English heritage have erected a blue (actually black!) plaque paying homage to David Bowie on the London street where he posed for the album cover of his seminal 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

The blue plaque scheme was first instigated in the 1860s to commemorate a link between locations and a famous person or event, with most of the 850 odd London plaques marking residences where iconic characters (such as Karx Marx and George Orwell) lived.

Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey hailed Bowie’s new plaque as ‘a reminder of how powerful an electric current pop could generate in less enlightened times’ and paid tribute to his incredibly bold androgynous invention.

“To gay fans Bowie’s early 70s identity was a lifeline, while to those who didn’t identify as such it was a demonstration that sexuality isn’t a simple binary but a sliding scale,” said Lynskey, “Pop music was the perfect forum in which to explore and debate it.” http://bit.ly/HeRMrz

Bowie’s importance in reducing homophobia was previously recognized by the Sunday Times who hailed him as ‘a sexual trailblazer his importance can’t be exaggerated’.

“A good five years before the New Romantics, Bowie had spear-headed a fresh approach to the male psyche, “ the Times pointed out on 2005.

“After Ziggy (Stardust), young men, mainly teenagers- realised that a flamboyant appearance didn’t necessarily mean effeminacy. Perhaps more significantly, their girlfriends didn’t either,” the paper said.

More recently the Daily Mail speculated that his massive popularity over four decades was driven by him ‘inventing provocative sexual ambiguity long before the rest of the world caught up’ and noted that Bowie practiced what he preached with enthusiastic indiscretion.

“Friends from the rock star’s youth tell a disturbing story of how he pulled his van over one night to pick up an unwashed female vagrant from the roadside,” the Mail recalled, “And would gladly have had his way with her if the other members of his first band, the Mannish Boys, had not made her get out.” (Daily Mail: http://bit.ly/hGCvOW )

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Gary Numan today (photo by Ed Fielding)

Electro-pop pioneer Gary Numan is inviting film makers to produce visuals to accompany five tracks he’ll be playing on his upcoming UK tour, with contestants asked to upload their films via the internet.

“We’re looking for ideas, however abstract, that illustrate the tracks via the on-stage projection screen as part of the show – please no images of Gary Numan – these are for the staging of the shows, not promo videos,” Gary’s management said in a statement this week.

“Gary will choose the best films to be screened at all the shows on the tour. If you wish to participate in this then please send links to your films to the management contact address on www.numan.co.uk.”

“Please don’t send us any files, as we won’t have time to look at them,” they stressed, “We just want to see your ideas on a You Tube or Vimeo link.”

The innovative idea reflected the Cars/ Are Friends Electric? star’s long history of experimentation with marketing, which led to him being arrested for espionage in India at the peak of his pop fame in 1981.

“We were flying from India to Thailand and we had engine problems going over the Indian Ocean and we had to turn back and land at this little military / civilian airbase in the middle of nowhere,” Gary told Skrufff in an interview in 2005.

“So it was all very frightening and scary then we landed and were relieved to be there on the ground and that’s when all the shit started; all these soldiers surrounded us asking ‘Why are you here?’

“They said to us ‘What are you doing?’ and I told them ‘we’re having an adventure’,” Gary recalled.

“I also explained ‘I’m a singer and I get media exposure by doing it, when I land at different places, people will talk to me about it and it’s a different way of selling albums. People talk to me about the trip and I’ll mention the fact that I’ve also got an album coming out and it will be an interesting way of promoting an album rather than just going out and doing gigs’,” he said.

Admitting he was initially ‘slightly belligerent’ his confidence turned to fear as he realized he was trapped.

“Every night at two in the morning, pretty much like clockwork, they’d come flying into the room, pounding down the door with their guns out screaming ‘what are you doing here? Why are you here?’ They didn’t believe a word we were saying,” he shuddered.

“It started out being a pain in the arse but very, very quickly became really quite frightening. I wasn’t cocky at all then; as soon as I realized that I was only a little bloke, completely out of my depth,” he continued.

Snubbed by the British Consulate (‘I spoke to woman whose name is Mrs McGregor, I’ll never forget it. I explained to her what was happening and she said ‘We are too far away, there’s nothing I can do about it’. Then hung up!’) he was eventually rescued by the Daily Star.

“They let us go into the town once a day, under armed guard, with a Land Rover in front and behind, and us two in the middle, all the soldiers kitted out with guns, to use the telex machine,” he explained.

“There was literally just one telex machine in the town. I can’t remember the exact details but one day they allowed me to make another call and the international operator happened to eavesdrop on my conversation.

As I was talking on the phone to whoever it was I’d called, this girl suddenly interrupted and said ‘Don’t put the phone down, this is the exchange, is there anyone else you want to talk to while you are making your one phone call?’

So she put me through to my dad, and I told him what was going on. This girl was absolutely brilliant, a fantastic girl, she really helped us out a lot. My dad then rang up the newspapers and The Daily Star was the one that got the most behind me.

They started a campaign saying ‘We are going to rescue Gary Numan from India’ and they flew out there.

“When that all started the Foreign Office got involved and all of a sudden the Indians couldn’t do enough for me and they let us go. Before that, they’d confiscated our passports and I was really frightened. They were very aggressive to start with, then by the end of it they were the nicest people you’d hope to meet,” said Gary.

http://numan.co.uk

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

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Posh people’s etiquette organisation Debretts have recently issued fresh guidelines for mobile phones and ring tones so Skrufff asked a bunch of producers about their personal preferences including London rock/ dance uber producer Jagz Kooner (of Sabres of Paradise, the Aloof, Primal Scream, repute…)

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): What’s your main ring tone?

Jagz Kooner: “My ringtone is the theremin from Forbidden Planet.  The scary/eerie sound is perfect for someone like me who rarely answers his phone.

Skrufff: When was the first time you bought a custom one? What’s been the best and worst one you’ve had?

Jagz Kooner: “I’ve never bought a ringtone, it’s pretty easy to make one yourself. The best ringtone I’ve had was the classic vintage dial telephone sound. The worst was the Benny Hill theme. I thought it was a genius idea but unfortunately it wore a bit thin after about a day.”

Skrufff: Have you ever been embarrassed by a ring tone?

Jagz Kooner: “I’ve never been embarrassed by a ring tone, no, (I’m not spending any hours worrying about that!) However, the Crazy Frog ringtone did send me (and pretty much the rest of the world) up the wall. Also I remember Sony made a ringtone of Primal Scream’s ‘Miss Lucifer (before the days of mobiles having audio samples) made of bleeps. That was pretty amusing (for all the wrong reasons).”

Skrufff: How important are ring tones for business these days?

Jagz Kooner: “I think ‘the industry’ realises that records sales alone are going to mean very little in the future. I know a lot of people are using ringtones as a part substitute for falling sales.”

Skrufff: Debretts say ‘Don’t make calls to people from inappropriate venues; a call from a bathroom is deeply off-putting’: have you ever done that? or had it done to you?

Jagz Kooner: “A few rock star pals of mine enjoying calling me whilst they are sitting on the toilet. Not sure why, a tad off putting for me.”

Skrufff: Do you have any links where people can buy your ring tones?

Jagz Kooner: “No”

Skrufff: What’s your next key release?

Jagz Kooner: “’I have no releases out at the moment instead I’m just mixing an album for a band called the Souls. It’s a really amazing album merging electronics/ psychedelics with great songs. That will be out next year.”

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff