Speaker 1: Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: A busted up Mercedes bands roared through an underground parking
Speaker 1: garage and for Lynn careening dangerously in circles amid the
Speaker 1: piercing squeal of rubber on concrete. David Bowie was doing
Speaker 1: donuts and he was definitely breaking a speed limit. Hell,
Speaker 1: at this rate, he was going to break the sound barrier.
Speaker 1: He drove like he was on the auto box, narrowly
Speaker 1: avoiding concrete pillars and other cars. Around and around. He
Speaker 1: started to scream faster and faster, sixty than seventy than
Speaker 1: than then he took his hands off the wheel. It
Speaker 1: was the fall of David was quite literally spiraling. He had,
Speaker 1: in his own words, reached the spiritual impass. He wasn't
Speaker 1: suicidal per se. He just didn't particularly care whether he
Speaker 1: lived or died. So he made a little wager with God,
Speaker 1: gambling with his life. There is a certain romance to
Speaker 1: it all. He recalled his early idol, James Dean, whose
Speaker 1: life had been cut short in a high speed car
Speaker 1: wreck two decades earlier. Perhaps he'd go out in the
Speaker 1: same way, ram into a pillar or a car or
Speaker 1: a wall. Bang he'd take out both himself and his passenger,
Speaker 1: Iggy Pop, whose outlook on existence wasn't much sunnier. What
Speaker 1: set him off could have been any number of things,
Speaker 1: money problems, lawsuits, a press calling him a Nazi, his
Speaker 1: impending divorce, booze, drugs, lack of drugs, all the above.
Speaker 1: Maybe David himself would cite an unpleasant incident from earlier
Speaker 1: that evening, cruising with Iggy down one of Berlin's main thoroughfares,
Speaker 1: He'd spotted a parked limo that belonged to a local
Speaker 1: coke dealer. David was convinced the guy had ripped him off.
Speaker 1: In retaliation, he rammed the front grill of his rusty
Speaker 1: Mercedes into the back of the dealer's car, then again,
Speaker 1: and again and again. This continued for at least five minutes,
Speaker 1: maybe ten. Nobody interfered, nobody even stopped. Then David sped off,
Speaker 1: winding up in the parking garage, locked in a death
Speaker 1: loop where one wrong move would wipe them both out.
Speaker 1: At least that's the story David would tell, although we
Speaker 1: did have a habit of self mythologizing. But even if
Speaker 1: this wasn't technically true in the literal sense, it certainly
Speaker 1: was in the spiritual one. The metaphor isn't subtle. Physically,
Speaker 1: emotionally and creatively exhausted, Bowie was locked in a cycle
Speaker 1: of drugs and depression, going round and round and unsure
Speaker 1: how to get out of it. He would describe it
Speaker 1: as quote like being in a car with a steering
Speaker 1: had gun out of control, and you were going towards
Speaker 1: the edge of a cliff. Whatever you did, it was
Speaker 1: inevitable that you were to go over the edge. I
Speaker 1: had almost resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be able to stop, and that would be it,
Speaker 1: whipping himself in circles. That night in Berlin, he released
Speaker 1: the wheel and squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting the crash
Speaker 1: that seemed imminent for the last few years. But it
Speaker 1: never came. Rather than a sudden smash, the car slowed
Speaker 1: to an uncertain sputter Before the engine died. It was
Speaker 1: out of gas. Just like David, there was only one
Speaker 1: thing left to do. He and Iggy burst into hysterical laughter.
Speaker 1: So David Bowie's time in Germany did not end with
Speaker 1: a bloody heap of steel. Instead, he would finalize a
Speaker 1: groundbreaking new record that many would rank among his finest. Low,
Speaker 1: the first in a series of albums that would come
Speaker 1: to be known as the Berlin Trilogy. It contained a
Speaker 1: track called always Crashing in the Same Car. The song
Speaker 1: is a nod to his trip to the brink, a
Speaker 1: meditation on old destructive pad. He could have died, perhaps
Speaker 1: even should have died. If not this night, then certainly
Speaker 1: many others spent in l A, the noxious neverland that
Speaker 1: had been his former home. He seemed destined to become
Speaker 1: another seventies rock and roll casualty, just like Jim Jimmy
Speaker 1: and Janice. But instead he was alive in Berlin. The
Speaker 1: city would be both his savior and his muse. It
Speaker 1: would be David's second chance. Hello, and welcome to Off
Speaker 1: the Record, the show that goes beyond the songs and
Speaker 1: into the hearts and minds of rock's greatest legends. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Jordan Runtug. This season explores the life, or
Speaker 1: rather lives, of David Bowie. Today's episode looks at the
Speaker 1: Thin White Dupe, the manifestation of megalomania and paranoia that
Speaker 1: gripped Bowie at his personal love. Among his most frightening creations,
Speaker 1: It was the physical embodiment of the darkness that threatened
Speaker 1: to eclip his own likeness of being, but he would
Speaker 1: save himself with a new life in a new town.
Speaker 1: It was a personal reinvention that was every bit as
Speaker 1: impressive as his musical ones, and it was certainly more
Speaker 1: fulfilling for David as he inched towards something resembling peace.
Speaker 1: David Bowie found himself in hell at the dawn of
Speaker 1: Technically it was Los Angeles, but the city of Angels
Speaker 1: had more than its fair share of demons for David.
Speaker 1: As he turned twenty nine that January. It was a
Speaker 1: town he'd come to call the most vile piss pot
Speaker 1: in the world and the most repulsive warts on the
Speaker 1: backside of humanity. The place should be wiped off the
Speaker 1: face of the earth, he'd later grumble. To be fair,
Speaker 1: it wasn't completely l A's fault. Mired in the city's
Speaker 1: toxic hedonism and shamefully indulged in sycophants, he followed cocaine
Speaker 1: up his nose at a rate that worried he ben
Speaker 1: the likes of Elton John and Keith Richards, hardly shrinking
Speaker 1: violets surviving on a diet that consisted of little more
Speaker 1: than red peppers and milk. His body grew frail and
Speaker 1: his mind slid dangerously close to psychosis. He stayed awake
Speaker 1: for as much as six days at a stretch, and
Speaker 1: his rented bell Air home ruminating on the occult and
Speaker 1: watching Nazi newsreels on loop. It was a dangerous period
Speaker 1: for me, he would admit. I was at the end
Speaker 1: of my tether physically and emotionally, and had serious doubts
Speaker 1: about my sanity. It wasn't just the drugs, though they
Speaker 1: certainly didn't help. His years of wilfully schizophrenic shape shifting,
Speaker 1: both on stage and off, had left his sense of
Speaker 1: self about as fragile as a pound frame. The cavalcade
Speaker 1: of characters and personas stretched back to his adolescence, A
Speaker 1: Laddin saying Halloween, Jack Ziggy, Stardust, Major Tom Hell, even
Speaker 1: David Bowie was a facade that shielded David Jones, a
Speaker 1: shy boy from the British suburbs. The constant masks swapping
Speaker 1: left him wondering, in his words, whether I was writing
Speaker 1: the characters or the characters are writing me. In January
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy six, he seemed destined to follow his
Speaker 1: half brother Terry into a mental hospital or his father
Speaker 1: into an early grave. Nineteen seventy six began much like
Speaker 1: the unhappy year before. He just finished a new album,
Speaker 1: Station to Station, a stunning piece of work that was
Speaker 1: as transformative and innovative as the Philly soul steeped young
Speaker 1: Americans have been in nineteen seventy five on shelves at
Speaker 1: the end of January. Station to Station was proof to
Speaker 1: all who listened that despite David's psychic turmoil, he was
Speaker 1: just as creative as ever. Legendary rock critic Lester Bangs,
Speaker 1: historically cynical about David's more theatrical work, proclaimed that Bowie
Speaker 1: had quote finally produced his masterpiece, an album that built
Speaker 1: on beautiful swelling, intensely romantic melancholy. But like the previous January,
Speaker 1: David's career was in a state of chaos. A year
Speaker 1: after severing ties with manager Tony de Freeze, David was
Speaker 1: gearing up to fire his replacement, lawyer, Michael Lippman. Lippman
Speaker 1: was generally viewed as a nice guy by those in
Speaker 1: Bowie's coterie. Perhaps that was part of his downfall. He
Speaker 1: lacked a freeze killer promotional instincts, and Barracuda business acumen.
Speaker 1: Their relationship began the sour during the production of Bowie's
Speaker 1: first feature film, The Man Who Fell to Earth. As
Speaker 1: the star of the movie, David assumed he'd be asked
Speaker 1: to write the soundtrack music. When he was passed over
Speaker 1: by director Nick Rogue, David blamed Littman for the deal's collapse.
Speaker 1: It all went downhill from there. The final blow came
Speaker 1: when David flew his band to Jamaica for Christmas to
Speaker 1: rehearse for an upcoming tour to promote Station to Station.
Speaker 1: The entourage arrived on the island only to find that
Speaker 1: no one the thoughts of book any hotels they were stranded.
Speaker 1: Bowie pointed the finger at Littman for this logistical flub.
