#BowieForever #EternalLove
Little Liza Jane hits fifty five
“Well, this little girl is so good to me”
They say it’s not polite to mention a lady’s age, but we’re sure you’ll forgive us in this particular instance. For it was on this day, Friday, June 5th 1964, that Vocalion Pop released a 45 with the catalogue number: V.9221.
That record was Bowie’s first ever release: Liza Jane/Louie, Louie Go Home, issued as Davie Jones with The King-Bees. But, despite a handful of positive reviews, the world was not yet ready to embrace the charms of either Davie Jones or Liza Jane.
The single ended up in the bargain bins in 1964, and Bowie’s first manager, Leslie Conn (controversially credited with writing Liza Jane), binned several hundred copies of the 45 to clear a bit of space in his garage!
These days the disc is one of the most sought after Bowie 45s by serious collectors.
Go here to read the piece we posted five years ago for the 50th anniversary.
#BowieLizaJane
BOWIE FAN FOCUS 3: Andy Barding
It should be fairly obvious what this is, but for a full explanation and to participate, join BOWIE KOOKS (the only Official David Bowie Facebook Fan Group), and then follow this link.
#BowieFanFocus
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BOWIE FAN FOCUS – Andy Barding, 55 (tomorrow)
~ Name?
AB: Andy Barding
~ Age?
AB: I’m as old as Liza Jane (David’s very first single). It’s our birthday tomorrow.
~ What does David Bowie mean to you?
AB: He was a pioneer. One of the greatest artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. In the not so distant future, I’m convinced, his name will carry the same cultural weight as, say, Van Gogh, Dickens or Mozart.
~ When and how did you first become aware of him?
AB: Space Oddity on Top of the Pops, ’75. The BBC showed a clip from the Love You Till Tuesday film.
~ First item you ever obtained, including music, memorabilia, magazines, etc.?
AB: I commandeered a copy of the Starman/Suffragette City single from a relative when I was 12 or so. I would run home from school, every lunch break, purely to play both sides on the family stereo. I’d have just enough time to spin the record a couple of times before running back to class.
~ Is there a Bowie holy grail for you that you have yet to track down?
AB: I would still love a copy of Liza Jane by Davie Jones and King Bees, since it popped out on Vocalion Pop the same day I did: Friday June 5, 1964. The sheet music for the same would be nice, too.
~ Most valuable Bowie possession you own on an emotional level?
AB: I’m custodian of some LPs owned by my late friend, Alison Hale: a rare laminated-sleeve Hunky Dory and a first press of Ziggy Stardust. They’re still hers... I’m just looking after them.
~ The best Bowie show you ever attended?
AB: Torn between Birmingham NEC 6.6.83 and Tin Machine at the Baggott Inn, Dublin, 14.8.91. They were decades ago, but I remember bits of each one vividly.
~ The show you wish you had witnessed?
AB: One of the late ‘72/early ’73 shows. Maybe Manchester Hardrock. I spoke to someone who was at one of those and the picture he painted in his description was incredible... so striking. He was 14 or 15, and David and the Spiders put in such a supercharged and intense performance that he found it all just a bit terrifying. What a thrill that must have been.
~ What would you have said had you met him, or, if you did meet, what did you say?
AB: I asked him when Pixies would be supporting him (this was on the 1990 Sound and Vision tour). We’d heard they were about to take over from Kim Wilde as warm-up act. He responded by singing a few lines of “I Should Be So Lucky” and laughing like a drain... He’s still laughing in my photo that was taken with him (main picture) at that chance meeting (at a motorway service station near the Germany/Austria border).
~ Favourite album?
AB: Blackstar
~ Top ten songs?
AB:
01. Blackstar
02. Station To Station
03. Silly Boy Blue
04. Dirty Boys
05. Fantastic Voyage
06. The Motel
07. Five Years
08. Cygnet Committee
09. Be My Wife
10. I Dig Everything
~ Favourite lyric?
AB: “From behind their tinted window stretch/gleaming like blackened sunshine.”
~ Favourite film?
AB: The Prestige
~ Favourite video?
AB: The live 1974 clips of Rock’n’Roll Suicide and The Jean Genie on the ‘David Bowie Is’ app blow my mind.
~ Favourite era?
AB: Maybe ’76.
~ Best Bowie moment?
AB: An impromptu meet and greet with Tin Machine after their second Brixton show - the last one of the European tour. A handful of us fans were given exclusive t-shirts as a thank you for following the band around, night after night. What a smashing treat.
~ Guilty secret?
AB: I stole a pack of David’s cigarettes from the front of the stage at a gig (I smoked them and kept the empty packet. I still have it, somewhere).
~ 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?
