“Life is a pop of the cherry“
To mark the release of the 40th anniversary Boys Keep Swinging (2017 Tony Visconti mix) picture disc today (http://smarturl.it/BKS40PreOrder), here’s another opportunity to view the marriage of the original video to the 2017 Tony Visconti mix, created by the brilliant @TheNachoVideos.
#DBBKS40 #BowieBKS #NachosVideos #BowieVinyl
“And tomorrows of rich surprise”
The David Bowie (with John 'Hutch' Hutchinson) - Clareville Grove Demos 3x7" vinyl singles box set is released today.
The set features the following six demo tracks recorded early in 1969, four of which are previously unreleased.
Space Oddity
Lover To The Dawn
Ching-a-Ling
An Occasional Dream
Let Me Sleep Beside You
Life Is A Circus
if you’ve not already, you can order here.
Read more about the set here.
Photography by Kenneth Pitt © Kenneth Pitt.
#BowieCGD
It should be fairly obvious what this new feature is, but for a full explanation and to participate, check out BOWIE KOOKS, the only Official David Bowie Facebook Fan Group.
#BowieFanFocus
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BOWIE FAN FOCUS – Sara Captain, 48
~ What does David Bowie mean to you?
SC: Everything! The world! Obviously my loved ones, close to me in my own life I mean, are everything to me - but I mean that for Bowie in a different way. Let me explain: Bowie was a man who, for some mysterious reason, was able to touch us fans so personally, and so very deeply - in a way that nobody else could. We often talk about this between us fans, don’t we? There is this real, genuine artistic fire in him, and he has the Muse on his side, so to speak: talent, an open mind and the desire for greatness. All of this gives him the ability to transcend the limits of our finite, puny little lives and to speak a language that is universal. What makes him even more special is that in his work and even in his appearance his soul shines through – and what a beautiful soul that is! He gives so much in performance, and this makes him inimitable. So in a nutshell to me he is the ultimate artist and just a little more than just a human… This is not Bowie mythology. It’s a funny thing maybe, but it is true.
~ When and how did you first become aware of him?
SC: When was around 12 years old I used to watch MTV a lot and one day this...being… this…otherworldly human...thing… appears on the screen. He had a mesmerising, deep voice that came from God knows where - something had never heard before - and it struck at the heart of my very soul. I can safely say I was never the same since! It was the video of ‘China Girl’, so I guess the year was 1983.
~ First item you ever obtained, including music, memorabilia, magazines, etc.?
SC: The Space Oddity album…I stared and stared at the cover, wondering why he didn’t have curly hair on it. Or was it ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ in the hope of hearing two milliseconds of that voice on the B side (see above). Does that count?
~ Is there a Bowie holy grail for you that you have yet to track down?
SC: YES!!! The full video of ‘The Elephant Man.’ I would give anything for that, even my painting ‘Sad David’. Maybe!
~ Most valuable Bowie possession you own on an emotional level?
SC: His signature – Not something I ever thought I could ever have. To know it is real is so magical – I can’t explain! Next to that would be my first Space Oddity album, the one that I mentioned above.
~ The best Bowie show you ever attended?
SC: I am ashamed to say, sadly, the only one: the Glass Spider Tour, Turin, 1987. Not allowed to go before and life turned too complicated for gigs after. Any gigs, that is. Regrets? YES! All the ones I missed at either end of that date.
~ The show you wish you had witnessed?
SC: Musikladen, Bremen -May 21, 1978 They seem to be having one hell of a time on stage and I love the fact that Bowie seemed to be taking himself quite seriously (but never too seriously) then as an artist, doing all the Brecht stuff and looking very much the mitteleuropean intellectual. Oh yes! Give me the Time Machine!
~ What would you have said had you met him, or, if you did meet, what did you say?
SC: I think I would have told him how much the song ‘God Knows I am Good’ means to me and how much comfort his music always was. I would have thanked him first and foremost. Oh, and of course I would have slipped in that I can draw, hoping that would get us talking about art. Maybe he would have made it easy for me with a quip or witticism…
~ Favourite album?
