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Bowie General > Images Vol. 13

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homebrewPosted at 2025-02-08 15:21:38(6 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 13)


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These articles appear just as they were posted in the Usenet group alt.fan.david-bowie by group member Jamie Soule aka aladInsaNE. I have made no attempt to alter the formatting, spelling, grammar or edit in any way.

--Sidebar on personal note: I was just told I will need to undergo open heart surgery soon. There may be a pause in these postings for a while--

Images: Part 13


With each new character Bowie assumed there was always a bit left of the
old one. Even now he was still carrying a large part of the character
Ziggy Stardust. There was a lot of  Aladinsane, Halloween Jack, The Man
Who Sold The World and the "real" David Bowie. But death loomed. This
new character was powerful, and so much so that it was consuming every
part of Bowie. There would be no other characters left inside or any
part of the real Bowie, they would die. There would soon be nothing
left, he would be one personality. The Thin White Duke. The complete
transformation would take another two to three months and the last
stages were difficult.  Bowie was near insanity.

Bowie was getting difficult to work with when they were nearing the end
of the Station To Station sessions. He seemed disconnected with the
world "we" live in. He was incessantly wandering around the studio
babbling to himself. Often he would sit and talk to Maslin for hours
about Ziggy Stardust or other things. At times he was incoherent. Maslin
would have to remind him at time that they were in a studio and it was
important to get back to the music. Bowie didn't care, he would ramble
on to anyone who would listen. He wasn't sleeping. His personality was
fragmented and at times he didn't really know who he was.  On November
17, Golden Years was released as a single. Two days later the world
would be exposed to The Thin White Duke, and what appeared was most
bizarre. Hang on.

I have it on video.  It appeared on National television , and in prime
time, on a show watched by millions of middle age viewers. David Bowie
appeared as a guest on The Cher Show, an hour long  musical variety that
was televised mid evening, around eight or nine o'clock. It used to be
the The Sonny and Cher Show until the divorce halved it and the networks
thought Cher to be a better draw for viewers. They were right, in
America the show was extremely popular among the middle age television
audience and the "older" crowd who seem to prefer to watch variety
shows. They like them as much as shows that are about private
investigators or crime mysteries. I got this information watching my
grandmother and her friends. She bought me a copy of Space Oddity one
year for Christmas and it was still sealed. This told me immediately
that she never taped it before giving it to me, like a Bowie fan would.
I think the picture on the back cover may have scared her off. I got it
unwrapped in a bag. The next album, and the last, she bought me was
Goat's Head Soup by The Rolling Stones which had a less dangerous cover.
I never did play Starfucker for her.

Bowie looked scary. The hair is slicked right back, orange with two
blond streaks in the front and he is skeletal thin.  The clothes he is
wearing are of a style known as "college prep," dress pants, shirt with
no tie and a brown tweed jacket. It makes one conjure up the image of an
alien being on cocaine who looks like a member of the Aryan race
attending spring semester at Harvard. I am sure the viewing audience
really appreciated the fact that Cher was gracious enough to bring Mr.
Bowie into their living rooms that evening to entertain them. He was
entertaining as well. I have this trait that used to be the envy of my
friends. No matter what condition I am in, I look and act exactly the
same. You could never tell. This is one trait that David Bowie does not
share with me. When he is fucked up, you can tell he's fucked up and
that lovely evening that he appeared on The Cher Show he is definitely
fucked up. Fucked right up to be exact.

Can You Hear Me is one of my favourite Bowie songs and live versions are
rather difficult to come by and for this reason I am glad that he
decided to perform this on the show. As far as the audio portion of the
song is concerned, it is not too bad really. It's listenable too. The
video portion is another story. In their attempt to be "hip" and appear
"cool" to the younger crowd the video engineers decided to enhance the
video by adding a little psychedelic flavour to it. Now, this song is
not material written by The Beatles, Iron Butterfly or early Pink Floyd
which would be appropriate to add these "enhancements" to, it is a slow
paced love song and therefore is really not helped in anyway by this
tampering. The angle and the distance the camera shots of Bowie do not
help improve things much.  First of all the camera is a head shot that
fills almost the entire screen. You can see Bowie's eyes revealing the
fact that he is there in body only and at times he goes cross eyed.  His
head looks like a human skull and the facial expressions are "pained"
looking. Now, around this head are all of these flashing psychedelic
special effects. It is awful. I do not know what they must have been
thinking, instead of entertainment it looks like their priority was to
kill a few old folk with video shock.  Even I could have run, and I
happen to like the guy. Towards the end of the show it gets better with
him and Cher singing a shitty version of Young Americans and a medley of
other people's songs. They are older tunes to entertain those senior
citizens  who managed to survive the assault of Can You Hear Me. The end
of the medley is priceless. Once finished Bowie tries to look down
Cher's top. Yes, you heard me. She notices and his response is to lick
his lips like some hungry animal waiting to pounce on it's prey. The
show went to a commercial.  Bowie was not seen again.

