I heard the news today*… Iman shares photos of Lexi at 26; unseen Bowie images headed to Venice; “Under Pressure” charts again; Visconti and Woodmansey remember Bowie; plus ZiggyFest, John Cameron Mitchell, Inside Outside interview 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
Iman Posts Photos Of Daughter Lexi, 26! Iman celebrated the 26th birthday of her and Bowie’s daughter Alexandria “Lexi” Zahra Jones with childhood and recent photos, highlighting a young visual artist and illustrator who has largely remained outside the celebrity spotlight while occasionally honoring Bowie’s memory and legacy.
Unseen images of David Bowie to feature in new immersive documentary film. More than 800 previously unseen photographs of Bowie spanning the 1970s and 1980s will be featured in Bowie: Unseen | Unheard, an immersive documentary narrated by his official photographer Denis O’Regan and featuring Bowie’s music and original compositions by Mike Garson, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September.
“Under Pressure” Charts Again. Queen and Bowie’s 1981 collaboration “Under Pressure” has re-entered Billboard’s Hard Rock Streaming Songs chart at No. 24 more than four decades after its original release.
Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey recall their days with David Bowie. Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey recalled helping transform Bowie’s early folk-influenced material into rock during The Man Who Sold the World sessions, reflected on their long relationships with him and his creative process, and discussed Holy Holy’s farewell tour, which comes to Dublin on September 27 and 28.
ZiggyFest Returns to Bowie’s Heddon Street. ZiggyFest returns to Ziggy Green on London’s Heddon Street on September 5 for a full-day David Bowie celebration at the location of the iconic Ziggy Stardust album-cover photo. The event will feature a Bowie brunch and DJ, a Bowie in Soho walking tour with Geoff Marsh and Vicky Broackes, a Bowie lookalike competition, performances and stories, and an evening with longtime Bowie guitarist Kevin Armstrong and his band, with ticket proceeds benefiting Bowie’s House and the Sarabande Foundation.
Rare David Bowie vinyls hit St Luke’s eBay. A Bowie collector has donated more than 200 items from his collection to St Luke’s Hospice in Sheffield, which is auctioning rare releases including a Japanese red-vinyl “Blackstar” single, a limited blue-vinyl Hours LP and a white-vinyl “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” single through August 30 to raise funds for the charity.
Ronnie Wood crashes Hollywood Vampires set as Johnny Depp returns to UK. The Hollywood Vampires launched their first UK and European tour since 2023 at London’s O2 Arena, where Johnny Depp sang Bowie’s “Heroes” as part of a 90-minute set that also honored Bowie and other late musicians and featured a guest appearance by Ronnie Wood. See also the “cover of the week” link below.
Bowie tribute show returning to Midland. Canadian performer Michael Bell will bring his multimedia tribute show The Bowie Lives: A Bowie Spectacular to the Midland Cultural Centre in Midland, Ontario, Canada, on November 8, recreating Bowie’s music, costumes and theatrical stage presence in a production that grew from Bell’s decades-long connection to Bowie and was revived after Bowie’s death in 2016.
Bob Gruen Returns to Toronto’s Liss Gallery. Rock photographer Bob Gruen, whose six-decade career includes iconic images of John Lennon as well as photographs of Bowie and numerous other major rock, punk and new wave artists, will return to Toronto’s Liss Gallery on September 26, 2026, for his seventh appearance there since 2008.
Inside the revival of Hollywood’s Grandmaster Recorders. Grandmaster Recorders, the historic Hollywood studio where Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty and other major artists recorded, has been transformed into a multipurpose event venue while preserving the building’s musical history and distinctive architectural character.
John Cameron Mitchell will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Hedwig in Australia and perform Bowie songs. During his September visit to Australia, John Cameron Mitchell will present a 4K screening of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, lead a punk workshop and perform I’m Afraid of Americans: A Bowie Song Cycle in Sydney and Melbourne, featuring songs including “Sweet Thing,” “Station to Station,” “Big Brother,” “Heroes,” “Sorrow” and “Conversation Piece” while recalling Bowie’s early support for Hedwig and financial help with its Los Angeles production.
Bowie, Sinatra and Idoli Share a Wall in Belgrade. Brian Rasic’s retrospective at Silo 1 in Belgrade, running through August 30, brings his life-size photographs of Bowie, Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones and other international music icons together with Serbian acts such as Idoli and Elektricni Orgazam to celebrate nearly five decades of rock history while placing Belgrade’s music scene alongside the global canon.
