David Bowie.

[jimmmm]

It seem some people didn't realise Sundays date;

HUNDREDS of David Bowie fans swamped a top Scots music venue after hearing the rock legend would be playing there. But the avid followers of the Thin White Duke were left looking silly after finding out the surprise gig was an April Fools prank.

Bosses at the former ABC cinema in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street put a sign up outside the busy concert hall saying Bowie would be performing live. But within hours their phones started ringing off the hook as Bowie fans got wind of the show. Staff were left having to cope with an endless stream of visitors wanting to snap-up the gold-dust tickets. But despite being embarrassed at being caught out, it seems the fans who fell for the trick saw the funny side of the prank.

Last night ABC box-office manager John McCue, 35, said: "We put a sign up outside the venue saying Bowie would be playing. But we also included the date to give people a big clue to what was really happening. However, even that didn’t seem to get picked up by a lot of people and pretty soon we were getting swamped with calls. There were people ringing in from all over Britain desperate to get their hands on a ticket. We even had people turning up at the door asking where they could buy tickets. It looks as though a lot of people were really fooled by the prank - it worked a treat."

Fan Paul Woodside, 35, from Uddingston, Lanarkshire, said: "I got a call from a friend saying Bowie was playing at the ABC. I jumped in my car and sped up to the venue to see if I could get a ticket. It was only when the staff at the box-office stared laughing that I realised what had happened. I thought I was a bit too long in the tooth to fall for something like that, but it looks like there’s no fool like an old fool."

The ABC hoax is the latest in a long line of April Fools day jokes that have left Bowie fans red-faced. One of the more famous ones being on his own website, www.davidbowie.com, in 2005 when it was announced that Bowie would be launching his own perfume, Mesmer, complete with an ever-ch, ch, ch, ch, changing hand blown bottle!

[gump]

Actually, I would be pretty pissed if I was one of those fans!

[U2democrat]

Wooooow

[LemonMelon]

I hate April Fool's Day. It's pointless and annoying.

[jimmmm]

Interesting article from BOWIENET,

05.03.07 NEWS: HOW ZIGGY STARDUST AND LOW CHANGED THE WORLD




The Man Who Changed The World...

This one was a little late coming through, but the March issue of BURNLOUNGE magazine in the USA has voted The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars The #1 Concept Album Of All Time. Read what they had to say about David Bowie's 1972 classic above.

The current fortieth anniversary issue of Rolling Stone magazine has a similar poll wherein it lists 40 Songs That Changed The World. You can read what they had to say about the song Ziggy Stardust below...



Not to be outdone, the June issue of MOJO magazine in the UK has another poll guaranteed to fire up a bit of debate, 100 Records That Changed The World, compiled by 100 musicians of some note from Brian Wilson to John Lydon, via U2 and Radiohead.

The piece is accompanied by the full-page illustration below which has David Bowie in pretty good company.



Two Bowie albums make the Top 100, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars and Low. Only two other artits manage two albums in the Top 100, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, with The Beatles boasting a total of three.

The musicians who have taken up the task of explaining just why they think the Bowie albums are so important, are Brett Anderson and Ian McCulloch. Here follows brief snippets from both followed by MOJO's own "Without this, no..." comments.

Ian McCulloch on Low

"...His voice is fantastic and magnetic, just pure Bowie...I loved the wordless vocals on the second side too, they're so mesmerising and different. Eno helped, but Bowie was running that show. Low pretty much invented the '80s, alongside Kraftwerk, just as Bowie had invented the '70s...Low was like a guidebook to synth punk. If the Pistols and Ramones drove you to pick up a guitar and add plenty of chords, Low was what you can do with one finger, a synth and your imagination."

Without this, no...synthpop, wedges, "getting Eno in", the '80s generally.

Brett Anderson on Ziggy Stardust

"Ziggy Stardust was a career-defining album...It's certainly the iconic glam record. Bowie's vocal on Rock 'N' Roll Suicide is untouchable, and those chord changes at the end of it are completely unexpected without sounding contrived...There's something prosaic about the album's cover, this photo of Bowie just standing in this little London backstreet, but his Ziggy persona seems all the wilder for that. A mate of mine remembers watching Starman on Top Of The Pops, and he said the buzz in the school playground was that Bowie was from outer space."

Without this, no...UK punk, pop androgyny, gay-acting straights.

