Speaker 1: Off the Record was a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: David Bowie was shaking as he paced backstage at the
Speaker 1: friars Aylesbury Club. His outfit was partly to blame. He
Speaker 1: arrived wearing nothing but a beige women's jacket over his
Speaker 1: otherwise naked torso stylish, yes, but the get up didn't
Speaker 1: provide a lot of warmth. David shyly asked the stage
Speaker 1: crew for a heater, but it was clear to everyone
Speaker 1: that he wasn't just cold. He was uncharacteristically quiet, a
Speaker 1: little shy, no doubt about it. David Bowie was nervous,
Speaker 1: and he had good reason. It was September one and
Speaker 1: he was about to play his first full band gig
Speaker 1: in months. The friars Aylesbury was one of the coolest
Speaker 1: venues outside of London, known for his discerning and enthusiastic crowd.
Speaker 1: Now it was half full with four hundred punters who
Speaker 1: shelled out fifty pence to see a guy who hadn't
Speaker 1: had a hit in two years. Even worse, David brought
Speaker 1: a new and untested group, Trevor Boulder on base, Woody
Speaker 1: Woodman's on drums, McK ronson on lead, guitar for now.
Speaker 1: They didn't have a name. No one knew it at
Speaker 1: the time, but the Spiders from Mars were making their
Speaker 1: concert debut. David took the stage first. His androgynous attire
Speaker 1: and long feminine hair drew gasps from the crowd. They
Speaker 1: place space audity early on in order to, as he says,
Speaker 1: get it over with as quickly as possible. It's a
Speaker 1: bold move to do, is one and only hit right
Speaker 1: off the bat, but the crowd stays with him. The
Speaker 1: atmosphere feels intimate, like a living room. The songs get
Speaker 1: more up tempo, and the momentum begins to build. Bowie
Speaker 1: can feel it. His body floods with relief, joy beaming
Speaker 1: from his face. He packs the rest of the set
Speaker 1: with songs from his recently completed album, Hunky Dorry, Oh
Speaker 1: You Pretty Things, Changes and Queen Bitch. The record isn't
Speaker 1: even out yet, but the crowd eats it up. Bowie's
Speaker 1: nerves are gone. It's working. They close with a breakneck
Speaker 1: cover of the Velvet Undergrounds Waiting for the Man, before
Speaker 1: Bowie strides off stage, arms raised than triumph like a
Speaker 1: victorious prize fighter. He's greeted backstage by a handful of fans,
Speaker 1: including sixteen year old Chris Needs, a future rock journalist
Speaker 1: and passionate member of the local Bowie fan club. Bowie
Speaker 1: gives him a warm hello and the two get the talking.
Speaker 1: His confidence returned, David makes a declaration that falls somewhere
Speaker 1: between ludicrous boast and statement of fact. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a huge rock star, he tells Needs. Next time you
Speaker 1: see me, I'll be totally different. Bowie makes good on
Speaker 1: his promise four months later when he returned to the
Speaker 1: Friars Aylesbury on January two. Tickets are now sixty pence
Speaker 1: to see Bowie, now amusingly, if not humbly, billed as
Speaker 1: the most beautiful person in the world. The audience has
Speaker 1: doubled since last time, with many kids making the hour
Speaker 1: trek from London. Among them are Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor,
Speaker 1: looking for inspiration for their new band Queen. They get
Speaker 1: more than they bargained for. The lights dimmed. A proto
Speaker 1: techno version of Ode to Joy from Stanley Kubrick's a
Speaker 1: clockwork orange blares from the p A system. The music
Speaker 1: fills the musty old space building to an ecstatic futuristic
Speaker 1: frenzy of sound and strobe lights. Out of the blinding glare,
Speaker 1: three figures appear. It's Bowie's banned, glammed up in their
Speaker 1: new metallic cat suits modeled after the Gang of Drugs
Speaker 1: from a clockwork orange. They've launched into their opener, Hang
Speaker 1: onto yourself, as Bowie himself struts on stage. But is
Speaker 1: it Bowie? Who is? This other worldly vision with spiky
Speaker 1: red hair and unnaturally powered complexion, but diamond patterned onesie
Speaker 1: and red wrestling boots had people at a loss. It
Speaker 1: was soon apparent that this wasn't David Bowie at all.
Speaker 1: It was Ziggy Stardust. It was also new, this ambitious
Speaker 1: and audacious blend of costume, choreography and drama, all in
Speaker 1: the context of a rock and roll show. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, there were the songs themselves. Tie was that
Speaker 1: become practically holy scripture to pop fans across the globe
Speaker 1: five years Suffragette City and Starman all heard for the
Speaker 1: very first time, live and in the flesh. The atmosphere
Speaker 1: was electric as they kicked off their slow burning curtain
Speaker 1: closer another new one called rock and Roll Suicide. You're
Speaker 1: Wonderful give me your hands, Bowie pleaded. At the climactic coda,
Speaker 1: the crowd raised their arms in a spontaneous display of solidarity.
Speaker 1: You're not alone, he wailed, and neither was. He Let
Speaker 1: the children boogie, he'd proclaimed, and the children responded in kind.
Speaker 1: Backstage was a madhouse as fans swarmed his dressing room.
Speaker 1: Some demanded to know where he cut his hair, others
Speaker 1: where he got his clothes. Some just wanted to touch him,
Speaker 1: greet him, thank him. One girl was so overcome with
Speaker 1: emotion that she punched him. Chris Needs was among the crowd.
Speaker 1: Bowie spotted him right away and waved him over, planting
Speaker 1: a playful kiss on his head. Told you I'd be different,
Speaker 1: laughed Bowie. Or was it gigg A star is born?
Speaker 1: Proclaimed the local paper the next day. David Bowie wasn't
Speaker 1: one the trade in cliches, but the headline didn't lie.
Speaker 1: The effects of that night would ripple outward, touching on
Speaker 1: every aspect of popular culture, not just music, but film, fashion,
Speaker 1: social and sexual morays, and the very nature of fame itself.
Speaker 1: For many, the friars Aylesbury Show was the night the
Speaker 1: seventies began. Nothing would ever be the same for rock
Speaker 1: and roll again, nothing would ever be the same for
Speaker 1: Day of It either. Hello and welcome to Off the Record,
Speaker 1: the show that goes beyond the songs and into the
Speaker 1: hearts and minds of rock's greatest legends. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jordan run Todd. This season explores the life, or rather
Speaker 1: lives of David Bowie. Today we're gonna discuss the rise
Speaker 1: of Ziggy star Dust. Enough said right, The messianic space
Speaker 1: alien would change David's life and millions of others forever.
Speaker 1: So turn it up. This episodes made to be played
Speaker 1: at maximum volume. David Bowie might have been English, but
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardus was born in America. The place had mesmerized
Speaker 1: David as a boy. Now, as an adult, the draw
Speaker 1: was even stronger. In many ways, The US was Bowie's
Speaker 1: spiritual home. Gleefully excessive, larger than life, and filled with contradictions.
Speaker 1: You could be whoever you wanted there. It was a
Speaker 1: nation of opportunity, and David was always on the lookout
Speaker 1: for those. He made his first visit to the Promised
Speaker 1: Land in January of one on a pr trip. Now
Speaker 1: in early September, he was going back to inc a
Speaker 1: new record deal with Our c A. The label was
Speaker 1: home to Elvis Presley, with whom David shared a birthday.
Speaker 1: David saw himself as heir to the King of Rocks throne.
Speaker 1: As soon as the deal was finalized, he called his
Speaker 1: mother Peggy, told her he was about to be bigger
Speaker 1: than Elvis. The new deal was the master work of
Speaker 1: David's new manager, Tony Defrees, a young but ruthless London
Speaker 1: entertainment clerk. Most people with one of two reactions to
Speaker 1: this aggressive but deceptibly soft spoken man. He either feared
Speaker 1: him and liked him, or feared him and didn't like him.
Speaker 1: De Freeze all but worshiped Elvis. Presley's manager, a self
Speaker 1: styled Colonel Tom Parker, the former Carnival Barker, had transformed
Speaker 1: Presley into the biggest act on the planet through a
Speaker 1: mix of audacity, vision and a total lack of scruples.
