For those of you, like me, who looked at the venue list for the High Line Festival and wondered to yourself, “This is scattered across multiple venues? How exactly is this considered a festival associated with the High Line?” and were too lazy to look at the geography, David Bowie himself answered part of that question on a post to the Bowienet message board. He says what “holds this particular festival together is that all the venues are on or follow a geographic route in New York called the High Line (an old overhead railway). Hence, the High Line Festival.”
So there you have it. As disgruntled as I am about the conspicuous lack of a live performance by the man himself despite his initial announcement, he is sticking to the original geographic plan. From the original news item on Bowienet, “[t]he 10-day marathon event will take place at street level and at neighbouring venues alongside the High Line.”
Posted in Opinions | 3 Comments »According to the ridiculous site Love Gods Way, David Bowie is one on a long list of bands that might slyly turn you or your children *gasp* gay. No seriously, look at the list on the site. Then take a look at the list of the “safe” bands. If you listen to the Dresden Dolls, then you’re probably okay. So lyrics like “coin operated boy/sitting on the shelf he is just a toy/but I turn him on and he comes to life/automatic joy” are way better for the eternal fate of my soul than lyrics like “I should live my life on bended knee/If I can’t control my destiny.” Whew, good to know. I wonder if my risk of turning gay is canceled out by the fact that I’m Catholic?
Update: Joe over at Joe.My.God. has noticed that improv actor Joel Oglesby looks suspiciously like Pastor Donnie Davies of Love Gods Way. Check it out for yourself. If Joel Oglesby really is Donnie Davies then that’s a brilliant bit of viral marketing. Can’t wait for C.H.O.P.S. the Movie. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that David Bowie won’t make me gay.
Posted in Opinions | 6 Comments »Daniel Johnston, one of the artists who has already confirmed that he is playing the High Line Festival after being personally selected by Bowie, is allegedly going to be doing his High Line set with Bowie according to Pitchfork. At the bottom of the article where his live dates are listed, there is a notation that he will be playing the High Line Festival on May 15-18 with David Bowie.
Given the lack of information from BowieNet, I’m going to take the article with a grain of salt but this is getting silly. The High Line Festival is only eleven weeks away and so far we are the only Bowie-related site reporting even the barest amount of information about this line-up. If David really is going to be playing a set with Daniel Johnston then he will be performing at the High Line Festival, despite reports from BowieNet. If he’s not actually playing the High Line Festival then BowieNet needs to get on the ball and start announcing something to the general public. I’m still very skeptical that the High Line Festival is going to even happen due to the fact that construction is not even slated to be finished until next year. However, if the Festival does come to fruition and David does play with Daniel Johnston then more power to them all. I hope for their sake that David’s brain-child sees the light of day this May. (Hey, that rhymes!)
Posted in Circle Of Friends, News, Opinions | 1 Comment »After nearly a month of hearing rumors that Bowie is not playing at the High Line Festival, the Webmaster and I finally caved in and paid for a Bowienet subscription to see if the news blurb announcing that Bowie is not playing the High Line Festival was indeed hidden from the average site viewer with no subscription. And, it is. On January 22 there was a news item posted for only Bowienet members to see that announces that “it will not be possible” for Bowie to play the festival “due to ongoing work on a new project.” So there you have it. No Bowie at the High Line Festival.
I can’t believe we had to pay for a damned Bowienet subscription just to find out whether we’re buying tickets to New York City for May 10-19 or whether we’re making campground reservations in the Blue Ridge Mountains for those same dates. Unbelievable. It simply boggles my mind that an important bit of news about Bowie not playing the High Line Festival is hidden from the average person browsing the site. What possible reason could there be for doing that? The Webmaster and I love Bowie as much or more as the next obsessive superfans but stunts like this make us even less likely to continue to pay the yearly subscription fee for Bowienet. I can understand only allowing members to access the Bowienet blogs and message board, but to extort a mere $5.42 per month from fans just so they can know whether or not to put in for vacation days for a festival that is a mere three months away and that their favorite artist in the entire world may or may not be playing is just inexcusable. For God’s sake, the Coachella festival announced their lineup weeks ago and that festival takes place two weeks before the High Line Festival does.