Aubrey Plaza Wears David Bowie T-Shirt on Solo Walk Around NYC. Plaza wore a gray Bowie T-shirt while taking a walk in New York City on August 21, shortly after reportedly welcoming her first child with Christopher Abbott.
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FEATURES AND REFLECTIONS
Tony Oursler’s Exhibition at Tokyo Node. Tony Oursler’s Tokyo exhibition includes Empty, his 2000 collaboration with Bowie and composer Glenn Branca in which a Technicolor projection of Bowie performs Oursler’s text over Branca’s score while camera-obscura effects transform Bowie’s face into a psychedelic inverted apparition, exemplifying the exhibition’s intersections of art, technology, music, consciousness and belief.
Nile Rodgers’ tearful tribute. Nile Rodgers and Chic’s Salt and Tar performance showcased Rodgers’ extensive musical legacy through hits and songs associated with artists he has worked with, including Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl,” before Rodgers delivered an emotional tribute to his late Chic partner Bernard Edwards.
Was 1969 the greatest year in music history? Bowie capitalized on the 1969 moon landing to launch his career with “Space Oddity,” while the Stooges’ commercially unsuccessful debut helped establish the emerging punk sound whose influence would become clear in subsequent years.
100 Years of The Capitol Theatre. Bowie performed at Port Chester’s (NY) historic Capitol Theatre in October 1997 as a replacement for The Rolling Stones on MTV’s Live From the 10 Spot after Mick Jagger became ill, with the Stones returning for their rescheduled performance 11 days later.
David Gilmour – Live at the Royal Albert Hall Retrospective Review. Bowie joined David Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall in 2006 to perform “Arnold Layne” during the acclaimed Remember That Night concerts, an appearance that became Bowie’s final on-stage performance.
Quote of the day by David Bowie. Bowie argued that creativity and personal growth require leaving one’s comfort zone, embracing uncertainty and resisting other people’s expectations, because artists do their most exciting work when they venture beyond what feels safe.
Music Reissues Weekly: The Riot Squad – I Take It That We’re Through – Anthology 1965-1967. The Riot Squad’s three-CD comprehensively documents the short-lived and frequently changing North London band, including four April 1967 recordings made during Bowie’s brief stint as their singer under the alias “Toy Soldier,” when he simultaneously maintained his solo career with Deram.
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PROFILES
Tim Wheeler. Ash’s Tim Wheeler drew on Bowie’s “Life on Mars?,” Star Wars and his love of science fiction when writing the teenage lust-and-heartbreak anthem “Girl from Mars,” which became the Northern Irish band’s breakthrough hit in 1995.
Peter Frampton. Peter Frampton received one of Jimi Hendrix’s three electric sitars as a gift from Electric Lady Studios and later brought it into his work with Bowie, who is believed to have played it on “Zeroes” from Never Let Me Down before Frampton used it onstage during a collaboration he credited with restoring his credibility.
Bowie’s guitarists on what it was like to play with the Thin White Duke. Bowie was a capable and inventive guitarist who understood his limitations as a virtuoso and focused his musicianship on combining chords in unusual ways while pursuing broader creative goals.
Paul Cook. The Sex Pistols acquired some of their earliest equipment when Steve Jones stole cymbals, an amplifier, microphones and other gear from the Hammersmith Odeon between Bowie’s two 1973 concerts there, helping Jones and Paul Cook obtain the instruments they needed to start their band.
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THIS WEEK IN THIS BLOG
August 16: Last week’s news
August 17: David Bowie Cover of the Week: Hollywood Vampires cover “Heroes”
August 18: Drive-in Saturday Tuesday Movie Review: The End of Oak Street (2026)
August 19: Gail Ann Dorsey Caps My Summer Music Weekend
August 20: DoM’s Latest Mashup Highlights the Dark Side of “Let’s Dance”
August 21: Inside Outside Preview
August 22: Alex Storer Goes Inside Outside
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LISTS
Five covers so painful that they make you hate the original. Yeah, this list includes “Dancing in the Street” (at #2) which author Dale Maplethorpe says is “one of the worst covers ever recorded.” I might actually do a separate blog post on this. I strongly suspect that Maplethorpe was not alive when this #1 hit was released in the 80s, and is basing his assessment on the silly video’s reputation rather than his own assessment based on listening to thousands of covers and determining that yep, Bowie and Jagger doing “Dancing in the Street” sounds worse than almost all of them.