SC: If I really have to …it’s got to be LOW
~ Top ten songs?
SC: Heroes, Some Are, Letter to Hermione, Width of a Circle, Space Oddity, A new Career in a new Town, The Man who Sold the World, Word on a Wing, Five Years, the Bewlay Brothers or maybe…. And also…can I include Amsterdam…? Oh, come on man, ten? It’s impossible…!
~ Favourite lyric?
SC: ‘And the guns, shot above our heads/ And we kissed, as though nothing could fall’ – I know that feeling.
~ Favourite film?
SC: The Man Who fell to Earth. I am a bit of a Man Who Fell to Earth freak – I know it by heart, I can analyse each camera angle and each line of the dialogue till the cows come home. Tommy got under my skin, as he obviously did his. He is a great metaphor for alienation be it from the inner or the outer world – the film is so profound on every level and funnily enough it is particularly poignant today : isn’t Tommy is the ultimate immigrant? Coming to a new land and then stuff happens and you fall in love and get stuck – you don’t know if you are coming or going, and you belong and you don’t and they don’t treat you nice (though some do), they find excuses because you are ‘overstimulating the economy’ but you are not bitter because that’s just not you and you know that it would have probably been the same if they’d come over to your side… So true.
~ Favourite video?
SC: Hard as it is to choose, I have to say that for my money nothing beats the video of Wild is the Wind (and the Drowned Girl, which is the same thing). the jazzy feeling of it all, the tantalising effect of the solarised images where you see and you don’t see David’s face, accompanying what I think is David’s most sublime vocal performance, make this utterly addictive for me. It is ‘less is more’ (my motto) and it’s pure bliss.
~ Favourite era?
SC: 76-77 On the cusp of becoming a grown up man – looking incredible and with the fire of inspiration in him.
~ Best Bowie moment?
SC: Ah, there are just so many! The eye rolling in ‘Five Years’, the funny, pouty duck lip movement when he is interviewed at the Plaza Athénée in Paris. There’s his prank where, in the ‘L’Atra Domenica’ interview, he is sitting at a table with pretty Italian journalist Fiorella Gentile and he pretends there is something creeping from under the table, then he squashes it. Hilarious! There’s the great Jeremy Paxman interview. The winner, though, has got to be an hyperactive, whip smart and slightly irritated Bowie pointing out in a 1977 Amsterdam interview, when asked for the umpteenth time about showbiz, that he is not a rock star, ‘you see’. Why do I like it? Because he is not, ‘you see’. He’s so, so much more.
~ Guilty secret?
SC: Ah, that’d be telling! And then my reputation would sweep back home in drag… Ok, I confess: I do secretly mime his expressions quietly to myself when I am painting him, I practise pursing my lips in that way, lifting the eyebrows, that sort of stuff. Please don’t tell anybody.
~ What impact upon your life has Bowie had? Eg: Music, art and literature? Children or pet’s names? Tattoos? Mannerisms? Clothing? Choice of life partner?
SC: HUGE! I can say he was the first man I ever fell in love with. He was my awakening… no doubt! I didn’t like David Bowie – I looooooooooooooooved David Bowie!!! Everyone knew that about me when I was a teenager – he was and is an integral part of my identity. He accompanied my becoming an adult and his music was a sort of anchor, a safe harbour in the darkest moments, throughout my life – there is huge empathy in it. He was also a bit of a mentor who, from afar, by namechecking all manner of cultural connections, made me discover some many new things. He opened fantastic aesthetic horizons, which brings me to his greatest gift of all: he was instrumental in liberating the artist in me. Seeing how much he’d packed into this life of his, I thought: ‘Hey! Look at that! I too have got a gift and it must be for a reason, so I had better not waste it! David didn’t!’ I felt an irresistible urge to say so much, through painting – to paint not only him, but people I love, and stuff about life and death, time…you name it! It was what I could do with my life: art was a kind of obvious destiny that, for one reason or another, I was trying to escape, put off. Now, with David as the catalyst, and I am fully immersed in it and it is my chief occupation. Didn’t he say: ‘I always wanted to be that catalystic sort of thing’? Well David, with me, you fully succeeded.
