Speaker 1: Off. The record was a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: David Bowie was in the middle of performing his song
Speaker 1: Reality when he first felt it, a sharp pain in
Speaker 1: his shoulder. He was June two four and he was
Speaker 1: playing a show at the Prague. The venue was sweltering,
Speaker 1: he was dripping with sweat. Besides that, he looked as
Speaker 1: good as ever, fit, stylish, and much sprightlier than his
Speaker 1: fifty seven years should have allowed. The thrashing rocker he
Speaker 1: sang was about staring down your own mortality, accepting it.
Speaker 1: Now my sight is fading in this twilight, he sang.
Speaker 1: Then the pain hit. Suddenly. He couldn't catch his breath.
Speaker 1: He could barely manage the next line. Now my death
Speaker 1: is more than just a sad song. Then he stopped
Speaker 1: singing entirely. His bandmates glanced over, alarmed. They saw him
Speaker 1: hunched forward, clutching his chest and shoulder, looking pale, almost translucent.
Speaker 1: His eyes were wide. He seemed scared. Even the audience
Speaker 1: could tell something was badly wrong, and their expressions changed
Speaker 1: from joy to concern. A bodyguard was summoned and let
Speaker 1: him off the stage. The band continued without him for
Speaker 1: a few numbers while David rallied in the wings. He
Speaker 1: hated to cancel shows. There were nights when he kept
Speaker 1: a bucket just out of the spotlight in case he
Speaker 1: needed to be sick. He went back out to continue.
Speaker 1: He struggled valiantly through China Girl and Modern Lover, but
Speaker 1: stumbled during the ten minute epic Station a Station excused
Speaker 1: himself once more. After taking more time to recoup, he
Speaker 1: gave it one more shot, singing two more songs while
Speaker 1: seated on a stool, But then he finally gave in
Speaker 1: and took his premature bows. A doctor told him it
Speaker 1: was just a trapped nerve, nothing to worry about. He
Speaker 1: was given the go ahead to perform at a festival
Speaker 1: in Germany. Two days later. It was there on stage
Speaker 1: before people that he'd suffer a heart attack. Hello and
Speaker 1: welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond
Speaker 1: the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's
Speaker 1: greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug. This season explores
Speaker 1: the life, or rather lives of David Bowie. Today, we're
Speaker 1: looking at Bowie, the rock and roll elder statesman. Throughout
Speaker 1: the nineties, he continued to change and challenge inspiring new
Speaker 1: generations with his work. Far be it from David to
Speaker 1: go gently into middle age, but more than ever, he
Speaker 1: enjoyed life off the stage. David had a second chance
Speaker 1: at marriage and fatherhood and was deliriously happy in both.
Speaker 1: He'd faced his demons and wonted. Now he faced his
Speaker 1: own mortality. That would be a much more difficult battle.
Speaker 1: It was a hot, hazy night in Nassau back in
Speaker 1: a bar band wrapped up their set in a tiny
Speaker 1: tourist watering hole. As they started to pack up, a
Speaker 1: group of older guys sidled up. We want to play
Speaker 1: a few songs, mind if we borrow your gear? They
Speaker 1: asked for a bar band in the Bahamas. This was
Speaker 1: a fairly common request. It's always the same dudes on vacation,
Speaker 1: have a few beers and want to relive the glory
Speaker 1: days of their high school garage band. Here comes another
Speaker 1: tuneless version of Louis. Louis happens all the time. These
Speaker 1: guys looked like a yuppies, probably in town for a
Speaker 1: business conference, although one of them did look kind of familiar.
Speaker 1: The stage crashers stepped up and grabbed their respective instruments.
Speaker 1: If they bothered to introduce themselves to the forty or
Speaker 1: so American travelers. It certainly didn't learn them any special attention.
Speaker 1: The name Tin Machine meant nothing to these sun burn
Speaker 1: and boozers bent over their umbrella drinks. But one by
Speaker 1: one I zeroed in on the lead singer. Is that
Speaker 1: David Bowie? No wait, I think it is no, that
Speaker 1: can't be him. He's got a beard. But it was
Speaker 1: David Bowie. And he loved every messy minute of this
Speaker 1: five song guerrilla gig. The raw excitement gave him such
Speaker 1: a buzz for years. He meticulously stage managed each one
Speaker 1: of his performances, the lighting, props, and makeup, even the
Speaker 1: slightest gestures of his hands and face. Everything was engineered
Speaker 1: from maximum theatricality. Now devoid of drama and backed by
Speaker 1: his three friends, he could just rock. That is, after all,
Speaker 1: why he come to the Bahamas in the first place.
Speaker 1: He spent most days at a local studio working on
Speaker 1: a new album. But it wasn't a David Bowie record,
Speaker 1: Make no mistake. This was a band like the Beatles
Speaker 1: of the Stones. He was his latest transformation, and in
Speaker 1: a way it was his most radical. He was no
Speaker 1: longer David Bowie superstar. He was David Bowie, lead singer
Speaker 1: of the band Tin Machine, just one of the guys.
Speaker 1: But of course he could never just be one of
Speaker 1: the guys. He was David Bowie backed by a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys who, regardless of their formidable musical talents, were
Speaker 1: not David Bowie. At first, it all seemed rather dubious.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the first forty one year old man to
Speaker 1: start a band with a few friends. On the surface,
Speaker 1: it seemed like classic symptoms of a midlife crisis, up
Speaker 1: there with buying a sports car and getting a tattoo.
Speaker 1: It was indeed a strange move for such an unashamed individualist.
Speaker 1: Back in the sixties. His tenure and a string of
Speaker 1: bands would always be comically short lived. He'd storm off
Speaker 1: for one reason or another with a gleefully selfish cry
Speaker 1: of numero uno mate, that's who he was looking out
Speaker 1: for number one these days, of course, he had nothing
Speaker 1: to prove. He was ready to have some fun. The
Speaker 1: endeavor was less a reaction to middle age and more
Speaker 1: of a reaction to his dismal last record, seven's Never
Speaker 1: Let Me Down. The title was amusing because the disc
Speaker 1: succeeded in letting down pretty much everyone. Released just after
Speaker 1: his forty birthday, the glossy pop had been scrubbed of
Speaker 1: anything that bore even the slightest suggestion of grit or experimentation.
Speaker 1: Even the addition of his old Bromley school friend and
Speaker 1: fellow rock titan Peter Frampton failed to liven up the proceedings.
Speaker 1: Even David was horrified by the songs. It wasn't played
Speaker 1: with any conviction, He'd say, it was studiofied to such
Speaker 1: an extent that halfway through the sessions I was going
Speaker 1: out to lunch and just leaving everyone else to it.
Speaker 1: Perhaps to distract from the subpar material, David promoted never
Speaker 1: let Me Down. This most ambitious tour ever. It recalled
Speaker 1: the epic stage production of Diamond Dogs in four, but
Speaker 1: being the eighties, it was much bigger than Diamond Dogs
Speaker 1: in every sense, more of everything, more dates, more seats,
Speaker 1: more money. The set for what would become known as
Speaker 1: the Glass Spider Tour was touted as the biggest ever,
Speaker 1: costing an outrageous ten million dollars. Named for the album
Speaker 1: track about a mythological rachnid, The centerpiece of the production
Speaker 1: was a massive glass spider that loomed sixty feet over
Speaker 1: the stage. Weighing three hundred and sixty tons, It required
Speaker 1: a jaw dropping forty three trucks just to transport it.
Speaker 1: Three hundred people worked in ships for poor straight days
Speaker 1: to assemble the set for its American debut in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: that July. In a twist worthy of spinal tap, David
Speaker 1: discovered that the gargantuan spider was too big to fit
Speaker 1: into many indoor arenas. He hastily had a smaller junior
Speaker 1: spider build at no small cost. For David's entrance, he
Speaker 1: was lowered inside a translucent spider's belly while a fleet
Speaker 1: of dancers repelled down from the scaffolding above the stage.
Speaker 1: In a bid to make this a multi media event,
Speaker 1: the elaborately choreographed songs were broken up by short films.
Speaker 1: The overamped guitar duels between Frampton and Carlos Alamar often
Speaker 1: descended into a sort of headbanging parody. Songs were chosen
Speaker 1: less for their audience appeal and more to serve the
Speaker 1: plots for a series of vignettes. For the big finale,
Speaker 1: David appeared on top of a radio tower wearing a
Speaker 1: gold lamat leather suit decked out with a pair of wings.
Speaker 1: Then he slid down to the stage to perform his encore.
Speaker 1: It was, in a word, ridiculous. On paper, it was
Speaker 1: a success, press reports declared at the most lucrative tour
Speaker 1: of David's career, selling three million tickets. In retrospect, some
Speaker 1: would cite the show as a watershed for arena rock,
Speaker 1: paving the way for acts like You Two and Madonna
Speaker 1: to mount their own theatrical productions. But the Glass Spider
Speaker 1: Tour is seldom remembered as a triumph too many It's
Speaker 1: smacked of an aging man trying too hard. Despite all
Speaker 1: of the props and flamboyance, it read as plotless and pointless,
Speaker 1: an overblown, self indulgent spectacle. David's productions had always been
Speaker 1: characterized by taste and style, even back in the low resource,
Speaker 1: ziggy Stardust days when he had to make do with
Speaker 1: homemade costumes and doing his own makeup. Yet now that
Speaker 1: money was no object, the Glass Spider set looked cheap, pathetic,
Speaker 1: observed one critic, Like an amateur theater production, said another.
Speaker 1: Though Bowie initially enjoyed the Vegas style, absurdity of it all.
Speaker 1: He quickly grew tired of the hassle and tired in general.
Speaker 1: In advance of the tour, he'd submitted himse off the
Speaker 1: twelve hour rehearsals six days a week. He also insisted
Speaker 1: on overseeing all technical aspects of the production himself. By
Speaker 1: the time the tour kicked off in March, he was
Speaker 1: already exhausted. The rigorous choreography didn't exactly help. This is
Speaker 1: the most physical tour that I've ever done, he said.
Speaker 1: It's relentless, it never stops. I'm bruised as hell. I
Speaker 1: feel like a worn out rag doll. He struggled to
Speaker 1: cope with the punishing number of dates. Some nights his
Speaker 1: voice gave out, forcing Carlos Alamar to step in and
Speaker 1: cover for him. David grew cranky, and he began to
Speaker 1: lash out at the band and crew, blaming them for
Speaker 1: the lukewarm reviews. When the show's wrapped in New Zealand
Speaker 1: that November, he ceremoniously burnt the spiders, said in a field.
Speaker 1: Back home in Switzerland, he found himself at loose ends.
Speaker 1: He obviously wasn't gonna tour like that in anytime soon.
Speaker 1: Nothing he did seemed to be working, and his record label,
Speaker 1: E M I was always there to let him know.
