TASCHEN’s TMWFTE book out next week

“It will tumble from the sky”

TASCHEN’s The Man Who Fell To Earth book presents a wealth of stills and behind-the-scenes images by unit photographer David James, including numerous shots of Bowie at work, rest and play, peppered with quotations from all involved, including Bowie himself.

Published next week, this weighty 480 page tome (albeit a compact 14 x 19.5 cm), includes a superb new essay by Paul Duncan which explores the shooting of the film and its lasting impact, drawing upon an exclusive interview with David James, who brings first-hand insights into the making of this sci-fi masterwork.

Here’s a particularly funny excerpt from it in which Bowie remembers the alien 'train'...

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There are visual and textual references to trains throughout the film, since, for Newton, it represents the last time he saw his family, when he departed on the alien train. To visualize this scene in the film, Brian Eatwell laid a monorail track on the desert floor, and built the alien train around an old tractor.

The train had an organic surface and was fitted with solar sails. Bowie: “When the train turned up, it was nothing like what Nic had envisaged. He went blue in the face, then he went red, then white and he said, ‘What is that?’ ‘It’s your train, sir.’ ‘That’s not a train, it’s a fucking dog kennel!’ But we lived with it.”

The shoot was further complicated when the tractor broke down. Unable to replace the parts, they attached ropes to the train and had horses pull it out of shot. James: “Such problems are normal on a film.”

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Well, whatever the on-set problems, we here at DBFBHQ thought the train was quite convincing, possibly because it was so different to any Earth train, or dog kennel for that matter.

Stay tuned for your chance to win copies of the book along with other TMWFTE goodies.

See the dedicated TASCHEN page here.

#TheManWhoFellToEarth  #TMWFTE  #TJNewton  #BowieTASCHEN

Nine-page Bowie cover feature in Rock&Folk

“When you Rock&Folk with me”

Le Petit Prince, Jérôme Soligny, has very kindly been in touch with details of the November edition of Rock&Folk magazine. (R&F603)

Over to Jérôme...

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I had a telephone conversation with Vincent Tannières, new editor at Rock&Folk, and we discussed what we could do about ANCIANT and the possibility of having David Bowie on the cover of the magazine. Again.

First, having already written at length about these crucial years in articles and books, I thought it would be great to have other writers’ points of view rather than only mine. Also, from 1977 to 1982, except for a few gigs with Iggy Pop, the Isolar II tour and some (great) acting work, David was more low key than ever, hoping his « new music » was what really mattered and what people would focus on.

So we decided to create an introduction and four long, new reviews of the four studio albums inside the box, written by four different writers. Vincent came up with the great title « Au pied du mur » and Rock&Folk went for a Duffy cover shot that really expresses, I think, these years when David, artistically and even physically, continued to re-invent himself.

Also, in the same issue on top of the Bowie feature, Mick Rock gave us a great interview - his Transformer book on Lou Reed is re(edited) by Genesis - and he only has cool things to say about the man who fell in front of his camera 45 odd years ago: “Actually, David Bowie talked to people of my generation. It’s his music we considered exciting. Hunky Dory was and still is a major album. David looked like a glam musician but he belonged to the singer-songwriters’ league, the ones we listened to without doing anything else.”

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Thanks for the heads up, Jérôme.

Rock&Folk is available from Wednesday, October 18th.

#RocknFolkBowie  #ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox

"Heroes" released on this day in 1977

“In the world of today, for tomorrow’s man”

The advertising strapline ran with the legend: “Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Can Hear It Coming”, appropriate considering how much more appreciated "Heroes" seems to be by a wider audience now than it was forty years ago.

Having said that, the Bowie/Visconti-produced LP peaked at #3 in the UK album chart in November 1977, a year in which it was also named Album Of The Year in both NME and Melody Maker. No mean feat considering the other great music that was released that year, not least of all, both of Iggy Pop’s first solo releases, The Idiot and Lust For Life, two records which Bowie also had a very big hand in.

The main image in our montage shows Robert Fripp, David Bowie and Brian Eno during the recording of "Heroes" at Hansa studios in Berlin, taken from the superb book accompanying the David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) box set.