Speaker 1: He had a favorite expression, I want everything bigger than everybody.
Speaker 1: The Frieze was hell bent on following in Colonel Tom's
Speaker 1: footsteps by making Bowie the new Elvis and making himself very,
Speaker 1: very rich. De Frize was just as flamboyant as Colonel
Speaker 1: Tom pairing huge fur coats with an ever present cigar,
Speaker 1: and he was just a slippery in business. This earned
Speaker 1: De Freeze the not so affectionate nickname Deep Freeze. It
Speaker 1: would take some time before David actually read the fine
Speaker 1: print of the management deal he guilelessly signed with the Freeze,
Speaker 1: sowing the seeds of financial chaos that would plague him
Speaker 1: throughout his commercial peak. But for now, David wasn't concerned.
Speaker 1: The Freeze had showed him a piece of paper. They
Speaker 1: illustrated the fact that he was already a millionaire technically. Sure,
Speaker 1: the hits were hypothetical at this point and the money
Speaker 1: merely conceptual, but the plan was in place. All they
Speaker 1: had to do was do it. Since David was already
Speaker 1: a millionaire on paper, the Freeze advised him to start
Speaker 1: acting like it. What is a celebrity really a star
Speaker 1: is simply would others perceive you to be. From now on,
Speaker 1: David would travel by limousine. A bodyguard was hired to
Speaker 1: ward off non existent crowds. It was a classic case
Speaker 1: of fake it till you make it. As David would
Speaker 1: later recall, Tony Defreese had this idea that if we
Speaker 1: just told the world that I was super huge and
Speaker 1: entreated me as though I were, then something might happen.
Speaker 1: Interviews and press access were strictly limited, not like journals
Speaker 1: were beating down their door anyway. Unauthorized photographers were forbidden.
Speaker 1: It was a technique borrowed from the old school Hollywood
Speaker 1: studio system, creating a garbo esque air of mystique distance.
Speaker 1: After all breeds demand, David himself put his years of
Speaker 1: celebrity spotting to good use. He adopted a regal persona,
Speaker 1: pausing at doors and waiting for others to open them.
Speaker 1: A star can never be bothered with such trivialities. To
Speaker 1: the world at large, he was essentially a nobody, but
Speaker 1: his drummer, Woody Woodman's, they would later say, David would
Speaker 1: eat breakfast as a superstar. When he had first gone
Speaker 1: to New York in early n David had stayed in
Speaker 1: the Times Square Holiday Inn, but when he traveled there
Speaker 1: that September to sign his new r c A deal,
Speaker 1: he'd been booked into the Warwick, a plush midtown hotel
Speaker 1: frequented by Elvis and the Beatles. Strolling past the nearby
Speaker 1: Radio City Music Hall, David casually told all on ear
Speaker 1: shot that he'd play there soon. It seemed ridiculous, but
Speaker 1: in eighteen months he would. While in New York, David
Speaker 1: visited some new friends, a motley crew of colorful actors,
Speaker 1: drag queens, and assorted speed freaks. They had met a
Speaker 1: few weeks earlier when this band of brash New Yorkers
Speaker 1: arrived on the British shores to shock queen and country
Speaker 1: with a controversial play called Pork. It's been described somewhat
Speaker 1: uncharitably as an orgy with already dialogue. The script had
Speaker 1: been written by Andy Warhol, called from over two hours
Speaker 1: of recorded phone conversations with ultra hip factory scensters who
Speaker 1: also made up the cast. The plot, as much as
Speaker 1: it had one, was jam packed with full frontal nudity, masturbation,
Speaker 1: homosexuality on stage, douching, and simulated fecal consumption with chocolate pudding.
Speaker 1: Something in is the real Thing. Though it earned a
Speaker 1: flattering review in the New York Times, the show proved
Speaker 1: too much for even the downtown scene and closed after
Speaker 1: just two weeks. When the cast arrived in England that August,
Speaker 1: the stage of brief run of the production, it was
Speaker 1: like a bomb of bad taste that exploded over London.
Speaker 1: The pork performers were gleefully provocative, both on stage and off.
Speaker 1: As far as they were concerned, even the local drag
Speaker 1: queens were practically nuns to them. The British capital had
Speaker 1: an almighty stick up its rear and was in need
Speaker 1: of a good shake up. One actress flashed her bare
Speaker 1: breasts outside the Queen Mother's residence. What's the big deal?
Speaker 1: She asked. The crowd of Fleet Street reporters who had
Speaker 1: gathered the Queen's got him. It seemed only natural that
Speaker 1: such free spirited attention seekers would find their way to David.
Speaker 1: In fact, they were some of the only Americans who
Speaker 1: actually knew who he was. They had come across David's
Speaker 1: first major profile and Rolling Stone that spring, the one
Speaker 1: familiar with his music. They were struck by the photos
Speaker 1: of David looking his androgynous best with his long hair
Speaker 1: and Mr Fish dress. So when cast member Lee Black
Speaker 1: Children's came across an ad for one of david shows,
Speaker 1: he decided to check him out. Philip castmates Cherry Vanilla
Speaker 1: and Jane County came along from the ride. They got
Speaker 1: in for free by posing as members of the American
Speaker 1: music press, earning them prime seats down front. To their
Speaker 1: great disappointment, they found not a fellow freak, but a
Speaker 1: folky in baggy pants and a floppy hat, performing a
Speaker 1: somewhat lackluster acoustic set with Mick Ronson. Jane County later
Speaker 1: likened him the Joan bayaz On Downers. Bowie, to his credit,
Speaker 1: recognized his guests and introduced them to the crowd before
Speaker 1: playing his song Andy Warhol. In their honor, Cherry Vanilla
Speaker 1: showed her appreciation by standing up and flashing the crowd. Overall,
Speaker 1: their first impression to David was not great. Their disappointment
Speaker 1: was compounded when they actually met face to face after
Speaker 1: the show. They liked his wife Angie just fine. She was,
Speaker 1: like them, a bold and fearless American outgoing in the extreme,
Speaker 1: but they're regarded David as a drip who mostly kept
Speaker 1: to himself to surprisingly drab hippie at or was it
Speaker 1: odds with their elaborate makeup, gaudy glitter and sexy sleeves.
Speaker 1: Out of politeness, they invited the Bowiees to catch a
Speaker 1: performance of Pork the next day at the Roundhouse. To David,
Speaker 1: the show was nothing less than a revelation. Just three
Speaker 1: years earlier, British theater was subjected to a censorship board.
Speaker 1: Now these fabulously dressed New Yorkers were flouting every taboo,
Speaker 1: taking the underground above ground. David and Angie savored the outrageousness.
Speaker 1: Clearly rules were a thing of the past. David and
Speaker 1: Angie invited the cast to lunch at their Hadn't Hall
Speaker 1: home a few days later. Instead of David the Drip,
Speaker 1: they met David Bowie for the first time. He came
Speaker 1: out of his shell, playing the consummate host and leading
Speaker 1: the conversation towards his grandest theatrical fantasies. They found the
Speaker 1: kindred spirit. David's new friends would later marvel at his
Speaker 1: ability to turn his charm off and on. Able to
Speaker 1: appear and disappear in a crowd at will, these fact
Speaker 1: red Denizens were characters in the true sense of the word.
Speaker 1: They were always on performing for everyone, even if it
Speaker 1: was just each other. They seemed to transcend the motion
Speaker 1: and even their own humanity, becoming something bigger. They were,
Speaker 1: to use Warhol's word superstars. To hear them tell it,
Speaker 1: David became their new pet project. We kind of took
Speaker 1: him under our wing. We all decided to help him out.
Speaker 1: Jane County would later say, you know, glam them up,
Speaker 1: make him more outrageous. These full time artificial extroverts helped
Speaker 1: inspire David to create a new persona for himself. Little
Speaker 1: Davy Jones from Bromley had come this far as David Bowie,
Speaker 1: But who could he be next? David pondered this on
Speaker 1: his trip to New York that September, where he met
Speaker 1: up with the Port crowd on their home turf. They
Speaker 1: even brought him to the factory to say hello to
Speaker 1: their patron. Far from being one of the great artistic
Speaker 1: summits of the seventies, David Bowie's meeting with Andy Warhol
Speaker 1: was by all accounts pretty painful. Secure already at the
Speaker 1: factory had been ramped up since Warhol was nearly killed
Speaker 1: in the night assassination attempt. After ringing a doorbell marked
Speaker 1: do not ring, David and company were grilled by the guards.
