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Bowie General > Images Vol. 05

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homebrewPosted at 2024-12-14 15:42:44(9 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 05)


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In the Usenet group alt.fan.david-bowie you would have run into a user named Jamie Soule aka aladInsaNE. Jamie wrote a series of articles that he called "Images" about our hero, David Bowie. I found them fascinating, sometimes infuriating, occasionally confusing and ultimately interesting enough to have saved them all (at least all that I could track down). I have made no attempt to alter the formatting, spelling, grammar or edit in any way.

Images: Part five


Defries was learning fast from his mistakes and thankfully mostly on
other's money.  Not only had Defries received an education but the slow
learners at RCA had progressed a grade or two. Their education however
had been far more expensive than Defries'. One thing they had not
learned at RCA, and should have, is that you would never win in a
confrontation with Defries and forget even the idea of a stalemate. Tony
Defries got his was and that was it. No argument, no negotiation, no
further discussion. You wanted to avoid getting into this situation with
Defries at all cost but that is exactly where RCA was concerning the
planned third American tour. RCA and Defries had come to a stalemate.
What RCA knew Defries did not want to face and that is the fact that
Bowie was not a star outside of England and he could not possibly sell
enough tickets to warrant a tour being booked into venues the size of
arenas. There was not enough demand and demand was the key. Defries knew
about demand, he had seen it on the Aladdin Sane tour, and he knew that
with the demand you had to supply and that the demand becomes greater
when the supply is limited. With this reasoning then it made sense to
assume that if Bowie was in less supply then the demand should become
greater. With this it should be possible then to create a demand for
Bowie.

"It's the last show we'll ever do," were the words that the audience
heard at The Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd, 1973. Bowie had quit. The
shock was not confined to the audience. Trevor Bolder and Woody
Woodmansey had neglected to be told in advance of their pre arranged
retirement. They knew that this was the end of the line for them. As for
Ronson, he was told in advance with a vow of secrecy. Not only that,  he
had an upcoming solo career that was going to make him a star in his own
right, after all he did have a contract with  and a commitment from
Defries. He would later learn that this was another illusion Defries
created in order to have control over him. He too was convinced that
this was all real when in fact he was just another actor playing a part
in the play.

The next day the press releases poured out of MainMan. Bowie had
retired. There was one release that Defries made sure was sent out
separately so it was sure to be seen by the media. It said at the top in
bold print, "DAVID-BOWIE - US TOUR THREE HAS BEEN CANCELLED." The press
release went on to say that a massive arena tour consisting of  80
performances in the US and Canada had been cancelled. A tour this big
PROVED to the media how big a star Bowie was and tour of this magnitude
was necessary just to fill the demand of the public.  Regrettably, it
was now cancelled due to Bowie's retirement.  The truth is that RCA and
Defries never did come to terms and not one date had been arranged or
any plans made at all for this third American tour. There was no tour.

There were a few more people who were overlooked when it came to
informing people of the intended retirement of Ziggy Stardust. Those
namely were the fine folks over at RCA. Suddenly, and I am sure much to
their disbelief, their label was now short one artist. If it was any
consolation Defries told them that they would be getting one more album
from Bowie. It would be nothing original, it would be a tribute album
which consisted of Bowie doing covers of songs originally recorded by
others. Defries was going to pass on a little nostalgia, after all,
Bowies contract with RCA needed to be re-negotiated anyway. There was a
minor publishing  problem that had to be taken care of as well, and a
nostalgia album would help that tremendously.  Defries did not have the
sole rights to Bowie's publishing through Chrysalis as he had a partner
involved as well in the company. With Bowie officially retired then the
value of his publishing would be considerably less and the fact that
Bowie would never make another album again meant that the company was
also worth less. Defries was sure that his partner would be keenly
interested in selling his share of a company that had no future. He was
right, and soon he had it all.

I do know what I have written below and I know the temptation those
reading this will have to read it again due to disbelief. I can assure
you that you read it right the first time.

Things were about to get wild at MainMan, extravagantly wild. At the
risk of plagiarism I will borrow a description once used by Defries and
say that everything up until now was merely a "rehearsal." Now it is
show time. Bowie was off to France to begin the recording of Pin Ups at
the famous composer Chopin's former home, the Chateau d'Herouville.
Defries would stay in America to further promote his favourite star.
This time however the star was not Bowie, this star would be much larger
than Bowie. It was time to lift the veil so the world could see first
hand the tremendous wealth and power wielded by Defries' star, which
went by the name of MainMan.