Bottom right are two initial designs for "Heroes", also to be found in the book along with other unpublished artwork and related memorabilia.

#BowieHeroes #ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  

My Bowie Story - fans remember their Bowie

“FANtastic Voyage

My Bowie Story - Memories of David Bowie By Dale K. Perry (ISBN: 9781532030116), is a remarkable selection of stories told by sixty Bowie fans and collected together by Dale K. Perry.

The 316-page book is available now via the publisher, iUniverse and other online book emporiums. Here’s the blurb from the back cover...

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Dale K. Perry can still picture herself at a shopping center at age twelve, pooling her money with her best friend so they could buy the album with that “Space Oddity” song.

A few years later, she went to her first Bowie concert, and even though she arrived to discover her seat was behind the stage, it didn’t matter: She was in the same building as David Bowie.

In My Bowie Story, she teams up with sixty other storytellers to look back on more than four decades of memories featuring Bowie. Filled with heartfelt stories and photographs, the fans describe how Bowie’s music, personas, and creativity changed their lives.

The eighty-five stories also offer a glimpse of Bowie’s kindness as he interacted with his admirers while relating the impact his message had on the sexuality, education, and the lifelong achievements of multiple generations.

From Space Oddity to Blackstar, the tales include personal encounters with Bowie and offer deep insights that long-time fans and those just discovering his brilliance will cherish.

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The snaps along the bottom of our montage are of Jasmine and Bowie (J. Storm), David and Zane, 1997 (M. Kanevsky) and David and Sandra (Spidey), 2002 (S. Atkins). Just a small sample taken from the many in the book.

Dale has said that any royalties she receives from the book will be donated in David's memory to charity, most likely to Save the Children.

Stay tuned for more pictures and some excerpts from My Bowie Story - Memories of David Bowie.

#MyBowieStory  #BowieKooks  #BowieFreaks

ANCIANT debut chart positions

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

The ANCIANT box set issued via Parlophone last Friday (29th) has entered various charts around the globe. Here are a few where it charted in the top 30.

UK: #2 (vinyl chart) / #19 (album chart)
Denmark: #13 (vinyl chart) / #24 (album chart)
France: #4 (catalogue album chart)
Germany: #24
Italy: #10 (vinyl chart)

ANCIANT charted the highest of the Bowie box sets so far. Here are the three titles’ comparable debut weeks:

Five Years - #45 - (Oct 15)
Who Can I Be Now? - #21 - (Sept 16)
A New Career In A New Town - #19 - (Oct 17)

Thanks to all of you for making this set such a success.

Get ANCIANT here.

#BowieOCC  #ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox

BBC radio celebrates "Heroes" 40th anniversary

“It's a twenty-four hour world service”

The BBC is marking the 40th anniversary of the release of the "Heroes" LP with a 53-minute documentary presented by Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine. Florence is a big Bowie fan and she doesn't mind who knows how much she loves Tin Machine either. (See inset picture proof)

With contributions from Iggy Pop, Brian Eno and Tony Visconti, the show airs three times on the BBC World Service on Saturday, Oct 7, with the first broadcast at 14:06 and it’s repeated on BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday, Oct 10, at 22:00.

We’ll leave you with the BEEB’s blurb...

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David Bowie’s "Heroes" 40th Anniversary
Music Extra

Florence Welch, from the British band Florence + The Machine, marks the 40th anniversary of the release of David Bowie’s seminal "Heroes" LP by exploring the personal and musical factors that influenced the album’s writing and recording in Berlin in 1977.

Florence will feature archive of the late David Bowie explaining why he chose to live and work in Berlin and the impact the city’s history had on the masterpiece he created. She’ll also meet the album’s producer Tony Visconti to get an insight to the unique recording techniques he employed to interpret Bowie’s creative vision and how the characteristics of the famous Hansa Studios, which are situated in a huge former chamber music concert hall, contributed to the album’s influential sounds. Iggy Pop, who was living with Bowie in Berlin during the recording of the album, recalls how a battle with drug addition, bankruptcy and a legal dispute with his ex-wife for access to his son all provided inspiration for the album’s lyrics and Brian Eno, who collaborated with David throughout the LP’s recording, explains the unique musical structures he and David employed to compose the innovative songs.