Speaker 1: By New Year, Latman had got the axe, kicking off
Speaker 1: a nine month, multimillion dollar court battle that would leave
Speaker 1: David nearly broke. Despite his temporary homelessness, David felt restored
Speaker 1: by the trip to Jamaica, or rather the trip out
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. His time away made him realize the
Speaker 1: corrosive effect Hollywood was having on his health. He would say,
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to know somewhere within me that
Speaker 1: I was really killing myself and that I had to
Speaker 1: do something drastic to pull myself out of that. He
Speaker 1: began plotting his Excess strategy from Los Angeles, but in
Speaker 1: the meantime he had a tour to think about. It
Speaker 1: was his first since the Diamond Dogs Trek had wrapped
Speaker 1: over a year earlier. That tour, with its two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars set and elaborate choreography, required weeks of
Speaker 1: technical rehearsals. This venture would be significantly simpler when it
Speaker 1: kicked off on February second in Vancouver. Instead of an
Speaker 1: opening musical act, the audience was greeted with a screening
Speaker 1: of Salvador Dolly and Luis Brunel's surrealist art film When
Speaker 1: Chian and Delude. Even non cinephiles are probably familiar. It's
Speaker 1: the one with a notorious sequence of a razor blade
Speaker 1: slicing through an eyeball. German techno pioneers craft Work provided
Speaker 1: the soundtrack to the gruesome images on the screen. As
Speaker 1: mechanical blips, beeps, and whirls from the new album Radioactivity
Speaker 1: ricocheted around the venue. The bisected eyeballs were jarring enough,
Speaker 1: but the crowd was in for a second shock when
Speaker 1: the concert began. Gone with the props, lasers, dancers, and
Speaker 1: other trappings of glam rock maximalism that had factored so
Speaker 1: heavily into Ziggy stardust, A, Laddin, Sane and the Diamond
Speaker 1: Dogs tour. Where was the huge disco ball cage, or
Speaker 1: the cherry picker, or the massive, decaying city stage set. Instead,
Speaker 1: there was nothing but white, utterly blinding white racks of
Speaker 1: pale fluorescent bulbs loomed over the stage. Flashes of light
Speaker 1: rendered audiences temporarily blind, making the unholy howl of guitarist
Speaker 1: Stacy Headon's feedback all the more potent. He was joined
Speaker 1: by guitarist Carlos Alamar, bassist George Murray, drummer Dennis Davis,
Speaker 1: and keyboardist Tony Kay. Through the sonic hazes, a song
Speaker 1: began to take shape, the hypnotic lurching march of Station
Speaker 1: the Station. As the lengthy intro wound down, Bowie appeared,
Speaker 1: bathed in the harsh white spotlight, he heralds his own
Speaker 1: return as the thin white Duke, David's latest and most
Speaker 1: terrifying character, A cabaret crooner with pleated black pants, matching
Speaker 1: vest and crisply starched white shirt. With the slick back hair,
Speaker 1: he resembled the smoldering silver screen star of the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: Almost The thin white Duke evoked them the farious glamour
Speaker 1: in pre war Germany, a sort of sinister European superman,
Speaker 1: dap her yet deadly. If Ziggy was androgynous, the Duke
Speaker 1: was hyper masculine, dripping with an eroticism all his own.
Speaker 1: Even without the props and the sets, he somehow came
Speaker 1: across as even more theatrical and dramatic. The character has
Speaker 1: been alternately described as a mad aristocrat and amoral zombie,
Speaker 1: or an emotionless aryan superman. He was, em Bowie's own words,
Speaker 1: a nasty character. Indeed, despite the Duke's icy exterior, the
Speaker 1: shows were among David's most incendiary live performances to date.
Speaker 1: When he wasn't delivering the Duke's dead pan croone, he
Speaker 1: went back to being David, dancing, telling jokes, and even
Speaker 1: playing sacks. At one point each evening he'd inevitably strip
Speaker 1: off his shirt and performed topless. The fans ate it up.
Speaker 1: One teenager cut a show in Detroit that March, showing
Speaker 1: up in her highest platform shoes and a long black cape.
Speaker 1: It was her first ever rock concert, and she wanted
Speaker 1: to look her best. She was known then as Madonna Chaconi,
Speaker 1: but today she gets by on just her first name.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I breathed for two hours, Madonna
Speaker 1: would later say, I came home a changed woman. She
Speaker 1: was inspired by his consummate showmanship and pension for constant
Speaker 1: self reinvention. Twenty years later, when David was inducted into
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was she
Speaker 1: who inducted him. The passion on stage was palpable, but
Speaker 1: two weeks into the tour, David was complaining to a
Speaker 1: journalist that he was quote a little bored and merely
Speaker 1: doing the shows just for the money. He may have
Speaker 1: been unhappy, but if he was going through hell, he
Speaker 1: had company in the form of one Jim Osterberg, better
Speaker 1: known as Iggy Pop since meaning at Max's Kansas City
Speaker 1: in the fall of one. David had become something of
Speaker 1: a guardian angel for the troubled punk godfather, frequently appearing
Speaker 1: in times of trouble. When CBS Records was unhappy with
Speaker 1: Iggy's mix of his album Raw Power. Bowie was called
Speaker 1: in to clean it up. When Iggy was put on
Speaker 1: a psychiatric hold in late nineteen seventy four following a
Speaker 1: drug fueled altercation with the l A. P. D. Bowie
Speaker 1: was one of the only people to visit him in
Speaker 1: the psych ward. Upon his release, Iky had nothing, he'd
Speaker 1: been dropped by his management, and was still hopelessly addicted
Speaker 1: to drugs. By nineteen seventy five, he was reduced to
Speaker 1: sleeping on a mattress stolen from a nearby thrift store
Speaker 1: and living in an abandoned garage with a male hustler.
Speaker 1: Iggy was on downers when he went to a local
Speaker 1: supermarket and attempted to make off with some apples and cheese.
Speaker 1: He was bailed out of prison by a well known
Speaker 1: coke dealer, who put Iggy to work in some telemarketing
Speaker 1: scam he was running. Not surprisingly, Iggy Pop was not
Speaker 1: cut out to be a telemarketer and his tenure proof
Speaker 1: short lived. Eager to be rid of him, the coke
Speaker 1: dealer called another one of his clients, David Bowie, to
Speaker 1: see if he could help set Iggy straight. Bowie was
Speaker 1: not exactly a poster child for clean living at the stage,
Speaker 1: but he'd do what he could. Iggy and David linked
Speaker 1: up in February of six when the Station the Station
Speaker 1: tour passed through southern California. From the start, it was
Speaker 1: clear that Iggy was in worse shape than even the
Speaker 1: exhausted and emaciated David. Bowie coaxed Diggy back into his
Speaker 1: orbit by playing him a cassette of a lick he'd
Speaker 1: written with Carlos Alomar. It was a germ of the
Speaker 1: song Sister Midnight, and David asked Iggy if he wanted
Speaker 1: to record it. Eggy liked the idea. The old friends
Speaker 1: quickly rekindled the relationship, and Iggy was told to drop
Speaker 1: by David's hotel the next morning with a suitcase. Iggy
Speaker 1: came on board for the remainder of the tour, technically
Speaker 1: as a backup singer, but primarily as a friend to David.
Speaker 1: Both knew they were in a bad way, especially Bowie,
Speaker 1: who knew that big changes had to be made if
Speaker 1: he wanted to live out the decade. They had an
Speaker 1: unspoken agreement to keep one another on track and hold
Speaker 1: themselves accountable. Like ad hoc sobriety sponsors. More often than
Speaker 1: not they were successful, which is surprising because in the
Speaker 1: midst of the tour David was busted for drugs and
Speaker 1: they weren't even his. It went down after a concert
Speaker 1: in Rochester, New York, on March, David through a party
Speaker 1: at his hotel suite, and true to form, he extended
Speaker 1: a cordial invitation to a few women hanging out in
Speaker 1: the hotel bar. They stopped by and things were great
Speaker 1: for a time as everybody got to know one another. Then,
Speaker 1: midway through the shin dig, the ladies revealed themselves to
Speaker 1: be undercover narcotics officers, and they brought friends four vice
Speaker 1: squad detectives. This spoiled the party somewhat as Bowie, Iggy,
Speaker 1: Bowie's bodyguard and another young woman were arrested on possession
Speaker 1: of marijuana charges. At the time, this was a Class
Speaker 1: C felony, carrying a maximum sentence of fifteen years in prison.