Speaker 1: The reception was just as chilly when he was finally
Speaker 1: introduced to Warhol himself, who was inexplicably clad and jobber's
Speaker 1: high laced boots and a riding crop. I met this
Speaker 1: man who was the living dead. David remembered he offered
Speaker 1: Warhol a friendly handshake. Warhol drew back. This guy's reptilian
Speaker 1: David thought neither man was known for being particularly chatty,
Speaker 1: and Warhol thwarted any attempts at small talk. This was
Speaker 1: merely his socially awkward way, but David took it personally.
Speaker 1: He desperately wanted to be taken seriously by Warhol and
Speaker 1: was deeply hurt that he wasn't embraced as an artistic peer.
Speaker 1: David tried to break the ice by playing the yet
Speaker 1: to be released Hunky Dorry track Andy Warhol in his honor.
Speaker 1: Warhol listened dispassionately before wandering away. Minutes later, one of
Speaker 1: the factory lackeys informed David that Andy hated it. The
Speaker 1: only thing that seemed to impress Warhol where David's bright
Speaker 1: yellow patent leather shoes, a gift from his friend and
Speaker 1: musical rival, Mark Bowan. Warhol was so intrigued that he
Speaker 1: grabbed his polaroid and began photographing them obsessively, jabbering about
Speaker 1: shoe design the whole time. Before he left, David took
Speaker 1: part in one of Andy's famous screen tests where guests
Speaker 1: are placed in front of a camera and encouraged to
Speaker 1: do whatever comes to mind. David thought back to his
Speaker 1: miming days with Lindsay Kemp and acted out his own disembowment,
Speaker 1: ripping out his guts bit by bit. It was pretty
Speaker 1: much how he felt about the visit. Andy stood off camera, murmuring,
Speaker 1: oh that's nice in a sickly sing song. David's meeting
Speaker 1: with another Warhol associate, Lou Reid, went marginally better. Lou
Speaker 1: had been one of David's ultimate rock heroes since he
Speaker 1: first got his hands on an advanced copy of the
Speaker 1: Velvet Undergrounds debut back in six He devoured the album
Speaker 1: and even incorporated several songs and was early set, making
Speaker 1: him likely the first person in England to cover rawl
Speaker 1: rockers like Waiting for the Man in White Light, White Heat.
Speaker 1: David had thought he met Read during his previous visit
Speaker 1: to New York when he caught a Velvet show. It
Speaker 1: was only after that he realized Lou had left the
Speaker 1: band and the man he had been showering with praise
Speaker 1: was actually his replacement, Doug Yule. Now he was sharing
Speaker 1: dinner with the real Lou Read, but he was barely
Speaker 1: a shadow of his former self. Since leaving the Velvet Underground,
Speaker 1: Lou had effectively retired from the music world, moving back
Speaker 1: home with his parents on Long Island and taking a
Speaker 1: job as a typist that his father's accountancy firm for
Speaker 1: forty dollars a week. He was clearly going through a
Speaker 1: bad patch, and David found them drunk and sullen. Not
Speaker 1: even some flirtatious whispers from David could bring Lou out
Speaker 1: of his dark mood. That night, the pair ended up
Speaker 1: at Max's Kansas City, the dive bar of choice for
Speaker 1: the downtown glitterati. On any given night, Debbie Harry might
Speaker 1: be your waitress, or you'd share a bathroom line with
Speaker 1: Leamas Burrows, Alan Ginsburg or Robert Rauschenberg. The walls were
Speaker 1: lined with art worth millions today, donated by poor but
Speaker 1: talented customers too hard up to pay off their bar tabs.
Speaker 1: It didn't take money to get into Max's Kansas City.
Speaker 1: It took style. One patron would remember, people looked different,
Speaker 1: but everyone looked right. Upstairs was a venue where The
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground had been the house band, and later a
Speaker 1: young Bob Marley would make his New York debut opening
Speaker 1: for an equally green Bruce Springsteen. But the back room
Speaker 1: was the inner sanctum. This was where Andy Warhol and
Speaker 1: his Factory superstars held court at their round table. Dan
Speaker 1: Flavin's massive fluorescent light sculpture permanently bathed the room and
Speaker 1: a sinister but flattering blood red glow. It looked like
Speaker 1: a hip and beautiful version of hell, where the elegant
Speaker 1: would get elegantly wasted. Lu departed the scene uncharacteristically early
Speaker 1: that night, but David was about to meet another of
Speaker 1: his heroes, the man who had one day described as
Speaker 1: his twin Adam Iggy Pop. He'd been turned onto the
Speaker 1: Detroit Live Wire during his first trip to America earlier
Speaker 1: in the year, and was instantly entranced by the dark
Speaker 1: and raw rock from his band, The Stooges. More than
Speaker 1: just their sound, David was fascinated by Iggy's persona born
Speaker 1: Jim Osterberg, this shortened shy intellectual had built himself the
Speaker 1: ultimate rock and roll vehicle, an uninhibited diet Nitian demon
Speaker 1: capable of unleashing a torrent of noise and destruction. His
Speaker 1: animalistic stage antics were already legendary, including but not limited
Speaker 1: to vomiting, nudity, self mutilation, and inciting riots. Bowie had
Speaker 1: cited Iggy as his favorite singer in a recent British interview,
Speaker 1: but now Iggy had fallen on hard times. Drug abuse
Speaker 1: in general bad behavior forced the Stooges record label to
Speaker 1: drop them, and the group soon split. Iggy felt deeper
Speaker 1: into heroin and bounced from crisis to crisis. O d
Speaker 1: s Ban crashes and that time he got stranded in
Speaker 1: the rough Detroit how Projects wearing a pink tutu. Long story.
Speaker 1: His worsening addiction left and barely able to function, and
Speaker 1: by the summer of seventy one he was crashing at
Speaker 1: his ex manager's New York apartment. He was there, sprawled
Speaker 1: out on the couch in and opiate Hayes when he
Speaker 1: got the call to come down the Maxes and meet
Speaker 1: this visiting englishman who had spoken so highly of him
Speaker 1: in the British press. Iggy had no idea who Bowie was, besides,
Speaker 1: he was too engrossed in the old black and white
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart movie on the TV. But after the third
Speaker 1: phone call, he begrudgingly legged it down the max Is
Speaker 1: just before closing time. The meeting changed his life and
Speaker 1: David's too. They connected on two levels. They're self created,
Speaker 1: larger than life performance personas and the quiet, intelligent music
Speaker 1: nerds they masked by dawn, they were firm friends. Over
Speaker 1: a long breakfast at the Warwick. The next morning, David
Speaker 1: convinced Iggy, who was going on his third night without sleep,
Speaker 1: to come to London and signed with Tony Defrees. David
Speaker 1: returned to England, inspired by his new friends and the
Speaker 1: bridled creativity of the New York underground. He hold up
Speaker 1: in his own version of Warhol's factory, Hadden Hall, to
Speaker 1: begin assembling his own custom made superstar, Sinky Stardust. In
Speaker 1: the annals of rock and roll history, the band Arnold
Speaker 1: Corns seldom gets a mention. This is hardly surprising. They
Speaker 1: released just two singles between ninety one and two, both
Speaker 1: of which are mediocre at best, and both of which
Speaker 1: sank like stones on the chart. But despite their total
Speaker 1: lack of commercial success and a truly horrendous name, Arnold
Speaker 1: Corns deserves recognition. Why Because the band was the prototype
Speaker 1: for Siggy Stardust. It all started in the spring of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, just after David returned from his very
Speaker 1: first promotional trip to the US. Borrowing a page from
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol's playbook, David endeavored to create his own superstar
Speaker 1: from scratch. The band would be his human canvas. David
Speaker 1: would write the songs, choose the clothes, even picked their
Speaker 1: new names. It was an inspired move with no risk
Speaker 1: to his own career. David could experiment to his heart's content,
Speaker 1: discarding ideas that didn't work and cherry picking the ones
Speaker 1: that did. For himself. For a frontman, David recruited the
Speaker 1: handsome and charismatic Freddie Barretti, a nineteen year old budding
Speaker 1: clothing designer he knew from London's gay club scene. David
Speaker 1: rechristened him Rudy Valentino and steered him into the studio
Speaker 1: with a ragtag group of musicians he dubbed Arnold Corn's,
Speaker 1: allegedly inspired by David's favorite Pink Floyd song Arnold Lane.
