APRIL 1998 - DAVID BOWIE NEWS
VOX MAGAZINE
29th April 1998
The JUNE issue of VOX features a full page review on THE BEST OF DAVID BOWIE 1974-1979 along with an excellent Thomas Jerome Newton caricature drawing. There is also a feature and interview about rock managers including ALAN EDWARDS (DB's consultant).
NEW BELEW ALBUM
29th April 1998
ADRIAN BELEW whose credits include King Crimson, David Bowie, Frank Zappa and Talking Heads, returns with his second acoustic album, nattily titled BELEWPRINT (Discipline). It includes band arrangements of songs from his previous solo records, and a live version of John Lennon's "Free As A Bird".
CHANGESONE and CHANGESTWO
29th April 1998
The two new US CD releases of CHANGESONE and CHANGESTWO both include bonus tracks, remastered, repackaged and enhanced providing access to the DAVID BOWIE web site.
Both £14.99 available at Key Mail Order, Surrey.
DAVID HOLDS AT NUMBER SIX
29th April 1998
The 1998 Poll Results from RECORD COLLECTOR Magazine:
The Top 500 Collectable Artists:
..1. THE BEATLES (1)
..2. THE ROLLING STONES (4)
..3. ELVIS PRESLEY (7)
..4. QUEEN (2)
..5. PINK FLOYD (5)
..6. DAVID BOWIE (6)
..7. OASIS (3)
..8. BOB DYLAN (14)
..9. LED ZEPPELIN (12)
10. THE WHO (9)
The figures in brackets were last years placings.
ON THE ROAD TO STARDOM
28th April 1998
As a pretty young girl walks down the street, a big black limo screeches to a halt and out leaps a large film director, yelling "I want you to be in my movie." It never happens in real life, does it? Except in the case of Chorlton six-former and model JOANNA NATASEGARA, that is, who, to her astonishment, landed a role in the controversial Moss Side thriller, EVERYBODY LOVES SUNSHINE, in just that way.
"I thought he was chatting me up," says Joanna, 17, who was walking through Chorlton when the film's director, ANDREW GOTH, spotted her as he drove by - and popped the classic question.
"I've heard that one before," said Joanna, a pupil at Withington Girls' School - and told him to ring the Boss agency, where she's on the modelling books. Months later, she was called to a casting session at Sir Paul McCartney's "Fame" school in Liverpool and offered a role in the violently stylish £2m movie, which stars pop icon DAVID BOWIE.
Joanna, who is half-Indonesian, plays a student, the best friend of female lead RACHEL SHELLEY, and hopped over to the Isle Of Man for location shooting. "David came over and introduced himself to me," she says. "He's a really nice guy and a superb actor. I thought he looked fabulous for his age."
She says she's also been promised a part in another Manchester movie, 'The Van Boys' - and the beauty has brains to. She'll be taking her A-levels next summer - in English literature, religious education... and Ancient Greek.
1 HOUR TV SPECIAL
27th April 1998
VH1 are screening the GREATEST HITS OF DAVID BOWIE a one hour special at 3.00pm on May 2nd in the UK.
EXCLUSIVE DAVID BOWIE COMPETITION!
27th April 1998
The LITTLE WONDERWORLD Competition Number 1 finishes at the end of this week. Keep your entries rolling in. Thank you to everyone who has entered up to now. Competition No. 2 is currently being set up now... and it's going to be a lot easier!!!
VAMPIRES AND HUMAN FLESH?
22nd April 1998
Reported on the JO WHILEY show... DAVID BOWIE'S next collaboration will be with CHRISTOPHER LEE no less!
That'll be something to get your teeth into!
NEW DAVID BOWIE TV COMMERCIAL
22nd April 1998
To coincide with the new CD release THE BEST OF DAVID BOWIE 1974-1979 a 30 second television commercial is currently showing on UK channels. It features video snippets of Be My Wife, Boys Keep Swinging, DJ and Heroes.
