Hi there - BOWIE BOXSET NEWS.

The 12th October will see the release of the latest in the series of career spanning David Bowie box sets. So far the first three have covered from 1969 through to 1982.
 
The next is called 'LOVING THE ALIEN' and reflects 1983 - 1988.
 
The eleven CD, fifteen-piece vinyl set which includes newly remastered versions of Bowie's most successful period - starting off with 'LET'S DANCE' which propelled him into a commercially mainstream stadium-filling stratosphere, then it's follow up  'TONIGHT', 'NEVER LET ME DOWN, the live album 'GLASS SPIDER (Live Montreal '87)' and the previously unreleased 'SERIOUS MOONLIGHT' live album.
 
Now the accepted wisdom is that while 'LET'S DANCE' was all killer, and 'TONIGHT' has its moments (Loving The Alien) but 'NEVER LET ME DOWN' wasn't Bowie's finest moment, and admittedly the 80's production hasn't aged that well.
 
So this set includes a complete re-versioning of the album.
 
Early this year engineer Mario McNulty - who had remixed the album's track Time Will Crawl back in 2008 with Bowie - he got in the studio with drummer Sterling Campbell, bassist Tim Lefebvre (who played on Blackstar) and guitarists Reeves Gabrels and David Torn to record a new version of the album with Bowie's original vocals.
 
Reeves Gabrels was David's guitarist from 1988 through to 1999. He was also in Bowie's heavy alt rock group Tin Machine and plays in The Cure. I spoke to him for BBC 6 Music about the project...

​Austin band White Denim are gearing up to the release of their new album Performance on August 24th.
 
They recently shared Magazin and have just followed that up with It Might Get Dark.
 
The band have two shows at London’s Moth Club on August 29th and a slot at End of the Road Festival before some more dates in Europe and a full Roundhouse show in London on October 11th. They are a fantastic band live and that will be their biggest UK headline show to date.
 
Performance comes two years on from Stiff and marks seven albums since the group’s inception.
 
I got on the phone with singer, songwriter and guitarist James Petralli for BBC 6 Music to discuss the new record for which they welcomed two new members, a drummer and a keyboardist and made in the studio they’ve built on home turf….

Whitney a new film by Oscar and BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Kevin McDonald about the megastar Whitney Houston was just released in UK cinemas.
 
It's the definitive account of her life and career and the only film supported by the late singer's estate featuring unreleased recordings, rare footage and live performances recorded at various stages of her life, home movie footage and new interviews with her family and those that worked with her and for her.
 
Kevin MacDonald's credits include Marley, Touching The Void and The Last King of Scotland and this project was aided by Searching For Sugarman producer Simon Chinn and multi-Emmy Award nominated producer Lisa Erspamer alongside the estate and Whitney's sister-in-law Patricia Houston.
 
Erspamer produced Whitney's last major interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2009. At the time Whitney hadn't done a big interview since the Diane Sawyer interview in 2002 and she was seeing a bit of a comeback. A few years after her death in 2012 Erspamer got the ball rolling on the film.
 
Whitney offers a very real account of the meteoric highs and lows of her career of one of the biggest female artists of our time, her version of I Will Always Love You from The Bodyguard soundtrack is the biggest selling single of all time by a female artist.
 
The film sheds light on her struggles with drug addiction or her volatile marriage to Bobby Brown and it alleges that Whitney and her brother were sexually abused as children by their cousin Dee Dee Warwick, the sister of Dionne Warwick.
 
​I spoke to Lisa Erspamer and Patricia Houston for BBC 6 Music about making the film...

Such a pleasure to be back on the panel of this year's Fender Undiscovered Artist of the Year competition alongside Max from You Me At Six, Roisin from The Independent and Neil from Fender. Here's the 12 contestants battling it out to be in the live final next Tuesday.