Speaker 1: Freddie Barretti may have looked like Adonis in hot pants,
Speaker 1: but it quickly became apparent that he couldn't sing a note,
Speaker 1: and David ultimately handled most of the lead vocals himself.
Speaker 1: They tackled two of his new songs moon Age, day
Speaker 1: Dream and Hang Onto Yourself. Both tunes were destined for
Speaker 1: greatness as standout tracks on the rise and fall of
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars, but these early
Speaker 1: versions were hampered by sluggish tempos and meek vocals. To
Speaker 1: be blunt, the songs needed a little star dust. Arnold
Speaker 1: Corens was a commercial flop, but it was by no
Speaker 1: means a failure. It allowed David to toy with alter
Speaker 1: egos and high concept pop. David first began talking about
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust during that same initial trip to the States
Speaker 1: in the Winner of Fittingly, it was in Hollywood, that
Speaker 1: land of make believe in movie stars, where anything seemed possible.
Speaker 1: The idea took shape on hotel stationary and cocktail napkins.
Speaker 1: It was initially conceived There's a Broadway style production with
Speaker 1: the score serving as a new album for Bowie. Rock
Speaker 1: and roll had become disgustingly dull. It embraced showmanship, but
Speaker 1: not true theatricality. Despite all the supposed rock operas out there,
Speaker 1: elements like clothes, set design, lights, dance, and acting, if
Speaker 1: they were attended to, it all retreated as secondary to
Speaker 1: the music, David wanted to do them all and better
Speaker 1: than anyone. He had recently caught a performance by Alice Cooper,
Speaker 1: the latest gender bending shock rocker on the scene, and
Speaker 1: he was less than impressed. In fact, he was embarrassed
Speaker 1: for Alice and all that business with an electric chair,
Speaker 1: straight jacket and even a boa constrictor. It all seems
Speaker 1: so obvious. I think he's trying to be outrageous, David Crowd.
Speaker 1: You can see him, poor dear, with his red eyes
Speaker 1: sticking out in his temple, straining. He tries so hard.
Speaker 1: I find him very demeaning. It's very premeditated. Same with
Speaker 1: David's friend of me, Mark Boland, who had recently traded
Speaker 1: Tolkien inspired folk pop for down and dirty, leather clad rock.
Speaker 1: He'd logged a remarkable ten weeks at number one with
Speaker 1: his back to back hits Hot Love and Get It On,
Speaker 1: a fact that piste David off to no end. Bowland's
Speaker 1: a feminine public persona and outlandish retro tinge stage get
Speaker 1: up seemed awfully familiar to him. David borrowed ideas liberally,
Speaker 1: but he didn't have appreciate when ideas were borrowed from
Speaker 1: him back When Ziggy started, us was barely a glimmer.
Speaker 1: David was already boasting about his plans to the press.
Speaker 1: Our news stage act will be quite outrageous, but very theatrical,
Speaker 1: he said. It's going to be costumed and choreographed, quite
Speaker 1: different to anything anyone else has tried to do before.
Speaker 1: This is going to be quite new. No one has
Speaker 1: ever seen anything like this before. It was a notion
Speaker 1: derived in part from Andy Warhol, who used his painting
Speaker 1: career to springboard into film and music. Warhol incorporated both
Speaker 1: into large scale happenings, creating some of the first full
Speaker 1: scale multimedia events. David wanted to go even further. His
Speaker 1: performance would become concept art. He wouldn't just exhibit a fantasy,
Speaker 1: he would inhabit that fantasy. Getting out there and just
Speaker 1: singing songs was, in a word, boring. People don't want
Speaker 1: to recital, they want to show, and David promised to
Speaker 1: deliver the full package. I'm the last person to pretend
Speaker 1: that I'm a radio, he said. I'd rather go out
Speaker 1: and be a color television set. The problem was he
Speaker 1: just wrapped an album that didn't lend itself to such
Speaker 1: an ambitious premise. Whatsoever. Hunky Dory was a masterclass of
Speaker 1: song craft, a tuneful, masterful blend of folk, blues and
Speaker 1: beatlesque pop, idiosyncratic yet accessible. It was destined to be
Speaker 1: a classic, but the majority of the songs didn't translate
Speaker 1: to a live setting. Even Bowie's band felt the tracks
Speaker 1: lack a certain heft, a gravitas to get the fans
Speaker 1: on their feet. Simply put, it didn't exactly rock so far.
Speaker 1: The standout live numbers seemed to be the one about
Speaker 1: life on Mars m hmm. The problem was eventually solved
Speaker 1: by record label Avarice our Cia were eager to cash
Speaker 1: in on their latest investment, even though Hunky Dorry was
Speaker 1: more than a month away from release. They wanted more
Speaker 1: product from Bowie, so he returned to the studio to
Speaker 1: tackle a new stock pile of songs bearing the influence
Speaker 1: of his new friends from the Stooges In the Velvet Underground.
Speaker 1: David issued a word of caution the producer Ken Scott,
Speaker 1: who had overseen the piano center Hunky Dory. I don't
Speaker 1: think you'll like this next album, he told Ken. It's
Speaker 1: much more rock and roll. Sessions began at London's Trident
Speaker 1: Studios in November and continued for the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: David moved fast and got bored easily. Willam bam, thank
Speaker 1: you ma'am. Indeed, the boys in the band had only
Speaker 1: two or three takes to learn a new song before
Speaker 1: Bowie would declare, no, it's not working and move on.
Speaker 1: Mick Ronson, playing his usual role of orchestrator, had a
Speaker 1: habit of finishing his instrumental arrangements in the toilet stall
Speaker 1: ten minutes before recordings due to begin. The results were lively,
Speaker 1: fresh and unforgettable. Though it's touted as one of the
Speaker 1: greatest concept albums of all time, the Rise and Fall
Speaker 1: of Ziggy, Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was never
Speaker 1: conceived as such. The records working title was Round and Round,
Speaker 1: named after a Chuck Berry cover included on an early
Speaker 1: track listing. So was a cover of Jacques Brel's Port
Speaker 1: of Amsterdam, as well as Bowie's own Velvet gold Mine
Speaker 1: and Holy Holy all great tracks, but they don't have
Speaker 1: much to do with Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars.
Speaker 1: It Ain't Easy, which did make it on the album
Speaker 1: was actually a leftover from the Hunky Dory dates. According
Speaker 1: to Ken's Scott and members of the band, David never
Speaker 1: talked about any sort of storyline while they were in
Speaker 1: the studio. David himself would admit as much, saying he
Speaker 1: broke up the album with songs that didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with the story of Ziggy, rather than any
Speaker 1: specific narrative. Ziggy was first and foremost a collection of
Speaker 1: songs that felt cohesive, just like any other good album,
Speaker 1: unified by theme more than anything else. But gradually, with
Speaker 1: some creative sequencing, a loose plot started to emerge. Aliens
Speaker 1: were one of David's enduring passions. It stretched back the
Speaker 1: childhood when he'd sneaked downstairs after bedtime to watch episodes
Speaker 1: of the BBC's Quatermass Experience Ament on TV. The pioneering
Speaker 1: sci fi show became one of David's very favorites and
Speaker 1: sent his imagination into overdrive. As a boy, he was
Speaker 1: sure that aliens were watching him, studying his habits. He
Speaker 1: began to wonder if he too might be one of
Speaker 1: the Light People, an alien bred race of super people
Speaker 1: who supposedly include luminaries like Galileo Churchill and Isaac Newton.
Speaker 1: By the late sixties, David was contributing to a London
Speaker 1: UFO newsletter. He occasionally won spacecraft spotting on his roof,
Speaker 1: pointing a wire coat hanger at the sky for long stretches.