HOW BOWIE & I HAD A SINGALONG, by Vinny
16th April 1998
After filming scenes for a movie with pop icon DAVID BOWIE in the Isle Of Man, actor VINNY DAVIES tells me this picture with his superstar pal is just one prized memento he has of them working together.
"There is film of us singing a duet, but it doesn't appear in the movie," says Vinny, who worked with David earlier this year on Andrew Goth's violently stylish EVERYBODY LOVES SUNSHINE, a thriller controversially based on Manchester's Moss Side, and due to be premiered in London.
Vinny explains that, in between takes, he sang with David for the benefit of another film crew, who spent days shadowing the stars of the £2m movie. "It was my idea to do a duet, and David happily went along with it, says Longsight-based Vinny, who tells me that in the film he helps the real-life pop star run a crime syndicate. "Everyone on the set thought I was a bit cheeky to ask David to sing with me, but it was a big surprise to everyone when he really got into it and enjoyed himself."
Not as big a surprise as David's questions during a break in filming. Says Vinny: "He suddenly started quizzing me about Blackburn, of all places, and wanted to know if it was still there.
"When I assured him it was, he explained that as a youngster he spent a few years in Blackburn with his grandparents and has very fond memories of the place." Obviously a good start for the person recently named by Business Age magazine as the richest man in British rock, with a personal fortune in excess of half a billion...
EARTHLING TOUR LIVE ALBUM
16th April 1998
The upcoming live album from the EARTHLING Tour will feature tracks recorded at the UK club gigs.
JO WHILEY SHOW
16th April 1998
The first of Channel 4's new music programme the JO WHILEY show featured guests GOLDIE, SHIRLEY MANSON and BERNARD BUTLER who reviewed THE BEST OF BOWIE 1974-1979. Some snippets:
JO WHILEY: Goldie you've worked with Bowie extensively. Why did you do it in the first place? It might not had been the most credible career move at that time?
GOLDIE: Well, frankly I don't give a fuck, but he's a talented guy, man.
I grew up on him, man. He was a big part of British cult music. I've just done a film with him for eight weeks. He's a very funny guy, man.
BERNARD BUTLER: Musically, he's a fantastic musician and that's what sets him aside from an awful lot of people.
SHIRLEY MANSON: I was a Ziggy Stardust girl. What I loved was the fact that he presented an alternative lifestyle to my school days. He was literally like an alien being that came in and like, seduced you. He was not a macho like testosterone driven animal, he was like, queer... queer as in the Scottish meaning of the word, delicate, artistic, half man half woman being. I fell madly in love with that. I totally connected with it. The only other man at that time that I fell in love with was IGGY POP. They weren't exclusive.
GOLDIE: I've met so many of my heroes who've just gone... "Tosser. Who are you?" - He's not like that, he's a totally different ball game.
1998 ANNUAL RICH LIST
16th April 1998
Appearing in next Sunday's newspaper The Sunday Times Supplement lists the Annual Rich List 1998 - Britain's Richest 1,000.
1. Paul McCartney - £500m
2. Lord Lloyd Weber - £400m
3. Sir Cameron Mackintosh - £345m
4. Robert Stigwood - £175m
5. DAVID BOWIE - £150m
=. Elton John - £150m
7. Mick Jagger - £140m
8. Chris Blackwell - £125m
9. Phil Collins - £105m
=. Keith Richards - £105m
THE BEST OF DAVID BOWIE 1974-1979
16th April 1998
Released in the United Kingdom next week 20th April.
BOWIE/BOLAN DISCO
14th April 1998
A DAVID BOWIE and MARC BOLAN Disco at Aston Sports & Leisure Centre on Saturday 18th April 1998. Ziggy Stardust meets Metal Guru on a Saturday Night! Following on from the success of last year's David Bowie and Marc Bolan disco another chance to bop till you drop will be had on the 18th of April 1998 (this Saturday).
The venue will again be the Aston Sports and Leisure Centre in Birmingham. Music on the evening will be evenly split between Bowie and Bolan - 20 minutes of Bowie followed by 20 minutes of Bolan music. The emphasis will be very much placed on the glam era of the early Seventies.