~ Do you have a Bowie related photograph we could use? If so, what’s the story behind it?
SC: This is one of my latest paintings and I like it very much because it is simple yet effective – less is more! The palette is stripped down to a minimum, with the background used as a colour, and a contrast between ultra-soft and very stark brushstrokes. David is pictured in a Paris hotel around the time of ‘Be my Wife’, a lyric from which is visible in the back ground: ‘Stay with me’. He had that gorgeous, slightly pained ‘Rudy Valentino’ / Buster Keaton look around that time, which fascinates me no end. The focus here is on his elegance and charisma, while the lyrics create a tension between us wanting him to stay with us and him wanting us to keep him close, to pay attention, to keep listening to his music. This was painted for my upcoming Paris exhibition … but it sold before it got there. There will be many others, though! The leitmotif of the new show is this incredible creative connection David establishes with both those he loves and those who love him. @galeriestardust La Galerie Stardust in Paris, which will host it, are themselves massive Bowie fans (as the name suggests) and they have held many a great Bowie –related show: Sukita, Hanekroot and more. My one, ‘Sound & Vision – the Universe of David Bowie’ will run for two months from 31st May to 31st July and will feature, alongside my portraits of our David at the centre of it all, people he loved and those on whom he had a big impact – for example, I will pay homage to Linsday Kemp. Plus, we might have some illustrious guests, but I can’t reveal who just yet… It should be a very exciting show!
37 rue de Stalingrad,
93310 Le Pré-Saint-Gervais
France
“Though I'm past eighteen thousand days”
To make sense of today’s Bowie lyric appropriation, fact fans might like to know that 18,262 days will have passed between Space Oddity’s original UK single release on 11th July, 1969, and the 50th anniversary of the single in a couple of months.
And so, without further ado, here’s the press release.
#SpaceOddity50
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DAVID BOWIE - SPACE ODDITY - 50th ANNIVERSARY 2 x 7” BOX SET
FEATURING BRAND NEW TONY VISCONTI REMIXES AND SPACE ODDITY (2019 MIX – SINGLE EDIT) 1 TRACK DIGITAL SINGLE
RELEASED ON PARLOPHONE 12th JULY 2019
As part of the ongoing celebrations marking 50 years since David Bowie’s first hit, and following announcements of the Spying Through A Keyhole, Clareville Grove Demos and the “Mercury" Demos collections, Parlophone is releasing a very special double 7” single of Space Oddity featuring brand new remixes by Tony Visconti. The set and a 1 track digital single of the single edit of the 2019 mix of Space Oddity for streaming and download will be released by Parlophone on 12th July, 2019, the day after the single’s 50th anniversary.
Space Oddity 50th anniversary double 7” set will come in a box including a double-sided poster featuring an original Space Oddity press advertisement and a Ray Stevenson shot of David taken on stage at the Save Rave ‘69 concert at the London Palladium on 30th November, 1969, the backdrop featuring a N.A.S.A. astronaut. The set also includes an information card and a print featuring an alternative shot by Jojanneke Claassen from the Space Oddity promo single cover session.
A facsimile of the original ultra-rare unissued UK picture sleeve has been used for the cover of the original mono single, which, along with the label, features the original Philips trademark specifically cleared for this 50th anniversary release. The single itself has been cut from the original analogue single master tape. The jacket housing the 2019 remixes by Tony Visconti is a new design featuring an alternative Ray Stevenson shot from the Save Rave ‘69 concert to that on the poster.
First released as a 7-inch single on 11 July 1969, Space Oddity was also the opening track of his second studio album, David Bowie. Initially inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the song gained huge popularity when it was adopted as the unofficial theme of the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission which launched five days after the single’s release.
Over the past 50 years Space Oddity has been on a journey as long and as far as its main character, Major Tom. Originally written and demoed in November 1968, the song has gone through many guises from appearing in the filmed for television special Love You Til Tuesday in an earlier recorded incarnation with John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, to being recorded in Italian (Ragazzo solo, Ragazza sola), winning an Ivor Novello Special Award for Originality in May 1970, being Bowie’s first hit on both sides of the Atlantic (#5 in the U.K. in 1969, #1 in the U.K. in 1975 and #15 in the U.S. in 1973), having no less than three videos made for it and in 2013 was performed by Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield, while aboard the International Space Station, and became the first music video shot in space. Major Tom remained a motif for Bowie throughout his career revisiting the character in the songs Ashes to Ashes, Hallo Spaceboy and in the music video for ★.
