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From the inbox: a little ukelele chick rock for your Friday morning, The Prettiots – Boys (I dated in Highschool)

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Victoria and Albert Museum in London, ran a David Bowie exhibition, David Bowie is, from March until this past August 11th. Now over, the exhibition goes on the road, with stops in Berlin, Paris, Groningen, Melbourne, Chicago and a local stop for myself, Toronto. The exhibition spans five decades, with over three hundred artifacts, some from as early as Bowies very young childhood.

On the last day at the Victoria and Albert Omniverse Vision was invited to shoot the exhibition, and a special presentation made to visitors on that day. The result is a documentary that captures the exhibition, David Bowie Is. It will be premiered on September 23rd to coincide with the opening of the Chicago Exhibition. David Bowie Is will play one day only at a select 100 theatres across the U.S. (click the link to see if it’s playing at a heater near you).

The documentary takes you through the exhibit in chronological order, from Bowies baby movies up to the 90’s. Throughout, speakers in a live presentation setting offer a glimpse into Bowie, and the exhibition. Clips of fans touring the exhibition give an idea of what Bowie means to fans (hint: more to fans in the U.K. than is generally so here in the colonies).

Highlights of the exhibition, and movie feature Bowies stage costumes (a number of which are at the exhibition), handwritten lyrics, teenage sketches and an short animated film of Diamond Dogs, based on Bowies on sketches and notes for just such a project that never happened.

But while the documentary focuses on Bowie the fashion icon, Bowie and his characters, Bowie the actor, the music throughout rends you that Bowie was a very creative musician who never repeated himself. It is the music, like Bowie himself, that makes David Bowie Is worth seeing.

A Day At The Movies Art Gallery of Ontario, David Bowie, David Bowie Is, Documentary, Movies, Victoria and Albert Museum

Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry is a well researched trundle through the record industry from it’s inception with the first voice recording in Paris in 1860 to the modern era. Author Gareth Murphy runs through the history of recorded music, noting similarities to todays problems from the past, with a working thesis that the modern record industry isn’t in as bad shape as it currently seems, and certainly not when looked at against the historical record.

Beginning in the late 19th century, Murphy chronicles the rise and fall of such notables as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as lesser knowns like Eldridge Reeves Johnson and Frank Seaman, the latter of whom in 1900, in a move that will resonate with modern buyers, threatened prosecution against customers who bought Gramophones.

“The record business of the twenties and thirties experienced a crash even more devastating than the recent one,” Murphy notes in the books introduction. A crash that saw the record industries “biggest boom in record sales, in and around 1921, was immediately followed by the biggest slump in the industry’s thirty-year history.” A slump caused, it should be noted, by the introduction of a new technology that made “talking machines” seem obsolete.

Cowboys and Indies is, in fact, a good romp through the ups and down, the people and the musicians throughout the history of the record industry.

Except…

Except in the 1970’s the narrative changes, and Cowboys and Indies suddenly becomes a story about the underground club scene in New York and an Independent (read: small) record store in London. The rock era is virtually dismissed for disco, punk, electronic music and eventually, hip-hop and dance music. Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are minimized and Ian Drury becomes a major player. It’s a strange turn, and I found myself wondering more than once, what happened to the book I was reading?

Despite this, Cowboys and Indies is a good read and is recommended for those who like the inner workings of the music industry.

Book Review, Books Cowboys and Indies, Gareth Murphy, The Epic History of the Record Industry