Speaker 1: Obviously no laughing matter, but Bowie can be seen smirking
Speaker 1: ever so slightly in his booking photo, clearly bemused that he,
Speaker 1: one of the great enthusiasts of the age, got caught
Speaker 1: with something like pot, a drug he loathed. He spent
Speaker 1: several hours in a jail cell before being released on
Speaker 1: bond rest. Assured the stuff was not mine, he told
Speaker 1: the press soon after. I can't say much more, but
Speaker 1: it did belong to others in the room. We were
Speaker 1: busted in, bloody potheads. What a dreadful irony Me popped
Speaker 1: for grass. The stuff sickens me. I haven't touched it
Speaker 1: in a decade. Overall, Bowie and Iggy did a good
Speaker 1: job of staying off the hard stuff. Sure they slipped
Speaker 1: up on occasion, but Bowie was proud when Iggy declined
Speaker 1: the line of heroin offered by New York Dolls guitarist
Speaker 1: Johnny Thunders. David felt protective of Iggy. Perhaps he saw
Speaker 1: echoes of his half brother Terry. David had been powerless
Speaker 1: to stop Terry's descend into mental illness. Iggy offered a
Speaker 1: second chance at rescue and redemption. Their bond forged in
Speaker 1: misery grew strong. This guy salvaged me from certain professional
Speaker 1: and maybe personal annihilation. Simple as that, Iggy would say
Speaker 1: in a lot of people were curious about me, but
Speaker 1: only he had decent enough intentions to help me out.
Speaker 1: He did a good thing. He resurrected me. He was
Speaker 1: more of a benefactor than a friend. He went out
Speaker 1: of his way to bestow some good karma on me. Jimmy,
Speaker 1: as Iggy was always known in Bowie Circle, would ride
Speaker 1: with David in the back of his chauffeur driven car
Speaker 1: on the lengthy drives between concert dates. Along the way,
Speaker 1: David DJ on the cassette player, playing tracks from his
Speaker 1: favorite new artist like Tom Waits and Craftwork. Iggy got
Speaker 1: a kick out of hearing The Ramons, a group who
Speaker 1: so clearly out of debt to his former band, the Stooges.
Speaker 1: They caught one of the band shows at CBGB, the
Speaker 1: Granddaddy of all dive bars and New York's broke and
Speaker 1: bombed out Bowery. Iggy was treated like visiting royalty by
Speaker 1: the gangs of emerging punks, a welcome role reversal from
Speaker 1: his usual status as Bowie screw up friend. In a
Speaker 1: funny way, they each emvied each other. Despite his wild
Speaker 1: man persona, Iggy was a college educated debate champ who'd
Speaker 1: been voted most likely to succeed in junior high. Yet
Speaker 1: he'd never have Bowie's credit with the intellectual elite, and
Speaker 1: for all his boundary pushing, David would never enjoy Iggy's
Speaker 1: dangerous reputation as a man on the edge. They complimented
Speaker 1: each other well, often talking late into the night, for
Speaker 1: sometimes just sitting quietly with cups of espresso, wordlessly enjoying
Speaker 1: each other's company. In addition to hooking up with Iggy
Speaker 1: on the l a tour dates, David encountered another man
Speaker 1: who would alter the trajectory of his life. His name
Speaker 1: was Christopher Isherwood, the British writer famed for a semi
Speaker 1: biographical novel Goodbye to Berlin, later adapted into the Oscar
Speaker 1: winning film Cabaret. Visiting David backstage following his performance at
Speaker 1: the Forum, the prototypical Englishman abroad regaled Bowie with tales
Speaker 1: of his time in Weimar era Germany. Theisher would maintain
Speaker 1: that Berlin was no longer the den of depravity, decadence,
Speaker 1: and artistic freedom it had been between World Wars. Bowie
Speaker 1: heard enough to be intrigued. David knew he was coming
Speaker 1: to the end of his time in Los Angeles. After
Speaker 1: two years of residing in the United States. He was
Speaker 1: pining for Europe. After wrapping his l a shows, David
Speaker 1: visited his rented house in bel Air for what would
Speaker 1: be the last time, to load up his belongings into
Speaker 1: two U hauls. It was an unceremonious end to the
Speaker 1: lowest period of his life. Berlin had long been on
Speaker 1: Bowie's shortlist of potential new homes. As a student at
Speaker 1: Bromley Tech in the early sixties, he poured over the
Speaker 1: art of Max Reinhardt, Bertold Brecht and Fritz Lange. He
Speaker 1: obsessed over the angst ridden emotional work of the Expressionists,
Speaker 1: and Berlin had been their spiritual home. In particular, he
Speaker 1: was drawn to the work of the die Bruca or
Speaker 1: the Bridge movement. It was an art form that mirrored life,
Speaker 1: not by event, but by mood. He would later say,
Speaker 1: this was where I felt my work was owing. There
Speaker 1: were certainly signs. The Diamond Dogs Tour boasted a backdrop
Speaker 1: modeled after the nineteen nineteen expressionist film The Cabinet of
Speaker 1: Dr Kalaghari and the Thin White Duke may well have
Speaker 1: been a character from one of Isherwood's stories. Of course,
Speaker 1: the Berlin of the nineteen thirties had mostly vanished by
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. For a start, Allied troops have bombed
Speaker 1: much of the city into rubble during World War Two.
Speaker 1: What little remains was divided by the Berlin Wall, a
Speaker 1: grotesque and deadly symbol of the geopolitical fault line between
Speaker 1: Eastern communist repression and Western capitalism. Germany as a whole
Speaker 1: was bisected along similar lines, with West Berlin as a
Speaker 1: democratic oasis administered by the Western Alliance deep within the
Speaker 1: Soviet controlled Eastern territory. Many of the businesses and industries
Speaker 1: had moved out, leaving behind factories and warehouses that attracted
Speaker 1: young artists looking for cheap studios or places to live.
Speaker 1: As a result, West Berlin was thriving creatively, though decimated
Speaker 1: in so many other ways. The split city mirrored Bowie's
Speaker 1: own fractured psyche and the anarchist vibe of the left
Speaker 1: wing socialist fueled as renegade spirit. In short, Berlin was
Speaker 1: the perfect place for him to be. Berlin would strike
Speaker 1: some as fitting for more worrying reasons. Dave is growing
Speaker 1: fascination with German history and particularly his apparent fixation on
Speaker 1: the Third Reich. At the height of his cocaine abuse
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, he sat for hours watching Nazi newsreels
Speaker 1: with unnerving intensity. He became intrigued by the mythical link
Speaker 1: between the Third Reich and the occult, and Hitler's supposed
Speaker 1: search for divine artifacts like the Holy Grail and the
Speaker 1: Spear of Destiny. In recent months, he began to go
Speaker 1: public with his studies, raising eyebrows and a number of interviews.
Speaker 1: In one, he characterized Adolf Hitler as quote a marvelous
Speaker 1: morale booster, and in another he claimed that the young
Speaker 1: Americans track somebody up there likes me was about how
Speaker 1: Quote Hitler is on his way back. In an interview
Speaker 1: with Rolling Stone published in February of ninety six, David
Speaker 1: drew parallels between the fewer and themselves. I think I
Speaker 1: might have been a bloody good Hitler, David said, I
Speaker 1: would have been an excellent dictator, very eccentric, and quite mad.
Speaker 1: In an interview with Playboy later that year, he would
Speaker 1: dub Hitler quote one of the first rock stars, citing
Speaker 1: his powerful messianic charisma that to David at least didn't
Speaker 1: seem that far off from ziggy stardust. Look at some
Speaker 1: of the films and see how he moved. David's quoted
Speaker 1: as saying, I think he was quite as good as Jagger.
Speaker 1: The world will never see his leg again. He staged
Speaker 1: a country. Some critics would wonder if David took some
Speaker 1: art direction from the Third Reich. One review of the
Speaker 1: Station the Station Tour noted it's Nuremberg overtones, while another
Speaker 1: said that the rock concert quote could have been staged
Speaker 1: by Spear or Albert Spear, the chief architect of Hitler's regime.
Speaker 1: That April, David took the show to Berlin, performing in
Speaker 1: the German cultural capital for the first time. During his stay,
Speaker 1: he visited communist East Berlin and cruised past the Looming Wall.
Speaker 1: He was photographed gazing intently at a bust of Adolf
Speaker 1: Hitler and later giving a stiff armed salute at the
Speaker 1: ruined sight of the Furis fortified bunker where he'd ended
Speaker 1: out his last days of the war and ultimately shot himself.
Speaker 1: David made the photographer, promised to never release the image,
Speaker 1: but his interests were not going unnoticed in the press.
Speaker 1: Days after the Berlin shows, Bowie and some of his
Speaker 1: entourage took advantage of a week long break in the
Speaker 1: tour by taking a side trip to Moscow, David was
Speaker 1: briefly detained at a border checkpoint when Russian customs officials
Speaker 1: found contraband reading material and his luggage books about Albert
Speaker 1: Spear and also Joseph Gebel's The Nazi Propaganda Minister. David
Speaker 1: claimed he was planning on making a film about Gebel's,
Speaker 1: presumably one of the many movie ideas he bandied around
Speaker 1: in recent months. He was also supposedly in talks for
Speaker 1: another movie, The Eagle Has Landed, where he was to
Speaker 1: play a German officer who attempted to kidnap Winston Churchill
Speaker 1: during World War Two. Neither movie idea ever materialized, at
Speaker 1: least not for Bowie, but the incident did cause some
Speaker 1: to wonder about his politics and morals, and even his
Speaker 1: psychological state. A journalist at a tor stop in Sweden
Speaker 1: a few days after questioned him about his supposed right
Speaker 1: wing leanings. I believe Britain could benefit from a fascist leader,
Speaker 1: David reportedly replied, after all, fascism is really nationalism. He'd
Speaker 1: walked back the line during an interview with the English
Speaker 1: outlet The Daily Express a short time later, insisting if
Speaker 1: I said it, I have a terrible feeling. I did
Speaker 1: say something like it to a Stockholm journalist. I'm astounded
Speaker 1: anyone could believe it. I'm not sinister. But the worst
Speaker 1: was still to come, with an episode that would unfairly
Speaker 1: linked David's name with forces of evil. It occurred on
Speaker 1: the afternoon of May second v X. David was returning
Speaker 1: to England for his first British tour date since he
Speaker 1: had retired Ziggy Stardust almost three years before. When it
Speaker 1: came the Heroes Welcomes. It didn't get much better than this.