Berlin’s radical cultural diversity had always fascinated Bowie and Florence will explain how the opportunity to live and work in the city during the turbulent political period prior to the fall of 'the Wall' provided the perfect austere environment for David and his collaborators to experiment with music inspired by several German techno bands of the 70’s, including Neu!, Kraftwerk and Can.

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#BowieAtTheBEEB  #BowieBBC  #BowieHeroes  

David Bowie is… landing in Brooklyn

New York’s a go-go”

We’re proud to announce that the critically acclaimed David Bowie is exhibition will make the final stop of its world tour at the Brooklyn Museum next year, from March 2nd to Jul 15th.

This will be a timed ticketed exhibition. Lightning Bolt tickets, which give attendees priority access to the exhibition, are available now, along with various other special ticket deals.

Member tickets will be available on Nov 8th before standard tickets go on sale to the public on Nov 15th.

Go here for more details and tickets now.

Album cover shoot for Aladdin Sane, 1973. Photograph by Brian Duffy. © Duffy Archive & The David Bowie Archive.

#DavidBowieIs  #davidbowieisbkm

Congratulations to Duncan and Rodene Jones

“Untitled No. 2”

Congratulations are due to Duncan and Rodene Jones with the posting of their happy news on Twitter.

Duncan made the announcement and quickly followed it up with an impressive brag...

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Duncan Jones ‏@ManMadeMoon - 11:05 PM - 1 Oct 2017

Incredibly excited to be able to announce that the Jones gang is growing again!  @rodeneronquillo cooking up a little... girl!

Duncan Jones ‏@ManMadeMoon - 11:31 PM - 1 Oct 2017

So for all the cynics out there... YES! I have had sex with a lady at least TWO TIMES!!

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Well done to all involved.

#DuncanAndRodeneJones  #BabyJones  #BabyJones2  #GranddadJones

ANCIANT is out now

“I was running at the speed of life”

 (ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

We’re celebrating today’s release of the David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) box set with another superb Helen Green animation.

View it over on DBFB and scroll the images here for individual stills.

Get ANCIANT here.

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #HelenGreenArtBowie

"Heroes" 40th anniversary picture disc in at #1

“We can beat them”

The "Heroes" limited edition 40th-anniversary 7" picture disc issued via Parlophone last Friday (22nd) has entered today’s chart at #1. (29 September 2017 - 05 October 2017)

It joins three other Bowie releases in the Official Physical Singles Chart Top 20 right now.

#01 - "Heroes"

#11 - No Plan EP

#12 - Be My Wife

#17 - Sound And Vision

"Heroes" is also at #25 in the overall singles sales chart. Pretty good considering it was only released on vinyl and it's up against all those downloads, CDs, vinyl and the like by popular kids of today.

Much gratitude to all of you for making it so.

#BowieHeroes  #BowieOCC  #BowieVinyl

ANCIANT Video Focus: Fashion

“Beep Beep”

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

In October 1980, Fashion was released as the second of four singles from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

David Mallet directed again, this time inside New York’s HURRAH nightclub. The opening shot of the clip features Bowie and band on the HURRAH stage which was draped in khaki canvas for this shoot.

The faceted mirror walls surrounding the dance floor can be seen in the background of various shots, and all the band scenes are shot in this club setting. Some of the dancers can be seen doing the 'shaker dance' reemployed for the Blackstar video in 2016.

Other locations around Manhattan are intercut throughout the clip with various participants (May Pang among them), proffering the message: “Beep Beep!”

Record Mirror readers in the UK voted "Fashion" and "Ashes to Ashes" the best music videos of 1980.

Watch the full Fashion video here.

FOOTNOTE: The Bowie concert performance of Station To Station featured in the movie Christiane F., was filmed at the same club in NY the day before Fashion. This was because DB was performing in the Elephant Man on Broadway several nights a week at the time, and could not shoot in Berlin. The mass concert scenes were actually from an AC/DC concert in Germany and the audio of Station To Station accompanying the performance was lifted from Stage.

