Hasta La Ideas

An online scavenger hunt kicks off the reissue of David Bowie’s influential tenth album

Ground control to Bowie fans—the iconic singer today re-releases his legendary tenth studio album Station To Station with a web-based scavenger hunt to promote it. Simply gather all nine images of The Thin White Duke from around the web (starting with the one here) for access to a never-before-heard Bowie KCRW remix and a chance to win the Deluxe Edition box set, t-shirt, Bowie catalog on CD and an iPod Nano. The first 50 people to complete the hunt receive a limited-edition shirt.

The Deluxe Edition includes the original analog master as well as a highly sought after and previously unreleased recording of the live ’76 show at Nassau Coliseum. Also included are a DVD, an unreleased photo of David Bowie by famed photographer Steve Schapiro and extensive memorabilia.

Click on the image to the right to get started. To purchase the box set, visit Amazon where it sells for $133, or for around $27 you can get the “Special” three-disc edition, also from Amazon.

Wear music on your sleeve with a pin that doubles as a player

When an artist makes an album good enough, it feels wrong to just dump it into your music library among all the one-hit wonders and your secret Faith Hill collection. Playbutton pairs the concept of a great album with the classic button pin for the perfect wearable way to listen to music. The front of the button typically features artwork, keeping the album cover relevant while making it easier for bands to distribute and promote their music in a tangible way

Like an iPod Shuffle (and keeping true to the artist’s vision), the songs can’t be rearranged but the simple device does have controls to play, pause, skip, and adjust volume, all powered by a rechargeable lithium battery. making for a clever new way to distribute and promote music. Simply plug in your best set of headphones and Playbutton supplies the sound. Patent-pending. Playbutton will be available for production beginning of next month.

Painting, jazz and poetry in a trialogue between David Breskin, Nels Cline and Ed Ruscha

“Dirty Baby,” a music project joining guitarist and composer Nels Cline (of Wilco fame) and poet David Breskin, “recontextualizes” American artist Ed Ruscha’s “censor strips” (artworks that depict the black marks used to censor documents). The resulting album and art book represents an aural and visual conversation between the three men and a load of talented musicians.

Dirty Baby the album drops 12 October 2010, but people in L.A. will be treated to a spectacular release party on 7 October 2010 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as part of the Angel City Jazz Festival. Cline will perform, Breskin will recite poems Ruscha will project images, and after the concert all three will sign the beautifully-packaged “Dirty Baby” CD and
art book of the same name (published by Prestel).

The book, the size and shape of an LP, pairs gorgeous reproductions of Ruscha’s images with Breskin’s ghazals (a tightly-structured, ancient Arabic form) and includes the four-CD set, two of which are the slow, twangy Jazz improvisations by Cline. (You can order the book from
Amazon or Prestel.)

The L.A. show will be held at LACMA’s Bing Theater, and while admission to the event is free it’s highly recommended to RSVP to info [at] angelcityjazz [dot] com.

Images copyright Ed Ruscha 2010