Speaker 1: Off The Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: It was crunch time for David Bowie as he sat
Speaker 1: in the control room of Berlin's Hansa Studios in August
Speaker 1: of He was due to record vocals for a new song.
Speaker 1: The only trouble was he hadn't finished the words yet.
Speaker 1: He stared at the unfinished lyrics on the pad of
Speaker 1: graph paper in front of him. Nothing was coming. He
Speaker 1: was stuck, specifically at verse five. The small audience that
Speaker 1: surrounded him wasn't helping. Among them was a good friend
Speaker 1: and co producer Tony Visconti. Tony was joined by Antonio mass,
Speaker 1: a German jazz singer and listed to provide backing vocals
Speaker 1: on the album. That was the official reason she was there,
Speaker 1: at least in truth. Visconti had taken a shine new
Speaker 1: where when they met at a Berlin club a few
Speaker 1: nights earlier. Though he was married, the two began an
Speaker 1: illicit of air their lovey dovey chit chat just a
Speaker 1: few feet away. It was a stressful distraction for David,
Speaker 1: whose own union to wife Angie had just recently disintegrated. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was glad for Tony and Antonia, but such gooiness
Speaker 1: was throwing him off, so he told them, in the
Speaker 1: nicest possible way, to go take a walk. Left with
Speaker 1: his thoughts, David's eyes wandered towards the window of the
Speaker 1: control room. If he wanted an inspiring vista, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: find it here. The scene outside was gloomy, an unsettling
Speaker 1: reminder of the deadly geopolitical divisions that ripped his newly
Speaker 1: adopted city in two. The imposing Berlin Wall dominated the view,
Speaker 1: so close that their music often attracted the attention of
Speaker 1: the gun toting Soviet officers and a nearby turret. David
Speaker 1: and Tony never shook the sense that one day these
Speaker 1: East German guards would simply open fire on them. Between
Speaker 1: that and the nearby rumble of tanks, it felt like
Speaker 1: making music and a war zone. Then David spotted some
Speaker 1: joy amid the grim tableau, a couple sharing a tender
Speaker 1: kiss beneath the wall. It was Tony and Antonia. The
Speaker 1: neglected neighborhood around Hansa wasn't especially romantic or safe for
Speaker 1: that matter, especially after nightfall, so they'd come to stand
Speaker 1: just a short distance from the studio. From David's point
Speaker 1: of view, it was quite an image, their loving embraced,
Speaker 1: dwarfed by the enormous symbol of fear and oppression that
Speaker 1: loomed just beyond. It gave one of the sense that
Speaker 1: their relationship was doomed from the start, thwarted by forces
Speaker 1: far more powerful than either one of them. But still
Speaker 1: there was beauty in the fragility. The senior minded David
Speaker 1: of Otto Mueller's Lovers between Garden Walls, one of his
Speaker 1: favorite paintings that hung in Berlin's Dibruca Museum, energized. He
Speaker 1: put pen to paper once more, and the words began
Speaker 1: to tumble out. I can remember standing by the wall,
Speaker 1: and the guns shot above our heads, and we kissed
Speaker 1: as though nothing could fall. He had a good feeling
Speaker 1: about this song. Early in the sessions, it had taken
Speaker 1: the form of a plotting rocker with echoes of his
Speaker 1: old Velvet Underground favorite I'm Waiting for the Man, But
Speaker 1: the addition of soaring guitar arcs and cascading synthwashes transformed
Speaker 1: it into something else entirely. For a time it remained
Speaker 1: an instrumental but ultimately David decided to develop it a
Speaker 1: little more. The music seemed to demand it. There was
Speaker 1: something grand and triumphant about it, even heroic. That's why
Speaker 1: he called the song Heroes. The title reflected his cautiously
Speaker 1: optimistic mood after walking himself back from the edge of
Speaker 1: person and all oblivion. The lyrics made references to his
Speaker 1: crumbling marriage and ongoing struggles with substance abuse, themes not
Speaker 1: usually associated with heroes, but that was sort of the point.
Speaker 1: After striking superhero poses with Ziggy Stardust and a host
Speaker 1: of other mythological sci fi archetypes, this hero was more human.
Speaker 1: David had written an anthem for the every day. He
Speaker 1: would say the song was about quote facing reality and
Speaker 1: standing up to it, achieving a sense of compassion, and
Speaker 1: deriving some joy from the very simple pleasure of being alive.
Speaker 1: The song Heroes reflected hope despite overwhelming odds. Nothing will
Speaker 1: keep us together, is the repeated refrain. Yet it doesn't
Speaker 1: have the ring of defeat. Instead, it's just a statement
Speaker 1: of fact. Time is short, but sometimes just one day
Speaker 1: is enough. When Tony and Antonia returned to the control room,
Speaker 1: David flashed them as lie grim Unknowingly they had helped
Speaker 1: him complete one of his most enduring songs. Now he
Speaker 1: had to go sing it time to get to work. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes
Speaker 1: beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds of
Speaker 1: rock's greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug. This season
Speaker 1: explores the life, or rather lives of David Bowie. Today's
Speaker 1: episode looks at Bowie's years in Berlin. It was a
Speaker 1: time of tremendous personal and artistic growth as he escaped
Speaker 1: the trappings of his show business bubble and re entered reality.
Speaker 1: Pulled up in a nondescript department, he lived the generally
Speaker 1: anonymous life in the German metropolis. The experience forced him
Speaker 1: to grow up and become an adult, a scary proposition
Speaker 1: for anyone involved in rock and roll. But newfound maturity
Speaker 1: brought exciting new music, including the landmark album Heroes. At
Speaker 1: the end of the decade he dominated, David built on
Speaker 1: all he'd learned through the many characters he played. Now
Speaker 1: he was finally ready to move forward as himself. David
Speaker 1: Bowie turned thirty in January. Just a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: his new album Low was released to the public. It
Speaker 1: was a groundbreaking piece of work, fusing punkish guitar lashes
Speaker 1: and early techno with a funky R and B rhythm section,
Speaker 1: all forming a sonic blueprint for bands like You, Two
Speaker 1: Joy Division, and Human League. The record was far ahead
Speaker 1: of its time, and as with most art that's ahead
Speaker 1: of its time, it was met with some confusion among critics.
Speaker 1: Many were openly hostile. Words like difficult, inaccessible, and fragmented
Speaker 1: appear often in contemporary reviews. Trouser Press magazine voiced their
Speaker 1: disappointment with a two part feature titled The Man Who
Speaker 1: Fell from Grace. Some writers praised the more conventional pop
Speaker 1: tracks of the album's first side, before going on to
Speaker 1: dismiss the ambient explorations on the second. Journalist Robert Hilburn said,
Speaker 1: for twelve minutes, this is Bowie's most striking and satisfying
Speaker 1: albums since Ziggi, but the remaining twenty six minutes, including
Speaker 1: all of side to deal with a spacey art rock
Speaker 1: style that is simply beyond mass pop sensibilities. The New
Speaker 1: York Times described it as strange and spacey, with mindless
Speaker 1: doggrel for lyrics, before concluding, nevertheless, the whole thing strikes
Speaker 1: this listener is remarkably alluringly beautiful. The split opinion that
Speaker 1: greeted Low is perhaps best illustrated in the pages of
Speaker 1: The New Musical Express, which published two separate reviews side
Speaker 1: by side. One was more or less positive, the other
Speaker 1: nearly set the page on fire. Writer Charles Sharr Murray,
Speaker 1: normally one of Bowie's staunches supporters, called Low quote a
Speaker 1: totally passive icosis, a scenario and a soundtrack for total withdrawal,
Speaker 1: futility and death wish glorified an elaborate embalming job for
Speaker 1: a suicide's grave, an act of purest hatred and destructiveness.
Speaker 1: It stinks have artfully counterfeited spiritual defeat and emptiness. And
Speaker 1: there's more where that came from. He describes the music
Speaker 1: as quote, the sound of nothing, a bunch of intros
Speaker 1: that fade out while you're waiting for something to happen.
Speaker 1: As far as Murray was concerned, Low was quote so
Speaker 1: negative it doesn't even contain emptiness. David's label our Cia
Speaker 1: was inclined to agree. Still High from his recent gold
Speaker 1: sellers like Station to Station and Young Americans, which had
Speaker 1: yielded soulful, danceable chart toppers like Fame and Golden Years.