Speaker 1: The conglomerate had shelled out some seventeen million dollars for
Speaker 1: a five record deal in two but since then his
Speaker 1: sales figures had taken a downward turn, marked the first
Speaker 1: time in seventeen years that Bowie's name didn't appear in
Speaker 1: the charts at all. In corporate speak, there was concern
Speaker 1: about the declining prospects of a viable product. In other words,
Speaker 1: they theority was washed up past it. I spent force.
Speaker 1: David was starting to get flak about his age from
Speaker 1: all sides. During press conferences for the Glass Spider Tour,
Speaker 1: he fended off questions about arthritis and lame jokes about
Speaker 1: renaming it the Antique road Show. He managed the grin
Speaker 1: and bear it without throttling any journalists. But when Kim
Speaker 1: Gordon of the ultra hip a rock band Sonic Youth
Speaker 1: described Bowie in an interview as quote old fart, it hurt.
Speaker 1: He seriously considered retiring all together and focusing on painting.
Speaker 1: I thought I should make as much money as I
Speaker 1: could and then quit. He later admit, I didn't think
Speaker 1: there was any alternative. I thought I was obviously just
Speaker 1: an empty vessel and would end up like everyone else,
Speaker 1: doing these stupid shows and singing Rebel Rebel until I
Speaker 1: fall over and bleed. David's path forward revealed itself from
Speaker 1: the form of a cassette he'd received during the Glass
Speaker 1: Spider tour. His public relations officer had slipped him a
Speaker 1: tape of her husband's music. His name was Reeves Gribrels.
Speaker 1: When David got around to playing reeves tape months after
Speaker 1: the tour wrapped, he was thoroughly impressed by his unique
Speaker 1: bluesy guitar. David called him up almost immediately, inviting him
Speaker 1: to his Swiss home. The collaborate. Reeves have been an
Speaker 1: avowed Bowie fan since his teenage years, but he found
Speaker 1: his hero surprisingly insecure and deeply unhappy. David can fighted
Speaker 1: that the multimillion dollar E m I deal made him
Speaker 1: feel duty bound to deliver hits, but the pressure to
Speaker 1: be commercial left him creatively stifled. The success he'd had
Speaker 1: earlier in the decade, but the global smash Let's Dance
Speaker 1: left him confused about who he was singing to. In
Speaker 1: his own words, he'd lost his vision Instead, with reeves encouragement,
Speaker 1: he put the audience aside and revisited the music that
Speaker 1: made him excited. They poured over David's favorites Hendricks, Cream,
Speaker 1: John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells. These formative
Speaker 1: influences would be the basis for the sound of David's
Speaker 1: new project, Tin Machine. A decade earlier, David had escaped
Speaker 1: the crushing tyranny of the top forty life by fleeing
Speaker 1: to Berlin and his aggressively uncommercial ambient explorations with Brian Eno.
Speaker 1: Now he took a similar approach, this time fleeing into
Speaker 1: a garage band. It allowed him to deconstruct the carefully
Speaker 1: assembled musical persona that had taken over his life. Like
Speaker 1: his Glass Spider tour, it had grown bloated and overblown.
Speaker 1: Now he could get back to the basics, and the
Speaker 1: results were liberating. Rather than continue to court the mass
Speaker 1: appeal heater and but Let's Dance, he'd simply stop trying
Speaker 1: and just do what he wanted. Tin Machine was David's
Speaker 1: abrupt left turn to take him away from the middle
Speaker 1: of the road. It led to a creative dead end
Speaker 1: according to most critics, but at least he enjoyed the ride.
Speaker 1: For a rhythm section, he tapped brothers Tony and Hunt Sales,
Speaker 1: sons of TV comedian Soupy Sales. They were twin dynamos
Speaker 1: who'd earned their stripes backing Iggy Pop and his lust
Speaker 1: for Life period before Iggy rudely dismissed them with the
Speaker 1: scathing line you're like heroin, I don't need you. Tales
Speaker 1: of the sales excesses and bad behavior. Legendary drummer Hunt
Speaker 1: was described by one band as the kind of guy
Speaker 1: who quote consumes his own body weight and dangerous substances
Speaker 1: every day bassis Tony had been involved in a nasty
Speaker 1: car crash that sent a stick shift through his chest
Speaker 1: and left him legally dead for several minutes. His memory
Speaker 1: was still a little shaky from the multi month coma,
Speaker 1: and his bandmates often had to shout the chord changes
Speaker 1: at him midsong. The brothers joined Reeves and Bowie in Switzerland,
Speaker 1: adding a dose of chaos to the sessions. It was
Speaker 1: volatile but productive. The first day yielded a new song,
Speaker 1: an unadorned retro blues called Heavens in Here. It was
Speaker 1: a sign of the fruitful partnership that would continue when
Speaker 1: recording formerly began at Compass Points Studios in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: Some thirty five tracks coalesced in just six weeks, including
Speaker 1: one rockabilly two and that would give the band its name.
Speaker 1: Most were recorded live, often in a single take. In
Speaker 1: between songs, the Sales brothers would call up their comedian
Speaker 1: father blasted the his dirty jokes through the studio p a.
Speaker 1: This set the tone for the productive, yet rowdy sessions.
Speaker 1: The Sales brothers were not the least big cowed by
Speaker 1: Bowie's reputation, and hectored him into leaving the rough edges
Speaker 1: and raw improvised words. The resulting lyrics or uncharacteristically obscenity
Speaker 1: laden and some might say unsophisticated, but they give the
Speaker 1: tracks a punkish edge in many ways, predicting the grunge
Speaker 1: explosions still a few years off to hear David tell it,
Speaker 1: the decision to make the project a true four way
Speaker 1: partnership was obvious. I think this has got to be
Speaker 1: a band, David said at the end of an early session.
Speaker 1: You guys don't listen to me anyway. It was the
Speaker 1: first time he'd embraced a group banner since his days
Speaker 1: with the Spiders from Mars, and even then it was
Speaker 1: his name out front. This time it was a gang
Speaker 1: of equals, equal pay and equal attention, though in practice
Speaker 1: it was less like a democracy and more like a
Speaker 1: shouting match, with a mild mannered Reeves on one side
Speaker 1: as David deputy and the facto musical director and the
Speaker 1: rambunctious sales brothers on the other. David adored all of it,
Speaker 1: the teasing, the rough housing, the fighting, the whole sweaty
Speaker 1: four guys in a basement vibe. It was everything that
Speaker 1: had been missing from his musical life since his days
Speaker 1: in the King Bees. As a teen, a new, neatly
Speaker 1: trimmed beard signaled this new image, and so did another
Speaker 1: classic rock star accessory, a much younger girlfriend, Melissa Hurley,
Speaker 1: was a twenty year old soloist with the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Chamber Ballet. Talented, intelligent, and beautiful, she was hired as
Speaker 1: a dancer for the Glass Spider tour. Each night, she'd
Speaker 1: pose in the audience as a screaming fan, only to
Speaker 1: be dragged up on stage to dance seductively with David.
Speaker 1: Her effortless splits always managed to impress from this silly
Speaker 1: bit of stage business, their relationship blossomed. They made a
Speaker 1: cute cup bowl almost twenty years David's jr. She playfully
Speaker 1: tried to update his style with hats and scarves with
Speaker 1: brightly colored eighties patterns. He'd play along for a few
Speaker 1: days before quietly losing them. She even got him to
Speaker 1: wear a thong at the beach, which led to merciless
Speaker 1: teasing from his bandmates. David loved to bring Melissa to
Speaker 1: art museums and elegant restaurants, the older man showing his
Speaker 1: love the world. David was enjoying his time as the
Speaker 1: frontman for a rock group, but the all for one,
Speaker 1: one for all charade was becoming hard to maintain. When
Speaker 1: Tim Machine released their self titled debut in May of nine,
Speaker 1: many reviewers simply ignored the whole band thing and just
Speaker 1: described it as a new David Bowie record. David tried
Speaker 1: to combat this by insisting that all interviews be conducted
Speaker 1: with the whole band. Usually their quotes were telling as
Speaker 1: hunt sales. Joked to one journalist, the thing that makes
Speaker 1: us differ from other bands is that the lead singers
Speaker 1: a millionaire, and of course he was right. Their low
Speaker 1: key club tour that summer may have looked like an
Speaker 1: old school rock and roll road show as they traveled
Speaker 1: by bus and played cards and ate it greasy spoon diners,
Speaker 1: But it was David who handed them each a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in cash to buy product suits for their first gig.
Speaker 1: Sure they were equal, but David's wealth made him a
Speaker 1: little more equal to everyone who didn't happen to be
Speaker 1: in Tim Machine. It all seemed disingenuous, just another pretentious
Speaker 1: character from David Bowie. This time he's posing as the
Speaker 1: frontman for some obscure rock band. The records sold decently,
Speaker 1: moving some two million copies, but the critical reactions mixed.
Speaker 1: Some found the raw, stripped down music exhilarating, citing it
Speaker 1: as his most exciting work in years. Others were turned
Speaker 1: off by their frattiness and phon nous. How can you
Speaker 1: build yourselves as a piste off, punky olt rock band
Speaker 1: when you have a superstar frontman and three virtuoso level musicians.
Speaker 1: David himself started to moan about the bad press. The
Speaker 1: same people who had mocked the Glass Spider tours overblown
Speaker 1: pomposity now rejected his straight ahead rock approach. I can't
Speaker 1: get anything right, David complained, I can't go big, I
Speaker 1: can't go small. Whichever way I go is wrong. At
Speaker 1: a time when he seemed more than happy to put
Speaker 1: his past behind him, David was presented with a business
Speaker 1: opportunity that was too good to pass up. At the
Speaker 1: dawn of the nineties, the transition from vinyl to c
Speaker 1: D was in full swing. Legacy artists like David, we're
Speaker 1: making a killing by reissuing their classic albums on this
Speaker 1: new digital format. Most acts did so with minimal attention
Speaker 1: to detail. Even the Beatles CD rollout was a notorious
Speaker 1: calamity with poorly remixed songs and cheap looking packaging. David
Speaker 1: was determined to avoid the same trap. He only agreed
Speaker 1: to the reissue if each CD contained something of value,
Speaker 1: unreleased bonus tracks or other outtakes the common practice. Now
Speaker 1: he was one of the first to do it. David
Speaker 1: took it a step further by haralding his arrival on
Speaker 1: CD with a new rarities filled box set called Sound
Speaker 1: and Vision. To promote the remarketing of his life's work.