So there you have it...your world is quite different thanks to David Bowie...But then again, you already knew that!

[Cin]

I think I've found it!!!!!!

[cobl04]

Love ya work! Thanks a million

[Cin]

no worries, how could I not help someone with my hometown footy boys for their av.

[cobl04]

Let's hope they go all the way I'll camp out for a very long time to get tickets...

[powerhour24]

Originally posted by jimmmm

Without this, no...UK punk, pop androgyny, gay-acting straights.

So there you have it...your world is quite different thanks to David Bowie...But then again, you already knew that!

Haha, as true as this is I'd like to think his accomplishments/influence boils down to a lot more than that

[cobl04]

Well I got Hunky Dory a while ago, here's what I thought:

Changes 7 (Chorus gets annoying and a begins to grate)
Oh! You Pretty Things 9 (Awesome hook)
Eight Line Poem 7 (Nice song, flows well outta OYPT and into LOM?)
Life on Mars? 10 (What more to say? Incredible)
Kooks 5 (Pretty average, annoying vocal)
Quicksand 6 (Overall kind of boring, some great parts though)
Fill Your Heart 4 (Very average. Annoying)
Andy Warhol 7 (Almost intimidating, very weird and quirky but in a good way)
Song for Bob Dylan 8 (Love it, great delivery)
Queen Bitch 8 (Awesome guitar riff)
The Bewlay Brothers 7 (Another good vocal)

And for the sake of it

Five Years 10
Soul Love 7
Moonage Daydream 9
Starman 10
It Ain't Easy 7
Lady Stardust 9
Star 8
Hang on to Yourself 6
Ziggy Stardust 9
Suffragette City 8
Rock 'n' Roll Suicide 7

From now on I think I'll get Heroes and Low and I think that'll be it, unless there's any other great records?

[asr]

Basically, every David Bowie album from 1970-1980 is what a fan of rock n' roll should own.

Bowie has tackled every genre of popular music from heavy metal to glam rock to world music to soul within a decade.

[namkcuR]

I was disappointed in Hunky Dory. Changes and Life On Mars are great, but I had a hard time getting into the rest.

On the other hand, while I've only skimmed through all of its tracks, Low sounds VERY beautiful and intriguing and I am looking forward to listening to it more in depth.

[cobl04]

Heavy metal?

I was planning to just go for Heroes and Low and leave it there. Cos I burnt the platinum collection, and loved all the 69-74 stuff, but from then on it got a bit weird.

[LJT]

Every Bowie fan should own Station to Station, Scary Monsters (the metal one...not too much metal mind it does have ashes to ashes) and his last two albums, Heathen and Reality.

Actually The Man Who Sold the World and Space Oddity albums are great too...but it took me a while to love TMWSTW, but it was worth it...Width of a Circle is an awesome rock tune

[cobl04]

Can I just say

THat Soul Love and Star are really underrated songs.

NOW

I have to do an assignment for school where we bang on about something for 5 to 10 minutes. Everyone is expecting me to do U2, but I have decided to explain the story of Ziggy Stardust. So I'm going to do a write-up, and post it back, tell me what you all think.

[U2democrat]

[asr]

What I meant by heavy metal was The Man Who Sold the World album.

[LMP]

Originally posted by asr
What I meant by heavy metal was The Man Who Sold the World album.

metal?

I don't know if I'd go that far, definitely some prog in there though.

[lazarus]

Originally posted by LJT
Every Bowie fan should own Station to Station, Scary Monsters (the metal one...not too much metal mind it does have ashes to ashes) and his last two albums, Heathen and Reality.

I keep telling people how great the last two albums were (Heathen features a great cameo by Pete Townshend), but no one believes or agrees with me. They could each stand to lose a couple songs, but whatever.

Of course, this is coming from someone who liked Outside and Earthling.

I would also recommend Young Americans, even if the rest of the album doesnt' quite live up to the title track.

Personally, I like Aladdin Sane better than Ziggy song for song, and I'm surprised no one else has singled the album out. But yeah, you can't go wrong by getting ANY Bowie from the 70's.

Also, if you're going to get Low and Heroes, might as well get Lodger too. I think it's really underrated, and while it's not as revolutionary as Low, the individual tracks are good. It's interesting to hear how the sound progressed from the beginning of the "Eno" trilogy to the end.