Speaker 1: The label Brass didn't know what to make of these
Speaker 1: wordless soundscapes. When David turned in the masters for Low
Speaker 1: in the fall of six, r c A immediately sent
Speaker 1: them back with a formal rejection letter, which David then
Speaker 1: framed and kept on his wall at home. The album
Speaker 1: was unmarketable, the label complained there was nothing that even
Speaker 1: slightly resembled the commercial single. Hell, half the songs didn't
Speaker 1: even have words. They demanded that he go back and
Speaker 1: fix it. David refused, reminding the executives that our ci
Speaker 1: A was contractually obligated to release whatever he gave them,
Speaker 1: So the label sat on it for a few extra weeks,
Speaker 1: forfeiting the lucrative Christmas market in the process. After all,
Speaker 1: their reasoned, it wasn't like anyone would be giving this
Speaker 1: bleak collection as a gift. One executive even resorted to bribery,
Speaker 1: declaring that he would buy Bowie a mansion in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: if he would only just make another Philly soul style
Speaker 1: hit like Young Americans. But David had other real estate
Speaker 1: opportunities in mind. But the fall of six he decided
Speaker 1: he wanted to stay in Berlin for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: In addition to the flourishing arts and music scenes, the
Speaker 1: city afforded him a life that was as close to
Speaker 1: normal is that have been in years. He could walk
Speaker 1: down the street, or take the Uban public transport, or
Speaker 1: visit art galleries and bars, all with minimal hassle. It's
Speaker 1: a very good place for someone like me to live,
Speaker 1: because that can be incredibly anonymous, he would explain. Locals
Speaker 1: don't seem particularly joyful about seeing a famous face. Given
Speaker 1: the constant cultural tensions that come with living on a
Speaker 1: socio ideological fault line, Berliners were not really impressed by
Speaker 1: the presence of a celebrity. The populace of struggling artists
Speaker 1: and social misfits were more concerned about how to stretch
Speaker 1: their meager salary through the week. David would later observe,
Speaker 1: the people in Berlin don't give a damn about your problems.
Speaker 1: They've got their own. I thought, if I could survive
Speaker 1: in Berlin without being molly coddled, then I had a
Speaker 1: chance of surviving. After weeks of staying at a hotel
Speaker 1: and briefly with Edgar Frosie of the German band Tangerine Dream,
Speaker 1: it was time for David and his travel buddy Iggy
Speaker 1: Pop to have their own pad, so David dispatched his
Speaker 1: trusty assistant, Coco Schwab to find him some suitable digs. However,
Speaker 1: there were some serious restrictions. David's efforts to entangle himself
Speaker 1: from unhappy managerial deals had rendered him almost bankrupt. Royalties
Speaker 1: from his earlier main Man era recordings had slowed to
Speaker 1: a trickle, and with the costly lawsuit with ex manager
Speaker 1: Michael Lippman looming, he was forced to penny pinch. David
Speaker 1: had paid for his recent studio time with a check
Speaker 1: which immediately bounced. Coco read him the Riot Act one
Speaker 1: day when he appeared wearing an expensive new jacket he
Speaker 1: just purchased for the first time since the sixties. The
Speaker 1: cost of rent was a factor, so David instructed Coco
Speaker 1: to lockdown the biggest, cheapest place she could find as
Speaker 1: fast as possible. By October of nine six, she'd found
Speaker 1: the one. It was one floor above an autoparts store
Speaker 1: in the unfashionable district of Schoonenberg, home to the many
Speaker 1: Turkish immigrants recruited to replace the cheap East German labor force.
Speaker 1: Following the construction of the Berlin Wall. The lower middle
Speaker 1: class residential neighborhood was worlds away from David's former homes
Speaker 1: and the opulent enclaves of Hollywood. In Switzerland, as it recalled,
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy seven Schonenberg was somewhere to quote, force
Speaker 1: yourself to buy your own groceries. The building itself was
Speaker 1: downright dowdy, with its cream colored plaster facade beginning to
Speaker 1: crack and crumble. The aggressively ordinary, down at the heels
Speaker 1: locale suited both David's bank balance and his desire to
Speaker 1: live anonymously and simply. Even the address was nondescript to
Speaker 1: an almost comical degree. One hop Strassa or Main Street,
Speaker 1: with Jones his legal surname, on the doorbell, which almost
Speaker 1: never worked. Past the front door of this unassuming tenement block,
Speaker 1: one found a spacious seven room apartment with high ceilings
Speaker 1: and Art Deco framed windows. The dark wood panel the
Speaker 1: bode was relatively all stare, functioning as something midway between
Speaker 1: a dormitory and an oversized artist's garrett. Utilitarian to the extreme.
Speaker 1: It was damp, with water leaking through the bricks when
Speaker 1: it rained, which it often did. There were rooms for
Speaker 1: Iggy and Cocoa, and also one for David's five year
Speaker 1: old son Zoe when he came to stay. Filled with
Speaker 1: a chaotic jumble of toys, The most luxurious room was
Speaker 1: predictably David's own, done up with tiffany lamps, elegant drapery,
Speaker 1: traditional Teutonic oil portraits, richly woven rugs, and a wood
Speaker 1: burning fireplace, in addition to a functional home recording studio
Speaker 1: a must for any seventies rock are Worth his white Powder.
Speaker 1: An additional room had been set aside the function as
Speaker 1: Bowie's painting studio, crammed with easels, canvases, and brushes, as
Speaker 1: well as books about his favorite German expressionists. Soon the
Speaker 1: walls of one hop Strasso were adorned with Bowie's own work,
Speaker 1: competing for space alongside giant Neo Expressionist paintings and massive
Speaker 1: photo murals depicting pine scenes. David always considered himself a
Speaker 1: painter first and a musician second. Ever since his days
Speaker 1: as a student in Nolan Frampton's art class at Bromley
Speaker 1: Tech in Berlin. He continued his education with trips to
Speaker 1: the Brooker Museum, named for the die Bruca or bridge
Speaker 1: school of early twentieth century German expressionists. David had admired
Speaker 1: these painters in his youth. One of his favorite works
Speaker 1: was Eric Henkel's Rocke Roll, a stark depiction of insanity.
Speaker 1: It provided the inspiration for the cover art on his
Speaker 1: roommate Iggy Pop's long gest dating solo record, which was
Speaker 1: finally readied for release in the spring of ninety seven.
Speaker 1: The album will be called The Idiot. More literate fans
Speaker 1: assumed that the name was a reference to the classic
Speaker 1: Dostoyevsky novel, but Egg himself took a more literal interpretation
Speaker 1: of the title. David but always marvel what a dick
Speaker 1: I was, would recall or how awkward I was in
Speaker 1: social of situations and in all the things that you
Speaker 1: can do to make your career go better. So finally
Speaker 1: he said, look, we're gonna call this album the Idiot.
Speaker 1: David's basic thrust was an insult, as in you idiot.
Speaker 1: As the incident suggests, their relationship began to take on
Speaker 1: shades of a fraternal rivalry, though mostly a friendly one.
Speaker 1: At the time, David was reading a book of letters
Speaker 1: between the Van Gogh brothers, Vincent and Theo. This was
Speaker 1: basically how the paris all themselves, one genius artist and
Speaker 1: another slightly less than genius artist. At home, they bickered
Speaker 1: like siblings typical roommates, squabbles over who ate all the
Speaker 1: food in the fridge, or whose turn it was the vacuum,
Speaker 1: or who borrowed the other shirt without permission. The place
Speaker 1: was a classic bachelor pad. Other than making coffee, David
Speaker 1: was hopeless in the kitchen, and a tower of dirty
Speaker 1: dishes could often be found balancing precariously in the sink.
Speaker 1: The floor was littered with laundry and scraps of paper
Speaker 1: bearing semi complete sketches and songs. Despite the occasional mess,
Speaker 1: they fell into an easy domestic routine. The major weekly
Speaker 1: event was watching the TV show Scarsky and hutched together
Speaker 1: on Thursday nights. When Iggy later opted to find his
Speaker 1: own lodgings, it was just across the hall on the
Speaker 1: same building. After fueling up with their morning meal at
Speaker 1: a cafe next door, the friends would wander new neighborhoods
Speaker 1: by car or bike, or sometimes just on foot. David
Speaker 1: would recall, I'd like to go out and get lost
Speaker 1: and be in places made of wood, just to wash
Speaker 1: every shred of America off. Taking a walk was like
Speaker 1: taking a shower. Sometimes they'd go further afield, crossing the
Speaker 1: Iron Curtain and into East Berlin to see productions at
Speaker 1: the Berlin or Ensemble. Dramatist Bert told Breck's Home theater.
Speaker 1: Their passage through the infamous checkpoint Charlie was made easier
Speaker 1: by Iggy's girlfriend at the time, the daughter of a
Speaker 1: local diplomat, but that didn't make them exempt from the
Speaker 1: taunts by the local guards, who mocked the tooth of
Speaker 1: their outdated sixties passport photos David with the Space Oddity
Speaker 1: era perm and Iggy with a beadly mop top. In
Speaker 1: a way, it was fitting because their journey in the
Speaker 1: communist territory was like taking a trip back in time.
Speaker 1: Women still dressed in pencil skirts and wore their hair
Speaker 1: and fifty style beehive dues. The cars were mostly identical,
Speaker 1: the boxy State produced model known as Travis with free
Speaker 1: enterprise band. Consumer brands were practically non existent, and the
Speaker 1: streets were lined with billboards emblazoned with slogans like eat
Speaker 1: fish and drink milk. It was all very weird back
Speaker 1: in the West. David and Iggie would visit record shops
Speaker 1: and galleries, or brows markets, or just camp at coffee
Speaker 1: shops and discuss politics, art, literature, and music everyone's but
Speaker 1: their own. They went to the cinema regularly, taking in
Speaker 1: German art house movies and the latest from new Hollywood directors.