Speaker 1: He was met at London's Victoria railway station by a
Speaker 1: horde of two thousand fans and members of the press,
Speaker 1: all eager to welcome back their favorite local boy made good.
Speaker 1: David Chauffeur was also there to meet him, driving the
Speaker 1: open top to Mercedes six hundred limousine that Bowie had
Speaker 1: recently purchased from the estate of an assassinated Iranian prince.
Speaker 1: A sound system had been set up on the train
Speaker 1: platform so Bowie could address the ecstatic crowd, but the
Speaker 1: pa failed, so David was forced to simply stand in
Speaker 1: wave at his fans from the back of his limo
Speaker 1: before speeding off. It was slightly disappointing to some, the
Speaker 1: interaction had only lasted a few minutes, but aside from that,
Speaker 1: there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the event, at least
Speaker 1: not until a few days later, when the British music
Speaker 1: magazine New Musical Express published a photo of David's arrival
Speaker 1: on the front page of their May eighth issue. Out
Speaker 1: of context, it looked quite bad. David, wearing a black shirt,
Speaker 1: not unlike some fascist stormtrooper uniform, stood in the back
Speaker 1: of a black Mercedes Hitler's favorite car with his right
Speaker 1: arm outstretched. Those not getting the picture were helped out
Speaker 1: by the headline above the photo, Hyle and Farewell. The
Speaker 1: implication was that David was giving a Nazi salute. No
Speaker 1: one present at the station that day noticed such a gesture.
Speaker 1: A number of journalists had been sent to Cover's arrivals,
Speaker 1: specifically because of his recent controversial comments about fascism. Surely
Speaker 1: someone else would have noticed if David gave a hilarian
Speaker 1: greeting to two thousand people, But no one else reported
Speaker 1: anything for nearly a full week. Even the article that
Speaker 1: accompanied the photo said nothing about any sort of salute.
Speaker 1: In the piece, the author wrote that he was annoyed
Speaker 1: Bowie hadn't stopped by to say hi. Perhaps the front
Speaker 1: page photo was a perverse form of payback mixed with
Speaker 1: the British press's unique skill for inflammatory lines. Bowie himself,
Speaker 1: though never adverse to toying with controversy, knew this was
Speaker 1: too far. He wouldn't speak to Fleet Street journalists for
Speaker 1: nearly a year and a half. When he finally did,
Speaker 1: he strenuously denied that he made a Nazi gesture that
Speaker 1: did not happen. He told Melody Maker in October of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, I just waved. Believe me, on the
Speaker 1: life of my child, I waved, and that bastard caught
Speaker 1: me in midwave man, as if I'd be foolish enough
Speaker 1: to pull a stunt like that. I died when I
Speaker 1: saw that photo. Film footage of David's arrival, now widely
Speaker 1: available on the Internet, seems to prove definitively that David
Speaker 1: was merely waving. But he had been playing with fire
Speaker 1: in the press for months. It took long enough for
Speaker 1: him to finally get burned. Today, it's easy to dismiss
Speaker 1: those fascist lines as the ramblings of a man in
Speaker 1: the grip of a crippling cocaine psychosis. Bowie himself would
Speaker 1: admit as much in later years and showed deep remorse
Speaker 1: for his quotes. I was out of my mind, totally
Speaker 1: completely crazed, he would say. There's nothing to suggest that
Speaker 1: David ever agreed with Hitler politically or endorsed the crimes
Speaker 1: of the Third Reich in any way. His interest, as
Speaker 1: he would later explain, was quote in Mythology about the
Speaker 1: Arthurian period about the magical side of the whole Nazi campaign.
Speaker 1: Perhaps magical isn't a word to be used in connection
Speaker 1: with Nazis, but the points clear. It's no secret that
Speaker 1: David made outlandish proclamations as a willing exchange for column
Speaker 1: space throughout his early career. For him, that was part
Speaker 1: of the game, dating back to his teenage years in
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, when he parlayed his long feminine hair
Speaker 1: and it his first television appearance. He was a natural
Speaker 1: pr man, always on the lookout for a new and
Speaker 1: fresh way to grab headlines. For a long time, he
Speaker 1: used his sexuality as a conversational lightning rod during interviews.
Speaker 1: In ninety two, he announced he was gay, and then
Speaker 1: spent the next decade contradicting himself. He alway has kept
Speaker 1: people guessing, and they never seem to get tired of it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to note that the journalists who reported David's
Speaker 1: Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. Quote says he
Speaker 1: was forbidden from recording the interview. According to him, he
Speaker 1: had been goaded into asking about right wing politics by
Speaker 1: David's own team. Years later, the writer believes he'd been
Speaker 1: set up merely upon and a prearranged pr stunt. David
Speaker 1: likely knew that such a statement would cause a splash.
Speaker 1: By ensuring it wasn't on tape, he could simply deny it.
Speaker 1: It was his word against the journalists. Thus he could
Speaker 1: snag headlines while avoiding serious fallout by simply saying it
Speaker 1: wasn't true. Obviously, saying you're homosexual and publicly flirting with
Speaker 1: fascism or two extremely different things. Many forces may have
Speaker 1: been at play, the drugs, the exhaustion, the psychic confusion.
Speaker 1: Perhaps he was tired of superstardom and subliminally wanted to
Speaker 1: sabotage himself, to end at all and return to some
Speaker 1: us of normalcy outside the constant pressure of his daily
Speaker 1: celebrity existence. No different in a way from doing donuts
Speaker 1: in a hotel parking garage at seventy miles a reckless
Speaker 1: though half hearted attempt at an exit. It's equally likely
Speaker 1: that he was playing a character that of the thin
Speaker 1: white duke. He was, as David would say, a nasty man,
Speaker 1: indeed a terrifying ariaan ubermensch. In the end, it's impossible
Speaker 1: to know what he was thinking. For all of David's
Speaker 1: many phases, this one is the most concerning. He would
Speaker 1: have to confront his fascist poses in the coming months,
Speaker 1: when he'd settled in Berlin to make an album that
Speaker 1: many consider his masterpiece. After The Station The Station Tore
Speaker 1: wrapped in late May of nineteen seventy six, David moved
Speaker 1: into his new home alongside his wife Angie and young
Speaker 1: son Zoe. He joined his fellow British rock star brethren
Speaker 1: and become a tax exile, relocating to Switzerland at the
Speaker 1: advice of his accountant. The tax rates were lower, and
Speaker 1: so were the number of what Angie called demons and
Speaker 1: witches and roadies with bags full of cocaine. This will
Speaker 1: be the first home that the couple ever actually owned,
Speaker 1: at least for the short time they would remain a couple.
Speaker 1: They had effectively lived separate lives in the last two years,
Speaker 1: but they put a good face on their union in public.
Speaker 1: In the Rolling Stone profile published that February, David had
Speaker 1: said that Angie was quote remarkably pleasant to keep coming
Speaker 1: back to, and for me she always will be. Angie
Speaker 1: probably took those words at face value. If nothing else,
Speaker 1: She'd proved so useful to David, practically indispensable since the
Speaker 1: beginning of their relationship. She'd been the problem solver, the
Speaker 1: one to make things happen. That had been the case
Speaker 1: with their new home. Angie had been the one to
Speaker 1: work out all of the tax and residency issues with
Speaker 1: the Swiss government, putting her multi lingual skills to good use.
Speaker 1: She had also been the one to find the house.
Speaker 1: Located in Blena, a country town favored by British expats,
Speaker 1: the luxurious seven rooms chalets sat on several acres perched
Speaker 1: above the north shore of Lake Geneva. Among their neighbors
Speaker 1: was Charlie Chaplin. The sound of a nearby river lulled
Speaker 1: the residents to sleep, and from their bedroom, David and
Speaker 1: Andie could see the verdant cattle pastures and wooden homes
Speaker 1: at the Alpine village below. Despite the idyllic setting, the
Speaker 1: home proved to be a bad omen. David hated it,
Speaker 1: as Angie would right in her memoir. He walked through
Speaker 1: that gorgeous house and couldn't stand it. He tried to
Speaker 1: pretend he liked it, but you could see the horror
Speaker 1: in his face. It wasn't his scene at all. He
Speaker 1: would spend little time there over the years. Whenever Angie
Speaker 1: was there, he wasn't, and vice versa. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: that David hated the house. Sharing a roof was a
Speaker 1: painful reminder of how much the two had grown apart.
Speaker 1: A few relationships vibe the tumult and personal changes of
Speaker 1: the last few years. He made it clear, through actions,
Speaker 1: if not words, that she had outlived her usefulness to him.