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieFashion  #BowieVideo

ANCIANT Video Focus: Ashes To Ashes

“Oh no, don’t say it’s true”

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

Released in August 1980, the Ashes to Ashes single was accompanied by one of the better known Bowie promo videos, not to mention one of the most truly ground-breaking and hugely influential videos to boot.

Bowie retained the services of David Mallet for this Bowie/Mallet-directed short (Bowie’s first credited direction), to promote the lead single from the forthcoming 1980 album, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Ashes to Ashes was at the time the most expensive music video ever made and remains one of the most costly of all time. It incorporated scenes both in solarised colour and a new black sky effect, used by Mallet for the first time.

Featuring Bowie in the Natasha Korniloff Pierrot costume that became the dominant visual representation of both the Ashes To Ashes single and the Scary Monsters album, the film also brought Steve Strange and other lead players of the burgeoning New Romantic London Blitz scene to the public eye.

The costal scenes were filmed in May 1980 at Pett Level, East Sussex, with one of the most memorable being the shot of Bowie and the Blitz Kids marching towards the camera in front of a bulldozer, which Bowie later described as “symbolising oncoming violence”.

Other moments included Bowie (revisiting Major Tom, perhaps), in some kind of black rubber space suit, seated in a space vehicle chair. This all takes place in an exploding kitchen, as a female nurse fusses around in the background.

This scene and another in a high-ceilinged padded cell were first utilised in Bowie’s performance of Space Oddity on The Kenny Everett New Year Show in 1979. Filmed in September 1979, it wasn’t broadcast until December 31st, 1979. Both scenes were recreated for the May 1980 filming of Ashes To Ashes, the continuity experts among you will notice the very obvious differences.

Ashes To Ashes closes with Bowie/Major Tom (?) in some kind of protective suit with life-support hoses coming from him in a womb-like cocoon of a room, that had a distinct flavour of H. R. Giger’s designs for Alien, a film released the previous year, which Bowie loved.

The final scenes also included the Bowie Pierrot and an elderly woman lecturing him as they strolled along the beach to the fade out of “My mother said to get things done, You'd better not mess with Major Tom”.

This prompted people to think it was Bowie’s real mother in the video, it wasn’t. Though what it actually was, was a recreation of the old lady with Pierrot as depicted in George Underwood’s painting on the back of the David Bowie Phillips album (AKA, Space Oddity).

Watch the full Ashes To Ashes video here. 

FOOTNOTE: Michael Dignum tells of a hilarious moment during the filming at Pett Level, which Bowie purportedly recounted to him during the making of Miracle Goodnight. It’s full of fruity language though, and therefore not for the faint-hearted.

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieAshesToAshes  #BowieVideo

ANCIANT Video Focus: Look Back In Anger

“You know who I am,” he said.”

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

Just the two singles, Boys Keep Swinging and DJ, were taken from Lodger in the UK. However, in July 1979 The Netherlands and Turkey enjoyed Yassassin, while the following month saw the release of Look Back In Anger as an A-side 45 in the US and Canada.

Despite no other promotion (no pic sleeve, no press ads), the release was considered important enough to warrant another David Mallet-directed video, every bit as mad as the previous two promos.

With a nod to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the video may not have been a contributing factor to the record’s commercial failure. However, it’s hard to deny that as the film progressed Bowie wasn’t at his prettiest, albeit a look only achieved with the aid of make-up.

Despite this, it’s a great video well worth another look.

While you’re watching, listen out for Dennis Davis’s extraordinary drumming and see if you can spot Brian Eno on Synthesizer, Horse Trumpets and Eroica horn?!

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieLookBackInAnger  #BowieVideo

German Rolling Stone cover reveal

“Way back in West Berlin...”

As today is all about the launch of the David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) box set in Berlin, and while you’re waiting for the action there to start, it seems appropriate to exclusively reveal the October 2017 German Rolling Stone magazine cover, which, as we told you previously, has an exclusive Bowie feature and cover-mounted 7" vinyl single of "Helden"/"Heroes".