Speaker 1: A screening of Taxi Drive Or prompted Iggy to spontaneously
Speaker 1: shave his head into a mohawk, and the films of
Speaker 1: Fastbender inspired Bowie to grow a mustache for the first
Speaker 1: time in years. He stopped dyeing his hair and traded
Speaker 1: his designer clothes for jeans and nondescript plaid shirts. David
Speaker 1: was doing something he'd never done before, blend In. It
Speaker 1: would strike some as odd that, at a time when
Speaker 1: David was looking to wean himself off at drugs, he
Speaker 1: settled in Berlin, by his own admission, the smack capital
Speaker 1: of Europe. And who did I take with me? He'd
Speaker 1: later laugh, Iggy Pop was trying to get off a smack.
Speaker 1: The whole German venture had all the ingredients of a
Speaker 1: first class disaster, but overall they stayed clean, at least
Speaker 1: for the most part. Well, they didn't funnel illicit substances
Speaker 1: into their bodies with quite the same gusto they had
Speaker 1: back in Hollywood. They were not exactly living like monks
Speaker 1: in Berlin either. Iggy would later illustrate their rough weekly
Speaker 1: schedule as two days for binging, you know, for old
Speaker 1: time's sake, two days for recovery from said binge, and
Speaker 1: then three more for any other activity. This activity could
Speaker 1: include going to the library or taking Zoe to the
Speaker 1: zoo or the park, or it could involve hitting the town,
Speaker 1: and Berlin was certainly a good place for that. Allied
Speaker 1: occupation forces who oversaw West Berlin were notoriously lax when
Speaker 1: it came to enforcing prostitution regulations, closing hours, or really
Speaker 1: anything that inhibited a good time. Though David would frequently
Speaker 1: cite Berlin as his clinic, he wasn't above partying. On occasion,
Speaker 1: he'd replace his cocaine addiction with a pension for drinking,
Speaker 1: sometimes to excess. Friends would recall David binging several times
Speaker 1: a month, seeking a ball of whiskey and one night,
Speaker 1: and then muttering his regrets in the morning. David would
Speaker 1: later admit that he had fallen prey to the classic
Speaker 1: addicts mistake of merely exchanging one substance for another. According
Speaker 1: to him, Berlin was the perfect place for such debauchery.
Speaker 1: It was, in his words, a city made up of
Speaker 1: bars for sad people to get drunk in. He counted
Speaker 1: himself among them. His favorite watering hole was the old
Speaker 1: American sounding Joe's Beer House, where David was a regular.
Speaker 1: He'd seen himself at his usual corner table in the
Speaker 1: dark paneled bar and put away glass after glass of
Speaker 1: conic pilsner. Gradually, his aggressive introvert side would come out,
Speaker 1: and he get louder and louder, attracting more and more
Speaker 1: fans and fellow bar flies. David required more drinks to
Speaker 1: cope with this attention, and most evenings ended with him
Speaker 1: being held up by his belt loops by the bartender,
Speaker 1: only vomited in the alley outside. One night, he burst
Speaker 1: into tears, sobbing to all on the ear shot that
Speaker 1: leeches were bleeding him dry Financially, money problems were just
Speaker 1: one of the many reasons he drank Moreover. Alcohol helped
Speaker 1: all the psychic pain of the last few years, his
Speaker 1: failed marriage, spotty parenting, and disappointing business deals, to say
Speaker 1: nothing of the general stress of being David Bowie. In
Speaker 1: a sense, these excesses were understandable, if not totally excusable,
Speaker 1: but David did what he could to keep Iggy out
Speaker 1: of harm's way. Intercepting heroin dealers intent on paying his
Speaker 1: friend to visit, David would assure the pushers that they
Speaker 1: would not like the outcome if any of the junk
Speaker 1: found its way to Iggy. Usually it didn't, Booze would
Speaker 1: be their substance of choice. Iggy, in particular, had no
Speaker 1: off switch, stopping only for unconsciousness. Some of the clubs
Speaker 1: they frequented, like the formative punk venue s O thirty
Speaker 1: six and early electronic hub Metropol, were on the cutting
Speaker 1: edge of musical artistry, but mostly they preferred places that
Speaker 1: maintained their nineteen twenties Weimar Republic aesthetic. It was in
Speaker 1: one of these cabaret venues that Tony Wisconsin met jazz
Speaker 1: vocalist Antonio Mass. Though he was married at the time
Speaker 1: the pop singer Mary Hopkins, the two began seeing each
Speaker 1: other briefly. David, whose relationship with wife Angie was all
Speaker 1: but over, began a Berlin affair of his own. He'd
Speaker 1: started seeing a Dutch performer known as Romy Hog, six
Speaker 1: ft tall with a statuesque figure and an unerring eye
Speaker 1: for glamor in theatricality. She'd lived her early life as
Speaker 1: a man her theater Shay romy Hogg was like something
Speaker 1: out of the film Cabaret, Boasting the most dazzling drag
Speaker 1: show in town. The club had become a Berlin institution,
Speaker 1: attracting the likes of Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, Lou Reed,
Speaker 1: and Brian Ferry. David paid a visit when his Station
Speaker 1: the Station Tour first passed through Berlin in April of
Speaker 1: ninety six, and he was instantly entranced by Romy's beauty
Speaker 1: and gender fluid sensuality. She always ended her act by
Speaker 1: dramatically ripping off her wig and smearing her lipstick across
Speaker 1: her face until it resembled a brutal gash. It was
Speaker 1: a move that would have done David proud back in
Speaker 1: his mind days with Lindsay Kemp. He was hooked from
Speaker 1: the day they met, and so was Romi. We looked
Speaker 1: at each other and that was that, she would later say.
Speaker 1: David could hardly stand to leave her, and he early
Speaker 1: missed his station's Station show in Hamburg the next day.
Speaker 1: As a result, in romy he found a lover and
Speaker 1: a kindred artistic spirits, much as he had with Angie
Speaker 1: all those years ago. Some, including Romi herself, felt David
Speaker 1: borrowed a little too liberally from her stage act, copying gestures, images,
Speaker 1: and other elements in his own performances. They burned hot
Speaker 1: and cold for months, but ultimately their relationships self destructed.
Speaker 1: It went down on January David's thirtieth birthday. He was
Speaker 1: celebrating at a club in France when a photographer popped
Speaker 1: out of nowhere and snapped the picture of them. David
Speaker 1: didn't take kindly to the paparazzi intrusion and smashed the
Speaker 1: man's camera against the wall. Then he rounded on Romi,
Speaker 1: accusing her of setting up the press op exploiting his
Speaker 1: birthday at a further her own career. Their relationship fizzled
Speaker 1: out after that. Iggy Pop remained his best friend and
Speaker 1: constant companion in bur In. By the spring of ninety seven,
Speaker 1: they decided to head out on another adventure, a new tour.
Speaker 1: They had hit the road together a year earlier for
Speaker 1: David's station The Station Track, but now the roles would
Speaker 1: be reversed. Iggy would headline the dates and support of
Speaker 1: his first solo album, The Idiot, and David, the bona
Speaker 1: fide superstar, would perform as his humble backing musician. A
Speaker 1: decade ago, David was known to quit bands if he
Speaker 1: didn't get top billing, but now he was happy to
Speaker 1: see the spotlight and abdicate his role as the star,
Speaker 1: at least as much as he was able. He'd been there,
Speaker 1: done that. Now he just wanted to have some fun.
Speaker 1: The executives at David Bowie's label r c A all
Speaker 1: but begged him to promote his new album Low in
Speaker 1: the early months of ninety seven. As far as they
Speaker 1: were concerned, he turned in his least commercial work to date.
Speaker 1: The least he could do was get out there and
Speaker 1: try and sell it, but David steadfastly refused. He did
Speaker 1: no press for the album, saying only that the music
Speaker 1: spoke for itself, nor did he do the television circuit
Speaker 1: or even film a promotional video. In the end, it
Speaker 1: didn't matter. David's albums more or less sold themselves, and
Speaker 1: Low reached number two in the UK chart and number
Speaker 1: eleven in the States. After failing to perform these comparatively
Speaker 1: easy promotional tasks. Our c x X weren't surprised to
Speaker 1: learn that David would not mount a tour for low
Speaker 1: In a sense they understood it. Touring was grueling, especially
Speaker 1: for an ultra energetic frontman like David. But then David
Speaker 1: announced that he would hit the road after all, not
Speaker 1: for himself but for Iggy Pop, and not as a
Speaker 1: co headliner or even a guitarist sharing center stage. Instead,
Speaker 1: David would serve as a lowly keyboard player, shackled to
Speaker 1: the unglamorous rig in the back of the stage and
Speaker 1: off to one side, literally and metaphorically out of the spotlight.
Speaker 1: As far as our CIA was concerned, David was taking
Speaker 1: this whole living anonymously thing a little too far, too bad.
