Hot damn, I love TV on the Radio. They managed to out-awesome themselves with their cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” for the upcoming War Child project Heroes. Visit Pitchfork to hear the streaming audio of “Heroes”. And then mark your calendars to buy War Child’s Heroes when it comes out on February 16.
Posted in Circle Of Friends, More To Own, News | 1 Comment »Here it is folks – the official denial of not only the David Bowie at Coachella rumor but also the David Bowie on Twitter rumor. I knew it was coming.
Posted in News, Rumors, Lies, Stories They Made Up | 1 Comment »For the past few years there have been rumors that David Bowie is going to headline the Coachella Music Festival. And for the past few years, Bowie has not and he’s not going to this year either. But this year’s annual Bowie at Coachella rumor jumps right to the top of Ridiculous Bowie Rumors, even more ridiculous than the rumor that sieg heiled in Victoria Station (he did not). Someone has gotten the notion into their head that Bowie is going to resurrect Ziggy Stardust for this year’s Coachella. *record scratching sound*
Yep, read that again. Let it sink in. That’s right. It started with a simple rumor that Bowie was not only going to play at Coachella, but that he might play the entire album of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. From there it morphed into a rumor that he was going to play the entire Ziggy album. Then, it transformed into a rumor that not only was he going to play the entire Ziggy album but that he was going to do it dressed up as Ziggy Stardust. It’s like a mind-numblingly stupid game of Telephone.
A little common sense can dispel the second part of this rumor. First of all, Bowie is known for being fashion forward and style conscious. Taking that into consideration, would it make sense for a man like that to bedeck his 62-year-old body with spandex, stack-heeled platform boots, and Kabuki makeup? No matter how good a shape that 62-year-old body is in, no, it does not make sense. Secondly, has Bowie ever gone back and rehashed past personas? No. Thirdly, his wife is Iman. If he tried to do that, she would be all “Listen to Iman” (4:45 in) and not let him set foot out of the house in Ziggy garb.
Like the Berlin rumor, though, there are at least a couple of websites that took the time to do a modicum of fact-checking before they published news items….and one of those sites is Perez Hilton. Seriously, if Perez Hilton can report on this correctly then I think every entertainment site should be able to.
Posted in Rumors, Lies, Stories They Made Up | 4 Comments »As any proud parent would do, David Bowie attended the opening of Moon at the Sundance Film Festival. In his official quote to BowieNet he said, “It’s such a great movie. It’s hard to believe it’s his first. I’m so happy for him and proud as Punch.” You can see pictures of the proud daddy and Duncan Jones at WireImage.com. (An account is required to view the pictures, the basic account is free.) Also appearing in the pictures are Sam Rockwell, Sting (side note:My God, what the hell happened to Sting? Did he fall in a vat of Grecian Formula after visiting the Unabomber’s stylist?), and Trudie Styler, the film’s producer.
In the BowieNet news item, you’ll note that Moon will be widely released by Sony later this year. We’ll post more information on the release as we hear about it.
Posted in Circle Of Friends, Movies, News | 1 Comment »So, the latest on the rumor that David Bowie is back in Berlin to record a new album is an official shrug of the shoulders from his record label. Today they told Gigwise that they can neither confirm nor deny the rumor. And that means…..? Nothing. Nothing at all. Certainly not that he is indeed in a Berlin studio. All it means is that his record label doesn’t keep tabs on what he does every day. Nevertheless, the rumor is still spreading like like the Norovirus through a cruise ship.
Posted in Rumors, Lies, Stories They Made Up | 1 Comment »I am amazed at how many worthless websites have just taken it as red that David Bowie is back in Berlin recording a new album. It seems that any douchebag can register as David Bowie on any social networking website (Twitter being the culprit in this lastest stupid rumor), publish a bit of piss-taking news, and entertainment sites that have never heard the words “fact-checking” or “credibility” will publish it like a bunch of lemmings on a slow news day. It’s pretty bad when we here at an amateur music news blog have enough sense and fact-checking skills to see right through this latest lame attempt to generate news. At the very least, a few sites have written news items about the false tweet that question the validity of the post.