Speaker 1: He agreed to temporarily leave the dingy tim Machine clubs
Speaker 1: behind and revert back into his stadium god incarnation. He
Speaker 1: agreed to a tour, one that was unlike any he'd
Speaker 1: ever undertaken. For the first time, he didn't have an
Speaker 1: album of new material, no new guys, persona or concept
Speaker 1: to get behind the sound and vision tour was purely
Speaker 1: a celebration of past glories. For a man who hated
Speaker 1: looking backwards, the idea of the Greatest Hits tour made
Speaker 1: him uncomfortable To cope, he boldly announced that this would
Speaker 1: be the last time he'd ever performed beloved titles from
Speaker 1: his back catalog. This was to be a fond farewell
Speaker 1: before consigning title was like Ziggy Stardust, Heroes and Space
Speaker 1: Oddity to history. To make it more interactive, he introduced
Speaker 1: a phone poll and asked fans to vote on what
Speaker 1: songs to include in his set. One prankish music outlets
Speaker 1: started a campaign to gather votes for the Laughing Gnome
Speaker 1: David's cringeworthy sixties Novelty Number. David was amused, but ultimately
Speaker 1: declined to include the song. The trek would consist of
Speaker 1: a d eight shows in twenty seven different countries. Slightly
Speaker 1: traumatized by the negative response to the elaborate Glass Spider tour,
Speaker 1: he took a minimalist approach this time around. The stage
Speaker 1: set was dominated by a massive, state of the art
Speaker 1: digital screen. It displayed various videos of David through the years,
Speaker 1: with which the slightly older flesh and blood David would interact.
Speaker 1: Though he'd cite the tourists as most enjoyable since the
Speaker 1: early Ziggy start US dates, it felt at times forced.
Speaker 1: The experience seemed to underscore is increased LEAs schitzoid career motivation.
Speaker 1: David never truly squared his desire for both cult credibility
Speaker 1: and blockbuster mainstream income. This dichotomy was illustrated perfectly on
Speaker 1: the Sound and Vision tour when several dates included a
Speaker 1: lengthy mid show pause for a message from the sponsor
Speaker 1: a beer brand, killing the musical momentum in the process.
Speaker 1: God only knows what his Tin Machine bandmates would have
Speaker 1: said to that. So which was it? Was David a
Speaker 1: rough and ready rock or rebel, or was he an
Speaker 1: arena idol with mass appeal? For David, those two identities
Speaker 1: existed in conflict with one another. It was a problem
Speaker 1: common for his peers. The first generation of rock stars
Speaker 1: were now reaching their forties, and there was no precedent
Speaker 1: for making the transition into middle age. Like many David
Speaker 1: found themselves at a crossroads. Would he continuous attempts to
Speaker 1: break new ground, or, except that his best days were behind,
Speaker 1: find him to move forward? He risked ridicule. To look backwards,
Speaker 1: he risked becoming a parody. He pondered all this as
Speaker 1: he absolutely thumbed through a magazine on a flight between concerts.
Speaker 1: Then his eyes landed on a stunning woman who graced
Speaker 1: his page. He elbowed his seat mate to point her out.
Speaker 1: This girl's interesting, David said. Her name was a mon.
Speaker 1: David Bowie met the love of his life on October.
Speaker 1: It was just days after he'd wrapped his Sound and
Speaker 1: Vision tour. One date Farewell That was musical past. That
Speaker 1: wasn't the only goodbye on the tour. His relationship with
Speaker 1: Melissa Hurley had come to an end. Despite reports of
Speaker 1: their engagement. It was an undramatic parting of the ways.
Speaker 1: David in years her senior would say that it had
Speaker 1: become quote one of those older men younger girls situations.
Speaker 1: It became obvious to me that it just wasn't going
Speaker 1: to work out as a relationship, and for that she
Speaker 1: thanked me one of these days. He arrived in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles that fall, perfectly content in his bachelor of them,
Speaker 1: I felt that was it for me, he'd recall. I
Speaker 1: didn't want, need, or desire any more permanent relationships. Then
Speaker 1: he received an invite to a birthday party for a
Speaker 1: hairdresser friend named Teddy Anteline. David would say it was
Speaker 1: love at first sight when he first saw Hman Muhammad
Speaker 1: Abdulma that night. Technically they had met a handful of
Speaker 1: times before, backstage at one of his gigs, and at
Speaker 1: various other celebrity functions, but the point remains clear. His
Speaker 1: attraction was intense and instant. I was naming the children
Speaker 1: the night we met, he would say, I just fell
Speaker 1: under her spell. For David, Imman was the perfect mix
Speaker 1: of sparkling intelligence, unshakable confidence, and other worldly beauty. Underline
Speaker 1: that last part, David was unequivocable about his first impressions.
Speaker 1: I found her intolerably sexy, he'd later say. She was
Speaker 1: born in nineteen fifty five and Somalia to a family
Speaker 1: who prided themselves on intellectual excellence. Her father was a
Speaker 1: diplomat and her mother a position. Their vaulted social status
Speaker 1: couldn't protect them from a military coup, and they fled
Speaker 1: on foot to neighboring Kenya when she was a teenager.
Speaker 1: It was there that she studied political science at the
Speaker 1: University of Nairobi, working her way through school with a
Speaker 1: waitressing gig and a job as a local translator, putting
Speaker 1: her five language fluency to good use. One day between
Speaker 1: classes in she was spotted on the street by famed
Speaker 1: American photographer Peter Beard. Beard was impressed with her obvious
Speaker 1: beauty and asked if she'd ever been photographed. Moms offended.
Speaker 1: Oh God, she thought, here goes another white man who
Speaker 1: thinks we've never seen a camera before. She agreed to
Speaker 1: sit for a shoot provided Beard pay the eight thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for her college tuition. Beard, who knew a good
Speaker 1: investment when he saw it, agreed. He used his formidable contacts,
Speaker 1: the Getty Mans, signed to one of Manhattan's top modeling agencies, Wilhelmina,
Speaker 1: who had represented the likes of Lauren Hutton and Angelica Houston.
Speaker 1: Like David Iman, was preda naturally wise in the ways
Speaker 1: of medium manipulation, she played along with the bizarre and
Speaker 1: sort of racist Cinderella backstory the agency concocted for They
Speaker 1: cast their latest discovery as a nomadic Somali cattle girl
Speaker 1: who spoke no English. It was all fabrication, Eman admitted,
Speaker 1: But I was definitely not the victim of it. I
Speaker 1: was an accomplice. I knew exactly what was going on.
Speaker 1: She was less wise about the fashion industry. When photographed
Speaker 1: for Vogue, she apparently never heard of the fashion Bible.
Speaker 1: It was also her first time wearing makeup and high heels.
Speaker 1: I was like a dear cought in the headlights of
Speaker 1: a car, she would remember. She proved to be a natural,
Speaker 1: able to convey complex emotion through minute manipulations of her
Speaker 1: hands and face, just like David and his talents. For mine,
Speaker 1: even the m O was similar. You have to give
Speaker 1: people fantasies, She'd say. You have to create illusions all
Speaker 1: the time. Iman would come to dominate the fashion landscape,
Speaker 1: and much the same way David did music. The world's
Speaker 1: biggest designers saying her praises. Eve St Laurent would refer
Speaker 1: to her as flawless. Karl Logerfeld would call her one
Speaker 1: of the greatest models in the world. I used her
Speaker 1: from the start. Bill Blast would say, the truth is
Speaker 1: she's a great actress. Future supermodels like Naomi Campbell and
Speaker 1: Tyra Banks would cite her as both a trailblazer and
Speaker 1: a mother figure. By the time she met David, she'd
Speaker 1: retired from the runway and embarked on her second successful
Speaker 1: career as a businesswoman with her own cosmetics line, recently
Speaker 1: divorced from NBA star Spencer Haywood. She was, like David,
Speaker 1: wary of getting into another long term relationship. I had
Speaker 1: no intention of getting married again ever, she'd say, and
Speaker 1: somebody in music never like a hole in the head.
Speaker 1: I definitely didn't want to get into a relationship with
Speaker 1: somebody like David. Yet he won her over with charm
Speaker 1: and a little persistence. Two weeks after they started casually dating,
Speaker 1: she flew to Paris for business. When she returned to
Speaker 1: l A, David was on the tarmac to meet her,
Speaker 1: flowers in hand. Photographers had a field day. David didn't
Speaker 1: care when it came to courtship. He was old fashioned,
Speaker 1: a classic English gentleman. It was the little things that
Speaker 1: melted her heart. The way he held the door for her,
Speaker 1: the way he got down in the middle of a
Speaker 1: street to tie her shoes when her laces came undone.
Speaker 1: On the fourteenth of every month, he'd send her flowers
Speaker 1: for their mini anniversary. He loved to read to her,
Speaker 1: just like her father had done. I fell in love
Speaker 1: with David Jones, she'd say, not David Bowie. Both were
Speaker 1: mature masters of their respective fields. Both were secure, both
Speaker 1: financially and personally. As Iman would note, we've both lived
Speaker 1: a bit on the wild side, and we're both deep
Speaker 1: down home bodies. For all their similarities, their differences complimented
Speaker 1: one another well. Iman was grounded with a strong singular identity.
Speaker 1: That's what I needed my life, David would say, someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't have a fractured personality, very down to earth.
Speaker 1: Iman's parents liked David, but they would have preferred if
Speaker 1: he was Somali or Muslim, or at very least black. Still,
Speaker 1: that didn't stop David from proposing in October, a year
Speaker 1: after they'd met. He had arranged the moment with the
Speaker 1: same care he lavished on his stage shows. They were
Speaker 1: in Paris, and he rented a boat to take them
Speaker 1: up and down the scene as the pianist he hired
Speaker 1: played April in Paris, David got down on one knee.
Speaker 1: The ring dated from the eighteenth century. They'd spotted it
Speaker 1: together while shopping in Florence. When David returned to get it,
Speaker 1: he discovered that someone else had already bought it, so
Speaker 1: David used his special bowie privileges to track down the
Speaker 1: new owner and buy it off him. The couple also
Speaker 1: marked their union in a more modern way and a
Speaker 1: more permanent one tattoos. David opted for a figure riding
Speaker 1: a dolphin on his left calf, all overlaid with the
Speaker 1: Japanese translation of the Serenity Prayer. The unusual illustration was
Speaker 1: inspired by a book he'd recently read, called A Grave
Speaker 1: for a Dolphin, in which a European protagonist finds a
Speaker 1: sense of peace during his wanderings in Somalia. The character
Speaker 1: reminded David of himself. Emma On shows a more literal
Speaker 1: symbol for her tattoo, a bowie knife above her ankle,
Speaker 1: with the word David written on the handle. She also
Speaker 1: got his name in Arabic lettering tattooed on her stomach.
Speaker 1: David proposed again a few days later on stage at
Speaker 1: the Paris Olympia Theater, where he was playing a gig
Speaker 1: with Tin Machine. He'd reunited with his merry band of
Speaker 1: rockers not long after wrapping his sound and vision commitments.
Speaker 1: Aman joined him for some of the dates, giving her
Speaker 1: an early taste of having a road warrior as a husband,
Speaker 1: but she ultimately went home early, correctly observing how many
Speaker 1: times can you hear the same songs? She wasn't the
Speaker 1: only one that grow tired of David's band executed. David's label,
Speaker 1: E M I were also less than thrilled by David's
Speaker 1: latest musical Foray. After all, they'd shelled out millions for
Speaker 1: David Bowie, not Tin Machine, whoever they were. They balked
Speaker 1: at the prospect of releasing a second Tin Machine record,
Speaker 1: forcing David to find another label. The public seemed equally
Speaker 1: bored by their sophomore offering, called apropriately enough Tim Machine Too.