Speaker 1: What David wanted David got. Depending on how you looked
Speaker 1: at it, it was either a selfless act of encouragement
Speaker 1: or a selfish act of laziness. David had produced Iggy's
Speaker 1: first solo album, The Idiot, and he remained committed to
Speaker 1: reviving his friend's career after being derailed by drugs. With
Speaker 1: The Idiot due for release that March, Bowie assembled a
Speaker 1: live band that included guitarist Ricky Gardner and brothers Tony
Speaker 1: and Hunts Sales on bass and drums, respectively. After some
Speaker 1: rehearsals in a derelict film studio in a Berlin suburb,
Speaker 1: the group kicked off their six week trip across Europe
Speaker 1: and the US. The shows were well attended, likely due
Speaker 1: to a persistent rumor that David would sing a few
Speaker 1: numbers as well. The audience at general mission shows were
Speaker 1: embarrassingly lopsided, with crowds gathered at the side of the
Speaker 1: stage by David's keyboard, but David didn't indulge them. In fact,
Speaker 1: he barely acknowledged them. He was all too happy to
Speaker 1: stay in the back, just one of the boys in
Speaker 1: the band. More often than nought he was watching Iggy,
Speaker 1: who had never seen perform live in the flesh. I've
Speaker 1: never enjoyed a tour so much, David later said, because
Speaker 1: I had no responsibilities. I just had to sit there,
Speaker 1: drink a bit, have a cigarette and wink at the band.
Speaker 1: David's presence unquestionably aided in both the successive Iggy's tour
Speaker 1: and also the commercial impact of the idiot who else
Speaker 1: could get Iggy pop? On the boring Lee show Biz
Speaker 1: Dinah Shore Show. The album ultimately broke the top forty
Speaker 1: in Britain and hit number seventy two in the States,
Speaker 1: Iggy's first chart entries in either country. Whether intentional or not,
Speaker 1: the backup gig was also a canny move for David's career.
Speaker 1: He just turned thirty. That terrifying age and rock when
Speaker 1: one seems to go from relevant to ain't and overnight.
Speaker 1: John Lennon, a few years older than David, had recently
Speaker 1: entered his house husband phase, opting out of the music
Speaker 1: industry entirely to stay at home and take care of
Speaker 1: his infant son. But others like Mick Jagger, Elton John
Speaker 1: and Rod Stewart kept at it and were roundly dismissed
Speaker 1: as cultural dinosaurs by the new guard of punks, the
Speaker 1: sex Pistols. Johnny Rotten famously wore a T shirt proclaiming
Speaker 1: I Hate Pink Floyd. At the time, the biggest selling
Speaker 1: rock act on the planet, they were a stand in
Speaker 1: for all the musicians who had made their bones in
Speaker 1: the sixties, only to spend the next decade cashing in.
Speaker 1: But Bowie had always managed to avoid the scorn of
Speaker 1: the youths. In fact, he was embraced his punk spiritual
Speaker 1: godfather alongside the Who's Pete Townsend Pete, with his guitar
Speaker 1: smashing and furious playing that often left his hands, Bloody
Speaker 1: had the violent aggression, whereas Bowie provided the attitude of
Speaker 1: fearless outrageousness. Many British punks had come of ages glam
Speaker 1: rock fans. In fact, sex pistols could her is. Steve
Speaker 1: Jones had attended the Ziggy Stardust retirement gig in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, where he made off with some Mike's amps
Speaker 1: and other expensive musical equipment crucial to help get his
Speaker 1: nascent band off the ground. So Bowie always had a
Speaker 1: connection with the punk kids on the come up, but
Speaker 1: his tour with Iggy, a god in that community, definitely
Speaker 1: succeeded in bolstering his cred with the younger generation of musicians.
Speaker 1: The tour's opening act came straight out of CBGB, Downtown,
Speaker 1: Manhattan's incubator for emerging American punk and new wave acts.
Speaker 1: They were called Blondie, so named for the stunning platinum
Speaker 1: mained front woman Debbie Harry. They had recently released their
Speaker 1: debut album, but we're essentially unknown outside of New York.
Speaker 1: To say that Debbie's beauty was the reason they got
Speaker 1: the job would be disrespectful to both her and the
Speaker 1: other members of the band, but it may well have
Speaker 1: played a role in why they got the gig over
Speaker 1: say the Ramons or talking Heads. According to Debbie, Bowie
Speaker 1: made his armorous intentions clear. Can I sleep with you?
Speaker 1: Debby says he asked her early on in the tour.
Speaker 1: Can you? She replied enthusiastically. On at least one occasion,
Speaker 1: she says, he flashed her, apparently as a thank you
Speaker 1: for scoring him some coke, rather than take offense. She
Speaker 1: recalled the moment in her memoir as quote funny, adorable,
Speaker 1: and sexy. I guess that was sort of flattered. She
Speaker 1: would later say, He's one of the great men that
Speaker 1: I admire in the music world. Clearly a genius and
Speaker 1: perhaps the most touching display of support for Iggy. David
Speaker 1: overcame his fear of flying. The scheduled only allowed a
Speaker 1: few days between the British and American shows, not enough
Speaker 1: time to cross the Atlantic by boat, as David usually did,
Speaker 1: so he boarded a plane for the first time since
Speaker 1: nineteen two. Despite his premonitions of danger, he lived, but
Speaker 1: he decided not to push it. Once in America, he
Speaker 1: preferred to travel the country in the back of his
Speaker 1: chauffeur driven limousine Iggy, both Carlos and Licenseless often joined him.
Speaker 1: Iggy would immortalize the scene in his song The Passenger,
Speaker 1: a portrait of the pair cruising along, talking and listening
Speaker 1: to music as they took in the landscape. They record
Speaker 1: the songs soon after arriving back in Berlin that spring,
Speaker 1: as they entered Hansa Studios to begin work on Iggy's
Speaker 1: next solo album with David producing. They'd be bolstered by
Speaker 1: Iggy's touring band as well as Bowie's musical director, Carlos Alomar.
Speaker 1: Their base of operations was the Cavernous Studio Too, which
Speaker 1: still looked much as it had in its prior incarnation
Speaker 1: as a turn of the century concert hall where high
Speaker 1: ranking Nazis at once waltzed. Contact with the producers and
Speaker 1: engineers located down the hall in the cramped control room
Speaker 1: was made possible through the use of close circuit cameras.
Speaker 1: Iggy took great pleasure and leaping on a chair and
Speaker 1: making faces into the lens to the amusement and occasional
Speaker 1: terror of whoever was watching on the other side. The
Speaker 1: album came together in barely two weeks, with most of
Speaker 1: Viggy's vocals cut in one take. If The Idiot was
Speaker 1: David at the Helm, this record was mostly Iggy, and
Speaker 1: he ensured it stayed that way by practically living at
Speaker 1: the studio, staying long after David had gone home for
Speaker 1: the night in order to prep for the next day.
Speaker 1: As a result, it's a much more brash and raucous
Speaker 1: endeavor than his prior record, with arrangements that are much
Speaker 1: rockier than anything David had assembled for The Idiot. In
Speaker 1: addition to The Passenger, brought to life by guitarist Ricky
Speaker 1: Gardner's catchy two chord riff, they also laid down a
Speaker 1: few tracks the debut during the Idiot tour, including Tonight,
Speaker 1: Some Weird Sin and Turned Blue, the title track at
Speaker 1: its genesis, and one of Eggy and Bowie's weekly Scar
Speaker 1: Sky and Hutch viewing sessions on the American Forces Network West,
Speaker 1: Berlin's sole English speaking TV channel, The network station i
Speaker 1: D featured a series of Morse code style blips from
Speaker 1: a radio tower beep beep beep, beep beep beep. David
Speaker 1: liked the rhythm and began strumming the chords on a
Speaker 1: uku layle that he had handy. The pattern formed the
Speaker 1: base is for Lust for Life, a song and title
Speaker 1: that showcases Egga's improved physical and mental state. The lyrics
Speaker 1: are five minutes of manic boasts, which he mostly made
Speaker 1: up on the spot. Iggy insists he's changing his ways,
Speaker 1: no more beating my brains with liquor and drugs. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't be entirely the case, but the intent was good enough.
Speaker 1: The album's cover photo was miles away from The Idiots,
Speaker 1: which had showed Iggy mimicking the anguished pose of Eric
Speaker 1: Henkel's painting Rock or Roll, a character crippled by insanity.
Speaker 1: Now he practically glowed on the cover of Lust for Life,
Speaker 1: a grinning portrait of health and positivity, looking as hopeful
Speaker 1: and optimistic as a senior class photo. Sessions for Iggy's
Speaker 1: album wrapped in June, by which time Bowie was keen
Speaker 1: to continue his own projects in the studio. Enlisting Tony
Speaker 1: Visconti once again as co producer, He sought to build
Speaker 1: on the experimentation that it made low such a radical departure,
Speaker 1: yet months living as a West Berliner had a transformative
Speaker 1: effect on him, but dar a cloud that characterized the
Speaker 1: prior album It Lifted, and David later described his mood
Speaker 1: at the time as good, buoyant. Even Brian Eno had
Speaker 1: re entered the Fold to continue their collaboration. The two
Speaker 1: developed a private language of surreal, Monty pythonesque comedy, routines
Speaker 1: and silly voices modeled after the double act Peter Cook
Speaker 1: and Dudley Moore. This often led to schoolboy giggling fits
Speaker 1: in the studio with the two doubled over and hysterics.
Speaker 1: They worked in intense spurts from noon till eight pm
Speaker 1: each day. Then it was off to the clubs. Having
Speaker 1: enlisted the familiar rhythm section of Carlos Alamar, George Murray
Speaker 1: and Dennis Davis, the instrumental beds fell into place quickly,
Speaker 1: usually completed in half an hour or less. Partially this
Speaker 1: was due to the enthusiasm that permeated the stimulating sessions.
