I heard the news…* Sound and Vision Returns; Live on the Loch Cancelled; Shel Talmy Charts; Wakeman’s Bowie Tribute; Barry Walters Gets Mighty Real; and MUCH MORE!
Welcome to my weekly roundup of Bowie news! Read on for summaries of Bowie-related stories that posted this past week, and click on the bolded story names to link to the original articles…
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NEWS
The Sound and Vision of David Bowie Returns to New York in January. The Sound and Vision of David Bowie will return to The Cutting Room in New York City on January 7, 8 and 9, 2027, with three nights celebrating Bowie’s life and music. The lineup includes Bowie collaborators and other musicians Brian Delaney, Catherine Russell, Donny McCaslin, Everett Bradley, Gail Ann Dorsey, Gerry Leonard, Henry Hey, Jim Boggia, JJ Appleton, Mark Plati, Sophia Anne Caruso and Tony Levin. The Friday and Saturday shows are already sold out (I’m going Saturday), so get yer tickets soon!
Bowie: Live On The Loch cancelled. I hope I am not revealing anything that I’m not supposed to, but this two-day charity event featuring a Bowie alumni concert, originally scheduled to take place on November 7–8, 2026, at Cameron House on Loch Lomond, Scotland, has been cancelled. I was going to this one, too, and was notified by Cameron House that it is off. I haven’t seen any news stories about the cancellation, but since I’ve posted about the event in this space, I feel compelled to report that it is no longer happening. This update does not link to an external story. I already have my tickets to Scotland, so I’m still going. Let me know if you are, too.
Bowie’s Unearthed ’60s Recordings Become His New Top 10 Bestseller. Bowie’s archival collection The Shel Talmy Recordings, featuring mid-1960s recordings from when he was still known as Davy Jones and including 10 previously unreleased songs, debuted at No. 3 on the UK Official Albums Sales, Official Physical Albums and Official Vinyl Albums charts. I recently interviewed Alec Palao, who produced the collection for release, and that conversation will appear soon, so stay tuned.
Rick Wakeman’s Return To The Red Planet Arrives October 16. The Madfish Music album includes “Bowie’s Vision,” a personal musical tribute to Bowie inspired by Wakeman’s memories of their work together and friendship.
Duncan Sheik’s Final Musical Begins Off-Broadway Run. Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen, one of the final projects by the late Duncan Sheik, began performances September 25 at The Night Egg at the Culture Club in Manhattan and runs through January 3, 2027. The musical stars Sophia Anne Caruso, who originated the role of Girl in Bowie and Enda Walsh’s Lazarus, as Colette in a story set in fin-de-siècle Paris and based on Moyoco Anno’s manga. You can see my first interview with Sophia HERE and my second interview with Sophia HERE about working with Bowie and Lazarus.
Jennifer Elster’s The Take Down Premieres October 14. Artist and filmmaker Jennifer Elster will premiere the first part of her new performance-art film The Take Down on YouTube on October 14, documenting the dismantling of her New York exhibition The Classics and incorporating footage from 9/11. The exhibition included rare artifacts from Elster’s work styling Bowie for 1. Outside, including garments he wore as Nathan Adler, Baby Grace, Algeria Touchshriek and Ramona A. Stone, making those Bowie artifacts part of the material being dismantled in the film. You can see my on-location 2025 interview with Jennifer HERE.
Gail Ann Dorsey coming to Saratoga. Gail Ann Dorsey, Bowie’s bassist and vocalist from 1995 to 2004 and his celebrated duet partner on “Under Pressure,” returns to Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs on December 20, performing as she prepares to release The Appearance of Life, her first solo album in 21 years. And in case you missed it, you can see my interview with Gail HERE.
Peter Ormerod Takes Bowie Book to Three UK Literary Festivals. Peter Ormerod will discuss his book David Bowie: Life, Death and God at the Ilkley Literature Festival in Yorkshire on October 10, the Wells Festival of Literature in Somerset on October 19, and the Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival in Warwickshire on October 31. At the Stratford event, he will be joined by Alexander Larman, author of Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie. You can see my interviews with Peter HERE and Alexander HERE. (Note: this update does not link to external articles about the events).