Speaker 1: So we made himself scarce in her hurt, Andie looked
Speaker 1: for a villain, a scapegoat, some reason why her husband
Speaker 1: had turned against her, something less painful than the horrific
Speaker 1: truth that he no longer loved her. Angie directed her
Speaker 1: I Krene Coco Schwab, nominally David's personal assistant, Coco was
Speaker 1: an all in one nanny, manager, public relations rep, and
Speaker 1: best friend, amongst so many other titles. Angie assumed that
Speaker 1: lover could be added to that list. In many ways,
Speaker 1: Coco took care of all the day to day tasks
Speaker 1: that used to fall to Angie, making her an easy
Speaker 1: target for blame. But in truth, their marriage was doomed
Speaker 1: long before Coco entered the picture. Perhaps ultimately it was
Speaker 1: for the best. Angie had spent the seventies using her
Speaker 1: creativity to forward David's career. At least now she could
Speaker 1: focus on her own While his relationship with his wife
Speaker 1: was deteriorating beyond repair, David's bond with his five year
Speaker 1: old son was strengthening. Throughout most of Zoey's early years,
Speaker 1: David was away on tour, and Angie, by her own admission,
Speaker 1: was not really the maternal type. As a result, the
Speaker 1: boy was mostly raised by his nanny. David would forever
Speaker 1: feel guilty for his desertion during this crucial period in
Speaker 1: Zoey's life. I didn't give him enough time, he said
Speaker 1: years later. It was a pretty rotten childhood. I think
Speaker 1: probably one of the most major regrets of my life
Speaker 1: is that I didn't spend enough time with him when
Speaker 1: he was really young. In Switzerland, David attempted to make
Speaker 1: up for his lack of paternal involvement, hoping to avoid
Speaker 1: the cold and emotionally distant relationship he'd had with his
Speaker 1: own parents. He was never touchy feely, a very English trait,
Speaker 1: but he was engaged and attentive. They watched movies together,
Speaker 1: instilling in Zoey a love of cinema that would continue
Speaker 1: into adulthood. When he became a film director under the
Speaker 1: name Duncan Jones. They had cuddle on the couch, David's
Speaker 1: arm around his boys. He provided commentary on their private
Speaker 1: screening Errol Flynn, Pirate movies, or when he got a
Speaker 1: little older, a clockwork orange. At Zoey's fifth birthday party
Speaker 1: that spring, David handed out musical instruments to his son's
Speaker 1: friends and led the children through an impromptu staging of
Speaker 1: the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. But David wasn't
Speaker 1: in Switzerland for long. In fact, his suitcases were barely
Speaker 1: unpacked when he departed that June for Chateau Douville, just
Speaker 1: outside Paris, where he was rejoined by Iggy Pop. The
Speaker 1: studio estate immortalized by Elton John as the Honky Chateau
Speaker 1: had hosted Bowie sessions for pin Ups three years earlier.
Speaker 1: These days, scoring a hit record no longer interested him. Instead,
Speaker 1: he aimed to produce songs that were uncompromising and indicative
Speaker 1: of his present mental state. He sought to rewrite his
Speaker 1: musical language without the flashy theatricality of his past. I
Speaker 1: wanted to move out of the area narrative and character,
Speaker 1: he would say. I wanted generally to reevaluate what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I realized that I exhausted that particular environment.
Speaker 1: He wanted to continue the sonic exploration to be gun
Speaker 1: on Station the Station, fusing his beloved R and B
Speaker 1: sounds of young Americans with the proto techno of Kraftwerk
Speaker 1: and noy German bands that used not only new electronic
Speaker 1: instruments and since, but completely dispensed with traditional Western chord sequences.
Speaker 1: If he was going to go this far out on
Speaker 1: a limb, it seems safe to experiment on his buddy
Speaker 1: Iggy first, you know, just to get all the kinks
Speaker 1: worked out. David oversaw sessions for Iggy's first solo album,
Speaker 1: refining his production skills and techniques. As he went, He
Speaker 1: freely admitted to using his friend as a guinea pig
Speaker 1: for what he wanted to do with sound. Iggy meanwhile
Speaker 1: inspired David with the spontaneity in the studio, writing free
Speaker 1: associative lyrics on the spot, practically on the mic. The album,
Speaker 1: which would come to be known as The Idiot, would
Speaker 1: be finished before the end of August, but not released
Speaker 1: until the following March. Canny as ever, Bowie wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that he had a new record of his
Speaker 1: own on the shelves before The Idiot came out, lest
Speaker 1: anyone think he was simply following Iggy's lead. In September
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy six, Bowie began work on his new album.
Speaker 1: To help him realize this new musical vision, he need
Speaker 1: an equal collaborator. Iggy, despite the friendship and demons they shared,
Speaker 1: just wasn't up to the task. So Bowie sought out
Speaker 1: Brian Eno, then still known primarily as a departed founding
Speaker 1: member of Roxy Music. They met in person just a
Speaker 1: handful of times, but always in memorable circumstances. Roxy Music
Speaker 1: had served as an opening act for some Ziggy start
Speaker 1: up states in nineteen seventy two. A year later they
Speaker 1: worked in adjacent studios while David was recording Diamond Dogs,
Speaker 1: but nothing e became of these early meetings. Both greatly
Speaker 1: admired the other's work. In effect, they had operated on
Speaker 1: parallel or two stick tracks. Both were titans of early
Speaker 1: seventies glam rock who yielded to their more intellectual pursuits
Speaker 1: in a stubborn attempt to avoid the boring repetition demanded
Speaker 1: of mainstream chart success. They became reacquainted after one of
Speaker 1: Bowie's London shows that May, when they talked through the night.
Speaker 1: Bowie in particular was impressed with ENO's recent albums Another
Speaker 1: Green World and Discreet Music. These groundbreaking experiments and ambient
Speaker 1: compositions were borne by accident, specifically a car accident. You
Speaker 1: Know had been struck by a taxi while crossing the
Speaker 1: street one day in nineteen seventy. As he recovered in
Speaker 1: the hospital, a friend stop by to visit, bringing a
Speaker 1: record of eighteenth century harp music as a gift. She
Speaker 1: put the record on the turntable on her way out
Speaker 1: the door, but the volume was too low and one
Speaker 1: of the speakers wasn't working. Unable to get up to
Speaker 1: adjust the volume himself. The stray harp notes simply faded
Speaker 1: to the background, blending with the rain outside and the
Speaker 1: sounds from the hall. The experience presented, you know, with
Speaker 1: a whole new way to perceive music, not as something
Speaker 1: separate from one's surroundings, but a part of it, just
Speaker 1: as the color of the light and the sound of
Speaker 1: the rain were a part of the ambiance. Hugely influential today.
Speaker 1: ENO's phase into minimalist generative music were a little too
Speaker 1: esoteric for the public at large and hadn't earned a
Speaker 1: particularly favorable response. The fact that Bowie got it endeared
Speaker 1: him to Eno, who thought, God, he must be so smart.
Speaker 1: That became the first point of true musical connection, sowing
Speaker 1: the seeds of the collaboration to come. Bowie had found,
Speaker 1: as he would later say, a musical soulmate, brimming with
Speaker 1: fresh ideas and concepts to flesh out with his new friend.
Speaker 1: Bowie also needed an old friend who understood his creative shorthand,
Speaker 1: so we reached out to producer Tony Visconti. The Visconti
Speaker 1: had a hand in recent albums like Diamond Dogs and
Speaker 1: Young Americans. They hadn't completed an album together since the
Speaker 1: scattershot sessions for The Man Who Sold the World in
Speaker 1: seventy which were marred by Bowie's frequent and frustrating absences.
Speaker 1: Visconti was surprised when he received the call out of
Speaker 1: the Blue in June of nineteen seventy six from David,
Speaker 1: with Eno chiming in on the extension. They explained the
Speaker 1: Visconti that they've been writing songs for a totally new
Speaker 1: kind of album, half filled with conventional tracks and the
Speaker 1: other with instrumentals based on ENO's ambient work. Briefed on
Speaker 1: the unusual nature of the project, they asked Visconti what
Speaker 1: he could bring to the table. The producer mentioned his
Speaker 1: new purchase, an early digital sampler machine called the even
Speaker 1: Tied Harmonizer, capable of recording and playing back sounds at
Speaker 1: any desired pitch without changing the tempo. It was developed
Speaker 1: to pitch correct vocal performances, sort of like a primitive
Speaker 1: version of auto tune, but the creative uses of it
Speaker 1: were essentially endless. The device was just the second ever
Speaker 1: sold in the UK and a total mystery to Bowie
Speaker 1: and Eno. What does it do? They asked, Visconti struggled
Speaker 1: to come up with a simple answer. Failing that, he
Speaker 1: offered a much more compelling one. It messes with the
Speaker 1: fabric of time, he said. That was all Bowie needed
Speaker 1: to hear. He was so excited that he dropped the phone.