From Jeepster to Jean Genie; Starman to Telegram Sam; New York City to Suffragette City, all the hits and more will be here. Tickets are available on the door priced £5.00 (£3.00 for NUS card holders). The disco is from 8.00pm to 1.00am and includes a late bar.
E-mail Michael Green for full details.
EXCLUSIVE DAVID BOWIE COMPETITION!
16th April 1998
The LITTLE WONDERWORLD Competition Number 1 finishes at the end of this month. Keep your entries rolling in. Thank you to everyone who has entered up to now.
BOWIE IN SUNDAY PAPERS
12th April 1998
Two Sunday newspapers feature articles about the NAT TATE art book hoax. The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer. Available at all good newsagents!!!
MORE DAVID BOWIE DIARY ENTRIES!
12th April 1998
I have managed to obtain some more of the missing weekly MIRABELLE DIARIES that DAVID wrote in the Seventies for Mirabelle magazine. There is now another eighteen added starting from May 1973 through to April 1975. (Many thanks to S.L.)
HOT OFF THE HOT PRESS AWARDS
11th April 1998
BBC televised the HOT PRESS IRISH ROCK & POP AWARDS in Belfast last night. DAVID BOWIE beat off very strong competition from the other nominees (The Prodigy, Radiohead, Portishead, the Manic Street Preachers) to win the BEST INTERNATIONAL LIVE ACT award. David wasn't there to collect it but they beamed him in from New York where he could be seen clutching the rather bizarre statuette (and he kept staring at it during his acceptance speech).
His acceptance speech:
(pointing to city behind)... "We've just missed the bells, they were ringing out for you. I'm so sorry I can't be in Ireland to accept this with you. I'm absolutely chuffed, I can't tell you how honoured I am. We had a wonderful time, we always have a wonderful time in Ireland. You probably know Reeves and I have been coming over rehearsing and gigging for years now since the late 80s regularly and I can honestly and truly say we've had nothing but wonderful times in Ireland working and socialising with everyone. We had a great time doing the last tour and we had a wonderful time working doing the performance over there. Thank you so much for giving this to me, I'm really chuffed, thank you."From Dara
MORE ON ART HOAX
11th April 1998
David Bowie photographs from the party at Jeff Koons' loft, March 31st. ArtNet Magazine
So then, who else has spent eighteen hours on-line trying to find out about Nat Tate... and all afternoon in Manchester Central Library? I did! All I came up with was The Tate Gallery, Sharon Tate and the bloke who makes sugar! I thought there was something fishy when I couldn't find anything.
BEST DRESSED POLL
10th April 1998
In New York, DAVID BOWIE is one of the names on a select list of well-dressed men and women by the International Best-Dressed Poll. The list which is culled from a poll of 1,500 fashion journalists, designers and others in the industry and published since 1940 by Eleanor Lambert. Also included amongst others were: Nicole Kidman, musician Maxwell, Scotland's the Earl of Cawdor, Tony Blair, Rupert Everett, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Oswald Boateng and Sotheby's furniture expert Phillip Hathaway.
ART HOAX
7th April 1998
THE INDEPENDENT
IT ONLY needed Nat Tate, tormented American artist, to waltz into the packed party and start signing copies of his biography. That would have made this book launch and this notable week in literary history complete.
As a book launch, last night's carved out a new aesthetic territory. Was it post-ironic, simply surreal or as abstract expressionist as Tate himself? An intended launch for a specialist art biography had turned into a celebration of one of the great literary hoaxes. Last week, as I revealed in The Independent on Tuesday, the New York art world was fooled at the American launch of William Boyd's memoir of Nat Tate. In fact the book is fiction, and Tate - his two names remarkably similar to London galleries - never existed.