This is the tracklisting of this future 33 1/3rd collectable.

Side 1: "Helden" (’89 remix version)

Side 2: "Heroes" (live version from Stage)

Here’s some info regarding the content...

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As David Bowie’s legendary album "Heroes" celebrates its 40th anniversary, the new issue of ROLLING STONE Germany contains an exclusive 7inch single: The vinyl features a live version of the immortal hit "Heroes" and the German version of the song.

"Helden" was issued on the "Heroes" LP in Germany in 1977.  Tobias Rüther takes a look at this germanised version of the song in his cover story, recalling the difficulties of translation and the pronunciation of the German language for non-speakers of it, even with the help of Antonia Maaß.

ROLLING STONE also takes a closer look at Bowie’s life in Berlin in the Seventies: At the time the musician became one of the biggest heroes of the gay movement, Jens Balzer examines the artist’s influence on the LGBT music scene. Bernd Cailloux also describes what Berlin looked and felt like in 1977, he travels to the thriving underground and reflects on the city’s effect on David Bowie – and the singer’s impact on Berlin.

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The magazine/vinyl package is available to pre-order now, but it’s only available to addresses in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

#BowieHelden  #BowieHeroes  #RSDEBowie  #ANCIANTbox  #BowieVinyl

Live In Berlin (1978) Digital EP streaming tonight

“There's something in the air”

The upcoming release of the David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977-1982) box set (Friday, 29th September), will be celebrated today (Tuesday, 26th September), with an event at the world-famous Hansa Studios in Berlin, which will be live-streamed on www.facebook.com/davidbowie at 8pm CET (7pm BST / 2pm EST / 11am PST).

The live event will feature a Q&A session with guests including Carlos Alomar (who played guitar with Bowie from 1974 to 1996), Edu Meyer (the former sound engineer at Hansa Studios) and Chris Duffy (son of photographer Brian Duffy, and director of the Duffy Archive), who will all be discussing Bowie’s work from 1977-1982.

To commemorate the event and the release of the box set, from 11pm CET (10pm BST / 5pm EST / 2pm PST) tonight a special live digital E.P. will be on all major streaming services for a very limited time only. The E.P. features three previously unreleased tracks recorded live in Berlin on the Isolar II tour in 1978.

Live In Berlin (1978) E.P.

1. Be My Wife (live) (2.51)
2. Sense Of Doubt (live) (3.18)
3. Breaking Glass (live) (3.36)

Recorded live at the Deutschlandhalle, Berlin on 16th May, 1978.

Photography by Antoine Loogman taken at the Deutschlandhalle performance.

#ANCIANTbox  #BowieBerlin  #Bowie1978

ANCIANT Video Focus: DJ

“I’ve got believers (Kiss-Kiss), Believing me“

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

DJ, the follow up to Boys Keep Swinging and also taken from Lodger, was accompanied by another delightfully mad David Mallet-directed video, featuring Bowie playing a nonchalant DJ in a radio station studio, gradually smashing the place up.

These scenes are interspersed with footage of Bowie rubbing shoulders and getting friendly with some of the wonderful people of Earls Court in London. The whole thing is topped off with our man as gas-masked art terrorist, spray-painting the DJ logo.

Check out the full length video here.

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieDJ  #BowieVideo

ANCIANT Video Focus: Boys Keep Swinging

“They’ll never clone ya...“

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

One of the very best 45s of all time (and another Top Ten hit for David Bowie in the UK) was the first single from 1979’s Lodger, Boys Keep Swinging. And it was accompanied by an equally brilliant video.

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 (Guitarist Carlos Alomar played drums and drummer Dennis Davis played bass), transferred perfectly to the David Mallet-directed video (Mallet’s first in a string of classic Bowie promos, as you will see), with Bowie taking on the guise of his own female backing singers.

If you’ve not had the pleasure yet, go and enjoy Boys Keep Swinging now.

The players...