Further news of moments and events celebrating the anniversary of this very special song will follow.
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SPACE ODDITY (1 TRACK DIGITAL SINGLE)
(2019 Mix - Single Edit) 2019 mix by Tony Visconti, March 2019.
SPACE ODDITY (2 x 7” SINGLE BOX SET)
Single 1
Side A
SPACE ODDITY (Original Mono Single Edit)
Side B
WILD EYED BOY FROM FREECLOUD (Original Mono Single Version)
Single 2
Side A
SPACE ODDITY (2019 Mix - Single Edit) 2019 mix by Tony Visconti, March 2019.
Side B
WILD EYED BOY FROM FREECLOUD (2019 Mix - Single Version) 2019 mix by Tony Visconti, March 2019.
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DAVID BOWIE - SPACE ODDITY 2 x 7" BOX SET AND 1 TRACK DIGITAL SINGLE are released on Parlophone 12th July 2019
#SpaceOddity50
“Time flies when you’re having fun“
DAVID BOWIE - D.J. LIMITED EDITION 40th ANNIVERSARY 7" PICTURE DISC
The 40th anniversary of David Bowie’s D.J. single will be marked by the next in Parlophone’s vinyl picture disc single series on 28th June, 2019.
Originally released on 29th June 1979, D.J. was the second and final single from Lodger in the UK and the follow up to Boys Keep Swinging. The Netherlands and Turkey would get Yassassin and the U.S. Look Back In Anger.
Echoing the method utilised for Robert Fripp’s improvisational guitar work on "Heroes", Bowie, Eno and Visconti assembled the guitar solo for D.J. from various ‘deaf takes’ by Adrian Belew, wherein he played against backing tracks he hadn’t heard previously and was further disoriented by being given no clue of chord structure or key before he soloed. The same method was used for Boys Keep Swinging and Red Sails, giving all three ‘solos’ their improvised feel.
The single release was accompanied by another delightfully mad David Mallet-directed video featuring Bowie as nonchalant DJ in a radio station studio, gradually destroying the equipment and the room around him. These scenes are interspersed with footage of our man rubbing shoulders and getting friendly with some of the wonderful people of Earls Court in London, as he strolls through the evening in a long coat being accosted by various strangers. The whole thing is topped off with Bowie as gas-masked art terrorist, spray-painting the DJ logo.
The A side of this D.J. picture disc features a previously unreleased single edit of the track from the Lodger (2017 Tony Visconti Mix) included in the A New Career In A New Town box set.
The previously unreleased version of Boys Keep Swinging recorded especially for The Kenny Everett Video Show features on the AA side. This take was recorded by Tony Visconti in Soho in London on the 9th April 1979 and features Sean Mayes on keyboards, Tony Visconti on bass, Simon House on violin, Andy Duncan on drums, Brian Robertson (of Thin Lizzy) on guitar and Ricky Hitchcock on guitar. The Kenny Everett Video Show was filmed on the following day and broadcast on 23rd April, 1979.
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DAVID BOWIE - D.J. LIMITED EDITION 40th ANNIVERSARY 7" PICTURE DISC
Side A
D.J. (2017 Tony Visconti mix - single edit)
(David Bowie, Brian Eno, Carlos Alomar)
Previously unreleased
Produced by David Bowie & Tony Visconti
Mixed by Tony Visconti at Human Studios, NYC, 2017
Side AA
Boys Keep Swinging (Kenny Everett Video Show Version)
(David Bowie, Brian Eno)
Previously unreleased.
Produced by David Bowie & Tony Visconti
Recorded at Good Earth Studio, Soho London, 9th April, 1979
The images used on each side of the disc are stills taken from the respective video performances.