Bowie was free from anyone telling him what to do, he was responsible
for himself. This was not such a good thing however, as David Bowie
could now do anything he wanted. Leaving Bowie unattended was asking for
trouble as this new character was not afraid to act anyway it wanted and
with its pompous and arrogant personality it would leave some memorable
impressions on a few people. Not the impressions that one should leave
however. On Nov 25, 1975, just two days after the broadcast of The Cher
Show, Bowie was again out promoting himself. This time it was an
interview. The world we live in today is a world of communication where
information can travel across continents and oceans in a fraction of a
second. Back in 1975 however it was different. There were not a great
amount of satellites, which now number in the hundreds, floating over
our planet to make the transmission of information as efficient as it is
today.  There has always been  a high demand for access to satellites by
companies and governments, and with the limited amount of them in 1975
access to them was highly valuable. The network that carried The Russell
Harty Plus Show in Britain was one who had access to a satellite, and
this satellite would be used for a link up to America and a live
interview with David Bowie. Bowie had a very important announcement to
make that would cause a buzz word wide. The link was established without
a problem and the interview was going along fine when Bowie made his
announcement. He announced that he would be returning to Britain next
year as one of the stops on a world tour.  After the success of Young
Americans Bowie was in demand and the prospect of a tour was a big news.
This was a memorable day as it turns out, and there was other another
event that happened that day that was news. This event had to be
broadcast around the world, and it was even more important than Bowie's
tour. While the interview with Bowie was happening at the same time
General Franco of Spain died. The Spanish government needed this
information broadcast immediately as it was of world importance. They
needed the use of a satellite as a matter of fact they needed the use of
the same satellite that was carrying the interview with Bowie. A request
came in from the government of Spain explaining the circumstances and
they politely asked Bowie to relinquish the use of the satellite for a
few moments so the news of Francos death could be transmitted. Bowie
basically told them to fuck off and the interview continued. I guess
people should be more careful when they die.


It was the last week in December and Bowie's behaviour was getting more
confusing by the day. There was nothing left of anything recognizable
from before, the Thin White Duke was all there was and it was unknown
how to handle him Some of his decisions that he made were quite extreme
and they were made without much fore thought and often for unknown
reasons. It was the last week in December and Golden Years was doing
well.  The finishing touches were being done on Station To Station when
one evening  Michael Lippman received a call from Bowie who was still at
Cherokee. Lippman couldn't understand what Bowie was saying as he was
babbling and incoherent. Later Lippman attempted to call Bowie but Bowie
refused the calls. Hearing that Bowie was leaving town and heading to
Keith Richards home in Jamaica for a brief holiday, he went to the train
station to find him. When he finally did manage to see Bowie it was as
though he did not exist. Bowie said hello and right after goodbye and he
stepped on the train. The next time he heard from Bowie was through a
lawyer. Bowie fired Lippman as his manager as well as filed a lawsuit
against him claiming that Lippman had taken 15% of his earnings instead
of the agreed 10%.  The amount Bowie was claiming in the court action
was $475,000.00  Now he needed a new management company and the one he
found was perfect for him.

It happened to almost every major rock act at one time in their career.
They would wind up in court suing a former manager for ripping them off
in some form or another. It happened to Bowie, The Beatles, The Stones
and countless others. It was a love hate relationship between the
performers and their managers, you didn't want them but you had to have
them. The problem that faced bands were the legalities pertaining to the
music industry. Understand that most bands, and individuals, who made it
in the entertainment industry did not usually have a sufficient enough
education to manage their own affairs. Unfortunately even a few years of
attendance at an institute of higher learning won't help. It's the
contracts.  There are contracts with your record label, personal
managers, distributors and then there is the publishing. The contracts
required for a tour are frightening in numbers.  If you go on a sixty
city tour you are looking at sixty contracts there alone with local
promoters. Then there are contracts to be signed with each venue. Add to
that transportation, equipment rentals as well as personnel.  It takes
someone with training in order to negotiate these agreements and to
decipher the fine print. It is a full time job and one that is usually
not suited for an artist. The problem for the artists is finding a
management company that will look after your affairs in an honest
manner. These agreements have to be looked after and it is important
that the artist understand them all, look what happened to Bowie if you
sign  agreements that you do not understand. A good management firm does
this and protects its client's best interests. Bowie finally found one.

AladInsaNE

To be continued........


""I don't begrudge any artist for finding an audience"
- David Bowie abt. 1987
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