David Bowie & the Story of Ziggy Stardust Page #5

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# Where are you?

# Stand up!

# (Carry the news)... #

You grew to hate him, Bowie. Not

only was he writing all his own and...

he's revived Mott the Hoople's

career from a funeral pyre.

Pegasus here! He wrote this great,

great song that will live for ever.

Next, he turned his attention to two of the artists

who had been a huge influence on his music for Ziggy.

The first was

the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed.

The brilliant thing about his

friendship with Lou Reed

is that Lou Read was successful

before he came along.

I mean, the Velvet Underground -

the most influential

group of all time -

yet, "Come here. I'll take you

under my wing.

"I'm going to turn you, Lou Reed, into

a pop star in the UK." Really clever.

# Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild

side... #

In the summer of 1972,

alongside Mick Ronson,

Bowie produced Lou Reed's Transformer album.

Still Lou's most successful album to date.

A few months later, Bowie was at the mixing

desk for Iggy Pop & the Stooges' Raw Power.

Today, it's considered as a massive

inspiration for the Punk rock movement.

We'd never heard of Iggy pop,

we'd never heard of Lou Read.

Bowie revealed those to us. They'd become part

of his coterie so we wanted to listen to them.

I can't stand the premise of going on

in jeans and being real.

It's not normal!

The first Ziggy Stardust tour had started

back in February with little commotion

but after Top of the Pops,

the dates began to sell out.

Bowie's chemistry with guitarist

Mick Ronson

was evolving into one

of rock's great partnerships.

If you really want to know what sound Ziggy

Stardust is, apart from David Bowie's voice,

it's Mick Ronson's guitar.

It just felt like an animal begging

to be released whenever he played.

He was a brilliant guitar player.

He wasn't one of these technically fast

players but he played beautiful guitar.

His melody work was just so good.

You listen to the end of Moonage Daydream and the

solo on the end of that, it's simple but genius.

For me, he was the best guitarist

around in those days.

He was the guitarist to have.

He contributed so much. He looked

great too. They made a great couple.

If you'd seen those two onstage,

it was exciting.

David going down on Mick's

guitar. Revelation!

When my mother so that paper,

she threw it on the table and said,

"Is this who you're working for?"

I said, they're just pretending, mum.

For some reason,

he just did things like that.

Of course, somebody took a picture

and the next thing, it's in the press

and its bows to be sexual and

God knows what else, you know.

The final dates of the UK tour in

August were at London's Rainbow Theatre.

Bowie would perform in front of some

of the biggest names in pop

and was keen to show he'd come

a long way since Space Oddity.

Helping change the show from a

rock gig into a theatrical spectacle

was his old dance tutor,

Lindsay Kemp.

David was fascinated by what I had

to teach him,

what I had to tell him

about the Kabuki.

Kabuki is that wonderful Japanese

theatre where men played the female roles

and, of course, they move in a

very stylised way.

Music is a very important part

of the spectacle and spectacle it is.

# Don't fake it, baby

# Oh, lay the real thing on

me... #

It was the first time a pop star had

combined rock music with exotic costumes,

theatrical lighting,

choreography and mime.

It certainly had the desired effect.

When he came out as Ziggy Stardust, it was

like an art installation. It was like, wow!

His stage presence is quite extraordinary. David

was so glamorous and so beautiful and androgynous.

And sexual.

David as Ziggy commanded the stage. You

just wanted to be him. You adored him.

Quite honestly, I'd never seen anything

like it in my life. It was so exciting.

For manager Tony De Fries, breaking

Ziggy in Britain was the easy part.

Cracking America would be a whole

different ball game.

Even though he'd signed to RCA

the previous year,

the record label hadn't raised

Bowie's US profile at all.

Tony's plan was to open

an office in New York

and use RCA's money to pretend David

was already huge in America.

Just as Bowie had pretended

with Ziggy.

Some old Warhol friends

were drafted in to help.

He had two bodyguards and he dressed

them bodyguards in karate costumes.

They flanked him wherever he went.

Everyone assumed that he was just as big as Mick

Jagger and Elton John and, of course, he wasn't.

We were having to create this myth.

We all had 24-hour limos,

first-class tickets on aeroplanes,

everything paid for around the

world. It was madness.

Tony was good at telling them, I need that

much money and we're going to do it like this.

You're going to do that,

that and that and... Pff!

They were afraid of us.

We were all in make up. They

can't tell the men from the women.

All they wanted to do, when we were sitting

in them offices making outrageous demands,

they just wanted us to get out of their

offices. So they would just say yes to anything.

"The house lights are about to go down

for the appearance of David Bowie."

CHEERING:

A 28-date US tour was booked, kicking off in

September. One of the standout gigs was at Santa Monica.

A bootleg recording of the concert immortalized

the raw power of the Spiders from Mars.

All of a sudden, the strobe lights are going and

everything was bright and just blew people's minds.

# Hey, man, get off the phone... #

Everybody is on the phone saying,

you've got to see this new show.

David Bowie. He's something else.

People couldn't believe it

because it was so different.

I remember David saying he thought the

audience weren't responding very much.

I said, David, you've got to remember

there staring at you with their mouths open.

They haven't quite worked out where you're

from, you know. Another planet or something!

The tour featured one addition to the

Spiders who would be instrumental in changing

the sound of future David Bowie

records, Mike Garson.

The keyboardist came from a completely

different musical background.

It was a big shock coming from

jazz, very loose kind of playing

but I realised they had a vibe that

was very, very cool.

I just found a way to lock into it

and they were very accepting.

While Bowie had impressed auditorium

audiences nearer the East & West coasts,

when the tour progressed through the more conservative

states of America, the reception wasn't quite so warm.

Nobody wants to see this guy who says

he's gay and is playing these strange

songs and wears make-up.

They want to boogie, you know.

They want people in denim

who look like them.

So, he's playing arenas across America and some

nights he's getting 200 or 300 people along.

Despite some poor attendances,

the management continued to circulate

the idea that Bowie was a huge celebrity.

But their luxury living was

on borrowed money.

By the time we got to Hollywood,

they've put us in the Chateaux Marmont

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