Posted in Rumors, Lies, Stories They Made Up | 3 Comments »Got a couple more Moon goodies here today. The first is an interview with Duncan Jones at QuietEarth.com. Incidentally, Quiet Earth looks like a cool site in general. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I plan on browsing through it for some recommendations for horror and scifi films. I can’t remember the last horror film I saw that really scared the piss outta me. But I digress….the second goody I have is another interview, this time with Sam Rockwell. This one contains spoilers, so beware. The review is up at Defamer.com.
Posted in Circle Of Friends, Movies, News | 1 Comment »Finally found some showtime listings for Moon. The Sundance site wasn’t working, so I had to go to BowieWonderWorld. If you’re in the Salt Lake City or Park City, Utah area this weekend, go watch it and support Duncan Jones and his directorial debut.
Day: Friday, January 23, MOONN23CE
Time: 6:15 pm
Theater: Eccles Center, Park City
Day: Saturday, January 24, MOONN24CM
Time: 9:00 am
Theater: Eccles Center, Park City
Day: Saturday, January 24, MOONN24GN
Time: 9:30 pm
Theater: Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City
Day: Sunday, January 25, MOONN25SA
Time: 1:00 pm
Theater: Sundance Institute Screening Room at the Sundance Resort, North Fork of Provo Canyon, Sundance, UT
Visit the Sundance Film Festival Website for directions and information on the shuttle system.
Posted in Circle Of Friends, Movies, News | Comments Off on Weekend Showings for MoonFrequently lists of this type are pretty meaningless. They are usually a compilation of the opinions of magazine or website staffers with maybe a few credible industry insiders and their input. Zimbio’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in Fashion is another such list, but at least it’s fun to contemplate and it hasn’t been done a million times before. David Bowie is listed as number 5 on this list of designers, musicians, actors, athletes, and photographers who comprise the list. The full entry under his name is an interesting read. Unlike most brief biographies of Bowie, it stays away from using the hackneyed term “chameleon” to describe his many stylistic changes over the course of his career. The author differentiates between Bowie and other fashionistos who have attempted to glide from one style to another by pointing out that Bowie is “just as likely to wear an outfit to dinner that he’d wear on stage.”
Posted in Opinions | 3 Comments »Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie) made his directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with his first film Moon. The film stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, stationed on a lunar base for a three-year stint to oversee the mining of Helium-3, and Kevin Spacey as the voice of GERTY, the AI computer. (Maybe cousin to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, only less homicidal?) Since I haven’t seen the movie, I won’t even try to give you a plot summary, but I will point you towards Drew McWeeny’s review on Motion/Captured and James Rocchi’s review on Cinematical. And if you don’t mind spoilers, io9 has some videos posted. (I’m not watching these because I don’t want the ending to be given away.)
It goes without saying that the Webmaster and I are eager to see this movie, not just because Duncan Jones is Bowie’s son and Sam Rockwell is a great actor, but also because sci-fi movies that tell a classic sci-fi story are rare these days. I’ve been a big fan of classic sci-fi writers like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke since I was a pre-teen and stories like those don’t come around often. So many sci-fi movies are basically action movies or campy fantasy buffed with a futuristic sheen. So few movies adress the issues that classic writers like Bradbury and Asimov addressed – where are we as the human race headed in the future? What are we doing to ourselves with technology? Are we making ourselves more or less human? How are we destroying ourselves by trying to make our lives easier? Now I love campy sci-fi as much as the next geeky chick (as evidenced by the fact that currently all the system sounds on my computer are from The Fifth Element), but true sci-fi is an all-too-rare treat. Judging from the reviews, I feel pretty comfortable in placing some hope that Moon will be a throw-back to the 1950s radio plays of Dimension X (only without the xenophobia some of those plays expressed!). In fact, I have so much hope for this film and what it has the possibility to do for sci-fi that I won’t even cheapen it with a Sam Bell/Major Tom allusion.
Posted in Circle Of Friends, Movies, News, Opinions | 2 Comments »