Speaker 1: He and Eno erupted in the cheers. At the other
Speaker 1: end of the line. Visconti was in, but they offered
Speaker 1: him a word of warning. First. Bowie told Visconti that
Speaker 1: their endeavor was purely experimental and might never see the
Speaker 1: light of day. Are you sure you don't mind wasting
Speaker 1: a month of your life with us in France, David asked.
Speaker 1: Visconti replied, A month in the studio with David Bowie
Speaker 1: and Brian Eno is not wasting a month of my life.
Speaker 1: Sessions for Iggy's album blended almost seamlessly into David's as
Speaker 1: summer turned to fall at the Chateau. The dates were
Speaker 1: bolstered by the familiar instrumental lineup of guitarist Carlos Alamar,
Speaker 1: bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis, in addition to
Speaker 1: pianist Roy Young. Everything was great as far as the
Speaker 1: music was concerned, but more owl on the castle wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly soaring. It was vacation season in France and many
Speaker 1: of the studio employees were away with almost no support
Speaker 1: staff on hand. Even small problems quickly escalated into major catastrophes.
Speaker 1: Case in point, the food. The French cuisine didn't sit
Speaker 1: well with those in the Bowie camp, especially at the
Speaker 1: time they were accidentally served some cheese that had been
Speaker 1: left out too long, resulting in a serious bout of
Speaker 1: food poisoning. Tony Visconti would later describe the sessions as
Speaker 1: a horrible experience. He felt the technical specs of the
Speaker 1: studio left something to be desired, leading to some chilliness
Speaker 1: between Chateau engineering staff and the Bowie contingent. Things went
Speaker 1: from bad to worse when a woman they were told
Speaker 1: was a studio receptionist turned out to be an undercover
Speaker 1: French reporter sent to do a story on David's new
Speaker 1: life on the European continent. Bowie and co. Blamed the
Speaker 1: studio for selling him out to the press, and the
Speaker 1: frosty relations turned to open hostility. And then there was
Speaker 1: the small matter of the ghosts. Several members of the
Speaker 1: entourage claimed that the chateau was haunted by the spirits
Speaker 1: of doomed lovers who would live there, composer Friedrich Chopin
Speaker 1: and author George sand David refused to sleep in the
Speaker 1: master bedroom, insisting that he felt inexplicable cold spots, a
Speaker 1: telltale sign of paranormal activity. Brian Eno happily took it instead,
Speaker 1: only to be awoken one night by the sensation of
Speaker 1: a phantom hand on his shoulder. Ghosts or no ghosts.
Speaker 1: Bowie also had his hands full dealing with flesh and
Speaker 1: blood specters from his own past. In between sessions, he
Speaker 1: took intermittent trips to Paris to face down his ex manager,
Speaker 1: Michael Littman, who was now suing for two million dollars
Speaker 1: and lost earnings after David fired him earlier in the year.
Speaker 1: These tense meetings for the impending legal battle cast the
Speaker 1: darkness over the otherwise fruitful recording dates. At times, David
Speaker 1: seemed preoccupied in the studio as his attention drift to
Speaker 1: less pleasant matters. Then less pleasant matters paid him a visit.
Speaker 1: Angie dropped in on the sessions with a new boyfriend
Speaker 1: in tow her open relationship with David. As much as
Speaker 1: it still existed, had been heavily weighed in her husband's favor,
Speaker 1: and he rarely took kindly to her more serious dalliances.
Speaker 1: Angie's last ditch effort to repair their cracked marriage by
Speaker 1: living together under one roof and their new Swiss home
Speaker 1: had pretty much failed, miserably, signaling adrift from which she
Speaker 1: knew there was no return. It's unknown whether this visit
Speaker 1: with her new bow was an attempt to appeal to
Speaker 1: David's jealous side and went him back, or merely provoke
Speaker 1: him into a rage. In any event, rage is what
Speaker 1: she got. The sound of shattering glass alerted one and
Speaker 1: all to an altercation. David and Angie's boyfriend were tussling
Speaker 1: on the floor, and Viscontin had to physically pull them apart.
Speaker 1: The incident was unfortunate, but it added fuel to David's
Speaker 1: creative fire. Shortly after, he and the rhythm section worked
Speaker 1: up a new groove that would become the song Breaking Glass.
Speaker 1: The sparse lyrics end with the line You're such a
Speaker 1: wonderful person, but you've got problems. It's unclear whether David's
Speaker 1: referring to himself to Angie order them both Despite the chaos,
Speaker 1: the band worked fast. Basic rhythm tracks were wrapped in
Speaker 1: just a few days, followed by an additional week of
Speaker 1: overdubs by Carlos Alamar and fellow guitarist Ricky Gardner. Then
Speaker 1: came the fun part, experimentation. There was no deadline and
Speaker 1: no requirement that the songs even had to be released.
Speaker 1: With all commercial pressures lifted, David's musical process had begun
Speaker 1: to resemble the cut and paste technique he used to
Speaker 1: assemble his lyrics, a sort of ritualized randomness that owed
Speaker 1: more to feeling than linear narrative. You know, it was
Speaker 1: instrumental and orchestrating this sort of controlled weirdness. To prime
Speaker 1: the creative pump, they often employed Oblique Strategies, a set
Speaker 1: of cards developed by Eno and artist Peter Schmidt designed
Speaker 1: to inspire un orthodox approaches the problem solving. Each card
Speaker 1: bore an obtuse and sometimes inscrutable suggestion, things like emphasize
Speaker 1: the flaws, fill every beat with something, or use an
Speaker 1: unacceptable color. This would send the two co conspirators veering
Speaker 1: off into unexpected directions. The experimentation encompassed not just composition,
Speaker 1: but also the instruments themselves, you know, nurtured David's growing
Speaker 1: interests and synthesizers, which he used to suit his own
Speaker 1: unique purposes early. Since We're intended to give players the
Speaker 1: luxury of conjuring up a vast array of instruments through
Speaker 1: the use of tape loops, strings, flutes, horns, practically a
Speaker 1: whole orchestra at your fingertips, But David a little interest
Speaker 1: in using sense to simply imitate real instruments. Instead, he
Speaker 1: used the sense to create sounds of unreal instruments, textures
Speaker 1: in his head that didn't actually exist. Record earnings of
Speaker 1: guitar piano notes will be fed into the synthesizer and manipulated,
Speaker 1: deforming the sound David called it. Visconti's harmonizer gave the
Speaker 1: drums a distinctive down pitch snare sound, which other producers
Speaker 1: would spend decades trying to emulate. Electronic instruments were not
Speaker 1: completely new ground for David. He had used the style
Speaker 1: of phone way back on Space Oddity and Walter Carlos's
Speaker 1: electro versions of Beetho, and it served as the intro
Speaker 1: music for the Ziggy star Dust stage shows. Since we're
Speaker 1: used on a Laddin saying pin ups and diamond dogs,
Speaker 1: but never as a lead instrument as they were now.
Speaker 1: Aside from novelty projects like Popcorn and Switched on Bach,
Speaker 1: they had largely remained out of the charts. Nobody of
Speaker 1: David's popularity had ever experimented with them in such a
Speaker 1: meaningful way. You Know is usually responsible for programming the
Speaker 1: cumbersome machines and adding spaces, zips, fizzles, and wobbles from
Speaker 1: his famous E M. S suitcase. Since often inaccurately perceived
Speaker 1: as a co producer, you Know is nonetheless a revolutionary
Speaker 1: influence on David's new sounds. His love of minimalist neo
Speaker 1: classical composers like John Cage and Philip Glass, and general
Speaker 1: disinterest in traditional rock and roll made him a compelling
Speaker 1: musical foil for Bowie. He believed that the music should
Speaker 1: outshine the individual personality of the musician, a marked contrast
Speaker 1: to the character driven exercises that had defined David's career
Speaker 1: to date. You Know would later describe their working methods
Speaker 1: by saying, I become the sculptor. To David's tendency to paint,
Speaker 1: I keep trying to cut things back, stripped them to
Speaker 1: something tense and taught while he keeps throwing new colors
Speaker 1: on the canvas. It's a good duet. The sessions marked
Speaker 1: the beginning of the three step approach that David with
Speaker 1: favor for the rest of his working life. Rhythm backing
Speaker 1: tracks came first, followed by instrumental overdubs and solos. Then
Speaker 1: the final weeks were used to carve vocal melodies from
Speaker 1: the blocks of sound they'd crack died. This is the
Speaker 1: opposite of conventional pop music songwriting, which leads with melody
Speaker 1: some kind of hook to get lodged in the listener's head.
Speaker 1: To leave this most important ingredient till last was practically
Speaker 1: compositional blasphemy. But for Bowie, the unusual interplay between vocals
Speaker 1: and instrumentation made this new music all the more arresting.