Robert Burke Warren’s Bowie Birthday Bash Returns to Woodstock. Robert Burke Warren will present his Bowie Birthday Bash ’27 at Colony in Woodstock, New York, on Saturday, January 9, 2027. Doors open at 6 p.m., with the show beginning at 7 p.m. You can listen to my 2024 interview with Robert HERE.
David Bowie To Return To Brighton. The immersive David Bowie: You’re Not Alone experience will run at Brighton Dome from July 16 through August 30, 2027, using rare and previously unseen archival footage and spatial audio to recreate landmark Bowie performances while focusing on the person behind his famous characters. Other stories covering this development mention that a “lifetime ban” imposed on Bowie by the venue was lifted for this occasion.
David Bowie tribute show to take place at Carlisle Cathedral. David Live will perform Bowie by Candlelight on October 15 with two shows featuring Bowie hits, deep album cuts and rarer live arrangements in a tribute that follows the band’s appearance at the David Bowie World Fan Convention in Liverpool. I interviewed the band’s lead singer, Charlie Fowler more than a year ago, and the interview has been one of the most searched-for of all my videos ever since. I think that’s a testament to this band’s following, so if you get a chance to see David Live, you might wanna check them out. You can see my interview with Charie HERE.
Dwayne Gretzky just served one of the BEST Queen and David Bowie covers of the year. Music Man praises Dwayne Gretzky’s energetic and musically faithful cover of Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure,” highlighting the lead singers’ distinctive vocals and noting my praise for the performance’s singing, musicianship and infectious energy. This was my selection for cover of the week last week, which you can READ HERE (and link to the video).
Eric Idle Launches New Memoir. Eric Idle’s memoir Idle in Provence: A Brief History of Thyme recounts his more than 50 years in Cotignac, France, including friendships there with Bowie, George Harrison, Robin Williams and Brian Cox, and was launched with a September 4–5 weekend of book signings and Monty Python screenings at Lou Calen and the Théâtre du Rocher. I saw Idle speak on the book earlier in the week in Saratoga, NY and will post about it in coming days.
David Bowie, Dolly Parton and Jack Johnson headline In-Edit film festival. Bowie is among the musicians featured in documentaries at Barcelona’s 24th In-Edit music film festival, which will screen 70 titles from October 29 through November 8.
Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair Corn Maze Superdrop Coming In October. Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming Secret Lair Corn Maze Superdrop appears to include cards based on Labyrinth, the 1986 film starring Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, with teaser images featuring references including a 13-hour clock and a hand holding crystal balls associated with Bowie’s Jareth the Goblin King. This story received considerable coverage among outlets at cover this type of thing, and not all the stories are the same, so if you want more on this topic, Google around a bit and you’ll find more.
From Rabbit to Bowie: FUNK 2026 brings more than 30 events. The University of Montenegro’s FUNK 2026 festival will present more than 30 arts, science and culture events throughout October, culminating in a concert by David Bowie tribute band GIFT celebrating Bowie’s music and legacy.
Tony Michaelides and Eylsia Nicolas to Co-Host the Emerging Artists Hall of Fame. Bowie promoter Tony Michaelides and singer-songwriter Eylsia Nicolas will co-host a new entertainment program focused on discovering and mentoring rising performers through original material and public participation rather than traditional elimination-based competition.
The Man Who Sold the Bowie. Well, this story is actually about the buyer, not the seller, but someone paid $5 for an original Bowie painting. The sellers apparently didn’t know what it was.
Brisbane Entertainment Centre Marks 40 Years. The Brisbane Entertainment Centre is celebrating its 40th anniversary after hosting 2,875 ticketed events and more than 19 million attendees since 1986, with Bowie among the many major international artists who have performed at the Australian venue.
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FEATURES AND REFLECTIONS
Bowie’s 1990 Tokyo Dome Concert. So, this is a post from the the music and entertainment blog That Eric Alper about one of Bowie’s concerts from the Sound and Vision Tour, which happens to have been captured on video, and, well, like the Alper blog post, I’ve embedded the video above. So, if you missed the concert (I saw him in Hartford, CT that year and still have the shirt!), here’s your chance. I’ll add that, oddly, this is one of the only Bowie tours that hasn’t gotten its own love album yet (other than bootlegs).