Speaker 1: It was also partially due to the unnerving physical proximity
Speaker 1: to the Berlin wall outside the windows. The musicians saw
Speaker 1: gun toting Russian guards staring back at them through binoculars.
Speaker 1: This was a powerful motivator. Recording Tony Visconti, the band
Speaker 1: were speedy because they wanted to get the hell out
Speaker 1: of there. The backing tracks were usually called from group
Speaker 1: jam sessions on the former Mysosoul stage. Spontaneity was deemed
Speaker 1: more important than rough edges, and often the first take
Speaker 1: wound up on the final record. Sometimes they were helped
Speaker 1: along by ENO's Oblique Strategies, a set of cards he
Speaker 1: developed to aid and creative problem solving. Each card contained
Speaker 1: a cryptic phrase designed to jump start fresh ideas or
Speaker 1: just confused. They said things like what wouldn't you do,
Speaker 1: retrace your steps, or just simply distorting time. Dead Ends
Speaker 1: were a common hazard. Carlos Alamar in particular grew frustrated
Speaker 1: with ENO's avant garde approach. After all, he was a
Speaker 1: session prode toured with the likes of James Brown and
Speaker 1: Chuck Berry. Now he had some guy writing a list
Speaker 1: of chords on a blackboard and pointing to want at
Speaker 1: random with a baton, like some sort of eccentric for esser.
Speaker 1: He didn't need this, but occasionally the Oblique strategies yielded
Speaker 1: a fascinating discovery. This was the case for one song
Speaker 1: recorded after both Bowie and you Know each pooled the
Speaker 1: card and kept the instruction secret from one another. Like
Speaker 1: a game, they took turns over, dubbing back and forth,
Speaker 1: not letting the other hear what they were doing until
Speaker 1: it was all done. As it turned out, their directives
Speaker 1: were entirely opposite. Enos said make everything as similar as possible,
Speaker 1: and Bowie's read emphasized the differences. The study and contrast worked,
Speaker 1: yielding the instrumental tracks sense of doubt. They took the
Speaker 1: spur of the moment approach even further when they called
Speaker 1: in ENO's former collaborator Robert Fripp to add some of
Speaker 1: his trademark Frippartronics guitar work to the album in progress.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that he hadn't played much over the
Speaker 1: last three years, Trup was happy to give it a shot.
Speaker 1: The King Crimson Axe Man arrived at Hansa immediately after
Speaker 1: touching down in Germany after a lengthy transatlantic flight. Understandably
Speaker 1: the days and jet lagged. Fripp asked to hear the
Speaker 1: songs they wanted him to play on, but Bowie mischievously refused,
Speaker 1: instructing him to just wing it and play whatever he
Speaker 1: felt with total abandonment. So Frip plugged into ENO's VCS
Speaker 1: three briefcase synth and letter ripped, reacting in real time
Speaker 1: to the playback tape while you know, manipulated the feedback
Speaker 1: laden sounds with oscillators and electronics. The first thing Frip
Speaker 1: heard was the backing for what became Beauty and the Beast,
Speaker 1: the first of six songs he banged out during his
Speaker 1: marathon tracking sessions. According to legend, he completed all of
Speaker 1: his guitar overdubs in just one six hour burst. More
Speaker 1: conservative accounts have this spread out over two days, but
Speaker 1: either way, the speed is all inspiring. Bowie's lyrics are
Speaker 1: written in much the same spontaneous manner. In many cases,
Speaker 1: he took the iggy approach of writing as he sang.
Speaker 1: According to Visconti, David never had a clue what he'd
Speaker 1: sing until he actually walked into the live room. Then
Speaker 1: he would stand at the mic, listen to a verse,
Speaker 1: jot down a few keywords or impressions that came to mind,
Speaker 1: then go for a take. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: very effective way of breaking normality. In the lyric, David
Speaker 1: would explain songs like Joe the Lion are exercises and
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness, while other tracks had lyrics plotted out
Speaker 1: in advance over the course of ten or fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: at most. The words that popped out of a subconscious
Speaker 1: often reflected as adopted home and the new friends he'd
Speaker 1: made there. The title for the instrumental V two Schneider
Speaker 1: name checks both a German ballistic missile from World War
Speaker 1: Two and also Florian Schneider of kraft Work, who would
Speaker 1: offer their own lyrical nod to Bowie and Iggy on
Speaker 1: their song trans Europe Express earlier that year. Nei Klon,
Speaker 1: another instrumental, takes its name from the Berlin district where
Speaker 1: Tangerine Dreams Edgar Frosie had lived. In Bowie's own mind,
Speaker 1: it represented the area of Berlin where the Turks are
Speaker 1: shackled bad conditions, the Turkish influence abundant, and Bowie's own
Speaker 1: Schoonenberg neighborhood can also be heard on the Secret Life
Speaker 1: of Arabia, the finale of the album, and Progress Beauty
Speaker 1: and the Beast touches on his Heaven and Hell mood
Speaker 1: swings that were common during the depths of his cocaine
Speaker 1: abuse in Los Angeles, but it also illustrates the dualities
Speaker 1: present in a divided Berlin, split between the Decadent West
Speaker 1: and I'll Stare East. Other songs had more personal meetings.
Speaker 1: Many would speculate that Blackout alluded not to power outages,
Speaker 1: but to Bowie's binge drinking and a brief hospitalization that
Speaker 1: had resulted. Some would go further and suggest that one line,
Speaker 1: Someone's back in town the Chips are Down, referenced Angie Bowie,
Speaker 1: who was visiting the city during the same period. It
Speaker 1: was the last time they'd meet before their divorce. Well,
Speaker 1: the album lacked the same autobiographical punch is low, David
Speaker 1: made up for it with passionate performances. However, one song
Speaker 1: left him stuck for words. It was a triumphant march
Speaker 1: with an uplifting chord sequence propelled forward by Dennis Davis,
Speaker 1: George Murray and Carlos Alamar's relentless rhythm section, ENO's shimmering synth, drones,
Speaker 1: and Fripps multilayered guitar. A composite of several different takes
Speaker 1: flowed along like a wave that never crested to Eno,
Speaker 1: the instrumental conjured the word heroic in his mind. He
Speaker 1: kept the thought to himself and was amused and a
Speaker 1: little stunned when Bowie informed him of the song's final title, Heroes.
Speaker 1: For years, Bowie claimed that an anonymous couple had inspired
Speaker 1: his words about the kiss under the Wall, but after
Speaker 1: decades of covering, David later admitted that the lovers were
Speaker 1: actually the still married Tony Visconti and Antonio mass Visconti.
Speaker 1: Repaid the lyrical tribute by devising an innovative way for
Speaker 1: his friend to record the vocals. Wanting to capture the full,
Speaker 1: luxurious sound of the Grand hall where they recorded, he
Speaker 1: devised them method where the room would sound progressively bigger
Speaker 1: as David sang. The producers set up three separate microphones
Speaker 1: at different locations within the live room, the first just
Speaker 1: a few inches from David's face, another twenty ft away,
Speaker 1: in the last fifty ft away. On each he attached
Speaker 1: a noisegate device, which mutes a microphone until the sound
Speaker 1: crosses a volume threshold. This allowed David's vocals to grow
Speaker 1: in intensity, beginning with the intimate croon of the first verse,
Speaker 1: up to the impassioned howl of the last singing at
Speaker 1: the top of his lungs. The blend of both sonic
Speaker 1: and emotional crescendos created a recording for the Ages in
Speaker 1: one of David's most arresting performances. Heroes would serve as
Speaker 1: the title track to his next album, released a widespread
Speaker 1: acclaim in October of nine. He put the word in
Speaker 1: quotation marks to add a level of irony, poking holes
Speaker 1: in the slightly bloated notion of heroism. Despite the avant
Speaker 1: garde working methods that it's so frustrated the likes of
Speaker 1: Carlos Alamar, David and Eno had kept their pretension in
Speaker 1: check and spent much of the session laughing at themselves
Speaker 1: and at some of their less successful concepts that didn't
Speaker 1: make the final cut. The album was rich with self
Speaker 1: parody as well as a lot of inventive ideas. David
Speaker 1: would recall. In that sense, the title is almost sarcastic.
Speaker 1: After all, the character in the song is not exactly
Speaker 1: supernatural or superhuman, certainly not on the level of Ziggy Stardos.
Speaker 1: To the thin white duke, he wears his flaws on
Speaker 1: his sleeve. He drinks all the time he has regrets
Speaker 1: and failures. It's certainly misleading to believe that Bowie meant
Speaker 1: heroes in any sort of self aggrandizing way. Even the
Speaker 1: most cursory look at the lyrics throughout the album show
Speaker 1: that this is not a happy record. David himself would
Speaker 1: describe Heroes as much louder and harder and energetic than
Speaker 1: his previous work on Low, but with words that were
Speaker 1: far more psychotic. My own mood was good, he would say,
Speaker 1: but those lyrics come from a nook in the unconscious.
