News July 2001

July 5: As we missed handing out a prize in June, we decided to combine June and July in handing out two CDs this month to lucky registered users. The first winner was Claire aka discodiva from Cheshire, England. She chose Earthling as her prize. The second lucky winner was Stephanie from Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. She selected Dido's No Angel as her bonus from CDNow. Congratulations to both!

Remember that you can be entered in the drawing each month simply by having a visible profile in the fan registry.

July 5: Multiple media sources report that Bowie has recently been offered the role of Frank Sinatra in a film version of the famous crooner's life. Bowie has at various times in the past admitted to being influenced by Sinatra (for example, see this 1972 interview) and also been offered similar roles before, although the rumour goes that Sinatra himself was, euphemistically speaking, "unhappy" with that possibility when it was first mooted.

The UK Guardian has a little snippet in this July 2 column where they quote Bowie as saying:

"I'm flattered and very interested because I always admired his style and panache."

Links:

The Guardian News In Brief

Information from Trina, Vita

July 2: If you were paying attention during the news hiatus, you would have noted the release on June 12 of Substitute - Songs Of The Who. First mentioned by Bowie last year, this tribute CD features a cover of The Who's Pictures of Lily. Rather than being a straight-ahead cover, Bowie recorded it at half speed and decided to make use of that old standby, the stylophone. Other artists on the album include Pearl Jam, Phish, Sheryl Crow and Paul Weller.

Links:

Substitute: Songs Of The Who

October 2000 news

Original April 2001 press release

July 2: After a small delay, the 2001 edition of All Saints will be released July 23 in the UK and Canada. (Ed: so far we haven't seen anything about an official US release). All tracks on the compilation of Bowie's instrumental pieces will be remastered from their original versions, while Some Are will be Philip Glass' orchestral reworking for the Low Symphony. You can see the cover art and the full track listing on the All Saints album page along with the EMI press release.

Links:

All Saints

Buy it at Amazon.co.uk

HMV Canada (available for preorder)

Information from Claude, Liz R., Eric S, Rick and many others

July 1: Where, oh where, has the webmaster been?

I've received more than a few concerned emails about the lack of updates to Teenage Wildlife over the past two to three months. It's safe to say that while I haven't been abducted by aliens, I have been lying low due to a combination of factors (ranked in order below)

1. As only a few people (until now) have known, I have a chronic illness called Mal de Debarquement that has afflicted me now for over 6 years. This is the same illness I faced in 1996, and old-timers will remember that I took an entire summer off then to try and recover. Unfortunately, I am experiencing a similar episode now, and consequently my energy reserves and motivation are at close to all-time lows. I hope readers understand that during these times, I will do my best to keep you abreast of any vitally important Bowie developments such as new album releases and any possible concert dates... which brings me to the second point.
2. I think myself, and a fair number of other Bowie fans, have been wallowing in the trough of the normal cycle of rockstar disinterest/enthusiasm. Plainly speaking, Bowie's public activities haven't exactly been setting the world on fire over the past year (understandable given the birth of Alexandria). A lot of us were expecting Toy to be released, followed up with the Visconti produced album. News on that front seems to indicate that Toy keeps getting delayed and instead we get the underwhelming news that EMI will release a repackaged collection of instrumentals All Saints later this month. I even received one caustic email earlier this month asking "Has Bowie retired? Or has he been cowed into obeisance by Iggy?"
3. Finally, I am now working 10-12 hour days at a full-time job, which combined with my illness, leaves me little time or energy for any "after-hours" activity.

I appreciate all the messages from people concerned about what had happened to me. Thank you for caring. To all the people who have sent me email over the past 3 months and never received a reply, I offer my apologies and will do my best to try and get to your news, comments etc as I wade through the 4,000 messages I've received in that same time-frame. To all the people who have kept the news rolling on Conversation Piece, my heartfelt thanks for your maintaining interesting threads in my absence.

Most of all, be assured that Teenage Wildlife will keep rolling along - still with the goal of being the best fan site on the web.

POLLY PARROT! WAKE UP!