AB: I wear a Blackstar badge on my jacket, permanently, as a memorial.
~ Do you have a Bowie related photograph we could use? If so, what’s the story behind it?
AB: (Smaller photo) This is me, David and the aforementioned Alison Hale, outside the Conrad Hotel in Dublin, August 1990. As you can see, a gust of wind caught David’s hair in the split second that the photo was taken. Thanks, gust. My partner, Rhoda, had this picture framed for me as a thoughtful keepsake of two people who mean the world to me and who are both now gone.
Does David Bowie influence your working life?
AB: Yes! I own a record shop on the Isle of Wight (AAA Records) which has a decent Bowie section. And I publish concert photo-books under the name Cygnet Committee. I also work as a music tour manager and was TM on Earl Slick’s Station To Station tour, as well as driver on a couple of Holy Holy UK tours. Those were wonderful times - to see those shows night after night was a thrill.
I hosted a Q&A with Earl on the island last year, and I will be doing the same with Woody Woodmansey in July. It’s part of the ‘Iconic Bowie’ exhibition which opens at Dimbola Museum on Thursday, June 6, with an illustrated talk by Phil Lancaster. He'll be talking about the three concerts he played with David at Ventnor Winter Gardens in 1965. As will writer Kevin Cann, who penned Any Day Now which, as we all know, is one of the best books ever written about David. Exciting!
#BowieFanFocus
Tin Machine #3 thirty years ago today
“Tin machine, Tin machine, Take me anywhere“
The first Tin Machine LP entered the Official UK Album Chart at #3 on this day in 1989 (3rd June) and stayed in the Top 40 for seven weeks.
Don’t forget that to mark the 30th anniversary of the album’s release (22nd May), Julien Temple’s short promotional film of the band performing a medley of nine songs at The Ritz in NY has finally had an official release for download and streaming. Watch it here.
Go here for the full press release.
#TinMachine1 #TinMachineVideo
50,000 extra tickets for Lazarus in Amsterdam
Amsterdam, 3rd June 2019
50.000 EXTRA TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR DAVID BOWIE’S LAZARUS IN AMSTERDAM
THE RUN OF BOWIE’S ‘LAST MASTERPIECE’ HAS BEEN EXTENDED THANKS TO OVERWHELMING INTEREST
With more than four months to go until the Lazarus premiere, the David Bowie musical has sold more than 50.000 tickets. Due to the enormous demand for tickets, Stage Entertainment Nederland and the DeLaMar Theatre have decided to extend the show run. There are now 50.000 extra tickets available, which are on sale now via Eventim.nl
Lazarus is the last work David Bowie created before he died, together with director Ivo van Hove. After playing in New York and London, the original production is coming to Amsterdam in the Autumn for an exclusive period in the DeLaMar Theatre. It was announced in December that Gijs Naber will be taking on the role of Newton. The rest of the cast will be announced soon.
Albert Verlinde: managing director and producer of Stage Entertainment Nederland: “David Bowie is, and continues to be a phenomenon. I was intrigued as to whether the Dutch public would embrace the production; I could never have foreseen that the reaction would be so overwhelmingly positive. I am truly overwhelmed by the huge interest in the show. There is an enormous demand for tickets. By extending the run of the show we are giving even more people the chance to see David Bowie’s last masterpiece.”
Director Ivo van Hove: “Lazarus is David Bowie’s last project. The show means a lot for me personally and it is therefore very special that we are now, after New York and London, able to bring it to the Dutch public.”
LAZARUS
Pop phenomenon David Bowie died on the 10th January 2016. One of his last projects was the musical Lazarus. He created the show with Enda Walsh (script) and director Ivo van Hove. Van Hove, recently nominated for a prestigious Tony Award, will also be directing the Dutch version. Lazarus is the sequel of the book The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis. Bowie himself played the leading role of Thomas Newton in the film version of 1976, directed by Nicolas Roeg. In Lazarus, we meet Bowie’s alter ego Thomas Newton once more. The show is an adventurous trip through Bowie’s genius mind. A journey that is of course framed by legendary Bowie hits, such as ‘Heroes’, ‘Absolute Beginners’, ‘Changes’, ‘All the Young Dudes’, ‘This is Not America’ and of course ‘Lazarus’, which was written for the show and later released as part of Bowie’s last album Blackstar.
Lazarus is produced in The Netherlands by Stage Entertainment Nederland in collaboration with Robert Fox and Jones/Tintoretto Entertainment and The New York Theatre Workshop.
#LazarusNL #LazarusMusical
Barnbrook and the ★ tooth
“Flashing teeth of class”
Multi award-winning designer of various Bowie projects, Jonathan Barnbrook, has taken the plunge and joined the ranks of those with a permanent physical reminder of David Bowie and ★.