Bowie Songs You Didn’t Know Were Inspired By George Orwell’s 1984. Bowie drew heavily on 1984, one of his favorite books, for an unrealized musical adaptation that Sonia Orwell refused to authorize, leading him to incorporate material including “Future Legend,” “We Are the Dead,” “1984” and “Big Brother” into Diamond Dogs.
7 rock icons who checked out of the fame machine. Bowie moved from Los Angeles to West Berlin in the late 1970s amid severe cocaine addiction and an interest in the occult, finding relative anonymity and a more ordinary life with Iggy Pop while abandoning the Thin White Duke period for the experimental electronic music of the Berlin Trilogy: Low, “Heroes” and Lodger.
5 Best Duets In Classic Rock History. Bowie and Queen created “Under Pressure” from an impromptu 1981 studio collaboration in Montreux that developed from John Deacon’s distinctive bass line into a creative but contentious Bowie-Freddie Mercury vocal partnership and a major international hit that remains a career highlight for both acts.
The 10 Best ’80s Fantasy Movies, Ranked. Labyrinth stars Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin King, who forces teenager Sarah to navigate a dangerous magical labyrinth to rescue her baby brother, combining Jim Henson’s fantastical creatures with Bowie’s musical performances in a film that flopped at the box office but became a nostalgic favorite for children and adults.
The 5 Best David Bowie Collabs. Bowie’s collaborations with major artists including Queen, John Lennon and Tina Turner produced enduring hits, with five of his best collaborative songs reaching the Billboard Hot 100.
4 Songs From the 70s That Every Generation Can Get Behind. Bowie’s “Heroes,” inspired by Tony Visconti and his girlfriend embracing near the Berlin Wall, has endured alongside John Lennon’s “Imagine,” ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” as a 1970s song capable of resonating across generations.
Rock’s 11 greatest keyboard players. Mike Garson, whose avant-garde jazz improvisation gave Bowie’s Aladdin Sane its experimental edge, and Rick Wakeman, who played the celebrated piano part on Bowie’s “Life on Mars?,” are both singled out among rock’s outstanding keyboard players.
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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.
The 1977 song David Bowie found incredibly painful. Bowie described “Be My Wife” from Low as “genuinely anguished,” with its yearning and despondent lyrics reflecting the vulnerability and emotional turmoil that characterized his Berlin-era work despite the song’s comparatively upbeat music.
Bowie on how he almost got former Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney back together. Bowie recalled that in 1974 John Lennon and Paul McCartney unexpectedly visited him at New York’s Pierre Hotel and discussed forming a trio called DBB, an idea that went nowhere, although Bowie soon collaborated with Lennon on “Across the Universe” and “Fame” for Young Americans.
Which singer has the highest recorded vocal range? Bowie ranked eighth in a Concert Hotels study of mainstream singers with the greatest recorded vocal ranges, behind Axl Rose, Mariah Carey, Prince, Steven Tyler, James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Christina Aguilera.
1971 Hit Among ‘the Greatest Rock Lyrics of All Time’ Bowie’s “Life on Mars?,” recognized by Forbes among the greatest rock lyrics, grew partly from his frustration over losing the opportunity to adapt the French song that became Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and exemplifies his lifelong return to themes of interior and social isolation through continually changing musical styles and approaches.
The 1972 David Bowie Performance That Defined Glam Rock. Bowie’s 1972 Top of the Pops performance of “Starman” transformed his career through Ziggy Stardust’s striking appearance and direct connection with the television audience, inspiring future stars including Robert Smith, Gary Numan and Bono while helping propel Bowie to greater commercial success.
The time the cops crashed a David Bowie after-party. After the final Diamond Dogs tour show on December 1, 1974, plainclothes police raided a party where Bowie reportedly disposed of his drugs while bodyguard Tony Mascia took responsibility for the remaining stash, preventing Bowie from facing serious drug charges.
1964 Hit Song, Which Never Reached No. 1, Was Covered by Van Halen, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger. Bowie and Mick Jagger were among the many artists who covered Martha and the Vandellas’ 1964 hit “Dancing in the Street,” a Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter composition that reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became an enduring R&B standard.
1980 Song, With the Most Expensive Music Video Ever Made at the Time. This post about the “Ashes to Ashes” video recycles content taken from a previous post about a Madonna video that subsequently broke the record. Recycled material from recycled material from old information.
1977 Hit, Co-Written by David Bowie, Gets Named ‘the Best Song of the 1970s’. Collider named Bowie’s 1977 song “Heroes,” co-written with Brian Eno and inspired by producer Tony Visconti’s affair with Antonia Maass in divided Berlin, the best song of the 1970s in a July 2026 ranking.
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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”