Speaker 1: He put a stop to this when a neighbor shouted
Speaker 1: up jokingly asking if he got good television reception, but
Speaker 1: the subject continued to fascinate him and it showed up
Speaker 1: frequently in his new songs. R c A Execs heard
Speaker 1: an early ascetate version of the record and asked the
Speaker 1: age old question, where's the single. The album was all
Speaker 1: well and good, but to their ears, it lacked something
Speaker 1: catchy enough to scale the all important hip parade. Never
Speaker 1: won the shirt from a challenge, David went off and
Speaker 1: wrote a song to order, perhaps to tease the suits.
Speaker 1: It Coyleie references his one and only hit, Space Oddity,
Speaker 1: but Starman would surpass it in sales and reputation. It
Speaker 1: remains a perfect pop song, fusing elements of t Rex's
Speaker 1: Hot Love singalong breakdown with the Morse Code guitar figure
Speaker 1: from The Supremes You Keep Me Hanging On. It showcases
Speaker 1: David's inimitable gift for melody and delivery, plus Mick Ronson's
Speaker 1: rhapsodic score. Starman is also reminiscent of Judy Garland's Over
Speaker 1: the Rainbow, especially the euphoric octave leap on the chorus
Speaker 1: that sends the song into orbit like Rainbow for Garland,
Speaker 1: Starman would ultimately become David Bowie's signature tune. With the
Speaker 1: arrival of Starman, the previously nebulous narrative fell into place.
Speaker 1: The story centered around a visionary poet named Ziggy who
Speaker 1: attempts to save Earth headed towards destruction, only to be
Speaker 1: deified and ultimately just stroyed by ego and rock and
Speaker 1: roll excess. The rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and
Speaker 1: the Spiders from Mars was David's monument to the outsider,
Speaker 1: but it didn't totally come from nowhere. The Beatles had
Speaker 1: pioneered the meta idea of an act portraying a fictitious
Speaker 1: group on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band The Who
Speaker 1: had made their rock opera Tommy about a young Messiah,
Speaker 1: but neither had told their tale with the same level
Speaker 1: of style and total commitment as David Bowie. The Ziggy
Speaker 1: Stardust LP was an insightful comment on the rock album
Speaker 1: as an art form, while simultaneously perfecting the art form.
Speaker 1: It tackled a dazzling array of compelling themes, from the
Speaker 1: nature of fame to the apocalypse, the notion of extraterrestrial life,
Speaker 1: and organized religion. The plot line suited the uncertainty of
Speaker 1: the age by two. The hippie optimism of the sixties
Speaker 1: that evaporated in his place was violent social unrest coupled
Speaker 1: with economic and ecological uncertainty. England was avage by a recession,
Speaker 1: leading to record breaking unemployment and near constant strikes. The
Speaker 1: nation's cities were still littered with bomb sites left over
Speaker 1: from the Second World War too many. The world seemed
Speaker 1: dark and cold, a modern dystopia not far off from
Speaker 1: the world of Ziggy. Perhaps Bowie really did believe we
Speaker 1: only had five years left. I'm really just a photostat machine,
Speaker 1: he said in nineteen. I pour out what has already
Speaker 1: been fed in. I merely reflect what's going on around me.
Speaker 1: But Bowie also looked inward to create his fantasy, drawing
Speaker 1: on a lifetime of passions, from Little Richard and Lou
Speaker 1: Reed to T. S. Eliott and Jacques Brel. A clockwork,
Speaker 1: Orange and Pork and the Quatermass experiment blended into one
Speaker 1: humanoid form. David had crafted the perfect anti hero for
Speaker 1: the seventies. But the record was just the start, a
Speaker 1: mere audio document of a much bigger premise. David was
Speaker 1: determined to make Ziggy start Us the living, breathing entity.
Speaker 1: For the next eighteen months, he would be Ziggy, more
Speaker 1: or less, constantly sacrificing himself to give his creation life.
Speaker 1: David once claimed that the character came to him in
Speaker 1: a dream, but Ziggy's origins were a little more terrestrial
Speaker 1: than that. When composing the story of a starman who
Speaker 1: fell to Earth, David was inspired by real life fallen stars,
Speaker 1: grandiose yet tragic figures who traveled too far down the
Speaker 1: road of excess and lost their way. The most obvious
Speaker 1: of these is Ziggy Pop, who had become something of
Speaker 1: an obsession to Bowie. Over the prior year. He had
Speaker 1: obtained footage of Iggy performing, which he watched repeatedly on
Speaker 1: a real or real projector at Hadden Hall. The images
Speaker 1: inspired him and also haunted him. On film, Iggy looked
Speaker 1: like a feral god, shirtless and held aloft by a
Speaker 1: crowd of fans. Now he could barely summon the strength
Speaker 1: to leave the couch that had become his home. The
Speaker 1: Egg character Jim Awsenburg had created had gone haywire and
Speaker 1: nearly killed him, a real rock and roll suicide. To
Speaker 1: a lesser extent, David was also inspired by Lou Reed,
Speaker 1: the godfather of trashy Urban Slee's, now living with his
Speaker 1: parents out on Long Island in a state of self
Speaker 1: imposed exile from music. Both Lou and Iggy had become
Speaker 1: victims of the industry and their own idolatry. This is
Speaker 1: becoming alarmingly common. By ninety one. In just three years,
Speaker 1: rocks ranks have been decimated by the deaths of Brian Jones,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin, and Jim Morrison, not to mention
Speaker 1: the abdication of Pink Floyd founder Sid Barrett Fleetwood, Max
Speaker 1: Peter Green, and the Beach Boys Brian Wilson. David had
Speaker 1: seen the hazards of rock and roll at close range.
Speaker 1: During his trip to Los Angeles that February. He'd had
Speaker 1: the chance to jam with Jean Vincent, whose nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: hit b Bopolula was part of the bedrock of rock.
Speaker 1: Though he was only thirty five, he looked old and sickly,
Speaker 1: his body left mangled from years of heart living. By October,
Speaker 1: just a few weeks before David entered the studio to
Speaker 1: begin work on Ziggy, he was dead. The unlikely link
Speaker 1: between down and out musicians and spiritual aliens can be
Speaker 1: found in the story of an early British rocker named
Speaker 1: Vince Taylor, best known today for recording the original version
Speaker 1: of The Clashes brand new Cadillac. He'd been hailed for
Speaker 1: a brief moment as the new Elvis in Europe, but
Speaker 1: by the mid sixties he'd begun suffering a series of
Speaker 1: distressing mid concert breakdowns, culminating one night when he appeared
Speaker 1: on stage in white robes and informed the crowd that
Speaker 1: he was, in fact Jesus Christ. Vince's career was pretty
Speaker 1: much over after that. With little else to do, he
Speaker 1: wandered the Soho coffee shop scene, ranting a anyone who
Speaker 1: would listen. It was there that he met a pre
Speaker 1: fame David, then deep into his mad phase. They got
Speaker 1: to know each other a little. David would recall Vince
Speaker 1: spreading a crumpled map on the sidewalk outside of a
Speaker 1: crowded subway station pointing out UFO landing sites across Europe.
Speaker 1: The guy was, to use Bowie's words, out of his
Speaker 1: war totally flipped, not playing with a full deck at all,
Speaker 1: But he remained in David's mind as an example of
Speaker 1: what can happen in rock and roll, midway between an
Speaker 1: idol and a cautionary tale. Madness was always compelling. Given
Speaker 1: the streak of mental illness that ran throughout David's family,
Speaker 1: particularly his half brother Terry, and his haunting schizophrenic visions.
Speaker 1: Vince Taylor forced David to confront both his greatest dreams
Speaker 1: of rock stardom and his deepest fears of insanity. More
Speaker 1: than any one person, it was he who inspired David
Speaker 1: ziggy alter ego. But what to call this new character.
Speaker 1: Many would assume that Ziggy was merely Iggy with a Z,
Speaker 1: but David would deny it. He claimed that he took
Speaker 1: the name from a tailor's shop. He'd say, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this whole thing is going to be about clothes, so
Speaker 1: it was my own little joke. Whatever the case, The
Speaker 1: Astral surname was a little more straightforward. It was a
Speaker 1: nod to an offbeat American singer known as the legendary
Speaker 1: Stardust Cowboy, who had released that charmingly bizarre country sci
Speaker 1: fi single called I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship.