DAVID BOWIE – vocals, guitar
DENNIS DAVIS – bass
TONY VISCONTI – bass
CARLOS ALOMAR – drums
ADRIAN BELEW – guitar
SIMON HOUSE – violin
BRIAN ENO – piano
DAVID BOWIE and TONY VISCONTI – backing vocals

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieBKS  #BowieBoys  #BowieVideo

ANCIANT Album Focus: Scary Monsters

“But he jumped into the furnace, Singing old songs we loved...”

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

This is the second instalment of our album focus on David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Here’s another snippet from Tony Visconti taken from the introduction of the Scary Monsters recording notes in the ANCIANT book.

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When we began ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ David and I jokingly said, “Let’s make this our ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’.” With every album we made together since then, we aired that silly phrase again. On reflection, when I listen to ‘Scary Monsters’ it feels more like we made our ‘Revolver’. Maybe it’s because the opening of ‘It’s No Game (No. 1)’ is a tip of the hat to the opening of ‘Taxman’. We were pushing the boundaries further than we ever had with this album.

‘Revolver’ took about nine weeks to make. We spent four weeks at The Power Station in New York and another five weeks at my own Good Earth Studios in London. There was a two-month gap in between as David said he needed the time to write the lyrics and melodies. David had written the ‘Berlin trilogy’ in the studio, sometimes whilst singing the lead vocal on microphone! This was a departure from procedure.

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SCARY MONSTERS FACT FILE:

Released in the UK as RCA BOWLP 2 (PL 13647) on 12th September, 1980.
Peak UK chart position: #1
Peak US chart position: #12

Tracklisting

SIDE 1

1. IT’S NO GAME (PART 1)
2. UP THE HILL BACKWARDS
3. SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS)
4. ASHES TO ASHES
5. FASHION

SIDE 2

1. TEENAGE WILDLIFE
2. SCREAM LIKE A BABY
3. KINGDOM COME
4. BECAUSE YOU’RE YOUNG
5. IT’S NO GAME (PART 2)

All songs written by DAVID BOWIE except ‘KINGDOM COME’ written by TOM VERLAINE.

Produced by DAVID BOWIE and TONY VISCONTI.

Recorded at THE POWER STATION, NEW YORK and GOOD EARTH STUDIOS, LONDON, by DAVID BOWIE and TONY VISCONTI in February and April, 1980.

Assistants at THE POWER STATION, NEW YORK – LARRY ALEXANDER and JEFF HENDRICKSON.

Bonus tracks on 1992 RykoDisc reissue:

Space Oddity (4:57) Re-recorded single B-side 1979
Panic In Detroit (3:00) Re-recorded version, previously unreleased, 1979
Crystal Japan (3:08) Japanese single A-side 1979
Alabama Song (3:51) UK single A-side 1979

Original UK Singles

Ashes To Ashes/Move On - August 1980 - (Issued with 3 covers and 4 sets of Bowie-designed stamps) (Peak UK chart position: #1)
Fashion/Scream Like A Baby - October 1980 - (Peak UK chart position: #5)
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)/Because You're Young - (Also issued as Bowie’s first cassingle) (Peak UK chart position: #20)
Up The Hill Backwards/Crystal Japan - (Peak UK chart position: #32)

Significant non UK Singles:

It’s No Game (Part One)/Fashion - October 1980 - Japan

Promotional videos were made for Ashes To Ashes and Fashion.

Listen to Scary Monsters on the official David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town playlist here.

Pre-order ANCIANT here.

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieScaryMonsters

ANCIANT Video Focus: "Heroes"

“Standing tall in the dark...”

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

Day two of our daily look at the promotional videos Bowie made in the period covered by ANCIANT, perfectly timed for today’s 40th anniversary of the release of the "Heroes" single, more of which, later.

Another sparse affair, the Nick Ferguson-directed "Heroes" promo film followed the feel of the previous two Bowie videos, Life On Mars? and Be My Wife, albeit in negative.

As opposed to the bleached out white background, Bowie was dressed in dark clothing, backlit in a darkened room with no props.

Watch the full video here.

