Oh baby, just you shut your mouth.

Source: Jonathan Barnbrook

“Today is David Bowie’s birthday and the ‘5 years’ anniversary of the release of the album ★. This image is from June 2015 when we were discussing ★ in New York (and I okayed it with the estate about showing this). Unfortunately, I don’t have many photos of us together, as I was always too shy to ask him, thinking he doesn’t want to be bothered in that way. Needless to say he was generous about it – as he was about everything when working with him.

“It was actually very unusual to meet to discuss his covers – usually it was done remotely, as I live in London and he lived in New York, but for this he specifically requested it. If you are curious about the working process – we didn’t suddenly come up with a design there and then. That’s not how it ever was working together  – I would never create a design in front of someone and he never wanted to directly explain the songs – always saying it was better for people to find their own meaning, so we kept away from literal discussions about exactly what the album meant and talked of more universal themes underlying it – and I was then free to interpret. Looking back I think the meeting was more just to understand music’s energy and have some personal contact.

“The day was a bit of a blur, you know… I was always a bit nervous in front of him, although he was always relaxed and charming. One moment does stands out though – he suggested listening to the album together as I hadn’t heard it. While I did David sat next to me trying hard not to look directly at my face but kept doing so. After the embarrassment of realising this passed, I was actually quite relieved by it – here was a man that despite all his years of success was now simply an artist putting out their work into the world – humble, and anxious about what anybody thought of it. This is how all truly great artists are, if they take a real risk in their work it always feels like they are releasing something for the first time and they worry that the element of ‘truth’ that they have worked so hard to share may not be understood.

Lazarus Exclusive Streaming Premiere on DICE.FM

LAZARUS By David Bowie and Enda Walsh Directed By Ivo van Hove Inspired by the Novel The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis

Exclusive Premiere Streaming on Dice.fm TICKETS HERE: https://link.dice.fm/lazarus Friday 8 January, 7pm – David Bowie’s birthday Saturday 9 January, 7pm Sunday 10 January, 3pm – fifth anniversary of David Bowie’s death To remember David Bowie on his birthday and to mark the fifth anniversary of his untimely death, producers Robert Fox and RZO Entertainment Inc are exclusively releasing the stream of the London production of Lazarus, captured live on stage. The streaming will be available for three performances only. This will be the UK premiere of the filmed version of this remarkable show. Lazarus includes songs from Bowie’s iconic catalogue as well as new songs written for the stage including the title song, Lazarus.

Lazarus focuses on Thomas Newton, as he remains still on Earth - a ‘man’ unable to die, his head soaked in cheap gin and haunted by a past love. We follow Newton over the course of a few days where the arrival of another lost soul - might finally set him free.

Michael C Hall (“Dexter”, “Six Feet Under”) stars as Newton, the character famously portrayed by David Bowie in the 1976 screen adaptation of The Man Who Fell To Earth directed by Nicolas Roeg. Lazarus co-stars Sophia Anne Caruso (“Beetlejuice” on Broadway) and the production is directed by Ivo van Hove (“All About Eve”, “Network” and “A View From The Bridge”).

Lazarus opened at The New York Theatre Workshop in November 2015. The London production opened in November 2016 where it played a sold-out run.

There will be a virtual David Bowie tribute, named “Just for One Day,” and it will air on Bowie’s birthday on January 8th, 2021.

Current lineup: Adam Lambert, Andra Day, Duran Duran, Yungblud, Michael C. Hall, Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter, Anna Calvi, Atticus Ross, Kid Heaven Orchestra singer Etty Lau Farrell, How to Destroy Angels singer Mariqueen Maandig Reznor, Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, Perry Farrell, Lizzy Hale, and Macy Gray.

Just for One Day was organized by Bowie’s long-time pianist, Mike Garson, and the livestream will be anchored by an all-star band of musicians who played with Bowie over the course of his career.

Tickets are on sale now, and $2 from every ticket will be donated to Save the Children, an organization Bowie supported with funds raised from his 1997 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden.

In case you haven’t already seen these: beautiful mashups by the distressingly talented graphic artist Todd Alcott.

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David Bowie 1999 interview, The Big Breakfast show

The Man Who Fell To Earth costume designer May Routh has said David Bowie was so thin that some of the outfits he was fitted for were boys clothes.

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of David Bowie’s Earthling album, a record that saw him experimenting with new forms of electronic dance music. It came in the midst of his creative resurgence, a reaction of sorts to the albums he made in the mid-’80s that seemed to do little more than unsuccessfully chasing the success of 1983’s Let’s Dance.

A big part of that resurgence was guitarist Reeves Gabrels, who was a member of Bowie’s late-’80s/early-’90s band, Tin Machine. After that band broke up, he stuck with Bowie, playing on his ’90s solo albums. A trusted collaborator to Bowie, he co-wrote and co-produced much of Bowie’s material during that time, and was also his musical director. And although he left the band in 1999, you could argue that the work he did with Bowie put him on the path to his final album, 2016’s classic Blackstar, which won five GRAMMY Awards earlier this month.

Gabrels hasn’t spoken publically very much about his former bandmate since his passing last year, but he agreed to discuss his entire era with Bowie with Radio.com.

In 1995, photographer Gavin Evans was commissioned by Time Out magazine in London to shoot David Bowie, during the recording of ‘Outside’. The results were a series of distinctive portraits that became widely used and well-known, and are currently on display in Harpa’s new fourth-floor gallery….

…the show’s central image is something darker—a close-up shot in which Bowie gazes at the viewer with a vulnerable, almost existential expression. It’s a particularly humane portrait of the singer that’s very much at odds with the stylized characters for which he became famous.

“When I looked back at these ones,” says Gavin, “I thought: ‘I’ve never seen him like this before.’ I don’t mean photographically, but in himself. I think he was very much allowing himself just to be. He wasn’t playing the public persona—he was being less controlled, in that way.”

Two years later, Gavin got an email from Bowie’s management about the image. “At first I thought ‘Oh shit, are they going to ask me to stop using it?’” he recalls. “But as I read further down, it said that this was David’s favourite image of himself. He wanted to hang it in his Manhattan office, behind his desk. I thought, ‘Hang on, he’s connecting with this image?’ Some of the other shots from the session, like the shouting and ‘shh!’ images, are perfectly good shots, and I can see why people like them… but the one he chose had qualities that made it very personal for me. The fact that he felt it so personally as well, and acknowledged that it showed him—it’s a huge compliment, I suppose.”

Despite the naturalistic look of the shoot, Bowie still had some creative input. “When we first met,” says Gavin, “he was wearing loafers and chinos—I was quite surprised how casually dressed he was. But then he brought out these blue contact lenses, and I thought: ‘Ah, here’s the twist.’ When people see the photographs now, they often ask why we did the shoot with the blue contacts, because his eyes were such a distinctive part of his look. That was all him—he was still playing with his image….”

A Man Who Fell To Earth reference in the new music video for Bowie’s song, No Plan.

Newton Electrical for Thomas Jerome Newton, and all of those TV screens in this famous scene:

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