Speaker 1: The song came out the same year as Space Oddity,
Speaker 1: and even on the same label. David was handed a
Speaker 1: copy by his American host during his first trip to
Speaker 1: the States. Play this, he was instructed, and You'll never
Speaker 1: be the same again. He did, and he wasn't, and
Speaker 1: Ziggy got his last name. It was the perfect fusion
Speaker 1: of old and new. Start us devoked glamour and elegance
Speaker 1: like the old jazz standard by Jogi Carmichael, but also
Speaker 1: in the literal sense, it was dust from stars space matter.
Speaker 1: Astronomer Carl Sagan had recently popularized the notion that we're
Speaker 1: all star dust, atoms that have existed for millions of years,
Speaker 1: that have been recycled through acts of cosmic creation, forming
Speaker 1: ourselves something totally singular and unique. Ziggy Stardust is much
Speaker 1: the same and amalgama familiar yet disparate elements coming together tore.
Speaker 1: It's something completely new and rare, a grand kitch painting.
Speaker 1: David would declare, but the line between inspiration and appropriation
Speaker 1: was indeed a thin one. There were some in his
Speaker 1: circle who were less charitable about his pensiant for artistic borrowing.
Speaker 1: A few members of the Warhol clan started to grow
Speaker 1: slightly weary. They noticed a few too many of their
Speaker 1: pet expressions showing up in David's lyrics or mannerisms cropping
Speaker 1: up in his stage act. Ziggy start Us was what
Speaker 1: critic Paul Trenka would call a tribute to artifice, a
Speaker 1: play on identity on alter ego placed on alter ego.
Speaker 1: David had turned himself from David Jones to David Bowie,
Speaker 1: who in turn became Ziggy. It all made one wonder
Speaker 1: what's real and what's artificial. It was a question that
Speaker 1: had been in David's mind since he gushed over a
Speaker 1: guy he thought was lou Reid. A Star was whatever
Speaker 1: people thought you were. Ziggy was fake, a phony, plastic
Speaker 1: mass produced war Holly and Star. David was building a
Speaker 1: brand before it was common or cool. Everyone knows is
Speaker 1: the clothes that make the man, or in this case
Speaker 1: star man. For fashion help, David turned to one time
Speaker 1: Arnold Corrin's frontman, Freddie Barretti. Together, they'd stay up late
Speaker 1: into the night, fueled by Barley Wine, sketching out fabulous
Speaker 1: futuristic designs in the living room at Hadden Hall. David's
Speaker 1: imagination had been charged by Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange,
Speaker 1: which approved just as influential to him as Kubrick's last
Speaker 1: film two thousand one of Space Odyssey three years before.
Speaker 1: He'd say, both of these films provoke one major theme.
Speaker 1: There's no linear line in the lives that we leave.
Speaker 1: We're not evolving, merely surviving. Moreover, the clothes were fab
Speaker 1: David loved the look of the drugs, the androgynous teenage thugs,
Speaker 1: whose crisp white outfits underscored their ruthless brutality. David wanted
Speaker 1: to take the violence of those outfits and soften them
Speaker 1: up using lurd fabrics. Under his instruction, Freddie assembled outlandish
Speaker 1: jumpsuits from cloth of tanned at London's Liberties Department store
Speaker 1: and vintage furniture fabric. It was a cross between agin
Speaker 1: Ski and Woolworths, something cobbled together from whatever was lying around.
Speaker 1: David would admit the look was finished off with a
Speaker 1: pair of knee length wrestling boots done up in fire
Speaker 1: engine red. David debut the look at US twenty fifth
Speaker 1: birthday party on January two, fitting start to the year.
Speaker 1: The hair came last, and it came through the unlikeliest
Speaker 1: of sources. David's mother Peggy. Every Friday, she had her
Speaker 1: hair done by a local hair addresser named Susie Fusey,
Speaker 1: who would later become mcronson's wife. David's mom passed along
Speaker 1: Susie's name to Angie, who came in one day for
Speaker 1: a spiky new dude died an admissible red, white and blue.
Speaker 1: Angie was thrilled with Susie's work and suggested she'd come
Speaker 1: back to Hadden Hall to see what could be done
Speaker 1: with david shaggy locks, which she deemed too rod stewart ish.
Speaker 1: Unlike the rest of him, David's hair hadn't really evolved
Speaker 1: much since his days as a folk hippie. Susie suggested
Speaker 1: that David get the chop too. David was open to
Speaker 1: the idea and began scouring magazines to find the perfect look.
Speaker 1: The end result was a blend of a few different
Speaker 1: fashion spreads, a little bit of model Christine Walton in
Speaker 1: the August issue of Vogue and a Dasha Kansai Yamamoto's
Speaker 1: shooting Harper's which used a red kabuki lions wig too
Speaker 1: great effect. Susie got out of razor and began slicing
Speaker 1: an elaborate feathered style, puffy in places and spiky and
Speaker 1: others like a sci fi space peacock, and with that
Speaker 1: the last thread to his sixties self was snipped. Now
Speaker 1: David was a fully modern man. It would be a
Speaker 1: few weeks before he famously die his locks red hot red,
Speaker 1: but the rest of the ziggy look was in place.
Speaker 1: On January two, it was the day David arrived at
Speaker 1: photographer Brian Wards to shoot the cover for the Rise
Speaker 1: and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Speaker 1: They did a few studio shots with the band before
Speaker 1: Brian suggested David accompany him outside to the street. It
Speaker 1: was a cold and rainy winter night and David was
Speaker 1: suffering from the flu, but he wanted a Brooklyn Alley scene.
Speaker 1: Grabbing a nearby guitar, they walked a few doors down
Speaker 1: to twenty three Headon Street, where David stopped and rested
Speaker 1: his foot on the stoop. They worked quickly. Even sick,
Speaker 1: David was a pro. All it took was four snaps
Speaker 1: to capture one of the most iconic images in rock history.
Speaker 1: Now it was time to take the show on the road.
Speaker 1: The first Ziggy show is at the Friars Aylesbury, not
Speaker 1: far from where Kruber could film the infamous subway attack
Speaker 1: scene and a clockwork orange. But David had some trouble
Speaker 1: with his own gang of drugs. David may have been
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about dressing up as a flamboyant, androgynous alien, but
Speaker 1: his bands not so much. When they first got to
Speaker 1: look at their new Freddie Baretti designed outfits, their initial
Speaker 1: reaction were variants of I'm not wearing that, I'm a musician.
Speaker 1: McK ronson moaned, I've got friends that are gonna watch me.
Speaker 1: Ronald was so horrified that he actually packed his bags
Speaker 1: headed to the local train station, intent on quitting the
Speaker 1: band for good. Woody Woodmancy spent an hour on the
Speaker 1: platform coaxing him back to the fold, But after the
Speaker 1: rapturous response from the audience, particularly from the female audience,
Speaker 1: they quickly warmed to the idea David would say. When
Speaker 1: they realized how many girls they could pull when they
Speaker 1: look so outlandish. They took to it like a fish
Speaker 1: to water. They never had so many women in their lives,
Speaker 1: so they got tardier and tardier. After their warm up
Speaker 1: gig at the Friars Aylesbury, the Ziggy Start Us tour
Speaker 1: officially kicked off on February tenth two at the Toby
Speaker 1: Jug Pub in London. It was a humble start, considering
Speaker 1: the stadiums to come. Sixty people milled about in front
Speaker 1: of the two foot high stage. Usually it was small
Speaker 1: time cabaret acts that performed at the Toby Jug. This
Speaker 1: was very, very different. Ziggy Started Us and the Spiders
Speaker 1: from Mars turned the suburban pub into an arena. When
Speaker 1: it was over, the crowd was left with ringing ears
Speaker 1: and an unforgettable sense of excitement over what they just witnessed.
Speaker 1: Ziggy was a case of small beginnings. David would recall,
Speaker 1: I remember when we had no more than twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty fans at most. They'd be down at the front
Speaker 1: and the rest of the audience wasn't different. It feels
Speaker 1: so special you and the audience kid yourself that you're
Speaker 1: in on this big secret. You feel kind of cool.