Speaker 1: The aggressive mash of feedback and distortion held some catchy
Speaker 1: melodies and strong songs, notably Goodbye Mr Ed, Shopping for Girls,
Speaker 1: and the thundering lead single You Belong in Rock and Roll.
Speaker 1: Bowie himself would rate the album among his all time favorites.
Speaker 1: But it didn't connect with audiences, failing to break the
Speaker 1: top twenty in the UK. It did even worse in
Speaker 1: the US, where it failed to break a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty on billboard. After that, David's enthusiasm for the band
Speaker 1: began to cool. Nothing against the guys, but his priorities
Speaker 1: were changing professionally and personally. I no longer need attention,
Speaker 1: he said, somewhat dubiously. At the time, I wondered the
Speaker 1: adoration of the masses, the audience, because I was incapable
Speaker 1: of one, the one communication. I used to feel nothing
Speaker 1: without my work. Now I no longer feel guilty if
Speaker 1: I'm not working. Now he had him on and she
Speaker 1: had him. They were legally married on April. It was
Speaker 1: a quiet service at the city hall in Lausanne, Switzerland,
Speaker 1: but the public ceremony for family and friends a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, on June six, was significantly less quiet. It
Speaker 1: took place at the St. James Church in Florence, with
Speaker 1: the hovering news helicopters and cheering crowds. David and Aman
Speaker 1: retreated like foreign dignitaries. They received a police escort to
Speaker 1: the church, blowing red lights and causing traffic jams. All
Speaker 1: throughout the ancient city. Friends like Yoko Ono and Brian
Speaker 1: Eno were on hand for the fifty minutes service, which
Speaker 1: featured music David had written especially for the day. Stylist
Speaker 1: Teddy Anteline, who first introduced the couple, did their hair.
Speaker 1: The groom wore a white tie suit, the better to
Speaker 1: show off as glowing tan, topped off with a silver
Speaker 1: stud in his ear. The bride wore an oyster colored
Speaker 1: dress with a train. She walked down the aisle to
Speaker 1: the sound of a Bulgarian folk song. David's twenty one
Speaker 1: old son, Zoe now going by Joey, stood by his
Speaker 1: father as best man. Afterwards, guests were invited to party
Speaker 1: at a former Medicia State where they danced to David's
Speaker 1: own mixtape. The night ended with riverside fireworks before the
Speaker 1: new husband and wife turned in just after midnight. The
Speaker 1: next day, they set out for a month long honeymoon
Speaker 1: to Bali in Japan, a trip that a mom would
Speaker 1: call divinely sexy. To describe the moment as a turning
Speaker 1: point in David's life would be both cliche and an understatement.
Speaker 1: When Presston interviews to name his greatest achievement, he'd unflinchingly answer,
Speaker 1: marrying my wife, nothing else counts. David would mark the
Speaker 1: occasion with a new record, a new David Bowie record.
Speaker 1: The Tin Machine were no more. There was no big
Speaker 1: bust up and not even a formal split. Some would
Speaker 1: say the end came the moment he shaved his beard.
Speaker 1: It was highly symbolic. After a few years of pretending
Speaker 1: to be an outsider, he wanted his old life back.
Speaker 1: His memories of the band mirrored their mixed reviews. When
Speaker 1: it worked, it was unbeatable, He'd say, some of the
Speaker 1: most explosive music that I've ever been involved in or
Speaker 1: even witnessed. But when it was bad, it was so
Speaker 1: unbelievably awful you just wanted the earth to open up
Speaker 1: and take you under. The band was an absolutely necessary
Speaker 1: step and his artistic path, helping him break out of
Speaker 1: the boring MTV cycle he found himselves in with Let's Dance.
Speaker 1: It got him back to his roots and recalibrated his
Speaker 1: creative compass, and it all led him straight back to
Speaker 1: the guy who helped him make Let's Dance. For his
Speaker 1: new record, he teamed up with Nile Rodgers, co producer
Speaker 1: and sonic architect of David three global blockbuster. It was
Speaker 1: a move that would strike something close to David is confusing.
Speaker 1: He just spent years trying to put that part of
Speaker 1: his career behind him. Now it seemed like he was
Speaker 1: going backwards. Perhaps he was caaving the pressure from his
Speaker 1: label who wanted him to get serious and deliver hits,
Speaker 1: or perhaps it was just too personal to be a
Speaker 1: band project. From the start, he intended the record, Black Tie,
Speaker 1: White Noise, to be, in his own words, his wedding album.
Speaker 1: It opens with a euphoric instrumental piece called the Wedding,
Speaker 1: which he composed for the nuptials in Florence, complete with
Speaker 1: ringing church bells. The tune is a marriage of Western
Speaker 1: and Eastern modes, signifying their own cultural union. He reprises
Speaker 1: the theme for the closing track, the Wedding Song, on
Speaker 1: which he sings of his angel for Life. The album
Speaker 1: also contains the song Jump They Say, inspired by suicide
Speaker 1: of his elder half brother Terry. Never before David publicly
Speaker 1: voiced his feelings on this devastating loss. The lyrics are oblique,
Speaker 1: but Terry's ghostly presence as felt through references to madness
Speaker 1: and death, The specter of David's late brother can also
Speaker 1: be felt in another song, the techno funk cover of
Speaker 1: I Feel Free, originally by Cream. Decades earlier, David had
Speaker 1: taken Terry to see the band perform. Terry had set
Speaker 1: young David's imagination a light by showing him around the
Speaker 1: jazz haunts of Soho as a schoolboy. Now, David was
Speaker 1: thrilled to reciprocate by taking his elder brother to his
Speaker 1: very first psychedelic rock show. But the irre splitting music
Speaker 1: triggered a psychotic episode in Terry and early manifestation of
Speaker 1: the schizophrenia that would derail his life. Midway through the show,
Speaker 1: Terry fled the theater and collapsed on the sidewalk outside,
Speaker 1: tormented by visions of hell fire. It was a pivotal
Speaker 1: moment in David's life, one that marked a permanent split
Speaker 1: with the man who had been his dear friend, protector
Speaker 1: and mentor. David would remember Cream playing I Feel Free
Speaker 1: in the Distance, the soundtrack to his own law Denocence.
Speaker 1: His choice to cover the song on Black Tie White
Speaker 1: Noise was made all the more poignant by the addition
Speaker 1: of guitarist Mick Ronson. Mick had been David's main collaborator
Speaker 1: and on stage foil during his formative Ziggy years, delivering
Speaker 1: bone crunching guitar solos in addition to the lush orchestral
Speaker 1: arrangements for David's early gems. Their relationship had been strained
Speaker 1: since David famously jettison the Spiders from Mars during his
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust retirement show. When Ronson made his own bid
Speaker 1: for the Spotlight with a solo record, David felt betrayed
Speaker 1: and the two stopped speaking. It would take almost a
Speaker 1: decade for them to perform together again. Relations finally began
Speaker 1: to fall in three when David brought Ronson out as
Speaker 1: a special guest on one of his serious Moonlight Tour dates.
Speaker 1: They stayed in touch after that, but mostly kept their distance.
Speaker 1: The next time they share the stage was in April
Speaker 1: at a tribute concert for Freddie Mercury, who had recently
Speaker 1: died of an age related illness. Ronson's own health crisis
Speaker 1: brought a somber edge to the already melancholic event. He'd
Speaker 1: been diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer and knew his time
Speaker 1: could be measured in months. The news triggered a flood
Speaker 1: of emotions in David, who invited Mick into the studio
Speaker 1: to record one more time together for old Time's sake.
Speaker 1: It would be his first appearance on a Bowie record
Speaker 1: in twenty years, and it was also his last. Mick
Speaker 1: Ronson died weeks after the release of Black Tie, White
Speaker 1: Noise in the spring. He was forty seven years old.
Speaker 1: David was in the midst of his press tour and
Speaker 1: honored his following bandmate frequently during interviews. Of all the
Speaker 1: early seventies guitar players, Mick was probably one of the
Speaker 1: most influential and profound. David told TV host ar Senio
Speaker 1: Hall days after his death, I miss him a lot. Curiously,
Speaker 1: David failed to attend Ronson's tribute concert, a decision that
Speaker 1: puzzled fans and rankled ron and his loved ones. He'd
Speaker 1: done it for Freddie Mercury, why not Mick. The truth
Speaker 1: was complicated, as is often the case when David grappled
Speaker 1: with sentimentality. Friends recalled David listening to Old Spider's era
Speaker 1: recordings and the weeks after Ronson's death and being moved
Speaker 1: to tears by the guitarist virtuosity. Many who interacted with
Speaker 1: David over the years, but declare him an ice man,
Speaker 1: incapable of foraging an authentic emotional connection. In reality, the
Speaker 1: feelings were likely too much to bear. It was just
Speaker 1: easier to move forward. David was in the midst of
Speaker 1: a creative renaissance. He followed Black Tie, White Noise a
Speaker 1: few months later with one of his greatest and most
Speaker 1: overlooked albums. It was the soundtrack to a four part
Speaker 1: television film based on the novel The Buddha of Suburbia,
Speaker 1: about a young Indian man caught between the old world
Speaker 1: and new values as he comes of age in South London.
Speaker 1: David loves the book. He'd to himself The Boddho of
Speaker 1: Suburbia during his arts lab years and Beckingham. He was
Speaker 1: such a fan that a magazine sent him to interview
Speaker 1: the books author, Hanive Kureshi, a fellow Bromley boy who
Speaker 1: had even attended the same school as Bowie. At the
Speaker 1: end of the interview, the author mentioned that the BBC
Speaker 1: was adapting the book for a movie. Mostly as a joke.
Speaker 1: He suggested Bowie do the music. Within days, they were
Speaker 1: both in a recording studio. Bowie worked on the BBC's
Speaker 1: Tight Time schedule writing and recording the music, and just
Speaker 1: six days he also worked on the BBC's tight budget,
Speaker 1: a pittance that left him thoroughly amused. Though only the
Speaker 1: title track was actually featured in the film, it was
Speaker 1: categorized as a soundtrack album and marketed accordingly. That is
Speaker 1: to say, it was barely marketed at all when it
Speaker 1: was released in November of the Buddha of Suburbia became
Speaker 1: David's first album in twenty two years not to make
Speaker 1: the UK charts. It wasn't even released in the States
Speaker 1: until Despite its obscurity, or perhaps because of it, David
Speaker 1: would cite the record as a favorite. On some level,
Speaker 1: he was probably relieved to avoid the hoopla that accompanied
Speaker 1: chartbusting sales. When a reporter asked if he planned on
Speaker 1: launching a tour to promote Black Tie, White Noise, he
Speaker 1: only laughed, heavens no, I'd like to, but it takes
Speaker 1: up so much time. I think I lost a lot
Speaker 1: of my life doing that iman and completely redefined David's existence.
Speaker 1: She's changed my life, David said, I give far more
Speaker 1: over to her than before, so it takes a wedge
Speaker 1: out of what I would be throwing into my work.