Speaker 1: Still a lot of house cleaning going on. Even if
Speaker 1: it wasn't David's intention to harold his own survival after
Speaker 1: the dismal and dangerous prior years, it's hard not to
Speaker 1: appreciate it as such. Like Berlin, he was beaten, brutalized,
Speaker 1: and in a rock star since at least broke. The
Speaker 1: experience had changed him irreparably and charged him with a
Speaker 1: degree of empathy. In later years, David would describe the
Speaker 1: song as compassionate, compassionate for people, he'd say, and the silly,
Speaker 1: desperate situation they've gotten themselves into that we've all gotten
Speaker 1: ourselves into, generally by ignorance and rash decisions. There's hope
Speaker 1: and Heroes, not for riches or power or fame. No,
Speaker 1: the hope and Heroes is much more human and scale.
Speaker 1: It's the belief that things can be better. It's a
Speaker 1: plea for a moment of transcendence, regardless of how brief,
Speaker 1: even just for one day. Heroes would arguably be the
Speaker 1: greatest creative legacy of his years in Berlin. It certainly
Speaker 1: was for Bowie's friend and elder brother figure John Lennon.
Speaker 1: When the former Beatle emerged from his musical exile in
Speaker 1: to record a new album, he told the press it
Speaker 1: was to quote do something as good as Heroes, Hi praise. Indeed,
Speaker 1: a decade later, the band You Too, comparative up starts
Speaker 1: as far as Bowie was concerned, hired Brian Eno as
Speaker 1: a producer and traveled to Hansa Studios to record their
Speaker 1: landmark album Ak Tongue Baby. In a way, Heroes also
Speaker 1: marked the beginning of the end of David's time in Germany. Okay,
Speaker 1: there was his starring role in infamous World War One
Speaker 1: drama Just a Jigglo, a joint German English production, where
Speaker 1: he played a Troubled Prussian Soldier, but the less said
Speaker 1: about that, the better. It was a poorly reviewed cinematic
Speaker 1: fiasco that David would later describe as quote my thirty
Speaker 1: two Elvis movies contained in one but his next album, Lodger,
Speaker 1: the third of his so called Berlin Trilogy, was primarily
Speaker 1: recorded in New York City in Montrose, Switzerland, between the
Speaker 1: fall of nineteen seventy eight in the spring of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine. Elements of his time in Berlin managed to
Speaker 1: peek through. The Assassin is imbued with the Turkish influence
Speaker 1: found in bowie Schoonenberg neighborhood and the gender bending boys
Speaker 1: keep swinging videos right out of romy Hoggs Cabaret. But
Speaker 1: Bowie's influences and aims it started to shift. Even you
Speaker 1: Know would admit that their once fruitful collaboration was starting to,
Speaker 1: in his words, peter out. The force that had pushed
Speaker 1: them towards the creative heights of the semi mythical Berlin
Speaker 1: Trilogy ultimately let him elsewhere. Far be it from David
Speaker 1: to sit still, after all, Yet he always looked back
Speaker 1: at the period with fondness and a certain sense of wonder.
Speaker 1: He'd say, for whatever reason, for whatever confluence of circumstance, answers,
Speaker 1: Tony Brian and I created a powerful, anguished, sometimes euphoric
Speaker 1: language of sounds. Nothing else sounded like those albums. Nothing
Speaker 1: else came close. If I never make another album, it
Speaker 1: really wouldn't matter. Now, Like complete beings within those three
Speaker 1: they are my d n A. Berlin had become a
Speaker 1: part of Bowie. Then a decade after the release of Heroes,
Speaker 1: he repaid the favor. It occurred on David's Glass Spider tour,
Speaker 1: launched in support of his seven album Never Let Me Down.
Speaker 1: The gargantuan theatrical production was unlike anything he'd ever attempted
Speaker 1: since the days of Diamond Dogs, boasting the largest touring
Speaker 1: set ever made at the time. The trek included a
Speaker 1: performance in June at the Concert for Berlin, a three
Speaker 1: day outdoor festival held on the grounds of the Reichstag,
Speaker 1: formerly the seat of the German government. The once proud
Speaker 1: building had become a bombed out ruin of the once
Speaker 1: unified country for are enhancing the symbolism, the structure sat
Speaker 1: uncomfortably close to the Berlin Wall, a sign of the
Speaker 1: divided times. The concert was clearly audible to those a
Speaker 1: short distance away in the Soviet sector, where Western music
Speaker 1: was viewed as an ideological threat and effectively banned. Well,
Speaker 1: the East German authorities were powerless to stop broadcasts from
Speaker 1: across the wall. Sale and purchase of this supposed capitalist
Speaker 1: propaganda music was strictly prohibited. Obviously, Eastern rock fans were
Speaker 1: not allowed to cross over and attend the increasingly political
Speaker 1: music festival, but they could hear it with crystal clarity,
Speaker 1: thanks to the efforts of sympathetic event organizers who helpfully
Speaker 1: pointed public address speakers their way. By the time David
Speaker 1: took the stage on the evening of June six, somewhere
Speaker 1: between ten and fifteen thousand East Berliners had gathered as
Speaker 1: close as possible to the wall. Though he couldn't see them,
Speaker 1: he could certainly hear the cheers. It was like a
Speaker 1: double concert. He would recall where the wall was the division.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before the East Berlin assembly turned violent.
Speaker 1: The dreaded intelligence organization known as the Stasi unleashed mounted
Speaker 1: police tasked with dispersing the crowd by savage force. The
Speaker 1: true number assaulted by water cannons, stunned guns and night
Speaker 1: sticks will never be known, but the figures devastatingly high
Speaker 1: in defiance. Those gathered chanted a new slogan, down with
Speaker 1: the wall. It was the first time a mob a
Speaker 1: dared shouts as treason his thoughts in public. Just a
Speaker 1: few hundred meters away, Bowie continued his performance while a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty thousand Westerners watched, transfixed. Though we couldn't
Speaker 1: see what was happening on the other side of the wall,
Speaker 1: the sounds of brutality gave him a pretty good indication.
Speaker 1: In German. He offered words of support to the victims
Speaker 1: of oppression so tantalizingly near but beyond aid. We send
Speaker 1: our wishes to all our friends who are on the
Speaker 1: other side of the wall, he said shortly before launching
Speaker 1: into one of his greatest musical treasures. Berlin had given
Speaker 1: him heroes, and now he was giving it back. On
Speaker 1: the summer night, the song sounded almost like a prayer,
Speaker 1: he recalled. The lyrics penned exactly a decade earlier, seemed
Speaker 1: almost clairvoyant. I can remember standing by the wall, and
Speaker 1: the guns shot above our heads, and we kissed as
Speaker 1: though nothing could fall, and the shame was on the
Speaker 1: other side. Fans on both the West and the East
Speaker 1: sang along. It was one of the most emotional performances
Speaker 1: I've ever done, David would remember. I was in tears. God,
Speaker 1: even now I get choked up. It was breaking my heart.
Speaker 1: I had never done anything like that in my life,
Speaker 1: and I guess I never will again. Less than three
Speaker 1: years later, the Wall was demolished. Bowie's rolling its falls
Speaker 1: off have been overstated, but his performance in the Divided
Speaker 1: City made him a hero to a generation of for Lennards.
Speaker 1: When Bowie departed this planet in January of the German
Speaker 1: Foreign Office tweeted a message, goodbye, David Bowie, You're now
Speaker 1: among heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the Wall.
Speaker 1: This all seemed unthinkable. Back in the Wall looked completely indestructible,
Speaker 1: and so did David. After all, there was so much
Speaker 1: more to do. David Bowie had done next to nothing
Speaker 1: to help sell his album Low in early ninety seven,
Speaker 1: but with the release of Heroes later that year, he
Speaker 1: hit the press circuit with unusual gusto. I didn't promote
Speaker 1: Low at all, and some people thought my heart wasn't
Speaker 1: in it, he explained. This time I wanted to put
Speaker 1: everything into pushing the new album. I believe in the
Speaker 1: last two albums more than anything I've ever done before.
Speaker 1: With Low, David seemed unconcerned with clearing up any misconceptions
Speaker 1: about his words or music. Now he recorded foreign language
Speaker 1: versions of Heroes, singing the lyrics in French and German.
Speaker 1: David geared up for a tour and made high profile
Speaker 1: appearances on Top of the Pops and other music television shows.
Speaker 1: Rumors that he dropped in on The Muppet Show sadly
Speaker 1: proved false, but he did take an arguably weirder role
Speaker 1: on Bing Crosby's Christmas special. David's fondness from Middle of
Speaker 1: the Road entertainment stretched back to his obsession with British
Speaker 1: performer Anthony Newley back in the sixties, but this seemed
Speaker 1: almost perverse Bowie meets being the King of the cutting edge,
Speaker 1: appearing with the seventy four year old World War Two
Speaker 1: crooner in a festive card again. Whether David wanted to
Speaker 1: shock fans by making most conservative move possible or merely
Speaker 1: set out to subvert this most bland banal of art forms,
Speaker 1: He'd never say. The only explanation he'd ever, give was
Speaker 1: that he took the gig because his mother liked being
Speaker 1: given David's less than warm relationship with his mother, This
Speaker 1: seems somewhat doubtful, but hey, it was Christmas after all. Well,
Speaker 1: technically it was September when David filmed. Bing Crosby's Merry
Speaker 1: Old Christmas. Being extended the invitation to David, in part
Speaker 1: because his teenage children were big fans. But when David
Speaker 1: showed up, reportedly wearing outlandish makeup and an earring, the
Speaker 1: old timer may have had some second thoughts. According to
Speaker 1: Bing's kids, producers took David aside and gently requested that
Speaker 1: he wipe off the face pain and removed the earring.