Speaker 1: Well into the project, Bowie believed that the songs from
Speaker 1: these free form, playful sessions were merely demos which would
Speaker 1: form the basis of a more traditional album to be
Speaker 1: tackled down the road. Experimentation being a hit or miss process,
Speaker 1: he assumed that some of their unrefined work would be,
Speaker 1: in his own words, pretty wishy washy. But as the
Speaker 1: dates continued, he became convinced that what they'd made was
Speaker 1: vital and interesting. One night, towards the end of the
Speaker 1: Chateau sessions, Viscontin made a rough mix of their work
Speaker 1: so far and played it back to David on a cassette,
Speaker 1: a preview of the album in progress. They shared a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine, and with each song, David grew more
Speaker 1: more enthusiastic. When it was over, Visconti handed the cassette
Speaker 1: to David, who gleefully waved it over his head, exclaiming,
Speaker 1: we have an album. We have an album, but to
Speaker 1: finish it they'd have to go to Berlin. Tired of
Speaker 1: the headaches at the Chateau de Ville, David and company
Speaker 1: departed France for Germany. After a short stint at music
Speaker 1: Land Studios in Munich, where they were joined briefly by
Speaker 1: guitarist Phil Palmer Bowie, Iggy and Visconti settled in Berlin
Speaker 1: for final mixing. By the mid seventies, Bowie had become
Speaker 1: increasingly fascinated by the innovative sounds of German comiche music,
Speaker 1: off on anglicize to the unflattering nickname Kroud Rock. The
Speaker 1: most famous of these bands in the English speaking world
Speaker 1: was craft work. David would later describe their work as
Speaker 1: almost a parody of minimalism, and instead of mimicking their
Speaker 1: robotic lockstep beats, he had an R and B rhythm
Speaker 1: section to subvert the form for his own expressionist mood pieces.
Speaker 1: David also loved the work of other German bands like Tangerine, Dream,
Speaker 1: Cluster Noi and Harmonia, and he eagerly devoured their discographies.
Speaker 1: At one point, David approached German super producer Connie Plank
Speaker 1: to oversee his new album, but Plank turned him down,
Speaker 1: so it was Viscontine who stood beside David is co
Speaker 1: producer at Hansa Studios in West Berlin that October. Initially
Speaker 1: they used one of the smaller facilities before moving to
Speaker 1: significantly grander accommodations and the Hansa complex known as Studio Too.
Speaker 1: It looked like a ballroom on the Titanic, with elegant
Speaker 1: dark wood paneling, luxuriant drapery and polished parquet floors. A
Speaker 1: full size stage hinted at its original use as a
Speaker 1: guild hall for local masons. Constructed in the early nineteen tens,
Speaker 1: the building board witnessed to more than its fair share
Speaker 1: of history. It's magisterial main room at housed expressionist art galleries,
Speaker 1: Nazi balls, and chamber orchestras within its opulent walls. In
Speaker 1: the basement, though, he had found Nazi era valve stamped
Speaker 1: with swatstickas. But if the inside resembled the Titanic, the
Speaker 1: outside was just a wreck. The stately ionic pillars were
Speaker 1: pock marked with bullet holes and bomb damage from World
Speaker 1: War Two, and many of the expansive picture windows remained
Speaker 1: bricked up, providing a haven for an impressive number of pigeons.
Speaker 1: A large portion of the roof pediment had been blown
Speaker 1: off in the war and never repaired, and a segment
Speaker 1: of the courtyard wall had crumbled into rubble. The street
Speaker 1: was riddled with holes where buildings had once been before
Speaker 1: falling victim to war and neglect. Hansa stood proud but broken,
Speaker 1: like a palace gone to ruin. It seemed to sum
Speaker 1: up all of the glamor and grotesquery of a divided Berlin.
Speaker 1: Once the focal point of Berlin's artistic community, Hansel was
Speaker 1: located in the ghostly no man's land of pot stammer Plats,
Speaker 1: literally in the Shadow of the Berlin Wall, or the
Speaker 1: anti Fascist Protective Rampart, as it was known in the East.
Speaker 1: It had been constructed essentially overnight in August of nine
Speaker 1: in an attempt to stop the flow of East berliner's
Speaker 1: fleeing into the economically booming West. By the seventies, the
Speaker 1: original concrete and barbed wire had been expanded to include
Speaker 1: a booby trapped death strip patrolled by armed Soviet guards
Speaker 1: perched and elevated gun turrets. The guard's orders were shoot
Speaker 1: to kill, and they often did. More than a hundred
Speaker 1: people were shot to death as they tried in vain
Speaker 1: to escape. Just before Bowie's arrival, an eighteen year old
Speaker 1: man was sprayed with bullets. Hansa was dubbed the Hall
Speaker 1: by the Wall for its unsettling proximity to the deadly division,
Speaker 1: known to locals as Die Mauer. Tanks prowled the street
Speaker 1: outside the studios front door. The control room looked out
Speaker 1: towards a guard tower close enough to make out the
Speaker 1: red Soviet stars on the furry hats of the East
Speaker 1: German soldiers. Bowie and Visconti became convinced that the guards
Speaker 1: were spying on them Through their binoculars. They asked hansa
Speaker 1: engineer du Meyer if the soldiers ever gave him trouble.
Speaker 1: Du jokingly responded by flashing the guards with an overhead
Speaker 1: lamp and sticking out his tongue. Bowie and Visconti didn't
Speaker 1: find it funny and dove under the mixing desk in terror,
Speaker 1: sure that the guards would retaliate by opening fire with
Speaker 1: their stem guns. No matter where you looked, there was
Speaker 1: no forgetting that you were in an ex war zone
Speaker 1: and an international boundary. The bombed out buildings, uncomfortably close
Speaker 1: guard towers, barbed wire, and permanent sense of vague danger
Speaker 1: created a strange, tense atmosphere for making music. As Tony
Speaker 1: Visconti would recall, everything said, we shouldn't be making a
Speaker 1: record here. The constant exposure to the brutality of totalitarian
Speaker 1: governments forced Bowie to confront his public dalliance with fascism
Speaker 1: earlier that year. Regardless of his intentions, Berlin brought home
Speaker 1: the horror of Germany's not so distant past. I really
Speaker 1: had to face up to that, Bowie would later admit.
Speaker 1: Suddenly I was in a situation where I was meeting
Speaker 1: young men of my age whose fathers had actually been
Speaker 1: s s men. One German acquaintance of David's northodontist possessed
Speaker 1: reproduction skulls of Hitler's cabinet members, which he proudly showed
Speaker 1: off to illustrate the supposed superior dental genetics of Nordic blood.
Speaker 1: There were some, particularly in Germany, it seemed, who interpreted
Speaker 1: David's thin white duke incarnation as his tribute to the
Speaker 1: Arian notion of the ubermention it's not a far jump
Speaker 1: to the Hitlerian ideal of the master race. David's recent
Speaker 1: comments in the press not to mention his decision to
Speaker 1: settle in Berlin only seemed to confirm these supposed sympathies.
Speaker 1: Soon after he arrived, a putrid stream of fervent nationalists
Speaker 1: and rabid racists began beating on his door. These were
Speaker 1: people who assumed he thought like them. One night, an
Speaker 1: art dealer came calling, trying to sell him a bust
Speaker 1: of Hitler made by the fearer's favorite sculptor. The man
Speaker 1: had to be physically removed by Iggy. Another day, while
Speaker 1: out for a walk by Hansa Studios, David noticed his
Speaker 1: name spray painted onto the Berlin wall, with the letters
Speaker 1: twisted into the shape of a swatstika. The consequences of
Speaker 1: David's words left him horrified. He had been chiefly interested
Speaker 1: in the Third Reich's propensity for medium manipulation and obsession
Speaker 1: with supernatural artifacts, topics of great interest to Bowie in
Speaker 1: any period of his life, but he'd admitt in later
Speaker 1: years to being politically naive for divorcing these mythological tales
Speaker 1: of the occult from the genocide committed by the Nazi regime.
Speaker 1: This was not merely science fiction, but terrifying, murderous reality. True,
Speaker 1: David had been driven quite literally psychotic by drug use,
Speaker 1: and unable to remember much of the period in question,
Speaker 1: though no excuse, it does go a long way, and
Speaker 1: explaining as it will advised comments, he would admit the
Speaker 1: charges of racism had been raised quite inevitably and rightly
Speaker 1: as he emerged from the cloud of cocaine. To be clear,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to suggest that David actually subscribed to the
Speaker 1: theories of eugenics put forth by the Third Reich. In fact,
Speaker 1: most of his behavior over the years would suggest the opposite.
Speaker 1: He was notoriously outspoken in his support for African American musicians,
Speaker 1: famously halting an interview on MTV to grill the VJ
Speaker 1: on why the network wasn't playing more work by black artists. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it was an unfortunate chapter in David's life, or rather
Speaker 1: an unfortunate character the thin White Duke. But once David
Speaker 1: arrived in Berlin, he took the persona off, put it
Speaker 1: in a wardrobe, and locked the door. His true feelings
Speaker 1: about the geopolitical schism tumbled out in a song, the
Speaker 1: only one on his new record, written in Berlin, called
Speaker 1: Weeping Wall. It's an instrumental piece performed entirely by Bowie
Speaker 1: himself on synthesizers and percussion. A wordless chorus helped evoke
Speaker 1: the misery of those trapped in the East, a sympathetic
Speaker 1: nod that those caught on the wrong side of the wall.