Unseen Photos of David Bowie at His Peak. Denis O’Regan’s immersive Bowie: Unseen | Unheard installation uses some 800 photographs, Bowie’s music and O’Regan’s recollections to recreate the intimacy of his unusually close relationship with Bowie during the 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour, including previously unseen images selected from an archive of roughly 10,000 photographs. You can watch my interview with O’Regan HERE.
Book Review: David Bowie Music Lover. David Bowie: Music Lover by Geoff MacCormack and Jérôme Soligny explores more than 100 artists and recordings Bowie listened to across five decades, revealing how his eclectic curiosity—from Little Richard, the Velvet Underground and avant-garde music to Kendrick Lamar’s influence on Blackstar—continually supplied raw material for his own creative reinvention.
XSNoize Shel Talmy Review. The Shel Talmy Recordings captures Bowie’s 1965 apprenticeship across 22 tracks with The Manish Boys, Davie Jones & The Lower Third and as a solo performer, including previously unheard recordings and demos that reveal an ambitious young musician rooted in British R&B and still developing the songwriting and musical identity that would later transform popular music.
Iggy Pop’s Blah-Blah-Blah Turns 40. Iggy Pop’s Blah-Blah-Blah turns 40 as his most commercially successful album and his final studio collaboration with Bowie, who co-produced the 1986 record, co-wrote most of its songs and helped Pop achieve a mainstream breakthrough with “Real Wild Child (Wild One).”
Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour Through Tara Key’s Eyes. Tara Key of Antietam recalls winning an RCA Bowie lookalike contest at 16 and seeing the 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour at Madison Square Garden, followed months later by the shock of seeing Bowie abandon the glam presentation for his emerging soul direction in Indianapolis.
Concert Review: Glass Symphony #4. Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 4, “Heroes,” transforms the underlying harmonies, basslines and melodies of six tracks from Bowie and Brian Eno’s Heroes into a minimalist orchestral work that demonstrates the durability of their songwriting while sacrificing some of the original album’s contrast and drama.
Carlos Alomar on his ’80s adventures with Paul McCartney. Carlos Alomar says his work with Bowie, Iggy Pop, John Lennon, Mick Jagger and others may have helped lead Paul McCartney to recruit him for Press to Play, after producer Hugh Padgham—who had worked with Alomar on Bowie’s Tonight—recommended him for the sessions. My interview with Carlos appears as two episodes on my YouTube Channel. You can find both in the interview index, or see the second episode HERE.
“Blueprint” Poster Plots Pop Music’s History Across Decades and Styles. You’ve probably seen this type of thing before— a poster that plots the influences between musicians, in this case rock musicians. Bowie is one of the big nodes who serves as an intersection of influencers and influences.
COLUMNIST: Greta Gerwig’s Rock-Opera Take on a C.S. Lewis Classic. There were more columns and stories about The Magician’s Nephew this week that inevitably mention Bowie. I’m not going to link to all of them. This one focuses on the debate over Greta Gerwig’s androgynous, multicolored depiction of Aslan and notes Bowie’s influence on her vision for Narnia.
Greta Gerwig’s Glam-Rock Aslan Is A Shoddy Imposter. Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming rock-opera adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew reportedly gives Aslan a Bowie-inspired glam-rock appearance that critics argue conflicts with C.S. Lewis’s conception of Aslan as Christ incarnated in Narnia and substitutes Bowie’s association with self-invention and shifting personas for Lewis’s Christian vision.
Pattinson Portrayal compared to Bowie. Primetime turns To Catch a Predator and host Chris Hansen into a feverish, fantastical caricature, with Robert Pattinson’s exaggerated portrayal of Hansen likened to Bowie playing an alien playing a human playing a television personality. Amazingly, this review found more of a Bowie connection than I did— it will be the subject of a future Drive-in Saturday Tuesday Movie Review, which I already wrote but won’t post for a while. So stay tuned…
Reflections on Bowie. Daily Kos’s Morning Open Thread is a daily community forum featuring host-selected topics ranging from music and poetry to history and other subjects, with this installment reflecting on Bowie’s career.