D.J. is released on Parlophone 28th June, 2019.
COLLECTORS' FOOTNOTE: DJ was originally issued on green vinyl in the UK and remains a desirable collectors’ item forty years later. The most recent copy to sell (January 2019), went for £145 ($190 USD).
#BowieDJ #DBDJ40 #BowieVinyl #ANCIANTbox
“They’ll never clone ya“
Released forty years ago today (27th April 1979), it’s an actual fact that Boys Keep Swinging (the first single from 1979’s Lodger) is one of the very best 45s of all time, not to mention another Top Ten hit for David Bowie in the UK.
The Bowie/Visconti produced tongue in cheek ode to the joys of gender stability, was a breath of fresh air in a musical landscape dominated by folk taking themselves a little too seriously.
Both the humour and the role reversal of the recording (that’s musicians swapping instruments), transferred perfectly to the David Mallet-directed video (Mallet’s first in a string of classic Bowie promos), with Bowie taking on the guise of his own female backing singers.
As you know, 17th May sees the release of the 40th anniversary Boys Keep Swinging (2017 Tony Visconti mix) picture disc, pre-order here.
To mark the event, the absurdly talented @TheNachoVideos has married the original video to the 2017 Tony Visconti mix, enjoy that here.
#DBBKS40 #BowieBKS #NachosVideos #BowieVinyl
“I recall how we lived on the corner of a bed”
DAVID BOWIE (WITH JOHN ‘HUTCH’ HUTCHINSON)
THE 'MERCURY’ DEMOS 1 LP BOX SET FEATURING PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED DAVID BOWIE RECORDINGS
RELEASED ON PARLOPHONE 28th JUNE 2019
As part of the ongoing celebrations marking 50 years since David Bowie’s first hit, Space Oddity, and following the recent Spying Through A Keyhole and Clareville Grove Demos collections, Parlophone is releasing a further set of recordings known as The ‘Mercury’ Demos.
The ‘Mercury’ Demos are 10 early Bowie recordings captured live in one take to a Revox reel to reel tape machine in David’s flat in spring 1969, with accompaniment from John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson on guitar and vocals.
The version of ‘Space Oddity’ from the Demos, originally released with edits on the Sound & Vision boxset, is presented here in its true context for the first time. The other nine recordings on the album are all previously unreleased. In addition to Bowie originals, the session also includes the Roger Bunn composition Life Is A Circus (which features as an earlier demo version on the Clareville Grove Demos set) and the Lesley Duncan composition, Love Song, later recorded by Elton John for his Tumbleweed Connection album. David’s own Conversation Piece is announced as ‘a new song’ and Janine features a short nineteen second section sung to the melody of The Beatles’ Hey Jude.
The session was a basic recording of the ‘Bowie & Hutch’ duo’s set list at the time and was committed to tape at the request of Mercury Records A&R man Calvin Mark Lee who wanted the tracks to send them to his boss Bob Reno. Both Calvin and Bob are referenced during the 41-minute recording, and the demos were key in securing David his recording deal with Mercury Records.
The ‘Mercury’ Demos set will come in a replica of the original tape box and will feature 1 vinyl LP, a print, two photo contact sheets and sleeve notes by Mark Adams. The labels of the LP feature the same EMIDISC acetate styling as Spying Through A Keyhole and Clareville Grove Demos with the song titles in David’s own handwriting.
LP Tracklisting
Side 1
Space Oddity
Janine
An Occasional Dream
Conversation Piece
Ching-a-Ling
I’m Not Quite (aka Letter To Hermione)
Side 2
Lover To The Dawn
Love Song
When I’m Five
Life Is A Circus
Musicians
David Bowie – vocals, guitar and Stylophone
John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson – vocals and guitar
The ‘Mercury’ Demos LP is mono and plays at 33 1/3 rpm. It is released on Parlophone on 28th June 2019.
#BowieTheMercuryDemos
“And so the story goes they wore the clothes...”
There’s a great piece by Susannah Cohen over on okwhatever.org titled: The Enduring Appeal of David Bowie Merch. The article also makes the observation that “Someone you know owns a Bowie T-shirt. It's (kind of) a fact.”