Speaker 1: Weepin Wall would be the last song completed for his
Speaker 1: new album, and it was an album unlike any he'd
Speaker 1: ever made. Initially titled New Music, Night and Day, it
Speaker 1: was like his newly adopted city divided in two. The
Speaker 1: first side was clearly Day, a series of short, spiky songs,
Speaker 1: fragmented but still identifiable as pop. The Night of Side
Speaker 1: Too held something different, entirely sprawling, minimalist, largely lyriclest tracks
Speaker 1: that had far more in common with You Knows Another
Speaker 1: Green World than ziggy Stardust. This wasn't entirely an accident.
Speaker 1: You Know assembled the initial tracks for two of those
Speaker 1: songs when David was called away to Paris to deal
Speaker 1: with more of the unpleasant legal fallout from his split
Speaker 1: with his manager. It was mostly a matter of practicality.
Speaker 1: Why let expensive studio time go to waste? As far
Speaker 1: as Eno was concerned, Bowie could keep any of the
Speaker 1: pieces that he liked. Whatever remained, you Know would use
Speaker 1: on his own album. It was during those Bowie list
Speaker 1: sessions that Visconti's four year old son began playing a
Speaker 1: three note figure on a baby grand piano over and over, ABC,
Speaker 1: ABC ABC. The figure became locked in ENO's head. It
Speaker 1: had an a motive, almost religious feel to it. He
Speaker 1: gently scooted the boy over on the piano bench and
Speaker 1: sat down beside him. Eno expanded the piece, which Bowie
Speaker 1: would further develop into the song Warsawa, a haunting, wordless
Speaker 1: hymn inspired by a record of a Bulgarian Boys choir,
Speaker 1: David had recently purchased. The syllables Bowie sang were meaningless,
Speaker 1: chosen purely for the sound they evoked, but it brimmed
Speaker 1: with emotion. Though the melodies were plentiful, Bowie found himself
Speaker 1: suffering from a case of writer's block during the sessions.
Speaker 1: He intended the craft lyrics to each of the songs
Speaker 1: on side one, but he came up short for two
Speaker 1: Speed of Life and a new career in a new town. Instead,
Speaker 1: he chose to leave them both as instrumentals. The words
Speaker 1: he did manage to write are an unvarnished reflection of
Speaker 1: his mental angst. The first three lyrical tracks in the
Speaker 1: album Breaking Glass, What in the World and Sound and
Speaker 1: Vision find Bowie confined to a room, secluded but suffocated.
Speaker 1: When I left l A. I tried to find out
Speaker 1: more about the world, he told Rolling Stone in I
Speaker 1: discovered how little I knew, how little I have to say.
Speaker 1: These instrumental tracks reveal a man literally stuck for words.
Speaker 1: His troubled personal life further tied his tongue. In addition
Speaker 1: to the two million dollar lawsuit leveled by his ex manager,
Speaker 1: his marriage to Angie was in its final death throws.
Speaker 1: She is sited her husband in Berlin several times that
Speaker 1: in November, seemingly intent on settling once and for all,
Speaker 1: what exactly was to become of their union, Even their
Speaker 1: creative bond, the last link that kept them together, was
Speaker 1: broken for good. She couldn't understand what on earth he
Speaker 1: saw in Germany, she would write in her memoir. I
Speaker 1: couldn't even begin to relate to either his fascination with
Speaker 1: the magic behind the Holocaust or his affection for grim,
Speaker 1: gray places. And that's putting it very mildly. Indeed, I
Speaker 1: couldn't stand all that crap. The stress of one visit
Speaker 1: pushed David to the breaking point, and he collapsed. Angie,
Speaker 1: fearing he'd finally suffered a heart attack after years of
Speaker 1: punishing his body, rushed him to a local hospital, but
Speaker 1: a doctor declared there was nothing organically wrong with him,
Speaker 1: simply that he had been overdoing things a bit, particularly
Speaker 1: the drinking, which he had taken to with enthusiasm since
Speaker 1: arriving in Berlin. It helped all the raw emotion that
Speaker 1: the last few years had brought to the surface. In
Speaker 1: Angie's eyes. It was David's all seeing, all knowing assistant
Speaker 1: Coco Schwab, who was the real wedge in their relationship.
Speaker 1: She was the gatekeeper and the assassin. She did his
Speaker 1: dirty work for him and took all the consequences, she
Speaker 1: wrote venomously. Fifteen years later, so Andie presented her husband
Speaker 1: with an ultimatum, either Coco goes or I go. Bowie
Speaker 1: responded by asking for a divorce, Andie refused. If he
Speaker 1: wanted out, he'd have to do the deed himself. The
Speaker 1: shock of it all delayed the pain that they both
Speaker 1: knew intellectually would come should come. They've been through so much,
Speaker 1: how could it not. Angie hoped against hope that with
Speaker 1: all their marital issues out of the way, they could
Speaker 1: go back to being friends and partners again. Even David
Speaker 1: seemed to brighten after the difficult discussion was done. It
Speaker 1: was as if a spark was rekindled. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: just the drinks heat downed, but later that night they
Speaker 1: slept together for the first time in years. The looming
Speaker 1: split lent to forbidden alert of their relationship, and the
Speaker 1: next few days in Berlin were unusually happy. Those were
Speaker 1: good times, and you would write they had a strangely
Speaker 1: erotic quality, almost the Listit as if the decision to
Speaker 1: divorce had changed us from man and wife into brother
Speaker 1: and sister, behaving very naughtily with each other. I started
Speaker 1: to think that maybe, as in the beginning, we were
Speaker 1: adventuring into something new, untried and exciting. But then a
Speaker 1: fight between Angie and Coco brought the romantic interlude to
Speaker 1: an end, a dramatic one at that, and you would
Speaker 1: have it no other way. Of course. After the verbal altercation,
Speaker 1: Coco fled the apartment instead of siding with his wife
Speaker 1: or ex wife or whatever. David grew deeply upset and
Speaker 1: ran to the telephone, desperate to track down his beloved aid.
Speaker 1: As Andie would note, he seemed much more concerned about
Speaker 1: Coco's welfare than her own. Upon locating Coco, David ran
Speaker 1: out to meet her, leaving Angie alone. David had clearly
Speaker 1: made his choice. There was only one thing left to do. Leave,
Speaker 1: so Angie caught a cab to the airport, but not
Speaker 1: before going to Coco's room, gathering up all of her
Speaker 1: clothes and tossing them into the street below. For David
Speaker 1: and Angie, that was the end, though they had continue
Speaker 1: to play a role in each other's lives. For the
Speaker 1: next few years, they did interact from a distance. According
Speaker 1: to Angie, they met just once more at a cafe
Speaker 1: in Switzerland to exchange divorce documents. All this was going
Speaker 1: down as David was finalizing his new album. He would
Speaker 1: later characterize his mood during the sessions with a single word,
Speaker 1: one that would give the record its ultimate title, Low.
Speaker 1: As he neared the end of his twenties, he put
Speaker 1: the finishing touches on his most adult work to date,
Speaker 1: one that has showed persons and storytelling. He'd reached the
Speaker 1: point where as he later said, I really didn't need
Speaker 1: to adopt characters to sing my songs. Low is a
Speaker 1: highly personal snapshot of a moment in time. The music
Speaker 1: was literally expressing my physical and emotional state. He'd say.
Speaker 1: It was a byproduct of my life. It just sort
Speaker 1: of came out. The cover, a shot of Bowie and
Speaker 1: profile from The Man Who Fell to Earth was a
Speaker 1: visual pun Low Profile Get It. In addition to ignoring
Speaker 1: nearly all conventions of a commercial rock and roll album,
Speaker 1: David did next to nothing to actually promote it. In
Speaker 1: the past, he was all too willing to publicize his
Speaker 1: work through high concept stunts and choice quotes. Now he
Speaker 1: was silent. He refused all interview requests for Low, saying
Speaker 1: only it doesn't need to be discussed. It speaks for itself.
Speaker 1: There would be no tour. Instead, he was happy to
Speaker 1: stay in Germany for the time being. At least Berlin
Speaker 1: was my clinic, he said some years later. It brought
Speaker 1: me back in touch with people. It got me back
Speaker 1: on the streets. Not the street where everything is cold
Speaker 1: and there's drugs, but the streets where there were young,
Speaker 1: intelligent people trying to get along. The city had rescued
Speaker 1: him from almost certain oblivion, and the results shown through
Speaker 1: in his latest work, It was art is therapy. The
Speaker 1: record exposed his pain to the world and the results
Speaker 1: pleased him overall. I get a sense of real optimism
Speaker 1: through the veils of despair from Low, David said in
Speaker 1: two thousand one, I can hear myself really struggling to
Speaker 1: get well. Berlin was the first time in years that
Speaker 1: I felt a joy of life and a great feeling
Speaker 1: of release and healing. Low was in a sense, David
Speaker 1: had a spiritual bottom. There was nowhere left to go
Speaker 1: but up. Off The Record is a production by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Noel Brown and shan Ty Tone.
Speaker 1: The super Busing producers are Taylor Chokogne and Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1: The show was researched, written and hosted by me Jordan
Speaker 1: run Tug and edited, scored and sound designed by Taylor
Speaker 1: Chokogne and Tristan McNeil, with additional music by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.