Speaker 1: It all gets so dissipated when you get bigger. The
Speaker 1: Toby Jug Show was the last pub gig Ziggy would
Speaker 1: ever play. The band spent the next few months criss
Speaker 1: crossing England and cramped cars and vans, playing mostly empty
Speaker 1: small clubs and college venues. It wasn't very glamorous. They
Speaker 1: hauled their own gear and pete and pub kitchen sinks.
Speaker 1: Once a venue lost power and David was forced to
Speaker 1: amuse the crowd by giving an impromptu rundown of his outfit.
Speaker 1: Another time, he tried the crowd surf as he'd seen
Speaker 1: Iggy Pop do, and he fell flat on his face.
Speaker 1: But slowly words started to build, the audience slowly started
Speaker 1: to swell. Then that July there was one performance that
Speaker 1: would change everything. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy, Stardust
Speaker 1: and the Spiders from Mars was released on June six.
Speaker 1: It was a slow burn at first, selling eight thousand
Speaker 1: copies in its first week, respectable but hardly earth shattering.
Speaker 1: It was an appearance on the British television program Top
Speaker 1: of the Pops that would truly herald Ziggy's arrival. The
Speaker 1: show was the everest for every music act in the UK.
Speaker 1: Once you've been on top of the pops, you were
Speaker 1: officially a star. Everyone watched it in a pre digital age.
Speaker 1: This was one of the few opportunities to actually see
Speaker 1: your favorite artists. Bowie have been trying to talk his
Speaker 1: way onto the show for ages, but to no avail.
Speaker 1: It was only after producers caught one of his concerts
Speaker 1: that they offered him the gig. They've never seen anything
Speaker 1: like him, neither at staff at the BBC Studios, who
Speaker 1: assumed Bowie in the band, clad in their flamboyant attire,
Speaker 1: full makeup in white varnished nails were extras from the
Speaker 1: sci fi show Doctor Who. They weren't prepared for this
Speaker 1: new kind of alien. Few people were. At seven thirty
Speaker 1: on the night of July six, some fifteen million people
Speaker 1: got their first look at Ziggy, Stardust and the Spiders
Speaker 1: from Mars. For such a star making performance, it was
Speaker 1: only fitting that Bowie performed star Man, his latest single.
Speaker 1: The Spiders mined their parts, a common practice at the time,
Speaker 1: but David's singing was absolutely live. The first thing viewers
Speaker 1: saw was an electric blue guitar and a delicate hands
Speaker 1: strumming strange, discordant chords. Then a face appeared thin and angular,
Speaker 1: framed with a choppy mane of crimson hair. It hardly
Speaker 1: registered as human, what with the multicolored eyes and a
Speaker 1: naturally pale pallor. A quilted rainbow jumpsuit clung to his
Speaker 1: bony body, which gyrated in time to the music, man,
Speaker 1: woman or alien. This being was undeniably and disconcertingly sexy.
Speaker 1: Parents and those of a more conservative band were not
Speaker 1: amused by the strange apparition on the tube, but the
Speaker 1: kids and anyone who ever felt a little different at
Speaker 1: times got it right away. This wasn't just a pop act.
Speaker 1: This was personal. I had to phone someone, so I
Speaker 1: picked on you. David sang, pointing directly into the camera
Speaker 1: lens two millions of new fans Bowie seemed to transcend
Speaker 1: their television sets and point directly at them. They had
Speaker 1: been chosen. If the Beatles had the Ed Sullivan Show,
Speaker 1: Bowie had Top of the Pops. Everything about it was right,
Speaker 1: the right time, the right song, the right style. The
Speaker 1: next day, classrooms and playgrounds were a buzz with talk
Speaker 1: of the alien who hijacked the BBC airwaves for three
Speaker 1: and a half precious minutes Not only did the show
Speaker 1: launched David's career in the UK, but it also jumped
Speaker 1: started an untold number of others. Future members of You Two,
Speaker 1: the Smith's Joy Division, and so many more all tuned
Speaker 1: in that night. For them, it was as meaningful as
Speaker 1: Bowie dropping the needle on a little Richard forty five
Speaker 1: for the first time. To say he changed lives with
Speaker 1: that performance is not an understatement. He offered an escape,
Speaker 1: a promise of redemption through transformation. With Bowie's confident, flamboyance,
Speaker 1: it issued a challenge, if you want my talent, accept
Speaker 1: all of me, makeup and all he was good enough
Speaker 1: that people did. His triumph was a triumph for everyone
Speaker 1: who ever felt like an outcast, and it made him
Speaker 1: the patron saint of the weird. Though it's strange to
Speaker 1: think now, the thing that raised the most eyebrows during
Speaker 1: the broadcast wasn't the alien closed or a feat makeup.
Speaker 1: It was a moment that occurred as the band launched
Speaker 1: into the chorus of Starman, David casually draped his arm
Speaker 1: around Mick Ronson, pulling him close so they could sing together.
Speaker 1: Viewers today wouldn't think twice about seeing such an act,
Speaker 1: But in early seventies England, such physical contact between men,
Speaker 1: especially men who looked like that, was positively shocking. Could
Speaker 1: these men in drag adjacent outfits be a couple? David's
Speaker 1: sexuality was already a matter of national debate, a fact
Speaker 1: that amused him greatly. Months earlier, in February, he made
Speaker 1: headlines with an interview given to the English music outlet
Speaker 1: Melody Maker. Reporter Michael Watts described David as quote rock
Speaker 1: swishiest outrage a gorgeously effeminate boy who's a camp as
Speaker 1: a row of tents, but the standout quote belongs to Bowie.
Speaker 1: I'm gay and always have been, he proclaimed, even when
Speaker 1: I was David Jones. Anticipating the controversy to come, he
Speaker 1: denied that his announcement was strictly for shock value. I'm
Speaker 1: not outrageous, he insisted, I'm David Bowie. The article triggered
Speaker 1: a press deluge. There were a few, if any, openly
Speaker 1: game musicians in England at that time. Just five years earlier,
Speaker 1: homosexuality had been illegal and punishable by jail time. Coming
Speaker 1: out in the pages of a print publication was utterly
Speaker 1: without precedent. Further confused in the British public was the
Speaker 1: fact that David had a wife and child, and she
Speaker 1: obviously knew all about David's sexual habits and traded partners
Speaker 1: with him at will. But even she was caught off
Speaker 1: guard by the announcement, telling him, you could have at
Speaker 1: least said you were bisexual. Because mother Peggy was even
Speaker 1: more concerned, she called David as soon as the news
Speaker 1: broke to try to get some clarity on what she
Speaker 1: just read. What's happening, David? Are you changing your sex?
Speaker 1: She asked, don't believe a word of it, mom, he
Speaker 1: assured her. The story kicked off a widespread debate about
Speaker 1: David's sexual identity. Is he or isn't he? Even some
Speaker 1: of his personal circle couldn't tell. Was this a proud
Speaker 1: declaration of sexual independence, liberating both himself and others from
Speaker 1: the chains of outdated social morays? Or was it an
Speaker 1: easy way to garner column space. Could it be elements
Speaker 1: of both. I did it more out of bravado, he'd
Speaker 1: later say. I wanted people to be aware of me.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to live my life behind a closed door.
Speaker 1: Michael Watts, who wrote the famous article, had his own
Speaker 1: ideas personally I think he was lying, Watts admitted in
Speaker 1: later years. I think he said it for effect as
Speaker 1: much as anything else. He's a master at misleading the
Speaker 1: press and creating headlines as a result. David was the
Speaker 1: son of a public relations man. His first job had
Speaker 1: been in advertising. He was certainly well versed in the
Speaker 1: ways of promotion, and this announcement had all the hallmarks
Speaker 1: of a perfectly orchestrated media event. The years he spent
Speaker 1: on the sidelines of the pop world had not been
Speaker 1: for nothing. It had given him the perfect vantage point
Speaker 1: to study the spotlight when it finally shown his way.
Speaker 1: He knew how to position himself from maximum shine. He
Speaker 1: was older than the sixties stars when he first tasted fame.
Speaker 1: The Beatles, the Stones and the Who were barely out
Speaker 1: of their teens when they first achieved success. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a clue. Bowie was now twenty five and much
Speaker 1: more sophisticated in the art of medium manipulation. David certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't adverse to playing up his sexual ambiguity when the
Speaker 1: occasion suited him. At a gig in June at the
Speaker 1: Oxford Town Hall, he had something special in mind for
Speaker 1: his biggest crowd to date. As Mick Ronson tore through
Speaker 1: his solo to Suffragette City, David threw himself at the
Speaker 1: guitarist feet, grabbed his rear, and began to bite his strings.