Speaker 1: The idea of getting married and then immediately running away
Speaker 1: for ten months on tour seemed like, in his words,
Speaker 1: a disaster. Instead, they traveled the world together, from Bali
Speaker 1: to southern England, the grounds of King Arthur's mythical Camelot.
Speaker 1: My idea of an experience is a yacht cruise with
Speaker 1: them on, He'd say, I want to be with her,
Speaker 1: She's my soul mate. Their devote into each other was total,
Speaker 1: as far from a show biz marriage as one could get.
Speaker 1: One Christmas Human made David slippers, waking up an hour
Speaker 1: before his six am alarmed to Hambroiderer's initials. David made
Speaker 1: strenuous efforts to get healthy for his new bride. He
Speaker 1: gave up drinking and took up jogging. He even tried
Speaker 1: to quit smoking, but that habit proved harder to kick.
Speaker 1: He's still inhaled upwards of sixty Marlboro lights a day,
Speaker 1: burning them down to his knuckle before lighting the next
Speaker 1: with the ashes of the first. He tried books, tapes,
Speaker 1: even a hypnotist, but the couch, he said, only gave
Speaker 1: him a sore bum. The time he'd previously spent on
Speaker 1: music instead went to the visual Arts. He began developing
Speaker 1: his art collection, purchasing works by Damien Hurst, David Bamberg,
Speaker 1: and Jean Michelle Baskiot. David appeared in the Late Street
Speaker 1: Artists biopic Playing of All People Andy Warhol. Much as
Speaker 1: he done for The Elephant Man, David did his research.
Speaker 1: He visited the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and handled some
Speaker 1: of his personal effects, even borrowing the pop Art Titan's
Speaker 1: wig for the film. He read extensively on art history
Speaker 1: and attended lectures. David even joined the editorial board for
Speaker 1: Modern Painters magazine. He continued to paint himself, pursuing a
Speaker 1: passion that dated back to his days at Bromley Tech
Speaker 1: as a student in the art class taught by Peter
Speaker 1: Frampton's father Owen. In his own mind, he had always
Speaker 1: seen himself as less of a musician and more of
Speaker 1: a painter, had gone astray. In April, David held his
Speaker 1: first solo exhibition at a London gallery, displaying portraits, sculptures
Speaker 1: and images generated through computers, his new favorite tool. Art
Speaker 1: critics were suspicious of paintings by those of David, Silk
Speaker 1: rock music, being traditionally viewed as a lesser art form,
Speaker 1: and the reviews were predictably savage. The word embarrassing cropped
Speaker 1: up at least once. And then there was another of
Speaker 1: David's visual projects, wallpaper That's right. David Bowie created a
Speaker 1: line of wallpaper produced in tandem with Laura Ashley. To
Speaker 1: be fair, this wasn't your grandma's wallpaper. One design included
Speaker 1: a charcoal drawing of a mythological half man half bull
Speaker 1: creature known as a minotaur. The critics, not to mention,
Speaker 1: David's fans, were baffled. One reviewer was bold enough to
Speaker 1: ask if the wallpaper was David's artistic suicide note, but
Speaker 1: David seemed to take it a lot less seriously than
Speaker 1: everyone else. I chose wallpaper because of its status as
Speaker 1: something completely incongruous, He'd explained. I haven't completely lost my
Speaker 1: sense of irony. I'm midway between high art and low art.
Speaker 1: I'm a mid art populist and a postmodernist Buddhist who's
Speaker 1: casually surfing his way through the chaos of the late
Speaker 1: twentieth century. When David and Human wished to further escape
Speaker 1: the chaos of the late twentieth century, they flew to
Speaker 1: the island of Mystique, an outpost for wealthy British expats
Speaker 1: and the Grenadines, just off the coast of South America.
Speaker 1: David had first visited the island in six when Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger and his girlfriend Jerry Hall invited him down to
Speaker 1: their estate for Christmas. David immediately fell in love with
Speaker 1: the remote, tropical paradise. In His ongoing competition with Mick
Speaker 1: made it all the more appealing. Bowie, after all, was
Speaker 1: always anxious to keep up with the Jaggers. Soon David
Speaker 1: at his own plot of land and a team of
Speaker 1: workmen constructing a compound. It was exact specifications. It was
Speaker 1: a fantasia of Asian influences. There were Japanese gardens with
Speaker 1: ornamental koi ponds and a Balinese dining pavilion that overlooked
Speaker 1: the mountains of Britannia Bay. The main house was stocked
Speaker 1: with fourteen cargo containers of antiques from all around the world.
Speaker 1: Mostique became David's sanctuary, where he could read, paint and
Speaker 1: work on the screenplay he'd been tinkering with for years.
Speaker 1: When even that became too taxing, he could take a
Speaker 1: dip in the sea or eat some lobster or just
Speaker 1: watch the sunset with him on. He would later describe
Speaker 1: the home of somewhere where he had absolutely no motivation
Speaker 1: to do a thing. Inevitably, David would be drawn back
Speaker 1: into his music. He'd rekindled his connection with Brian Eno,
Speaker 1: his co conspirator on the boldly experimental Berlin Trilogy. The
Speaker 1: pair hadn't worked together since nineteen seventy nine's Lodger. In
Speaker 1: the intervening years, you Know would become one of the
Speaker 1: most in demand producers in music, overseeing groundbreaking releases for
Speaker 1: Talking Heads, You Two, and Divo, all of whom were
Speaker 1: deeply influenced by the work he'd done with Bowie. Reunited
Speaker 1: at David's wedding, they each played pieces of their own
Speaker 1: music at the reception, and we're thrilled by the response
Speaker 1: on the dance floor. This spark talks for a new album,
Speaker 1: which they hoped would be the most uncompromising of their careers.
Speaker 1: For a fresh approach, they visited the Googing Psychiatric Hospital
Speaker 1: near Vienna, where a group of patients were housed in
Speaker 1: a combination clinic and artist commune. There they could give
Speaker 1: free reign to their creative impulses. And express themselves outside
Speaker 1: of the usual parameters placed on artists. David Andino brought
Speaker 1: some of their outsider artwork back with them to their
Speaker 1: studio Touchstones for their New Outlook sessions in Montrose, Switzerland
Speaker 1: took on the atmosphere of an avant garde art happening
Speaker 1: when they began in March, and all star lineup of
Speaker 1: Bowie collaborators have been assembled, including Berlin Trilogy veteran Carlos Alamar,
Speaker 1: ex Spider from Mars, Mike Garson, Tim Machine bandmate, Reeves
Speaker 1: Gabrel's drummer Sterling Campbell, and Basis Erdal Kazilka. Paints, charcoal,
Speaker 1: canvas and paper were left around the studio just in
Speaker 1: case anyone wanted to express themselves visually when they were playing.
Speaker 1: As much as he did on Heroes and Lodger, Eno
Speaker 1: employed his trust the Oblique Strategies cards to prime the
Speaker 1: creative pump with unorthodox suggestions, but this time he took
Speaker 1: it a step further, devising a complex role playing game
Speaker 1: to break the players out of their usual habits and
Speaker 1: self limiting mindsets. At the start of the sessions, he
Speaker 1: passed a card to each musician that contained information about
Speaker 1: their character. You're on the third moon of Jupiter and
Speaker 1: you're the house band, read one. You're the morale booster
Speaker 1: of a small, ragtag terrorist operation. You must keep spirits
Speaker 1: up at all costs, said another. Bowie's card informed him
Speaker 1: that he was a town crier in a society where
Speaker 1: all media networks have tumbled down. The experiments continued as
Speaker 1: they play it as well. Sometimes, you know, would have
Speaker 1: the musicians listen to motown oldies through their headphones as
Speaker 1: they recorded a totally unrelated song, just to see how
Speaker 1: the music in their ears has impacted the vibe of
Speaker 1: the new track out of context. These approaches seem like
Speaker 1: the comical whims of an eccentric producer, but there was
Speaker 1: a method to the madness. It was intended to keep
Speaker 1: the music from jelling too much and becoming too homogenized
Speaker 1: too In ENO's words, coherent. The interesting place is not chaos,
Speaker 1: and it's not total coherence, he would explain, it's somewhere
Speaker 1: on the cusp of those two. Bowie took a similar
Speaker 1: approach with his lyrics. He updated the William Burrows style
Speaker 1: cut and paste technique that he used on Diamond Dogs.
Speaker 1: This time he fed bits of poems and magazine articles
Speaker 1: into a computer program that randomly reconfigured sentences and phrases,
Speaker 1: much as he had while making Low. David started getting
Speaker 1: concerned notes from his label, wondering what the hell he
Speaker 1: was doing. That's when David knew they were onto something good.
Speaker 1: The experimentation paid off. They completed some thirty five hours
Speaker 1: of backing tracks in just ten days. Is then it
Speaker 1: took David a year and a half to whittle it
Speaker 1: down and craft the songs, and there was a single narrative, or,
Speaker 1: as he put it, a nonlinear gothic drama hyper cycle.
Speaker 1: It was a return to the sci fi concept albums
Speaker 1: that he'd largely avoided since Diamond Dogs. This time he'd
Speaker 1: craft a fictional dystopian realm that was more ambitious than
Speaker 1: any he'd ever attempted. Over the early months, he added
Speaker 1: a series of spoken words sigus or monologues to flesh
Speaker 1: out the surreal murder plot. It was somewhat dense and convoluted,
Speaker 1: more akin to a graphic novel than an album, featuring
Speaker 1: not one but seven protagonists. Based on a short story
Speaker 1: he'd written called The Diary of Nathan Adler, the tale
Speaker 1: follows the dismemberment of a fourteen year old runaway whose
Speaker 1: body parts are intended for use in an art piece.
Speaker 1: Detective Nathan Adler, who works in the government's newly formed
Speaker 1: Art Crime Bureau, is tasked with determining what is legally
Speaker 1: acceptable as art and what's trash. It's a biting comment
Speaker 1: on both the turn of the millennium anxiety and also
Speaker 1: the art scene of the era. Perhaps the poor reviews
Speaker 1: David received at a solo exhibition provided some inspiration. David
Speaker 1: called the album One Outside. Despite the numeral and its
Speaker 1: title and the to be continued teas at the end,
Speaker 1: the four sequels he supposedly had planned never materialized, even
Speaker 1: with the unresolved cliffhanger, It's his definitive work of the nineties.
Speaker 1: At seventy five minutes, it's David's longest record, a sprawling
Speaker 1: epic that confounds and intrigues. As with the best of
Speaker 1: his work, it manages to meld a host of disparate
Speaker 1: contemporary musical influences in a way that's both fresh and original.
