Got the heads up on this post from Queen’s facebook page. The one that got my attention the most, of course, was this one:
If that wasn’t bad enough, they had to go even nuttier:
The actual site is Next Movie. They’ve got an entire gallery of Pottered pics. Lots of fun!
Due to the sudden famine of decent movies to watch with my kid, I started getting desperate. Then I heard a movie was playing that featured Bowie. I of course, had to go. Problem was it was on it’s next to last day showing, and it only showed at 4:15. The boy gets off his bus at 4:00. That meant it was iffy at best. Sure enough, he showed up at 4:02. We drove faster than I like, slower than he likes. We got in the theater at 4:19. The movie literally started the second we sat down. The first words of the movie were “Dear David Bowie”. We immediately saw The Lodger on the wall. Almost immediately we had fourteen year olds citing Velvet Underground. I was thoroughly stumped. No fourteen year olds go around citing Velvet Underground for anything. I doubt very many even have a clue who they were. This movie looked like it was ready to rock in a major Moonage way. It was even throwing Ziggy era Bowie as filler music. How much better does it get than that?
Then, it jumped the shark. It stumbled around with the cliche boy meets girl, loses girl, gets girl back, first kiss, mom making out with teen boys, and oddly, music that was elevator music from the 80′s. It went from showing Bowie references such as a bookstore I think it was called Rebel Rebel, to sounding a lot like the Partridge Family. It quickly became typecast Vanessa Hudgens with all her clothes on.
But, every 30 seconds or so, we got to hear “Dear David Bowie”. So I endured. Even my six year old was perplexed why this kid kept saying “Dear David Bowie”. He knows Bowie’s old. In other words, Bowie isn’t relevant to a six year old. I’ll not ruin the ending here. But, it’s Bowie’s only real appearance in the movie. And, it was good.
I recommend this movie only to parents who love Bowie and have small kids. Bowiefiles will feel kinda creepy trying to sit through it without little wonders. One older kid in the audience did. He kept kinda wigging out during the movie. The oddity was getting to him.
One thumb up for this flick. I enjoyed the novelty of it, but that’s it’s only saving grace. I found it odd a movie was more or less marketed to either 40+ somethings who would be true Bowie fans, or small kids. As much of an icon as he is to my age group, he’s oblivious to young kids. Telling a six year old we’re going to see a Bowie movie just gets you a very quizzical look. Mine was expecting Screaming Lord Byron. He didn’t get that. He did enjoy the movie tho.
By the way, the movie was not named “Dear David Bowie”. That would have been perfect. It’s called Bandslam
The opening song that starts the campy romp that is Ziggy Stardust is a song called Five Years. It tells the tale of people learning they have five years left to die in. Over a period of time, I really felt this song was better suited for Diamond Dogs than Ziggy. Regardless, it’s a great tune and somewhat of a Bowie concert staple. Here’s a fairly hard to find version of Bowie singing it for Dinah Shore in 1975 I think it is.
And the original, along wit the rest of Ziggy:
* To be played at maximum volume.
While I’m working with video, here’s another fun one from way back when. June 21, 1972 to be precise. Just ignore the sound. This was shot with an 8-mm video camera that had no sound. It does however, relay the excitement and enthusiasm of very early Ziggy Stardust. And, as far as I can tell, it’s the first time Bowie humped Ronson on stage.
This is being mentioned as Bowie’s first tv appearance. He’s doing a relatively simple version of Space Oddity. Things sure changed real quick for him after this appearance.
David Bowie has worked for all kinds of charities. Most of them not your run-of-the-mill stuff. One of them is something called Tibet House. They strive to preserve the culture of Tibet. Oddly enough, Bowie recreated one of my all-time favorite obscure songs from way back when, for this charity event. Which, by the way, is not held in Tibet. And, I guess not so oddly, the song is about Tibet. So, without further ado, the song about Tibet sung at an event for Tibet but not in Tibet, Silly Boy Blue:
While scarping this video from boobtube, I was filled in on the fact that Bowie did indeed remix Silly Boy Blue for a project album called “Toy”. “Toy” apparently never made the cut and Silly Boy Blue will remain very obscure. However, given Bowie’s updated re-mix, I’d just as soon stick with the original. I’ve got my ideas on how it should sound in the 21st century:
Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!
MTV has launched a new web presence, mtvmusic.com. It looks pretty cool so far. They have come up with a remarkable marketing plan. They’re going to show videos! Cool huh? I figured I could never resist a temptation like that. What is a little different with this concept for MTV is they apparently are willing to share their wealth finally and allow embedding. So, to give it a try, I chose Ashes to Ashes:
For those not in my age bracket, I chose this video for a reason. When MTV very first came on the air when I was a teen, it featured videos only. Most of those videos were of bands dancing around, performing live, or just goofing off in general. Out of nowhere Bowie came along with these incredibly over-produced vids that were tons of fun to watch. It totally changed how videos would be made forever. For a while we had great tunes to fantastic and creative videos. Then rap came along and kind of killed that party. But, we still have those from the wonder years. And, along with being one of the first, I still think Ashes to Ashes is one of the best. Enjoy.
One of my favorite performances of ‘Heroes’ was during Glass Spider. Now, a lot of critics panned the tour. I am however, biased. I was there. It was what I expected of Bowie. A little glam, some bizarre choreography, and great tunes performed to perfection. It was his second “happy” tour, featuring a lot of his recent hits at the time. However, he threw in some staples, and, some off-beat stuff such as Sons of the Silent Age. However, the song that got me absolutely over the edge was the same song that always got me pumped:
Immediately after ‘Heroes’ was over, and I was still enthralled with the entire effect of the sound and vision, my date asked me when he was going to perform White Wedding or Rebel Yell. That was her last concert with me.
EKOMusic made this excellent find and either posted it on Youtube, or found it there. I dunno. However, since I posted an equally obscure video of Bowie performing and got banished from Youtube, and needless to say that upload got deleted, I don’t feel too safe with this piece of rock history being purged forever. So, I’ve fleeced it and posted it in a slightly safer place I think.
This is a performance Bowie did of Suffragette City at Imperial College on February 12, 1972.
In about one hour, after months of anxiously awaiting, Bowie makes his cartoon debut ( as far as I know ), as Lord Royal Highness on the Spongebob special Atlantis Squarepantis!
Don’t know about you all, but me and the Moonlet will be watching!