I heard the news today…* RIP Alan Yentob and Simon House… sad milestones lead Bowie-related news this week
Welcome to my weekly roundup of Bowie news! Click on the bolded article titles to read the originals. Sadly, the passing of Alan Yentob and Simon House, both of whose careers intersected with Bowie’s, cast a pall over the week in the news. That said, there are several other stories of interest from the past seven days, so read on…
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NEWS
RIP Alan Yentob. Alan Yentob’s nearly 60-year BBC career saw him revolutionize British arts broadcasting and rise to senior executive roles while also directing landmark documentaries like Cracked Actor, which captured a raw, unguarded Bowie during his Diamond Dogs tour and remains one of Yentob’s most celebrated achievements. Yentob and his work were meaningful to many members of the larger Bowie community, many of whom have been sharing their personal stories on social media. I’m sorry I never had a chance to meet or interview the man. Fortunately, Cracked Actor is far more accessible these days than it had been for many years after its debut.
RIP Simon House. Simon House, the classically trained violinist and keyboardist who brought new depth to Hawkwind’s sound and later joined Bowie’s 1978 tour and contributed to Lodger, has died at 76, leaving behind a legacy of experimental, genre-defying musicianship that spanned prog rock, space rock, and beyond.
Book Review: Low: Bowie’s Berlin Years. Reinhard Kleist’s graphic novel Low: Bowie’s Berlin Years vividly explores Bowie’s creative rebirth in 1970s Berlin, highlighting his collaborations with Iggy Pop and Brian Eno, his break from the Ziggy Stardust persona, and the cultural contrasts between Los Angeles and Berlin that shaped the albums Low and “Heroes.”
Benicio del Toro treasures his signed copy of David Bowie film The Man Who Fell To Earth. It turns out that the actor is a big fan of Bowie’s. They worked together on the 1996 film, Basquiat, and Bowie signed a disc of his 1976 movie. If I ever meet Benicio del Toro and ask for an autograph, I will remind him of this!
Greater Manchester’spop culture legacy. A new music map and audio series from Northern Rail highlights Greater Manchester’s rich pop culture legacy, including Bowie’s unexpected overnight stay at Stockport Railway Station in 1970, alongside video shoots by artists like Timbaland, Little Mix, and Liam Gallagher.
All Leather Covers “Fame.” All Leather, the synth-grindcore band featuring members of The Locust, is releasing a revamped anthology that includes their 2010 cover of Bowie’s “Fame,” originally featured on the tribute album We Were So Turned On.
Gail Ann Dorsey joins Joan Osborne. Joan Osborne’s DYLANOLOGY LIVE tour, featuring a backing band that includes Bowie bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, brings her reinterpretations of Bob Dylan’s songs to Rahway’s UCPAC on June 6.
Julien’s Auctions’ Music Icons event. Julien’s Auctions’ Music Icons event took place on May 30 and 31 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, New York City, featuring over 700 items from major artists including Bowie, whose personal artifacts were auctioned alongside memorabilia from Nirvana, U2, and The Beatles, with part of the proceeds benefiting global charity initiatives.
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REFLECTIONS
Did MTV Really Conspire To Keep Black Artists Off Their Airwaves? Bowie’s pointed 1983 MTV interview spotlighted the network’s initial reluctance to feature Black artists, a moment that helped catalyze broader scrutiny and eventual change, though the deeper reality involved complex industry economics, format biases, and evolving market incentives.
Station to Station — The Pivotal Album That Bridged Two Eras. Station to Station marked a turning point for Bowie, blending funk, soul, and European electronic influences into a visionary and chaotic masterpiece that introduced the Thin White Duke and paved the way for his Berlin trilogy, with songs like “Golden Years,” “TVC 15,” “Stay,” “Word on a Wing,” and “Wild Is the Wind” showcasing his transformation during a period of personal disintegration and creative reinvention.
Stones fans praise Bowie’s cover of “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” Bowie’s glam-infused cover of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” from Aladdin Sane continues to divide Rolling Stones fans, with many praising its bold reinvention, camp energy, and Mick Ronson’s guitar work, while others find it over-the-top or lacking the tension of the original.
1973 “Space Oddity” Performance by David Bowie & Mick Ronson. This is commentary on a performance that appeared on The Midnight Special, with a link to a video of the performance.
Bowie Made His Own Rules. Bowie is remembered as a transformative figure in rock whose artistic versatility, boundary-pushing music, and evolving personas redefined what it means to be a rock icon, even as he once joked about his commercial standing by comparing himself to Dylan, whom he admired despite suspecting the feeling wasn’t mutual.
