BowieNet is nearly 20 - were you at the birth?

“And I'm gone through the crack in the past”

Following the launch of www.bowieart.com the previous December, a BowieNet pre-launch site was hastily posted on the www.davidbowie.com home page in August 1998 (due to prematurely released information by EMI-Canada) and BowieNet proper was announced worldwide, 20 years ago on this very day.

BowieNet was then activated fully, four days later on September 1st, 1998.

Were you there at the launch? Tell us your memories of the early days of www.davidbowie.com here.

#BowieNet20

Farewell to Lindsay Kemp

“Threepenny Pierrot, we love you”

Sad to report the passing of Lindsay Kemp, who died aged 80 on Friday night in the Italian port city of Livorno on the west coast of Tuscany.

Bowie fans will be most familiar with the dancer, mime artist and choreographer through his work with Bowie, particularly the Ziggy Stardust presentation at London's Rainbow Theatre in 1972. Mick Rock captured rehearsal footage of Lindsay and his troupe at rehearsals and utilised it in the quite beautiful, John, I'm Only Dancing video.

David had dance and mime lessons with Lindsay in Floral Street, Covent Garden, in 1967, later touring with him in Pierrot In Turquoise in the UK. The play contained a handful of Bowie originals (When I Live My Dream, Columbine, The Mirror and Threepeny Pierrot), and the performance was captured for posterity in a different 25 minute format for Scottish TV in 1970, wherein David performed When I Live My Dream up a step ladder as the character Cloud.

Read the full transcript of Michael Bonner’s interview with Lindsay Kemp about Bowie over at UNCUT.

Lindsay Kemp 3rd May 1938 - 24th August 2018

#BowieKemp

Happy 18th birthday to Lexi

“Baby, baby, brush the dust of youth from off your shoulder”

We’re sure you will all want to join us in wishing many happy returns of the day to Alexandria Zahra Jones on her 18th birthday.

The colour picture on the left is of Lexi and her father, posted by Lexi on Fathers' Day. The image below that is of the tattoo she had done last year.

The picture on the right is of the recently turned 18-year-old Manish Boy, Davie Jones, outside the BBC during a lifelong occupational hazard...a fuss being made about his hair. But that’s a whole other story.

Happy Birthday Lexi, here’s wishing you love ‘n stuff from everybody here.

#HappyBirthdayLexi  #LEXIZAHRA  #HBD18

Glass Spider in New Jersey 31 years ago today

“I like the tee shirts in”

Thirty one years ago today, David Bowie played the second of two dates at the Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, as the third and fourth dates of the North American leg of his 1987 Glass Spider World Tour.

If you subscribe to the newsletter, you will have seen the latest addition to the Bowie Official Store in the shape of this reproduction of one of the original tour T-shirts. The partial listing of North American tour dates on the reverse commences with these shows.

Pre-order here.

#GlassSpiderTour

Stephen Street praises Zeroes (2018)

“I’m Street side out with my ear to the crowd”

Five Years ago (pun intended) we featured top-hole record producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur, Suede, Peter Doherty), when he chose Ziggy Stardust for Danny Baker’s Great Album Showdown on BBC4, back in February 2013.

Explaining that the 1972 classic was the first LP he ever bought, he then went on to describe the record as life-changing: “I was captivated”. Street also pointed out that the musicians he has worked with over the years have a love of Bowie’s music in common.

Baker was in agreement with Street’s ‘life-changing’ theory when he suggested of Ziggy Stardust: “It seems absurd in these days to talk about an LP that could culturally change everything. But it did.“

Now Mr Street has given the reworked Zeroes (2018) the thumbs up on Twitter:

“Actually, the 2018 version of Zeroes is more than 'pretty good'. It is a major overhaul that completely puts the original version in the shade. Great work by all involved. Boy, what would I give to have been able to work on this!”

You can pre-order the 2018 Mario McNulty produced Zeroes/Beat Of Your Drum 7" picture disc here and read the press release here.

FOOTNOTE: Today’s lyric quotation is from the song Sweet Head, a song first released as a bonus track on the 1990 Rykodisc issue of Ziggy Stardust, appropriately enough.

#LTAbox  #NLMD2018  #BowieZeroes