Speaker 1: David duly complied, but there was a bigger problem on
Speaker 1: the horizon. The original plan was to perform a duet
Speaker 1: of the Little Drummer Boy, but when David arrived, he
Speaker 1: announced that he hated the carol. It didn't suit his range,
Speaker 1: plus it was just boring. Wasn't there something else he
Speaker 1: could sing? Just a short time before shooting began, the
Speaker 1: show's musical directors held an emergency writing session on an
Speaker 1: old piano in the studio basement. Within the hour, they
Speaker 1: presented David with a new counterpoint to Little Drummer Boy
Speaker 1: called Peace on Earth. Bowie loved it, and after a
Speaker 1: quick rehearsal, he and Being ran their act for the cameras.
Speaker 1: The sketch preceding the song is painfully stilted, but cute
Speaker 1: in that cross generational seventies Network TV special sort of way.
Speaker 1: The two compare holiday traditions before gathering around the piano
Speaker 1: and rifling through a pile of Christmas Carol sheet music.
Speaker 1: David plucks out the pages for Little Drummer Boy, describing
Speaker 1: it as a son's favorite, and then the musical odd
Speaker 1: couple launches into their tuneful melding of past and present
Speaker 1: Christmas melodies. It's undeniably sweet, though David himself would call
Speaker 1: the appearance ludicrous in later years. We were so totally
Speaker 1: out of touch with each other, He'd say, I was
Speaker 1: wondering if he was still alive. He was just not there.
Speaker 1: He looked like a little old orange sitting on a
Speaker 1: stool because he'd been made up very heavily, and there
Speaker 1: was just nobody home at all. You know. It was
Speaker 1: the most bizarre experience. That should have been the end
Speaker 1: of it. A throwaway ditty for a one off TV special.
Speaker 1: The master tape of the song was erased, but fervent
Speaker 1: Bowie fans swapped bootlegs of the recording, and five years
Speaker 1: after the broadcast, an official version of the Little Drummer
Speaker 1: Boy Piece on Earth Medley was released just in time
Speaker 1: for Christmas two. It became one of Bowie's best selling
Speaker 1: singles ever and one of the most successful holiday songs
Speaker 1: of all time. But being wouldn't live to see the
Speaker 1: duet duke it out with his own white Christmas on
Speaker 1: the holiday charts. He suffered a massive heart attack on
Speaker 1: a golf course in Spain one month after the shoot.
Speaker 1: By the time the TV special aired at Christmas time,
Speaker 1: he was dead. It was a maccabre twist and and
Speaker 1: already on settling holiday season for David. He spent Christmas
Speaker 1: in Berlin, gathering a small group of friends at his
Speaker 1: apartment on hop Strassa to enjoy a goose dinner cooked
Speaker 1: by Cocoa Schwab. Among the merrymakers was David's six year
Speaker 1: old son, Zoe. His presence sparked the very explosive and
Speaker 1: very public end to his marriage to Angie. She'd been
Speaker 1: living in Switzerland with her new boyfriend, surviving on a
Speaker 1: nominal annual allowance from David. Her hopes for getting much
Speaker 1: more in a divorce settlement were extremely low. Women in
Speaker 1: Switzerland didn't even have the right to vote until She
Speaker 1: could barely even get a meeting with a lawyer, much
Speaker 1: less find a good one to represent her. After visiting
Speaker 1: friends in New York, she returned to her Swiss home
Speaker 1: for New Year's expecting to find Zoe, but he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: David was annoyed that she left the boy with his
Speaker 1: nanny for Christmas, so he brought him to Berlin for
Speaker 1: the holiday. Angie was alone and inconsolable. She retaliated by
Speaker 1: some an a reporter for the Sunday Mirror. The plan
Speaker 1: was the Ventors spleen on record for some badly needed cash.
Speaker 1: The reporter found her nearly senseless on downers, screaming that
Speaker 1: Bowie had, without my knowledge, taken our son and ranting
Speaker 1: about wanting a divorce. It was the first time she
Speaker 1: had ever attacked her husband in public. For years, well,
Speaker 1: they may have disagreed behind closed doors, they'd always presented
Speaker 1: a united front. Going to the papers was tantam onto
Speaker 1: an act of war, but it was the last card
Speaker 1: she had to play, and she had no one on
Speaker 1: her side. She was helpless. I really want David to suffer,
Speaker 1: Angie told the reporter. Perhaps the only way he'll suffer
Speaker 1: is if I do myself. In a few hours after
Speaker 1: the interview, she nearly did. The reporter would claim that
Speaker 1: Angie locked herself in a bathroom in the early morning hours,
Speaker 1: where she shoveled fistfuls of tranquilizers down her throat. Then
Speaker 1: she let herself out and began roaming the house, ashing
Speaker 1: all the glassware and Christmas ornaments that she came across. Finally,
Speaker 1: she picked up a gleaming carving knife and for a
Speaker 1: few terrifying moments, considered thrusting it into her side until
Speaker 1: those present talked her out of it. Then she took
Speaker 1: a beat to regain her composure before hurling herself down
Speaker 1: the stairs. They found her in a crumpled, bloody heap.
Speaker 1: Then she was taken to a nearby hospital, where she
Speaker 1: supposedly got so worked up that the woman in the
Speaker 1: bed next to her had a cardiac arrest. I tried
Speaker 1: to kill myself, and you would later admit, but my
Speaker 1: heart wasn't in it. I'm very competent. If I really
Speaker 1: wanted to kill myself, I think I would have succeeded.
Speaker 1: A second attempt a short time later was marginally more successful.
Speaker 1: A friend dragged her out of the bathtub where she
Speaker 1: laid comatose from an overdose of pills. Careless paramedics dropped
Speaker 1: her down the stairs on her way to the ambulance,
Speaker 1: breaking her nose in the process. The unfortunate incident made
Speaker 1: her wonder if the universe was trying to tell her
Speaker 1: suicide isn't pretty, baby. Either do it or don't do
Speaker 1: it at all. Angie's attempts to take her life made
Speaker 1: the months long divorce proceedings even more brutal, as both
Speaker 1: sides slung angry accusations at the other. David was abusive,
Speaker 1: Angie was unstable and a neglectful mother. Ultimately, a polaroid
Speaker 1: of Angie and an erotic pose with a girlfriend was
Speaker 1: leaked to the court by David's lawyers. It was hustler
Speaker 1: stuff recalled an official who saw the photo. As soon
Speaker 1: as the judge sat down, it was obvious which way
Speaker 1: the hearing would go. Zolwey's custody became a thorny issue,
Speaker 1: though Angie later claimed she never tried to take the
Speaker 1: boy from her husband. Zoe has always been my gift
Speaker 1: to David, you see, she would write in her memoir.
Speaker 1: By bearing my fragile husband a child, I was giving
Speaker 1: him someone to live for. And now, especially now, in
Speaker 1: David's darkest hour of need, I wasn't going to back
Speaker 1: out of that commitment. So I knew I wouldn't fight
Speaker 1: for Zoey's custody, and therefore I knew I was going
Speaker 1: to lose him. This was the worst thing possible for me.
Speaker 1: It felt like performing an amputation on myself. In the end,
Speaker 1: David was awarded full custody of the boy, who would
Speaker 1: later disowned his mother completely. She was a corrosive person,
Speaker 1: he said recently. At present, Andree reportedly hasn't seen Zoe
Speaker 1: or Duncan as he's now known since he was thirteen
Speaker 1: years old. He's cold like his father. She later said.
Speaker 1: David cut me off, and Zoe cut me off. When
Speaker 1: the settlement was reached a three years of legal wrangling,
Speaker 1: Andre was awarded seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars spread
Speaker 1: over ten years. The money was continued on her adherence
Speaker 1: to a gag order that prohibited her from discussing their marriage.
Speaker 1: Now no one, but no one tries to shut Angie up.
Speaker 1: She skirted the legal line on several occasions before publishing
Speaker 1: a tell all memoir called Backstage Passes just after the
Speaker 1: gag order expired. The book is unflinchingly honest or lurd
Speaker 1: and exploitative, depending on your point of view. It made
Speaker 1: headlines upon its release for Angie's insinuation that she caught
Speaker 1: her husband in bed with Mick Jagger in the seventies,
Speaker 1: a tale that's been widely debated ever since. David barely
Speaker 1: bothered to respond to the book. In fact, he rarely
Speaker 1: spoke about Angie over the years, usually referring to her
Speaker 1: in interviews only as my ex wife. He memorably described
Speaker 1: their time together as quote like living with a blowtorch.
Speaker 1: That sort of says it all. Angie's memories are more
Speaker 1: tingent with respect, though she remained understandably angry and hurt
Speaker 1: by the dissolution of their partnership both romantic and creative.