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #DBHERO40  #BowieHeroes  #BowieVideo

"Heroes" single is forty years old today

“I, I can remember"

On Friday 23rd September 1977, David Bowie released the title track from his forthcoming album, "Heroes", as a 7" 45 backed by V-2 Schneider. The track has a rich history and a prominent place in popular culture, deservedly so.

Originally Bowie claimed that "Heroes" was inspired by a pair of young lovers he used to watch from the studio window of Hansa as they met by the Berlin Wall: “I thought of all the places to meet in Berlin, why pick a bench underneath a guard turret on the Wall? And I, using license, presumed that they were feeling somewhat guilty about this affair and so they had imposed this restriction on themselves, thereby giving themselves an excuse for their heroic act. I used this as a basis.”

Co-producer Tony Visconti later revealed that Bowie was simply covering for Tony’s secret rendezvous with his lover, "Heroes" backing singer Antonia Maaß. “It was us. Coco was sitting up in the control room with David, and both of them said, ‘We saw you walking by the wall,’ and that’s where he got that idea from. Because I was married at the time, David protected me all these years by not saying that he saw Antonia and me kiss by the wall.”

In 2003 Bowie confirmed the truth: “I always said it was a couple of lovers by the Wall that prompted the idea for "Heroes". Actually, it was Tony Visconti and his girlfriend. Tony was married at the time, so I couldn’t talk about it. But I can now say that the lovers were Tony and a German girl that he’d met while we were in Berlin. I think possibly his marriage was in the last few months. And it was very touching because I could see that Tony was very much in love with this girl, and it was that relationship which sort of motivated the song.”

Apparently, Antonia Maaß also helped David with the pronunciation of the German version of "Heroes", Helden.

It remains one of Bowie’s most covered songs, with a just released studio version by Depeche Mode joining the likes of (in no particular order), Arcade Fire, Prince, Blondie, Oasis, Nico, Depeche Mode, Motörhead, P.J. Proby, LCD Soundsystem, Peter Gabriel, Billy Preston, Janelle Monae, King Crimson, Philip Glass, Kasabian, Magnetic Fields, TV On The Radio, The Wallflowers and many, many more.

But it wasn’t always this way.

The single was announced in the music press in the UK via news snippets and an enigmatic advert, bottom right in our montage.

The video didn’t come till a bit later and certainly wasn't screened anywhere at the time of release. The performance on Marc Bolan’s TV show was broadcast five days after the release.

Neither of RCA’s clever slogans: “Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Can Hear It Coming” and “There’s Old Wave, There’s New Wave and There’s David Bowie” accompanied the UK single release (they came later with the album), and UK reviews weren’t too good either. So it’s not surprising that "Heroes" only managed a peak position of #24 on the Official UK Singles Chart.

It’s not like Bowie himself didn’t do his bit in terms of promotion. Alongside lots of interviews, Bowie performed the song on different TV shows several times during the promotion. The record also came out in picture sleeves around the globe, though again, not in the UK. "Heroes" fared better in many other countries than it did in the UK, including top ten positions in both The Netherlands and Ireland.

The album was received far better in the UK, but that’s another story.

There were versions issued with German, French and English vocals, see the Helden advert and the French and German picture sleeves in our montage.

The picture sleeve at top right is the German 12" released in 1981, with the following tracks:

A: "Heroes"/"Helden" (English/German Version)

B: "Heroes"/"Héros" (English/French Version)

This was the first time the title Héros was used for the French version.

The "Heroes" limited edition 40th-anniversary 7" picture disc was issued yesterday via Parlophone, and we have a sneaky feeling it might fare a little better this time around than it did originally in the UK.

"Heroes" (Bowie/Eno)
Original UK release date: September 23 1977
Highest chart position: UK: #24 US: N/A
Originally appeared on: "Heroes"
Produced by: David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Video directed by: Nick Ferguson

FOOTNOTE: Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed the release date on the UK demo label in our montage of 23 AUG 1977. This was an RCA error and some of the copies were corrected manually in ballpoint pen!

#DBHERO40  #BowieHeroes  #BowieVinyl