Bowie and the Minimalist Influence. Minimalism’s use of repetition, loops and gradual change influenced popular music including Brian Eno’s ambient work and Bowie’s “Weeping Wall” from Low, while composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass helped extend its influence into electronic music, rock and film scores.
Did “Space Oddity” spawn “the Final Countdown”? If you read through this article, you will find vocalist Joey Tempest explaining how Bowie’s song inspired Europe’s greatest hit, which, though the article doesn’t mention it, is one of the unintentionally funniest songs of all time.
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PROFILES
Kasan Goh. This brief profile of the author of the novel, Billy, Seetoh & Co, mentions that his father organized the first rock concert ever in Singapore, which was a Bowie concert.
Queen: ‘There was a great deal of contempt poured upon us’. This story, about a new Queen documentary, mentions Bowie in relation to “Under Pressure.”
Tony Levin. Tony Levin recalls working with Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew—both major Bowie collaborators—as part of a career that also included sessions and performances with John Lennon, David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, Steve Vai and Paul Simon.
Michael C. Hall. Michael C. Hall’s work beyond Dexter has included playing Thomas Newton in Bowie and Enda Walsh’s Lazarus, which opened Off-Broadway in December 2015 and later transferred to London following Bowie’s death, as well as fronting the band Princess Goes.
Lawrence Rothman. Lawrence Rothman says Bowie encouraged them to make their lyrics more direct by asking what their song really meant, an encounter that influenced Rothman’s subsequent songwriting and inspired their continuing exploration of meaning in music, including the new song “The Meaning.”
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THIS WEEK IN THIS BLOG
September 27: Last week’s news
September 28: David Bowie Cover of the Week: Are You Awake? Covers “Modern Love”
September 29: Drive-in Saturday Tuesday Movie Review: Practical Magic 2 (2026)
September 30: 1. Outside at 31
October 1: Liz Phair Fries the Egg
October 2: Barry Walters preview
October 3: Barry Walters gets Mighty Real about LBGTQ Music History
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LISTS
3 Rock Songs From 1983 You Heard While Shopping at the Mall. Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” blended dance-rock with multiple musical styles, featured contributions from Stevie Ray Vaughan and Nile Rodgers, and reached No. 1 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and much of Europe.
1977: the 25 greatest albums from the year. Bowie’s 1977 albums “Heroes” and Low rank seventh and first, respectively, among the year’s 25 greatest albums, with “Heroes” praised for expanding art rock through ambient electronics and Low credited with pioneering a musical language that helped shape post-punk and 1980s new wave.
5 Times Rock Artists Released Sequels. Bowie’s 1980 “Ashes to Ashes” directly revisited Major Tom from “Space Oddity,” recasting the lost astronaut as a drug addict while reflecting Bowie’s own personal struggles.
The “final” albums by the greatest artists. Bowie’s 25th and final album, Blackstar, was released on his 69th birthday just two days before his death, with its lyrics subsequently taking on added significance in light of his 18-month battle with cancer.
Roger Taylor’s 10 Tracks of My Years. Roger Taylor chose Bowie’s “Space Oddity” as one of ten songs that shaped his musical tastes, praising its originality and recalling recording “Under Pressure” with Bowie in New York, where Bowie changed the song’s working title from “People on the Streets.”
5 Everyday Places That Became Classic Rock Album Cover Landmarks. The cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was photographed outside K. West at 23 Heddon Street in London in January 1972, transforming an ordinary location into a Bowie landmark now commemorated with a plaque.
3 Rock Songs From the 1970s That Still Sound Fresh. Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” remains fresh more than 50 years later because of its futuristic and unusual glam-rock sound.
5 R&B Songs That Became Iconic Classic Rock Hits. Martha and the Vandellas’ 1964 Motown hit “Dancing in the Street,” which encouraged celebration amid a period of urban unrest, became a rock standard covered by numerous major acts, including Bowie and Mick Jagger, whose 1985 Live Aid benefit version reached No. 1 in the U.K. and the Billboard Top 10.