Speaker 1: One Outside was released in September at the height of
Speaker 1: the brit pop craze. It was a time when bands
Speaker 1: like Swede, Pulp, Supergrass and Blur ruled the air waves, reverently,
Speaker 1: following in the footsteps of the British rock forefathers, of
Speaker 1: whom Bowie was an esteemed member. The hit parade was
Speaker 1: choked with the sound that David himself had helped engineer,
Speaker 1: and it would have been easy for him the court
Speaker 1: success by imitating his imitators. Instead, he challenged listeners with
Speaker 1: the trip hop techno of I'm Deranged and the electro
Speaker 1: free jazz of A Small Plot of Land. There were
Speaker 1: eno esque textured soundscapes like the motel and Wishful Beginnings
Speaker 1: and the hard edged industrial rock of The Heart's Filthy Lesson.
Speaker 1: This latter song became the album's lead single, a suitably
Speaker 1: uncompromising choice. It's so packed with goth doom that director
Speaker 1: David Fincher selected the song to play over the closing
Speaker 1: titles of A serial killer drama seven. The deliberately controversial
Speaker 1: music video was directed by Sam Beer, who done the
Speaker 1: same for Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was a
Speaker 1: nightmarishly gory horror movie montage of skulls, candles, and troubling
Speaker 1: items and jars. The grim griminess expressed Bowie's growing fascination
Speaker 1: with blood rights and neopaganism, but most missed these references
Speaker 1: and found themselves simply terrified by the visuals. The video
Speaker 1: was banned by MTV, which surely must have pleased a
Speaker 1: renegade like Bowie. After more than twenty years as a
Speaker 1: public figure, he still had the power to shock and
Speaker 1: outrage with his new bloody, rusted razor blade aesthetic. David
Speaker 1: aligned himself with artie shock rockers like Marilyn Manson and
Speaker 1: Nine Inch Nails, the ladder of which was a growing
Speaker 1: influence on him. While recording one Outside, he often listened
Speaker 1: to The Downward Spiral, which was released just weeks before
Speaker 1: sessions began in March. As fate would have it, Nine
Speaker 1: Inch Nails as Trent Resner, listened to Bowie's album Low
Speaker 1: on a daily basis while recording The Downward Spiral. It
Speaker 1: seemed logical that their pass with Cross, but many were
Speaker 1: surprised when they announced the joint us tour, set to
Speaker 1: kick off in the summer of Nine Inch Nails opened
Speaker 1: the show, paying tribute to the headliner with versions of
Speaker 1: Scary Monsters and Subterranean, before bringing out the man himself.
Speaker 1: After duets on reptile and hurt. They seated the stage,
Speaker 1: The Bowie and the crowd generally couldn't have cared less
Speaker 1: for David. The tour was an act of stubborn artistic bravery. Firstly,
Speaker 1: it opened themselves up to accusations that he was a
Speaker 1: rock and roll Peter Pan, trying to prove that he
Speaker 1: could still keep the pace with the young guys. Moreover,
Speaker 1: his fan base hardly overlapped with that of Nine Inch Nails.
Speaker 1: As soon as the band said they're on stage farewells,
Speaker 1: there was a mass exodus towards the arena doors. The
Speaker 1: audience were mostly teenagers. They didn't want to stay for
Speaker 1: this old timer. David made no effort to be accommodating,
Speaker 1: stacking his set almost exclusively with tracks from one outside.
Speaker 1: As he'd mischievously explained, I slip on stage after a
Speaker 1: set by the most rest of band ever to conquer
Speaker 1: the top forty. I don't do hits. I performed lots
Speaker 1: of songs from an album that hasn't been released, and
Speaker 1: the older songs that perform are probably obscure even to
Speaker 1: my oldest fans. I use note theatrics, no videos, and
Speaker 1: often no costumes. It's a dirty job, but I think
Speaker 1: I'm just the man for it. He liked the challenge
Speaker 1: of winning over and in different audience, like his excursions
Speaker 1: with Tin Machine. It made him feel exhilarated, inspired, and
Speaker 1: maybe a little youthful. But it made pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: else feel confused. Even Reisner was surprised by how the
Speaker 1: tour was shaking out. His gargantuan success hadn't changed the
Speaker 1: fundamentally shy Bowie super fan that he was at heart.
Speaker 1: He was daunted by the prospect of touring with his hero,
Speaker 1: and found himself desperately hoping that he wouldn't bump into
Speaker 1: David backstage before a show. It was just too intimidating.
Speaker 1: Reisner was at a particularly unhappy point in his life,
Speaker 1: drowning and drugs and self loathe him. The adoration of
Speaker 1: the audience seemed like mockery in his depressed state. He
Speaker 1: was low, and David recognized it. He'd been there and
Speaker 1: it was still familiar. He did what he could to
Speaker 1: offer some big brother style advice to his young friend,
Speaker 1: delivered with compassion and a warm arm around his shoulder.
Speaker 1: You know, he said, there's a better way here, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to end in despair or death. David
Speaker 1: himself was a living example, a happy person, insanely in love,
Speaker 1: still making art that was fearless. It could be done,
Speaker 1: and Resner would get there someday. David had gone through it,
Speaker 1: and now he led by quiet example. His music had
Speaker 1: inspired many to get into the industry, now his aging
Speaker 1: inspired many to survive it. David Bowie turned fifty years
Speaker 1: old on January eight. His birthday was treated as a
Speaker 1: major historical milestone by the world press. There were retrospectives
Speaker 1: on the BBC and profiles and magazines and newspapers. Many
Speaker 1: of his rock star brethren had tried to downplay the
Speaker 1: fact that they were now half a century old, but
Speaker 1: not David. The following day, he threw himself a party.
Speaker 1: Nothing crazy, just an intimate, low key gathering at Madison
Speaker 1: Square Garden with twenty thousand fans and hosts of artists
Speaker 1: on the cutting edge of the music scene. Clearly as
Speaker 1: dramatic flair hadn't paid at with age. He appeared on
Speaker 1: stage looking his most ziggy like in years, with a
Speaker 1: lacey frock coat topped off of the red dyed rooster
Speaker 1: cut pale pancake makeup and thick lashings of mascara. At first,
Speaker 1: he stuck the selections from One Outside and his upcoming
Speaker 1: album Earthling before revisiting his golden oldies the help of
Speaker 1: his famous guests. Turns out he wasn't going to retire
Speaker 1: those songs after all. There were appearances by The Cures,
Speaker 1: Robert Smith, Foo Fighters, the Pixies, Frank Black and Sonic
Speaker 1: youth Billy Corgan appeared during the second encore to perform
Speaker 1: All the Young Dudes and a raucous Geene Genie. Organizers
Speaker 1: for the paper Review Extravaganza tried to pressure David into
Speaker 1: inviting safe choices classic rock piers like Mick Jagger Tina Turner,
Speaker 1: but The Birthday Boy refused. In fact, his only contemporary
Speaker 1: was Lou Reed, warmly introduced as the King of New York.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of the show, the band launched into
Speaker 1: Happy Birthday as David, looking genuinely surprised, was presented with
Speaker 1: the birthday cake with Trick Campbell's. He thanked fans who
Speaker 1: followed his career for decades and welcomed those who were
Speaker 1: new to his music. I don't know where I'm going
Speaker 1: from here, he said, but I promise I won't bore you.
Speaker 1: It was an event befitting ahead of state, which in
Speaker 1: many ways is what he'd become. For much of his career.
Speaker 1: He'd been a political Now he was chummy with Tony Blair,
Speaker 1: the first baby boomer Prime Minister, presented him with a
Speaker 1: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brits the English equivalent of
Speaker 1: the Grammys. He was offered a life peerage in the
Speaker 1: English House of Lords, but Bowie had no interest in
Speaker 1: being a baron. He would also turn down a knighthood
Speaker 1: from the Queen. I'm indifferent to royalty, he explained. Accepting
Speaker 1: one of those things would make me feel owned, and
Speaker 1: I'm not owned by anybody. But he showed his British
Speaker 1: pride on his next album, Earthling, released in February. On
Speaker 1: the cover, he wears a long overcoat emblazoned with a
Speaker 1: distressed Union jack. Though he didn't embrace the jangly sound
Speaker 1: of the britpop explosion, he was caught up in the
Speaker 1: Cool Britannia movement that swept the globe like a second
Speaker 1: coming of Swinging London as it had in the sixties.
Speaker 1: This wave of British creativity touched on all areas of
Speaker 1: the arts. There were films like Danny Boyle's Train Spotting,
Speaker 1: visual art from Damien Hurst and Tracy Emmon. Fashion was
Speaker 1: represented by Kate Moss and Alexander McQueen, who designed Bowie's
Speaker 1: coat for the Earthling cover. The war torn flag was
Speaker 1: Bowie's way of owning his status as the Old Guard.
Speaker 1: He was one of the originals. Though he recorded Earthling
Speaker 1: in New York City, he pronounced his English accent in
Speaker 1: a way that he seldom had since his day's, imitating
Speaker 1: Anthony Newley on his debut record instead of the baroque
Speaker 1: poppy favored back in nine seven. David of the nineties
Speaker 1: dove deeper into the sound of electronic club music, known
Speaker 1: alternately as jungle or Drummond bass. Both names evoked the
Speaker 1: rapid fire rhythms, thundering beats and slashes of fuzzed out
Speaker 1: guitar heard at raves and cross the UK. Five days
Speaker 1: after returning from his outside tour, David entered the Manhattan
Speaker 1: recording space owned by composer Philip Glass to begin work
Speaker 1: with producer Mark Platty, a man well versed in the
Speaker 1: comparatively new art of digital production. Guitar parts and drums
Speaker 1: were recorded live and then processed through a sampler, were
Speaker 1: distorted through a synthesizer. Songs like Little Wonder, Telling Lies,
Speaker 1: I'm Afraid of Americans, and Dead Man Walking were custom
Speaker 1: made to be remixed by DJ's for the dance floor.
Speaker 1: It would be David's first album recorded entirely digitally. David
Speaker 1: was intrigued by the concept that music could be made
Speaker 1: on the small laptop that he carried with him everywhere.
Speaker 1: The ease with which one could make him manipulate sounds
Speaker 1: opened the door for whole new realms of experimentation and spontaneity.
Speaker 1: David had been an early adopter of home computers, embracing
Speaker 1: them as a valuable tool for his work and life.
Speaker 1: Although for a while he needed help turning it on.
Speaker 1: It came in handy for setting lyrics or for graphic design.
Speaker 1: He coordinated elements of Seven's Glass Spider Tour via email,
Speaker 1: long before most people had even considered such a notion.
Speaker 1: Email would become a preferred method of communication for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. I'd be completely lost without it,
Speaker 1: he'd say in the early nineties, way before the rest
Speaker 1: of us would echo the sentiment. In later years, he
Speaker 1: was known to bombard friends with the YouTube videos that
Speaker 1: had caught us attention. It soon became apparent to David
Speaker 1: that the computer was more than a mere gadget, but
Speaker 1: a mechanism that was fundamentally alter culture and the very
Speaker 1: way human beings processed the world around them. He sensed
Speaker 1: the change would be exponentially greater than the advent of
Speaker 1: television due to the interactive potential of the Internet. This
Speaker 1: wasn't just a communications system, it was, in his words,
Speaker 1: an alien life form. He predicted a nonlinear society capable
Speaker 1: of recombining and re contextualizing information. Happidly, it sounded like
Speaker 1: one of his mid seventies sci fi plots, on par
Speaker 1: with Ziggy or Hunger City, but it was all scarily prescient.