The Glass Spider Tour Revisited. Bowie launched his extravagant and theatrical Glass Spider Tour on May 30, 1987, pushing creative boundaries with elaborate staging and visuals despite its critical reception and the physical toll it took on him, later recognizing it as a bold return to his earlier dramatic concert style.
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PROFLIES
Nile Rodgers. Nile Rodgers’ groundbreaking work with Chic and beyond not only defined the sound of disco but also reshaped pop and dance music through influential collaborations with artists like Madonna, Diana Ross, and Bowie, most notably producing Bowie’s commercially pivotal album Let’s Dance.
Holly Johnson. This article is about an exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool celebrating the life of Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It mentions that Bowie was an influence. It doesn’t mention that Bowie poked in of the band in his mini-movie Jazzin’ for Blue Jean in 1984.
Kim Wilde. The singer is touring now but reflects upon how doing so in the 80s, supporting Bowie, was, well, wild…
Ray Andersen. Ray Andersen’s Bowie & Beyond tribute show blends theatrical performances of Bowie classics with glam-era tracks by artists like Lou Reed and T. Rex, offering a celebratory, multi-vocal reinterpretation of Bowie’s music from the Ziggy era through the 1980s.
Iggy Pop. At 78, Iggy Pop delivered a ferocious, life-affirming performance at Alexandra Palace in London, invoking his Stooges-era chaos and Bowie-era classics like “Lust For Life” while playfully confronting mortality with the same wild spirit that once inspired Bowie’s Berlin years.
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LISTS
3 Times David Bowie Got Weird in Interviews. Bowie’s interviews often reflected his unfiltered personality and cultural foresight, from founding a mock society to defend long hair, to a visibly troubled appearance during addiction on The Dick Cavett Show, to boldly confronting MTV about its lack of Black artist representation in 1983.
Alan Yentob’s 10 best films. Alan Yentob’s groundbreaking 1975 documentary Cracked Actor remains his most arresting work, capturing a frail yet magnetic Bowie on the Diamond Dogs tour as he drifted through America, wrestling with fame, identity, and artistic reinvention.
16 Great 3-Album Runs That Redefined Music. Bowie’s Berlin trilogy—Low, “Heroes”, and Lodger—is celebrated as one of music’s most transformative three-album runs, blending art rock, ambient experimentation, and lyrical abstraction into a body of work that redefined his sound and left a lasting cultural impact.
Top 30 Album-Closing Songs. Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” earns a place among the top album-closing songs for its climactic end to the Ziggy Stardust narrative, capping a concept album that marked his rise to superstardom and defined an era of theatrical rock.
14 Songs Meant for Other Artists. Bowie reportedly wrote “Golden Years” with Elvis Presley in mind, but after Presley passed or declined, Bowie recorded it himself, turning the track into one of his enduring classics. Note: this story has been disputed.
20 Rock Songs That Tell a Tale. A roundup of classic rock songs that tell vivid, narrative-driven stories includes “Space Oddity” by Bowie, which follows an astronaut’s existential drift into space after losing contact with Ground Control.
25 Iconic Albums from 1977. Radio X highlights Bowie’s Low and “Heroes” among 25 essential albums of 1977, noting their groundbreaking sound, ambient experimentation with Brian Eno, and significance within the Berlin Trilogy.
20 of Yorkshire’s best-loved nightclubs of the 70s and 80s. A new photo gallery from the Yorkshire Evening Post revisits 20 iconic Yorkshire nightclubs of the 1970s and 1980s—including Leeds venues that once hosted stars like David Bowie, U2, and Kylie—highlighting legendary spots like Cinderellas Rockerfellas, The Penthouse, and the Rooftop Gardens.
40 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia. Queen’s collaboration with Bowie on “Under Pressure” was entirely unplanned, resulting from a spontaneous 24-hour recording session in which the two icons recorded their vocals separately without hearing each other’s parts.
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FAR OUT MAGAZINE
The online magazine always manages to post Bowie stories. These stories are usually built around a nugget of known information, given a title that hints at a detail or connection, encouraging readers to click and read further as the story gradually provides the full context. This week featured:
(1) The joke David Bowie stole from John Lennon
(2) David Bowie and a very lamented masterpiece
(3)_The moment David Bowie made Robert Smith’s dream come true
(4) The strange psychic feud between David Bowie and Jimmy Page
(5) ‘Blackstar’: David Bowie’s final statement decoded
(6) David Bowie’s worst movie role, according to Roger Ebert
(7) How did the throes of addiction change David Bowie’s writing?
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THIS WEEK IN THIS BLOG
May 25: Last week’s news
May 27: Is Bowie Part of the Problem?
May 29: Golden Years: Gold, Goldfinger, Trump, Gold and Gold
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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”