The 25 best Classic Rock albums of 1979. It turns out that 1979 was not all disco. Bowie’s record on this list is Lodger.
Long Flight Songs To Make Time Disappear. Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Heroes” are included among 40 songs recommended for long flights, with “Space Oddity” paired with the experience of flying high above Earth and “Heroes” suggested for the descent as the destination comes into view.
5 lost music venues in Norwich that people will never forget. Bowie, Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were among the major acts associated with Norwich’s Orford Cellar, a small venue that opened as a jazz and skiffle club in 1957, became part of the city’s 1960s beat scene and closed in 1974.
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CHURNALISM
This section separates genuine Bowie news and original writing from recycled “churnalism” stories that offer little original reporting and often use vague click-bait headlines to repackage familiar information, but may still be of interest if readers have not seen it before.
Who plays the keyboard on ‘Ashes to Ashes’? Bowie’s 1980 hit “Ashes to Ashes” combined synthesizers played by Andy Clark with Chuck Hammer’s guitar synthesizer and Roy Bittan’s grand piano processed through a flanger by Tony Visconti to create its distinctive keyboard-like sounds.
‘Heroes’: the moment David Bowie went from quirky rock star to immortal genius. Bowie’s time in Berlin culminated in “Heroes,” an expression of freedom and renewed vitality that followed the more transitional Low and marked his emergence from the personas, pressures and excesses that had defined his earlier fame.
Mr Brightside: Inside The Killers’ biggest song. Brandon Flowers has said that the song’s vocal line was inspired by Bowie’s “Queen Bitch,” explaining that he was obsessed with Hunky Dory at 19 and wanted to capture the urgency he heard in Bowie’s performance.
What was David Bowie trying to say in 1971 with ‘The Bewlay Brothers’? Bowie’s “The Bewlay Brothers” drew on his complicated relationship with his half-brother Terry Burns, but Bowie described the song as a layered “palimpsest” whose ambiguous lyrics reflected both his feelings about Burns and uncertainty over whether Burns represented another part of himself.
Queen and David Bowie’s Copyright Dispute with Vanilla Ice Over ‘Ice-Ice-Baby’ Settled Before Reaching the Courtroom. Queen and Bowie threatened copyright litigation after Vanilla Ice sampled the “Under Pressure” bassline for “Ice Ice Baby” without authorization, but the dispute was settled privately without a lawsuit or court judgment, resulting in songwriting credits for Queen and Bowie and undisclosed financial terms.
The singer David Bowie said put all pop music “to shame.” Bowie saw Trent Reznor as an uncompromising musical innovator in the tradition of artists such as John Lennon and Iggy Pop, while Reznor has carried forward Bowie’s restless approach by continually exploring new forms of music rather than remaining in a single creative lane.
The 1977 album Robert Smith crowned the “greatest record ever made.” Robert Smith credits Bowie with inspiring his embrace of outsiders and artistic independence, identifies Low as the album that transformed his perception of sound, and later performed “Quicksand” and “The Last Thing You Should Do” with Bowie at his 50th-birthday concert in 1997.
1976 Album Ranked as One of the ‘Greatest Albums of All Time.’ A reflection on Bowie’s Station to Station places the 1976 album among that year’s major rock releases, highlighting “Golden Years” and its No. 52 ranking on Rolling Stone’s 2023 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The 1983 album that made David Bowie question his entire career. The commercial success of Let’s Dance led Bowie to feel trapped by audience expectations and to “pander” on subsequent albums, curbing the experimentation he later sought to reclaim with Black Tie White Noise, Outside and Earthling.
The two idols who inspired Robert Fripp to become a prog rock icon. While in most respects, this is typical Far Out recycled content, what makes it slightly atypical is that I don’t see too many articles about Fripp, who played guitar on both “Heroes” and Scary Monsters. So there’s probably a better chance than usual that this article contains information that you don’t already know.
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And with that, “we’ve finished our news…”**
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*“I’ve heard the news today” is Bowie’s adaptation of the Beatles lyric, which is heard in “Young Americans.”
** “We’ve finished our news” is a line from “Oh You Pretty Things.”