Speaker 1: Five flashes from photographer Mick Rock saved the moment for posterity.
Speaker 1: David may have been trying for a bit of Hendrick
Speaker 1: style stagecraft, but the pictures look somewhat more sexual, with
Speaker 1: David's face rather near to Ronson's crotch. David and de
Speaker 1: Frieze loved the pictures so much that they ran one
Speaker 1: as a full page advertisement in a music magazine. Though
Speaker 1: obstensibly it was a thank you to Bowie's staff and fans,
Speaker 1: it was really an advertisement for himself. But aligning oneself
Speaker 1: with a deeply oppressed group isn't the easiest way to
Speaker 1: sell more records. Ronson found it out soon after the
Speaker 1: guitar biting shot went to press. The stunt had the
Speaker 1: unintended consequence of making life difficult for his family. Paint
Speaker 1: was thrown on the front door and even on the
Speaker 1: new car make it bought for them. A number of
Speaker 1: David's friends were certain that he torpedoed any chance of
Speaker 1: a career. With his announcement, he no doubt faced a
Speaker 1: new resistance, particularly later on in America, where some program
Speaker 1: directors refused to play him. We don't have perfets on
Speaker 1: this show, they'd say. Even Alice Cooper had made the
Speaker 1: transition from dresses and high heels to embracing full on
Speaker 1: gore and horror. In his set, blood and dead babies
Speaker 1: were acceptable, but a man in a dress no way.
Speaker 1: In interviews with David's friends, words like opportunist, narcissist, and
Speaker 1: contrived surface a lot when discussing his sexual preference. It's
Speaker 1: no doubt that David identified as an outsider and was
Speaker 1: deeply attracted to the taboo, underground nature of gay subcultures.
Speaker 1: Books like Caro Wax on the Road and John Recci's
Speaker 1: seminal City of Night set his imagination a light in
Speaker 1: the early sixties with images of this twilight world that
Speaker 1: existed on the fringe of polite society. This colorful realm
Speaker 1: was so totally removed from the beige and boring existence
Speaker 1: parents that provided for him in the suburban town of Bromley.
Speaker 1: David claimed to be bisexual as far back as his
Speaker 1: time in the conras As a teenager, but his description
Speaker 1: of a sexuality with vary wildly throughout his life. When
Speaker 1: David spoke to reporter Michael Watts again four years after
Speaker 1: his infamous coming out story, he denied the whole thing bisexual.
Speaker 1: Oh lord, no, positively not. That was just a lie.
Speaker 1: I never adopted that stance. I've never done a bisexual
Speaker 1: action in my life, on stage, on record, or anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Later that same year, he told Playboy, It's true I
Speaker 1: am bisexual, but I can't deny I have used that
Speaker 1: fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that
Speaker 1: ever happened to me. Then, in the eighties, he would
Speaker 1: characterize his homosexual declaration as quote the biggest mistake I
Speaker 1: ever made, and advised fans not to believe everything they read.
Speaker 1: By the nineties, he gave perhaps his most frank and
Speaker 1: honest self assessment, saying, I think I was always a
Speaker 1: closet heterosexual. Well, I was physical about it, but frankly,
Speaker 1: it wasn't enjoyable. It was almost like I was testing myself.
Speaker 1: But for me, I was more magnetized by the whole
Speaker 1: gay scene. It was like another world that I really
Speaker 1: wanted to buy into. To some it's a moot point
Speaker 1: why label an artist as unclassifiable as David Bowie, But
Speaker 1: many in the burgeoning gay rights community regarded David as
Speaker 1: a hero. It was a title but made David uneasy.
Speaker 1: He was happy to encourage people to be themselves, but
Speaker 1: he was wary of transforming himself into a socio political cause.
Speaker 1: First and foremost, he saw himself as an artist rather
Speaker 1: than an activist. For all the personas he didn't have it,
Speaker 1: He'd never adopt that of a radicalized street fighting man.
Speaker 1: This disappointed some of the lgbt Q world, who felt
Speaker 1: betrayed and even used as he began to walk back,
Speaker 1: as sexual declaration. But despite this complicated alliance, it's impossible
Speaker 1: to downplay the impact David had by bringing gay culture
Speaker 1: to the mainstream. Up to this point, homosexuals were in
Speaker 1: mass media as a little more than punch lines or
Speaker 1: gross stereotypes. David projected strength, talent, youth, and success. To
Speaker 1: quote the designer Jean Paul Gualtier, he gave many the
Speaker 1: courage not to hide. That went for homosexuals or anyone
Speaker 1: who deviated from the so called norm. David himself said
Speaker 1: as much in two My Sexual Nature is irrelevant. I'm
Speaker 1: an actor. I play roles fragments of myself. By inhabiting
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust, the outlaw alien, he offered that same freedom
Speaker 1: to anyone. Life would never be the same for David again.
Speaker 1: After the Top of the Pops performance, Starman entered the
Speaker 1: Top ten, becoming his first bona fide hits and space oddity.
Speaker 1: But this was different. The zig Lp started flying up
Speaker 1: the shelves, and by the end of the year, practically
Speaker 1: everything he'd ever done was charting. Fans started camping out
Speaker 1: on the lawn at Hadden Hall, including a young boy George.
Speaker 1: Shopkeepers started giving David goods on the house. Two days
Speaker 1: after the Top of the Pops broadcast, the band performed
Speaker 1: a charity show at London's Royal Festival Hall, where David
Speaker 1: was introduced as the next biggest thing to God. Concerts
Speaker 1: were selling out across the country. At one some fans
Speaker 1: arrived in wheelchairs only to leap up at David's entrance,
Speaker 1: as if the mere presence of Ziggy had the power
Speaker 1: to heal. David had sung about a rock star messiah,
Speaker 1: now he was becoming one himself. He used his status
Speaker 1: to resurrect the careers of some Arrant friends. Upon hearing
Speaker 1: that the band Mott the Hoople were about to break up,
Speaker 1: David offered to write them a song and even play
Speaker 1: on it. The result, All the Young Dudes was a
Speaker 1: global smash, as was the accompanying album David produced, elevating
Speaker 1: them from has Been's The glam Princes. David's intervention with
Speaker 1: Iggy pop also paid off, as the resurrected Stooges entered
Speaker 1: the studio at the end of the summer to record
Speaker 1: Raw Power Her. When Iggy bots the mixing, David stepped
Speaker 1: in his producer to salvage the project. He pulled off
Speaker 1: an even more remarkable trick by transforming lou Reid, he
Speaker 1: of the moody gloomy Downtown denizens, into something of a
Speaker 1: pop star by producing the aptly named Transformer. The album
Speaker 1: included the top twenty hit Walk Him the wild Side,
Speaker 1: a tract that immortalized the friends and freaks at Warhol's factory.
Speaker 1: For the Smoldering Sacks Break, Bowie hired Ronnie Ross, the
Speaker 1: London jazz player who give him saxophone lessons every Weekend's
Speaker 1: a Little Boy in Bromley. Ross didn't recognize the rather
Speaker 1: strange looking man leading the session. He had known David
Speaker 1: his twelve year old Davy Jones, but as Ronnie was
Speaker 1: packing up to go, David sidled up to him and said, thanks,
Speaker 1: ron Should I come over to your house on Saturday morning?
Speaker 1: That's when it all clicked. But David's relationship with his
Speaker 1: past wasn't always so easy. One day, as he left
Speaker 1: the taping at the BBC TV studios, one of the
Speaker 1: hosts complimented him on the laughing no his goofy novelty
Speaker 1: song from nine oh. David replied, that's not me. Then
Speaker 1: he turned on his heels and headed to the limo
Speaker 1: waiting outside. He had places to go and new people
Speaker 1: to be Off The Record is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel Brown and Seawan
Speaker 1: tay Tone. The supervising producers are Taylor Skoyn and Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1: The show is written and hosted by me Jordan run
Speaker 1: Tug and edited, scored and sound designed by Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1: If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.