queen
4 (3) The Beatles
5 (5) Madonna
6 (6) Elton John
7 (7) The Shadows
8 (8) Michael Jackson
9 (10) U2
10 (9) David Bowie
You can
Meanwhile, those of you who like to keep up to date with the UK hit parade, may want to consider the
The package comes "complete with a 24 page book and CD-ROM that will enable you to receive weekly chart updates, music news and reviews and much more." Lovely.
I live above the BowieNet store...*
If you haven't already, you should all be receiving an e-mail shortly regarding lots of lovely new stuff in the
The e-mail will include details of a holiday offer for free shipping to U.S. addresses, using Standard Shipping, with purchases over $75
* Not true, actually.
The Mysteries...
"So you guys have been on the job for over fifty years, and in all that time you've never come across a real unexplained mystery? Can that be true?"
David Bowie looked shocked. "We never said that!"
That's just one little snippet of the dialogue that involves David Bowie in
Stephen King is verified as the biggest selling living author, and his latest book is a story of an unexplained mystery as told by two old pro newspaper journalists - Vince Teague and one David Bowie.
Sadly, the name is where any resemblance to our David ends, but we thought we had better point it out in case you were wondering.
This club's called The Webb, it's this month's pick...
The review above appeared in the media section of
ANALYSIS ONLINE OSCARS
Straight from the star's mouth
Founder of the Webby Awards, Tiffany Shlain, selects the best celebrity sites ahead of this year's awards.
Thank you, Tiffany. Kind words indeed. Good eh, folx?
Got to keep searching and searching...
The contest for
Having said that, there was a high percentage of wrong answers...and understandably so. Not sure I would even have got this one right without trawling back through the film.
I asked you to study the animation above and list the stills in the chronological order they would actually appear in the film. As some of you pointed out, (especially with G) the exact stills don't strictly appear in the film at all.
As I'm sure you all know, this is because the stills photographer's job (David James on The Man Who Fell To Earth) is to capture the scene for use in promotional material. So it's very rare for the stills photographer to be taking shots from the same viewpoint as the movie camera man. The images I used were original lobby cards that would have been on display in the cinema foyer when TMWFTE was originally released.
However, every still represents a particular scene, and here's the order those scenes appear in the film. The number in brackets is the time the closest scene to each still appears in this
E = 1 (11:30)
D = 2 (60:45)
F = 3 (69:45)
G = 4 (90:17)
B = 5 (96:40)
A = 6 (117:15)
C = 7 (124:22)
As I've already admitted, it would be hard to enter this contest if you didn't already have access to a version of TMWFTE. I didn't have a problem with this notion, as I believe that the kind of person who desperately wanted, and indeed deserved, to get their hands on a copy of this release would no doubt already have one of the myriad videos, laserdiscs or DVDs released thus far...if not all of them! (I know I have.)
These are the five BowieNetters that The Random Generator selected, four of whom have usernames beginning with the letter J. Bizarre...
jackalope
jayway
jazzfyr
jungtheforeman
wlrook
If you would all please forward your real names and addresses to me, you'll each receive a copy of this wonderful
Please be sure to include the country you live in when sending your address.
They say there´s always music in the air (on Broadway)
David and Iman attended the opening night of Oprah Winfrey's presentation of new musical The Color Purple at The Broadway Theatre in New York City last night.
Apart from the fine looking couple above, the event attracted a whole bunch of big names including: Debbie Allen, Toni Basil, Angela Bassett, Noami Campbell, Sean Combs, Ashanti Douglas, Kimberly Elise, Jamie Foxx, Isaac Hayes, Quincy Jones, Star Jones, Spike Lee, Sidney Poitier, Chris Rock, Donald Trump, Tina Turner, Alice Walker and Stevie Wonder, to name just several.
The classic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker has been adapted for the stage by Marsha Norman and directed by Gary Griffin, and is presented in this form by Oprah Winfrey who played Sofia in Steven Spielberg's 1985 movie version of the book.
Read more at
We've got Five Years... (and Life On Mars? and Wake Up)
Talking of the Arcade Fire & David Bowie Live EP (see yesterday's news) and following last week's news piece (11.23.2005 NEWS: LIVE EP TOP 10 IN 15 COUNTRIES AND #1 IN 4) it's great to see that the EP is still selling well more than a week after its initial release.
It's also good to see it has remained at #1 in Canada and Ireland and is even still ascending the chart in some countries.
Here's the chart positions of the EP in the 12
Austria 10
Belgium 7
Canada 1
Denmark 5
France 3
Ireland 1
Netherlands 9
Portugal 2
Spain 9
Sweden 8
UK 5
USA 7
Good eh?