Speaker 1: She writes of David and her memoir with a degree
Speaker 1: of reverence, regardless of his performance with me David did
Speaker 1: do a wonderful job of broadcasting sexual freedom and personal liberation.
Speaker 1: He shown his light into a lot of dark places
Speaker 1: and people and helped them see them elves and maybe
Speaker 1: love themselves a little better. In the years since they're
Speaker 1: split from David, she's written poetry, recorded music, and worked
Speaker 1: as a journalist with a focus on gender issues, but
Speaker 1: shall always be linked to David. Her influence on his
Speaker 1: career is hard to define but undeniable. His life would
Speaker 1: have been very different without her. In addition to Angie,
Speaker 1: David would say farewell to another formative figure from his past,
Speaker 1: though under much more tragic circumstances. It was Mark Bolan,
Speaker 1: his friend and occasional musical rival. They'd come from similar circumstances,
Speaker 1: two boys from the sooty outskirts of London, shedding their
Speaker 1: boring home life with new names and self styled rock
Speaker 1: hero personas. The pair had come up together in the
Speaker 1: mod scene of mid sixties London, when they shared a
Speaker 1: manager and a ruthless level of ambition. Together they haunted
Speaker 1: the hip clothing boots cheaks of Carnebie Street, trying to
Speaker 1: one up one another with new out their threads and
Speaker 1: big dreams for the future. The race to fame was on.
Speaker 1: For a time it seemed like Mark was winning. Their
Speaker 1: relationship grew strained as his career took off as the
Speaker 1: frontman of the band t Rex, leaving David in the dust.
Speaker 1: We're still David had this nagging feeling that Bowland got
Speaker 1: his glittering, androgynous stage look from him. Their friendship would
Speaker 1: fluctuate along with their performance and the music charts, leading
Speaker 1: to the odds snipe in the press. Still they were friends,
Speaker 1: albeit jealous, slightly catty. Ones Market even asked David to
Speaker 1: be the godfather to his son Roland, as in Roland Bowland,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with Zoe Bowie, who David was
Speaker 1: probably only too pleased to note was born first. Clearly,
Speaker 1: their competitive streak ran deep. They started from the same place.
Speaker 1: No matter where David end, and no matter what he did,
Speaker 1: he always measured success in relation to Mark. Once Bowie
Speaker 1: burst onto the scene was ziggy stardust. Boland's career began
Speaker 1: to fade. He had been outperformed and out glamed. Unlike David,
Speaker 1: he stubbornly refused to evolve musically or visually, and his
Speaker 1: act began to appear Stale. Even producer Tony Visconti, who
Speaker 1: worked with both artists for a time, had moved on
Speaker 1: from Mark. The mid seventies were especially tough for Boland,
Speaker 1: who at that time seemed washed up, bitter and flabby,
Speaker 1: like a man who'd run his race. Critic Charles Sharr
Speaker 1: Murray would note, truthfully, if not unkindly, Boland was a
Speaker 1: one trick pony, kept trying to do his single, one
Speaker 1: trick even after he got too fat to jump the hurdle.
Speaker 1: But by n seven he was mounting a comeback, booking
Speaker 1: a tour with a damned just the support act, and
Speaker 1: netting his own primetime British television show called Simply Mark.
Speaker 1: Bowie was booked to appear on the show during his
Speaker 1: press blitz for Heroes in September of nineteen, but it
Speaker 1: was far from a laid back reunion between two long
Speaker 1: time pals. Bowie showed up in full superstar mode, arriving
Speaker 1: in a long limo with a huge entourage, including a
Speaker 1: fleet of guards who closed off the set to all
Speaker 1: but essential crew. Before long, Bowie's coterid effectively taken over
Speaker 1: the studio to Bowland. Bowie was showing off by showing
Speaker 1: him up on his own turf, trying to prove once
Speaker 1: and for all that he was the bigger star. Depressed
Speaker 1: at being eclipsed on his own show, Bowland sulked in
Speaker 1: his dressing room and drank. Bowie, meanwhile, was horrified to
Speaker 1: find a posse of press journalists that had been summoned
Speaker 1: by the show's producers, making him feel exploited by his
Speaker 1: old friend. They took to the stage a short time
Speaker 1: later in equally pissy moods. Boland was worse for the
Speaker 1: wear with drink as they started out on a blues
Speaker 1: number called Standing Next to You. Soon after they began,
Speaker 1: David received a nasty shock from a microphone that nearly
Speaker 1: knocked them over. Then Boland drunkenly fell off the stage.
Speaker 1: It was bad. They had almost nothing usable by the
Speaker 1: time the shoot was scheduled to end, but the unionized
Speaker 1: production crew refused to work overtime, and all they had
Speaker 1: in the cam were a handful of shambolic takes. Boland
Speaker 1: was in tears and Bowie was furious. He exited a
Speaker 1: short time later, coolly suggesting the Bowling that they do lunch.
Speaker 1: Bowie's way of telling him to get lost. It was
Speaker 1: the last time they would ever see each other. Like
Speaker 1: being Crosby, Boland was dead before the episode aired. It
Speaker 1: was September, a week after the ill fated taping. Boland
Speaker 1: was returning home from an evening of dinner and drinks
Speaker 1: with his longtime girlfriend, soul singer Gloria Jones. Much like
Speaker 1: Bowie with planes, Boland was always frightened of cars, despite
Speaker 1: making them a freak and topic of his songs. As
Speaker 1: a result, he never learned to drive. So it was
Speaker 1: Jones who was behind the wheel of their purple Mini
Speaker 1: when it swerved off the road just north of London
Speaker 1: and slammed into a tree. She was seriously injured but survived.
Speaker 1: Boland was killed instantly, his seat crushed into the back
Speaker 1: of a car. It was two weeks before his thirtieth birthday,
Speaker 1: a milestone he was always convinced he'd never reach. David
Speaker 1: traveled back from Switzerland for the funeral, attending alongside Elton
Speaker 1: John and Rod Stewart. The coffin was decorated with a
Speaker 1: four ft high floral sculpture of a swan made of chrysanthemums,
Speaker 1: in tribute to Boland's biggest hit rad a white Swan.
Speaker 1: David wept openly as he paid his respects. Boland's death
Speaker 1: forced him to consider his own mortality. Up to that point,
Speaker 1: death it seemed like an abstract notion. He teased it
Speaker 1: many times with drugs. So had many of his friends
Speaker 1: Ikey Pop, Lou Reed, Keith Richards. They had all pulled through.
Speaker 1: There was that wild night he spend in Berlin doing
Speaker 1: donuts in an underground parking garage at dangerously high speeds.
Speaker 1: Here he was completely fine. Mark was just coming home
Speaker 1: from a night out with his girlfriend. He had his
Speaker 1: car spun out, and now his life was over. It
Speaker 1: all seems so unfair. It made everything seem so fragile.
Speaker 1: Leaving Mark's funeral, David sas driver to make a detour.
Speaker 1: They headed towards the town of Brixton to number forty
Speaker 1: Stansfield Road. It was the house where David was born.
Speaker 1: He needed a reminder of where he came from and
Speaker 1: that it was real. It wasn't just another fantasy he
Speaker 1: constructed and willed into reality. It had existed. So much
Speaker 1: of his life was about being the other worldly starman,
Speaker 1: floating up on the stratosphere and beyond. Now He wanted
Speaker 1: to feel his roots, something that tethered into the earth,
Speaker 1: and ensure he wouldn't float away. The Mercedes Limo made
Speaker 1: quite a splash as it crept down the sleepy one
Speaker 1: block residential lane. David exited the car and stared at
Speaker 1: the home or was sold crash landed thirty years earlier.
Speaker 1: He didn't breathe a word. Then he silently re entered
Speaker 1: the car and told his driver to head towards Beckenham.
Speaker 1: He wanted to pay a visit to Hadden Hall, the
Speaker 1: gothic monstrosity where his creative visions took shape. It was
Speaker 1: here that he had been born again as Zikky Stardust.
Speaker 1: It had only been seven years, but it felt like
Speaker 1: several lifetimes. How many people had he been since then?
Speaker 1: It was hard to keep counting. The stuck off acade
Speaker 1: of the old house was cracked and decayed, a ruined
Speaker 1: relic of a life he no longer lived and relationships
Speaker 1: that no longer existed. David desided here at had in
Speaker 1: the hall with his wife and friends, most of them
Speaker 1: he didn't know anymore. People grow and change, and fight
Speaker 1: and come and go. Life is messy. As David stood
Speaker 1: in the overgrown garden, literally in the shadow of his past.
Speaker 1: He received a tap on the shoulder. It was his
Speaker 1: former landlord. In his hand was a bill for unpaid
Speaker 1: rent from all those years before. David must have smiled
Speaker 1: as he reached into his funeral suit for his wallet.
Speaker 1: He'd spent the afternoons settling up his past. Now he
Speaker 1: was free to look forward to the future. It was,
Speaker 1: after all, what he did best. Off the Record is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and Shan t. Tone. The sup provising producers
Speaker 1: are Taylor chikogn and Tristan McNeil. The show was researched,
Speaker 1: written and hosted by me Jordan run talk and edited,
Speaker 1: scored and sound designed by Taylor ch Coogne and Tristan 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 for My Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.