Last night was to have been the turn of Britain's literary and art fraternity to swallow the bait and weep over Tate's suicide and praise all his abstract expressionist works. But with the secret out, last night's launch at a London restaurant allowed a celebrity guest list - including novelist Antonia Byatt, composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber and the BBC's Alan Yentob - to bask in their lack of gullibility. In contrast to the New York launch, however, there was no reading by David Bowie, co-director of 21 Publishing which has put out Boyd's brilliantly constructed book. Bowie and his wife Iman cancelled plans to come to the London launch, remaining in New York.
Sarah Lyall, London correspondent of the New York Times, remarked that New Yorkers like to appear chic and cool and to admit to not having heard of a New York artist would have been most uncool. There was a sense of fun at last night's launch, but it was mixed with a sense of relief.
By David Lister, Arts News Editor.
LOU REED TV DOCUMENTARY
5th April 1998
A LOU REED documentary entitled "Rock And Roll Heart" on American Cable Station PBS is due to be screened in the US on April 29th. A UK broadcast is currently being lined up. The documentary will feature interviews with Reed, DAVID BOWIE, Patti Smith and Czech President Vaclav Havel.
FREE 14 TRACK CD - Update
5th April 1998
The May issue of UNCUT magazine features a free cover mounted CD entitled SCREENADELICA: Hot Sounds from Cool Movies. The full track listing is:
1. Jerry Goldsmith: The Star Spangled Banner.REVIEW:
2. David Bowie: Suffragette City.
3. Astrud Gilberto and The Stan Getz Quartet: The Girl From Ipanema.
4. Blur: Sing.
5. Bernard Herrmann/MGM Orchestra: Overture/North by Northwest.
6. Dubstar: Not So Manic Now.
7. PF Project with Ewan McGregor: Choose Life.
8. Supergrass: She's So Loose.
9. Herbie Hancock: Bring Down The Birds.
10. The Beach Boys: God Only Knows.
11. Radiohead: Talk Show Host.
12. The Tom Robinson Band: 2-4-6-8 Motorway.
13. Dooley Wilson featuring Ingrid Bergman: As Time Goes By.
14. Elliott Smith: Miss Misery.
2. DAVID BOWIE: Suffragette City (3.02)
(Bowie) EMI Music/Chrysalis
Music Taken from Ziggy Stardust, The Motion Picture
(EMI Premier Soundtracks 804112 2)
"NOT only is it the last show of the tour... it's the last show we'll never do." This spake David Bowie from the stage of the Hammersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973. In the ensuing 25 years, Mr B has embarked on no less than nine tours in the UK alone, as it transpired his "retirement" referred only to his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars. DA Pennebaker's movie of that last Ziggy outing wasn't released until 1982, and this ferocious blast though a bona fide Bowie classic is one of many highlights. Wham bam and indeed, thank you, ma'am.
MODERN PAINTERS MAGAZINE OUT NOW
5th April 1998
The New York Special Spring Issue of MODERN PAINTERS featuring DAVID BOWIE on the cover and an interview with JEFF KOONS is on sale now. There was a weeks delay because of a copyright problem over an article published in the issue. Should be available by Monday of this week.
BUDDHA VIDEO RELEASE
4th April 1998
The BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA has been re-released on video as a special double pack, on BMG Video priced £16.99).
BOWICON98
2nd April 1998
The 1998 David Bowie Convention 'BOWICON98' takes place in Bedford, UK, on Saturday, 6th June. Starting at 2pm until midnight, the event will feature two special auctions, one with "an-out-of-the-ordinary" DAVID BOWIE donated item, the other auction will be Carlton Sandercock's DB collection (Trident Records).
There will also be competitions, a raffle with Bowie prizes, Bowie videos projected on to a 20' x 10' screen, a Bowie disco, karaoke, trading stalls and live music by tribute band THE VISITORS, and lots more. Included in the ticket price is a free cold buffet and a licensed bar.
Tickets are available now priced £12.50 and are selling fast. IMPORTANT: Please book before 1st May. This is a ticket only event and none will be on sale at the venue. Apply now to avoid disappointment. Full details E-mail David Priest
LITTLE WONDER VIDEO
1st April 1998
The person who asked me about the LITTLE WONDER video... you can download it from here [Little Wonder]