Here are a few edited excerpts from the feature:
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Everything looks better with David Bowie’s face on it. And a lot of people know this. Lady Gaga knew it when she rejoiced over A Star Is Born’s BAFTA win, posting a video to Twitter dressed in nothing but an oversized T-shirt that said “Bowie.” Man Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James knows it, too. He’s been rocking a Bowie tee — a black, long-sleeved one celebrating his Let’s Dance era — in publicity shots for his latest novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. And sneaker brand Vans knew it when they launched a limited edition collection based on four different Bowie albums in April.
David Bowie merch is having a moment — but then again, hasn’t it always? Whatever else is going on in the world of fashion, it seems that paying tribute to the Dame on a piece of white cotton is always sartorially acceptable. Celebrities have long known this. There was Sid Vicious in a red Bowie tee at the age of 15, en route to a concert in the 1970s. Kate Moss paid tribute to her dead friend in 2016, pairing a graphic tee of the artist with a black faux fur coat. Cate Blanchett was spotted in a lightning bolt shirt at the airport last year. Janelle Monae teamed hers with sequins for a performance on The Today Show a few months later.
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Norman Perry is the president of Perryscope Productions, a licensing and merchandising company that represents David Bowie (among many other icons) in partnership with Epic Rights. He believes that Bowie’s personal style has a lot to do with his impact on fashion.
“I have four clients [Bowie, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix] that were fashion forward, and they each looked different on every album cover, every tour,” he told OK Whatever in a phone interview. “There's a handful of people where clothes were a really significant part of their persona and their aura, and in the case of David Bowie, he was not a predictable man.”
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Of course, there’s also a simpler explanation for the musician’s enduring fashion appeal. Wearing a piece of clothing emblazoned with Bowie’s face might be cool, but it could also just be an homage to a beloved artist. The reason why we see Bowie’s face so often in fashion might have less to do with style than it does fandom. The truth is, maybe we all just really loved the guy.
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Read the full article here.
FOOTNOTE: Our montage shows David Bowie in 2002 sporting a 1973 live T-shirt. The picture was taken by director/photographer duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. The pair were also responsible for filming the Louis Vuitton L’Invitation Au Voyage Part 1 short in 2013, which starred Bowie singing “I’d Rather Be High”.
The T-shirt on the left is the latest addition to the Official Bowie Store: BOWIE light bulb logo T-shirts which glow in the dark! Pre-order here.
#BowieMerch #BowieStore
“Try and wake up tomorrow”
Good luck to all of you that are choosing to queue for Record Store Day 2019 tomorrow. (Saturday, 13th April.)
Knowing how enthusiastic many of the BOWIE KOOKS are, some fans will already be queuing...Hello Charlie.
Our montage shows Parlophone’s Pin Ups picture disc and the blue vinyl The World Of David Bowie released by Universal. More details here.
Check out the BOWIE KOOKS FB Group here.
#BowieRSD #RSD2019 #BowieVinyl #BowiePinUps #TWODB
“Five, four, three, two, one”
In June 2007, David Bowie was honoured at the 11th Annual Webby Awards (known as the “Oscars of the Internet”) with the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for pushing the boundaries between art and technology.
So it's appropriate now that the David Bowie is AR app by Planeta has been nominated in two categories in the 23rd Annual Webby Awards. Click on the links below to vote in each category:
• David Bowie is is a Webby Nominee in Apps, Mobile, and Voice: Best Use of Augmented Reality
• David Bowie is is a Webby Nominee in Apps, Mobile, and Voice: Art & Experimental
23rd ANNUAL WEBBY AWARDS
PEOPLE'S VOICE
You decide the best of the Internet
START VOTING HERE - Search Bowie for vote links
Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th
On a related note, NYTimes - Magicleap: David Bowie in Three Dimensions has also been nominated.
FOOTNOTE: Today's main pic and lyric quotation are related to the 2007 Annual Webby Awards. The picture is from Bowie’s hilarious acceptance speech that went something like this...
“So, only got five words...Shit, that was five...Four right there...Three there...Two...”
#WebbyBowie