Jonathan has kindly given us the exclusive reveal of a rather clever and classy bit of dentistry.
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“It’s very nice to finally be part of a very special group of people who I have made friends with over the past few years, those with a ★ tattoo. I am very humbled that they show their love for David in that way and think the graphics worthy of it.
Bowie influenced me in so many ways, not only in the times I worked with him but also when I was growing up and hungry for new influences, so I like to think of this as ‘You are part of the words I speak, the language I use’”.
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For those wondering how it was done, the tooth is completely new and the ★ was modelled in 3D software and then added at that stage. Then it was hand-painted for the finished effect.
#BowieBarnbrook #BlackstarTattoo #BlackstarTooth
Bowie’s Deram Debut is 52 today
“Did you ever have a Deram?”
David Bowie released his first album this day in 1967, albeit lacking the fanfare of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, purportedly released on the same day.
Still worth a read is this excellent article by Pete Paphides, published two years ago on the 50th anniversary of the album, over on The Quietus.
Our montage shows the original stereo copies of the US and UK vinyl albums, a peek of the original Deram press release and the impossibly rare US 8-track cartridge.
More about the 8-track in a collectors’ feature coming soon.
#DavidBowieDeram #DavidBowie1967 #BowieCollector
Dogs 45th red vinyl and original Rebel digital out now
“Mannequins with kill appeal”
In celebration of today’s 45th anniversary of the original release of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, Parlophone has made the original single mix of Rebel Rebel available as a one-track digital single which is available for download/streaming now. Listen to it here on YouTube.
The original single mix of Rebel Rebel that featured on the 2016 boxset 'Who Can I Be Now?’, was taken from a pristine copy of the UK Rebel Rebel 45. The original tape (which had been missing since the mid-1970s), has now been found and remastered for this new one-track digital single.
As previously announced, David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs is also reissued by Parlophone today, in a 'one-run-only' red vinyl edition featuring the 2016 remaster. This limited pressing will only be available at ‘bricks and mortar’ retail outlets and not through online stores.
Diamond Dogs is the latest in a series of 45th anniversary Bowie vinyl albums reissued over the last two years. Previous releases in the series have included gold vinyl versions of Hunky Dory and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, plus a silver vinyl release of Aladdin Sane.
#DiamondDogsRed #BowieRebelRebel #BowieVinyl
Bowie Fan Focus 2: Paula Hightower
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 – Paula Hightower, (AKA Squeakie) 48
~ When and how did you first become aware of David Bowie?
PH: I was 12 and it was probably when I saw the uncut version of China Girl. Hubba hubba.
~ First item you ever obtained, including music, memorabilia, magazines, etc.?
PH: This I can't specifically remember, but I do remember either renting or going to the library and checking out the Ziggy Stardust Motion Picture, and then watching it a million times.
~ Is there a Bowie holy grail for you that you have yet to track down?
PH: I truly hate to admit this, but I've never been to the mural in Brixton. And I only live about 30 miles away. Londonphobia does that to you.
~ Most valuable Bowie possession you own on an emotional level?
PH: The photo I had taken with him!
~ The best Bowie show you ever attended?
PH: Probably during the reality tour when he played at the Greek Theater. The main reason for this was, I had decent but not fantastic tickets, but on the night before the show, on a whim, I went online just to see what other tickets were left. Low and behold, there were front row/pit seats available - at regular price! And bam! they were mine.
~ The show you wish you had witnessed?
PH: Roseland 2000. I had tickets (generously given to me by Sailor) but I was flat broke and could not afford a flight/hotel to NYC. That aside, probably any of his Ziggy shows.
~ What would you have said had you met him, or, if you did meet, what did you say?
PH: I met him once in 1999 and was completely unoriginal in what I said, probably something like: “Thanks for a great show, I loved it”. However, after he signed one of the CD's I brought, it got smeared so I asked him to redo it and he said: “What do you want from me Squeakie??”.
~ Favourite album?
PH: I can't choose between Low and Blackstar
~ Top ten songs?
PH:
01. Move On
02. Soul Love
03. Win
04. Subterraneans
05. Blackstar
06. Life On Mars?
07. Ricochet
08. Without You
09. Little Wonder
10. 'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore (Home demo version from b-side of Sue)
~ Favourite film?
PH: The Man Who Fell To Earth
~ Favourite video?
PH: Blue Jean
~ Favourite era?
PH: The Thin White Duke
~ Best Bowie moment?
PH: When I got a text from Blammo at my wedding with this message from Bowie: “Huge best wishes to you both - from David B”. I was absolutely beside myself, this just made the best day of my life even better!