Maybe the cloak-and-dagger act is because Bowie knows that attendance to the festival is going to suffer if he is not playing. Take the Webmaster and I as an example - we were going to drop well over $1000 to fly up to NYC, rent a hotel room, and buy festival tickets for three days just because Bowie was probably going to play. The only reason we were going to attend the festival was because of Bowie. Now we’re not. Our money will go to some national park along the Blue Ridge Mountains rather than to Bowie and the coffers of the High Line Festival. And I will bet my unopened copy of Live And Well that we are not the only ones ditching plans of attending the High Line Festival now that our reason to travel thousands of miles has been taken away.
If you want to see the news item for yourself, click here. I just saved you $5.42 this month. Don’t spend it all in one place.
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The UK Metro newspaper published this half-baked article in yesterday’s edition. In the article they claim that Jermaine Jackson caused trouble with his former wives by maintaining a friendship with Bowie’s ex-wife Iman. Now, I ask you, where has the Metro been for the past twelve years?! There is no excuse for this type of shoddy reporting. For Pete’s sake, Bowie is a British icon. One would think that a British newspaper would get such an important fact about him correct, especially since there have just been a slew of articles published about him since he just turned 60 and a good number of those made reference to Iman. Apparently, fact-checking exceeds the capabilities of the Metro.
Posted in News, Opinions, Rumors, Lies, Stories They Made Up | No Comments »I did a bit of research on the aforementioned Fact 42 and thought that the fact was misleading enough to warrant it’s own blog entry. According to reliable sources such as David Buckley and Christopher Sandford, Vince Taylor was one of many influences on not only the song Ziggy Stardust but the entire album as well. The character of Ziggy was an amalgam of famous influences such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Vince Taylor, Andy Warhol, and Japanese culture. However, later in the 1980s Bowie argued that Ziggy was based solely on Vince Taylor. Undoubtedly the messianic martyrdom of Ziggy in the song and throughout the album was based on events in Taylor’s life but for Bowie to say that Ziggy Stardust is entirely based on Vince Taylor just doesn’t jive. Any fan who has followed Bowie’s career with moderate interest can clearly pick out the other influences. For instance, Kansai Yamamoto designed a large number of Ziggy’s costumes, both Lou Reed and Iggy Pop pre-dated Bowie in glam rock, and Ziggy was the penultimate manufactured pop star in the style of Warhol’s manufactured art. That statement is typical Bowie though. He has said a lot of things to the press that don’t mean a damn thing. The moral of this post is - when it comes to stating Bowie “facts”, especially concerning a character as multi-layered as Ziggy Stardust, do your research.
Posted in Opinions | No Comments »BBC News published this rather entertaining article with 60 facts about Bowie that you may or may not know. And thank the Lord, they got the details about his right eye correct. I was surprised to find out that I did not previously know fact number 26. Also, I’ve not heard fact number 42 before - either that or I just forgot it. So until I confirm it with other sources I declare it to be spurious.
Posted in News, Opinions | 1 Comment »The Daily Mail reports that Bowie is on the radar of the Academy of Motion Pictures for a possible Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role as Nikola Tesla in The Prestige. Nothing will be official until January 23, 2007 when the nominations are announced by the Academy, so for now this is just rumor and speculation. It would however be a great day for Bowie and all of his fans if he were simply nominated for the award. Personally, I think it was his best acting to date (not counting his role as Jareth the Goblin King which was something else entirely) and he performed admirably with a formidable cast. At the very least I think a nomination is in order.
Posted in News, Opinions | No Comments »In an interview with Hello Magazine (relayed via Digital Spy), Iman commented that there is a possibility that she and David will move back to London in a few years. She says that although David loves New York City that he gets homesick for his hometown London. Hopefully a move to London will not mean the end of one-off shows in New York City for fans in the States.
Posted in News, Opinions | No Comments »The Webmaster and I wish everyone in the Bowie fan-family a very merry Christmas. May the New Year bring everyone prosperity and live Bowie shows.
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