Speaker 1: I think the potential for what the Internet is going
Speaker 1: to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable,
Speaker 1: he told a skeptical BBC News reporter in It's gonna
Speaker 1: crush your ideas of what mediums are all about. Music,
Speaker 1: he felt an especially rock and roll, had lost its immediacy,
Speaker 1: its urgency, and its power as a change agent. Instead,
Speaker 1: he believed that spirit continued on with the Internet. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a musician because it felt rebellious, he said.
Speaker 1: It felt subversive, It felt like one could affect change.
Speaker 1: The Internet now carries the flag of being subversive and rebellious.
Speaker 1: The monoculture was crumbling. The singularity had disappeared. We'd entered
Speaker 1: an age of pluralism. The fragmentation that Bowie had felt
Speaker 1: within himself was now being illustrated on a grand global scale.
Speaker 1: There were no longer era defining cultural figures like Elvis,
Speaker 1: or the Beatles, or even himself. Now it's subgroups in genres.
Speaker 1: He'd say, it's about the community. It's becoming more and
Speaker 1: more about the audience. He imagined the ways that the
Speaker 1: Internet would not only change the way that content is delivered,
Speaker 1: but how it would redefine the relationship between the user
Speaker 1: and the provider, and the long term effects that would
Speaker 1: have on intellectual property. Music itself is going to become
Speaker 1: like running water or electricity, he said. At the turn
Speaker 1: of the millennium, a decade before streaming services became prevalent.
Speaker 1: You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring,
Speaker 1: he warned, as fellow musicians, because that's really the only
Speaker 1: unique situation that's going to be left sensing the sea change.
Speaker 1: Bowie responded accordingly. In November, he released the song Telling
Speaker 1: Lies on his website, making it the first downloadable single
Speaker 1: by a major artist. To help launch Earthling, he held
Speaker 1: a cyber cat best of his concert from Boston, though
Speaker 1: few people had a strong enough Internet connection to view
Speaker 1: it properly. The following year, he ventured to change that
Speaker 1: by launching bowie Net, his own high speed internet service
Speaker 1: that offered a host of exclusive Bowie centric content, ranging
Speaker 1: from video feeds, chat rooms, and q and a sessions
Speaker 1: with Bowie himself. This wasn'theard of for a musician of
Speaker 1: Bowie's caliber. If a performer had a website at all
Speaker 1: in the nineties, it was just a digital billboard to
Speaker 1: shill their latest album or tour. Bowie Nett was a
Speaker 1: social network before the term existed. David greeted those who
Speaker 1: entered his cyber home with a message, I welcome all
Speaker 1: you web travelers to the first community driven Internet site
Speaker 1: that focuses on music, film, literature, painting, and more. The
Speaker 1: purposes interactivity and community. Everybody has a voice. David was
Speaker 1: a regular in his chat rooms, posting under the handle
Speaker 1: sailor at us. With most celebrities, his information on the
Speaker 1: world came through handlers and representatives, many of whom had
Speaker 1: a vested interest in his reaction or response. With the Internet,
Speaker 1: David could get the info for himself unfiltered. I love
Speaker 1: the chat rooms because you get to hear what people
Speaker 1: genuinely think, he said. The communication between me and my
Speaker 1: web audience has become more intimate than it's ever been.
Speaker 1: It's a feeling I enjoyed because it's new to me.
Speaker 1: It's adventurous. It's a new position of what the artist is.
Speaker 1: It's a demystification. Bowie would lose ours hold up in
Speaker 1: his home office, known as the Bunker. When he wasn't
Speaker 1: lurking in his own chat rooms, he indulged his curiosity
Speaker 1: on the web or purchased obscure collectibles on eBay. Sometimes
Speaker 1: his Internet excursions carried on late into the evening, which
Speaker 1: created a bit of tension in his marriage. Iman wasn't
Speaker 1: too happy because I just never came to bed, he admitted.
Speaker 1: Once you start surfing at night, you can really break
Speaker 1: up a relationship. You've got to be very careful about that,
Speaker 1: he cautioned. Towards the end of the computer game company
Speaker 1: Edo's Interactive asked Bowie to provide music for an adventure
Speaker 1: video game they were developing called a Micron the Nomad Soul.
Speaker 1: The programmers sweetened the deal by offering to turn David
Speaker 1: Iman and even members of David's band and two characters
Speaker 1: in the game. How could a futurist techno nerd resist?
Speaker 1: Sessions for the game soundtrack evolved into a full fledged
Speaker 1: Bowie album called Ours, and its rollout was an appropriately
Speaker 1: digital affair. The cover art was unvailed on Bowie's website
Speaker 1: or the album will be made available as a digital
Speaker 1: download prior to its release on CD, another first for
Speaker 1: a major artist. But the real master stroke was the
Speaker 1: cyber song contest, offering one lucky fan the chance to
Speaker 1: write four lines of lyrics the album track, What's Really Happening,
Speaker 1: a hummed melody, was shared to Bowie's website and budding
Speaker 1: writers were encouraged to give it their best shot. Bowie
Speaker 1: was inundated with over eighty thousand submissions. The winner, an
Speaker 1: Ohio college student named Alex Grant, was given a fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollar publishing contract. And flown to New York to
Speaker 1: watch David record his words grown inside a plastic box.
Speaker 1: Micro thoughts and safety locks. Hearts become outdated clocks ticking
Speaker 1: in your mind. The entire event was webcast, allowing fans
Speaker 1: to watch as a new Bowie song was completed before
Speaker 1: their very eyes. After the daring and bombastic Earthling and
Speaker 1: one outside hours found David at his most introspective. Themes
Speaker 1: of mortality crop up on tracks like Thursday's Child, The
Speaker 1: Dreamers and The Standout Survive. There was, after all, a
Speaker 1: lot to be reflective about. It was the fall in
Speaker 1: the end of the millennium encouraged many to take stock.
Speaker 1: The year marked an end, but it also signaled a
Speaker 1: new beginning. It certainly was for David and Iman. Just
Speaker 1: two months into the new year, they announced that they
Speaker 1: were going to be parents. They've been trying for a
Speaker 1: baby for years, but several rounds of IVF proved fruitless. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: they conceived naturally. Iman credited the successful conception to a
Speaker 1: traditional African remedy holding a borrowed baby. In this case,
Speaker 1: the child was supplied by fellow supermodel Christie Brinkley during
Speaker 1: a Vogue photo shoot. Their little girl was born on
Speaker 1: August two thousand at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital. David cut
Speaker 1: the umbilical cord himself, weighing in at seven pounds four ounces.
Speaker 1: They called her Alexandria Zara Jones, her name inspired by
Speaker 1: the ancient Greco Egyptian seat of culture. She is wonderful,
Speaker 1: David gushed, and probably I believe the most intelligent child
Speaker 1: that's ever been born. A father again at fifty three,
Speaker 1: he was thrilled, except that is for one thing. I
Speaker 1: don't do nappies, he admitted, the dreaded diaper duty. Aside,
Speaker 1: he was a devoted father, He cleaned up his last
Speaker 1: remaining vice, finally kicking his multiple pack a day smoke
Speaker 1: habit for good. Cognizant of his spotty paternal attendance record
Speaker 1: during his son's early years, David insisted he wouldn't tour
Speaker 1: as much. I don't want to make the same mistakes
Speaker 1: with Lexi, he said. As David was reappraising his approach
Speaker 1: to fatherhood, he became an orphan himself. His mother, Peggy,
Speaker 1: died at an English nursing home just a few months
Speaker 1: after Lexi's birth in April of two thousand one. She
Speaker 1: was eighty seven years old. Her death came out of
Speaker 1: the blue and was a horrible shock to David. The
Speaker 1: chilliness that had characterized their relationship in his youth had
Speaker 1: thawed by the eighties, when they spent holidays and vacations together.
Speaker 1: He cared for her, even spoiled her. It's unclear whether
Speaker 1: he got the acceptance that he craved and returned. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about your mom, a friend told him
Speaker 1: after the funeral. You know, I don't think she ever
Speaker 1: took to me, David replied. Trouble was, I don't think
Speaker 1: she ever took to me either. David's daughter became the
Speaker 1: center of his world. A year after her birth, he
Speaker 1: described his main job as daddyfying, and it brought him
Speaker 1: untold joy. To be honest, I really have to pull
Speaker 1: myself together to focus on music, he said. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: almost feels like a distraction. He began a period of nesting.
Speaker 1: After years of flitting between houses all over the world,
Speaker 1: he set down roots in New York. The New Soho
Speaker 1: apartment he shared with Iman and Lexei became his primary residence.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine living anywhere else, he'd say. I am
Speaker 1: a New Yorker, he loved it for all the same reasons.
Speaker 1: John Lennon had love to mention other UK stars, all
Speaker 1: too familiar with the ferocity of British paparah see. In
Speaker 1: New York, they could be anonymous and move around without
Speaker 1: a photographer's lens shoved in their face. If David threw
Speaker 1: on a cap and some jeans, he could be almost anyone.
Speaker 1: He didn't much go for disguises, but he found that
Speaker 1: pretending to read a Greek newspaper allowed him to ride
Speaker 1: public transport with minimal hassle. He was an early riser,
Speaker 1: waking up at six to venture out on dawn walks
Speaker 1: around the city. Sometimes he brought Lexie and her stroller,
Speaker 1: other times he just went solo. After getting his groceries
Speaker 1: in the Boutiquie Dean and de Luca market nearby on Broadway,
Speaker 1: Bowie could often be found browsing the rows of books
Speaker 1: at McNally Jackson's. It was like he was back in Berlin,
Speaker 1: strolling with no security, grabbing coffee at his regular cafe,
Speaker 1: running into his neighbor Moby in the corner deli. He'd
Speaker 1: still go to concerts on occasion, anointing the new breed
Speaker 1: of NYC bands like The Strokes, Interpoll and the Yeah
Speaker 1: Yeah Yeahs with a backstage visit, but for the most
Speaker 1: part he was a homebody by his own admission. Having
Speaker 1: a family and sticking around to be present for it
Speaker 1: level amount moving him from a life of action to
Speaker 1: one of contemplation and reflection. This retrospective mood is apparent
Speaker 1: on David's new project, an album revisiting early songs he
Speaker 1: wrote back in the mid sixties called Toy. The proposed
Speaker 1: album included Liza Jane, the first recording had ever released
Speaker 1: back in Other titles like Hole in the Ground were
Speaker 1: of a similar vintage, but never recorded. Label troubles would
Speaker 1: halt the album indefinitely. Those some tracks would trickle out
Speaker 1: as B sides or bonus songs. Well, much of it
Speaker 1: leaked out on the internet in too many it remains
Speaker 1: something approaching the Great Lost Bowie album. The experience left
Speaker 1: a bitter taste in Bowie's mouth, leading to his departure
Speaker 1: from his label soon after, but the Toy recording rekindle
Speaker 1: a working relationship with Tony Visconti, David's longtime friend and collaborator.