~ 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?
PH: HUGE, HUGE impact. My life would not be what it is today without the influence of Bowie. Over a span of over 20 years I have met so many amazing and interesting people and have made some lifelong friends simply due to our common interest in Bowie. I've travelled to places I never thought I would, and in the end met the true love of my life who I will spend the rest of my life with - all because of Bowie. I sometimes wonder if this was destiny or just coincidence.
~ Do you have a Bowie related photograph we could use? If so, what’s the story behind it?
PH: The pic I had taken with him. It was just as he was leaving after his gig at The Kit Kat Klub, NYC on the 19th of November 1999. I was hanging out with Carla Rhodes, Alex Colby and a couple others and we kept trying to sneak backstage. Each time, we were shooed away by security. But then there was this moment when security hurriedly went to shut a door that opened to a side exit - and it became obvious to us why, so we quickly went out the other door, and there he was coming out of the building. It was a really nice little encounter because there were only about 4 or 5 of us and he seemed happy to stop and chat with us and sign things and take photos for a few minutes.
I had been standing there, speechless, but my friend Alex said to him, “Hey, this is Squeakie” to which he then said to me “Oh hi Squeakie!” and give me a hug. He knew the screen name from the BowieNet chat which he frequently would show up in unannounced. That was probably the 2nd best moment of my life. Cheers to Carla Rhodes for taking the photo that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
~What other interests do you have outside of Bowie?
PH: Drawing! I started drawing at a very early age and would spend much of my spare time with a pad of paper and pens, pencils, pastels, or anything I could draw with. People were my favourite subjects to draw, followed closely by pets and other animals. As an adult, life got in the way and I abandoned my hobby for a while, however in the last couple of years I have started getting back into it and am really loving it. I now do commissioned artwork as well as art for a hobby, and my most recent work can be seen at PaulaDraws.com (you will notice that one of my favorite subjects is David Bowie of course!)
#BowieFanFocus
Tin Machine video released on 30th anniversary of LP
“Among the twilight and stars“
To mark the 30th anniversary of the first Tin Machine album today (22nd May), Julien Temple’s short promotional film of the band performing a medley of nine songs at The Ritz in NY finally gets an official release. Keep reading for the full press release.
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TIN MACHINE - NINE SONG COMPILATION (VIDEO) - 30th ANNIVERSARY
AVAILABLE COMMERCIALLY FOR THE FIRST TIME FOR STREAMING AND DOWNLOAD
RELEASED ON PARLOPHONE 22nd MAY 2019
22nd of May 2019 sees the 30th anniversary of the debut album by Tin Machine, a band which consisted of David Bowie on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Reeves Gabrels on lead guitar, Tony Sales on bass guitar and backing vocals, along with his brother, Hunt Sales, on drums and backing vocals.
To promote the album, the band, along with acclaimed director Julien Temple, filmed nine riotous performances of songs from the record at the downtown New York City rock club The Ritz in April 1989.
Though the film was issued as a very limited promotional box set, it has remained unreleased commercially until now. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the record, the nine song medley is available now as a digital download.
The Tin Machine LP entered the Official UK Album Chart at #3 and stayed in the Top 40 for seven weeks. The album heralded a back to basics approach for Bowie with a hard sound and simple production. The New York Times commented at the time 'Bowie's lyrics are bald, sincere statements, sometimes proud to be vulgar, rock songs don't get much blunter’, and Rolling Stone reviewed the record as ‘indignant and acidic, an all-too-welcome feast of aggro-guitar flamboyance and bass-drum body checking’. Spin said the record was 'Aggressive, direct, brutal and incendiary fun’.
30 years on, Tin Machine still kicks bottom somewhat.
TIN MACHINE ’NINE TRACK COMPILATION’ 30th ANNIVERSARY TRACKLISTING
01 - Pretty Thing
02 - Tin Machine
03 - Prisoner Of Love
04 - Crack City
05 - Bus Stop
06 - Video Crime
07 - I Can't Read
08 - Working Class Hero
09 - Under The God
Total running time: 12.37
#TinMachine1 #TinMachineVideo
40th anniversary Boys Keep Swinging out now
“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
Clareville Grove Demos out now
“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
Bowie Fan Focus starts today
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
Space Oddity 50th anniversary 2 x 7" vinyl box with TV remixes
“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
D.J. 40th anniversary picture disc
“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
40 years on Boys Keep Swinging and new Nacho vid
“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
The ‘Mercury’ Demos LP box due in June
“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
The world is wearing David Bowie
“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
Good luck for RSD 2019
“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
Vote for DB is app in 23rd Annual Webby Awards
“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