Speaker 1: The two had fallen out just prior to two s
Speaker 1: Let's Dance Sessions, when David rather rudely booted him as
Speaker 1: co producer in favor of Nile Rodgers just weeks before
Speaker 1: recording was due to begin. Stung by the rejection, Visconti
Speaker 1: refused David's invitation to mix sound for the resulting Serious
Speaker 1: Moonlight Tour. Sure, the thinking went, give the hot shot
Speaker 1: producer the glamour and leave me with the grunt work.
Speaker 1: They didn't speak for a while after that. They came
Speaker 1: together briefly to work on a song for the soundtrack
Speaker 1: to Nickelodeon's The Rugrats movie, but the scene for the
Speaker 1: song was cut and the track was amazingly dropped during
Speaker 1: the Toy sessions. A few years later, David revived let
Speaker 1: Me Sleep Beside You, an obscure nineteen sixty seven track
Speaker 1: that has the distinction of being the first song he
Speaker 1: and Visconti ever worked on together. Visconti wrote a new
Speaker 1: string arrangement, which led to a coffee date, which led
Speaker 1: to plans to make their first new album together in
Speaker 1: twenty two years. In June of two thousand one, the
Speaker 1: pair traveled the Visconti's drafty country home and upstate New
Speaker 1: York workshopping songs like they had in the basement of
Speaker 1: Hadden Hall all those years ago. Then they got to
Speaker 1: work at a large studios, a recording facility in a
Speaker 1: former luxury estate, carved into the high peaks of the
Speaker 1: cat Skills. The vaulted wooden ceilings made it look like
Speaker 1: a rustic cathedral. David couldn't help but be inspired by
Speaker 1: the god's eye view of the mountains and reservoir. Outside
Speaker 1: the massive picture windows. He could see for miles clear
Speaker 1: through to Manhattan. Deer roamed the grounds while eagles kept
Speaker 1: watch overhead. David traditionally derived his inspiration from urban environments,
Speaker 1: but something about the stark natural scenery spoke to him
Speaker 1: the moment he arrived. He later said, I knew exactly
Speaker 1: what lyrics I was to write, although I didn't yet
Speaker 1: know what the words themselves were. They came to him
Speaker 1: early one morning. David had a habit of arriving at
Speaker 1: the studio at sunrise to gather his thoughts alone, gazing
Speaker 1: out the window at the deer grazing in the pre
Speaker 1: dawn haze. He had an experience. The precise word for
Speaker 1: it differs across cultures and theologies oneness, wholeness, enlightenment, loving, awareness, nirvana, zen.
Speaker 1: It washed over him like a warm wave. The beauty
Speaker 1: and fragility of existence became so clear. I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: this was happening to me. David would recall the serenity
Speaker 1: and the majesty of it, How beautiful the world is.
Speaker 1: It all started coming in, and I honed in and
Speaker 1: what it was I really had to say about my life.
Speaker 1: It was magical. Words began pouring out of him. His
Speaker 1: tears streamed down his face. He didn't want to write
Speaker 1: what he had to a but he had to. The
Speaker 1: feeling was odd, like someone else was guiding him. He
Speaker 1: would describe the moment as a traumatic epiphany. His hard
Speaker 1: won happiness was tempered by the irrefutable fact that everything
Speaker 1: is temporary. It's a head spinning dichotomy, He'd say, the
Speaker 1: lust for life against the finality of everything. Those two
Speaker 1: things raging against each other that produces these moments that
Speaker 1: feel like real truth. The words would form the basis
Speaker 1: of a new song, Heathen At first past, the lyrics
Speaker 1: appear to be a man leaving a lover, but the
Speaker 1: object he addresses his life Heathen is about knowing you're dying,
Speaker 1: David explained. It's a dialogue between a man and life itself.
Speaker 1: It's a man confronting the realization that life is a
Speaker 1: finite thing and that he can already feel it actually
Speaker 1: going from him, ebbing out of him, the weakening of age.
Speaker 1: It was more than just a little autobiographical. There are
Speaker 1: times in our quiet lives when we're very happy, he'd say,
Speaker 1: But there comes a point when you're not growing anymore
Speaker 1: and your body's strength is diminishing. Especially in one's mid fifties,
Speaker 1: you're very aware that that's the moment you have to
Speaker 1: leave the idea of being young. You've got to let
Speaker 1: it go. There was a nursery rhyme David remembered from
Speaker 1: his childhood. This is the way the young men ride,
Speaker 1: clip clop, clip clop, clip clop, clip clop. It starts,
Speaker 1: then it ends with this is the way the old
Speaker 1: men ride, hobbily, hobbily, hobbily down into the ditch. David
Speaker 1: was keenly aware that these days he rode like an
Speaker 1: old man. I wanted to give some sense of what
Speaker 1: happens when you arrive at this stage, he said, do
Speaker 1: you still have doubts? Do you still have questions and fears?
Speaker 1: And does everything burn with as much luminosity as it
Speaker 1: did when you were young? It was the inverse of nihilism.
Speaker 1: This was gratitude. In his youth, he had often gambled
Speaker 1: with his life. Now those days were behind him, he
Speaker 1: wanted to stay. I love this work, he said, I
Speaker 1: love this life. I'm so greedy not to want to
Speaker 1: give it up. I just don't want to give it up.
Speaker 1: It's hard to give it up. Heathen would become the
Speaker 1: title track for his new album. For the first time
Speaker 1: since The Buddha of Suburbia. David wrote all the new
Speaker 1: material himself. The songs reflected David's tumultuous year in which
Speaker 1: he lost a parent and became one again. The autumnal
Speaker 1: lyrics grappled with feelings of loss, isolation, abandonment, and uncertainty
Speaker 1: by David's own estimation. All of us work dealt with
Speaker 1: these same themes, all of the high points of one's life.
Speaker 1: He'd note Briley his greatest strength as a writer was
Speaker 1: his ability, due to capture transitory nagging fear. It was
Speaker 1: the dread that had defined his existence, the possibility that
Speaker 1: there was no true spiritual life. The concept of heathen
Speaker 1: is a godless century. Tony Visconti observed he was addressing
Speaker 1: the bleakness of our soul and possibly his own soul.
Speaker 1: The songs on Heathen would be colored by a national tragedy,
Speaker 1: one that hit terrifyingly close to home for David. He
Speaker 1: was upstayed in the studio one Tuesday morning in September
Speaker 1: when he saw the news that a jet liner had
Speaker 1: flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. He
Speaker 1: immediately called him on back in their downtown apartment, where
Speaker 1: she could see the building burn from their kitchen window.
Speaker 1: They were on the phone when she saw a second
Speaker 1: plane hit the tower. You're under attack, David said, get
Speaker 1: out of there. Iman bundled Lexie and her stroller and
Speaker 1: ran uptown to seek shelter at a friend's apartment. The
Speaker 1: phone lines were jammed across the city, and for the
Speaker 1: rest of the day, David didn't know whether his wife
Speaker 1: and daughter were still alive. It was so so horrifying,
Speaker 1: he would say, it was incredibly traumatic, one of the
Speaker 1: nastiest days of my life. From the studio window, David
Speaker 1: watched the orange smoke in the distance Snake towards the Sky.
Speaker 1: The events of September eleventh gave extra residence to David's
Speaker 1: powerful lyrics. The album was greeted with near universal praise
Speaker 1: upon its release in June of two thousand two. His
Speaker 1: best albums since Scary Monsters had been a familiar refrain
Speaker 1: throughout his nineties creative resurgence, but now the lines seemed
Speaker 1: to fit. David's modest tour featured concerts in each of
Speaker 1: New York's five boroughs, an expression of love and thanks
Speaker 1: for his grieving adopted home. His next album, two thousand threes, Reality,
Speaker 1: was steeped in the urban angst of Manhattan. To promoted,
Speaker 1: he planned an epic nine month, one hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: date trek across Europe, America, Asia and Australia. At age
Speaker 1: fifty six, it was an unusual time to embark on
Speaker 1: the longest, most grueling tour of his career, but then again,
Speaker 1: he was in the best shape of his life. Drugs
Speaker 1: were long gone, plus he'd given up booze and kicked cigarettes.
Speaker 1: He watched what he ate with the help of a
Speaker 1: private chef, and he was working out boxing multiple times
Speaker 1: a week with a trainer. With his casual sneakers and
Speaker 1: skin tight black T shirt that showed off his slender frame,
Speaker 1: he barely looked forty, but Tony Visconti sensed he was
Speaker 1: tired before the tour launched that October. As the concerts progressed,
Speaker 1: his body began to rebel. In November, he canceled a
Speaker 1: show due to laryngitis, and the first leg of the
Speaker 1: US tour was delayed for a week when he came
Speaker 1: down with the flu. But this was all just a
Speaker 1: precursor what was to come. For years, David denied rumors
Speaker 1: of a secret cocaine induced heart attack delightful but untrue.
Speaker 1: He'd insist, it's very romantic, but I've got a very
Speaker 1: sound heart. But intimates, including Reeves Gabrels, claimed that he
Speaker 1: often complained of chest pains on tour, but swore one
Speaker 1: and all of secrecy. David didn't want to worry him
Speaker 1: on but in June of two thousand and four it
Speaker 1: became too much. On June, he ended a gig in
Speaker 1: Prague early due to a shooting pain and his left shoulder.
Speaker 1: A tour doctor told him it was a trapped nerve
Speaker 1: and gave him the all clear to continue two days
Speaker 1: later at the Hurricane Festival in Germany. The set seemed
Speaker 1: normal to his band well, maybe not as energetic as
Speaker 1: some of his previous performances. He ended his encore with
Speaker 1: ziggy stardust Zo to his alter ego, His Nemesis, his
Speaker 1: Dream Brother. It was note perfect. After taking his bows,
Speaker 1: David climbed off the stage and collapsed in agony. An
Speaker 1: ambulance was summoned and took him away. A German doctor
Speaker 1: determined that it wasn't a trapped nerve that was bothering him,
Speaker 1: but a blocked artery in his heart. They advised an
Speaker 1: emergency angioplasty and put David under. As he drifted away
Speaker 1: from the anesthesia, he must have been amused. The first
Speaker 1: time he'd seen his hero A Little Richard perform, Richard
Speaker 1: had feigned a heart attack mid song for dramatic effect.
Speaker 1: Now David had the real thing, and he didn't miss
Speaker 1: a beat. His bandmates looked on in disbelief as David's
Speaker 1: ambulance sped off. The remaining tour dates were canceled. They
Speaker 1: were going home. A few realized it, but David Bowie
Speaker 1: had just given his last concert off The record is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and Shan ty Tone. The supervising producers are
Speaker 1: Taylor Chicogne and Trista McNeil. The show was researched, written
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Jordan run Talk and edited, scored
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Taylor she coogn and Trista McNeil,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Evan Tyre. If you like what
Speaker 1: you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.