MainMan now occupied fourteen offices on Park Avenue in New York with a
staff of twenty six not including domestic staff and chauffeurs. Defries
sat  smoking his trademark cigars in opulent splendour firmly in control
of his "world wide entertainment conglomerate' behind a massive leather
inlaid desk with gold and silver "executive appointments." There was no
further need to rent limousines. MainMan now had its own which was a
custom built Cadillac with a leather cream coloured interior and
operated by a uniformed chauffeur. In keeping with the insanity MainMan
had a number of executives running various departments, many of whom
were recognizable from  the Andy Warhol film "Pork." Cherry Vanilla was
put in charge of the newest company department, MainMan Films.  There
were several additional pieces of real estate owned by MainMan as well.
These properties included a MainMan duplex in New York as well as a
penthouse suite  and five apartments. MainMan West operated out of a
small mansion on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. There were properties
as well in Tokyo and West London which served as corporate offices for
MainMan. The crowning glory was in Greenwich Connecticut known as The
MainMan Estate whose central feature was a twenty room mansion.  Times
Square now included a huge billboard featuring Mick Ronson and the
release of his first solo album Slaughter On Tenth Avenue and his
upcoming tour. Defries spoke at times of buying RCA. David Bowie was
living in a rented eight pound a week flat. He was behind on his rent
and his property taxes. This could leave a person wondering who the star
really was.

There is one act left for Bowie to play in the role of Ziggy Stardust,
but even before that the transformation had already begun. A new
character would soon emerge and Bowie was already erasing the past and
rewriting his own history. Bowie was publicly denying that he was a
musician, he stated that he never was  giving the reason that he would
not make a career out of something so restrictive. The press had it all
wrong. David Bowie was a "writer." Oh, and he was currently looking over
four movie scripts with him in the starring role and then there was the
one he was writing as well. Not only was Bowie a writer now, but a
writer for theatre, and these theatres were the ones located in New
York. On Broadway to be exact.

Bowie was in Rome in September of 1973 holed up with Tony Ingrassia who
directed Warhol's film Pork. The objective was a working partnership to
write the lyrics and script for a musical production based on George
Orwell's famous novel, 1984. Defries had visions of Bowie starring in
this production which would debut in London and then open on Broadway
where it would run for as long as possible . This would lead to the next
step of Bowie acting in films which MainMan would produce. MainMan saw
dollars, and it was dollars they needed desperately, because nothing had
changed. This was all still an illusion of  Defries making and the house
that he built was still a house of cards. Correction, an empire built of
cards. There was a problem looming for Defries. Bowie, like an
undisciplined child, was starting to question a few questions about the
wrong things. If Bowie ever came back to reality Defries would have a
real problem on his hands. So big in fact that the game would be over.

The major thing which eventually got David clued in to what was really
happening at MainMan and to the degree he was being soaked came down to
one thing, Defries' lack of discretion. There was not an ounce of
humility to be found in that man, he flaunted it all. He didn't throw it
in the faces of others, he propelled it with the force of a rocket
launcher. Defries thought of no one but himself and he was driven by
greed, wealth, power, control, lust, ego and would do anything to obtain
the privileges which are afforded to the rich power brokers in America.
He made the mistake of actually believing his own bullshit, he thought
that he actually built this empire on his own, forgetting that without
Bowie, he was nothing. David Bowie was his sole source of revenue and he
started to become foolish enough not to take care of him. Angie or David
would phone MainMan, they needed pocket money. What they got was the run
around. Tony's out, the bank is closed, we'll take care of it, wait till
tomorrow and cheques would arrive unsigned. Cheques were often returned
NSF. This was money for the minor day to day expenditures such as
cigarettes, food and other trivial items. Bowie started to wonder why he
should be without the pettiest amount of spending money and why he
should have to endure a never ending run around to get it. After all it
was HIS MONEY. Where was it all going? He also realized that everything
he had he did not own, it was rented, leased or borrowed. Where was his
money, it was going somewhere?

The collaboration with Tony Ingrassia was not going well at all. Bowie
did not, and never has, worked well under pressure or when restricted to
within a time frame. Two eighties albums prove that. Deadlines and Bowie
mix like Jagger and Hall. To the credit of their short lived
collaboration though, out of it came the concept for Diamond Dogs but
not much else. Bowie returned to England to work on the project himself
and penned twenty new songs for his "musical." This time reality reared
its ugly head and put an end to any dreams of Broadway that anyone had.
You see, if a person writes something original it becomes their
"intellectual property" and people who write for a living often
"copyright" their work to legally stop another from copying it without
the owner receiving a fee for the use of his work. The funny thing is
that George Orwell just happened to go through this procedure and had
his writings copyrighted. This required MainMan to obtain permission
first of all to use Orwell's ideas or his work, and secondly, MainMan
would be required to pay a royalty fee for using any of Orwell's
intellectual property, which was now owned by his estate and managed by
his wife. Mrs. Orwell, as it happened, was not a fan of David Bowie at
all. She knew who he was and unfortunately her opinion of him killed any
chance of her giving him the rights to use Orwell's novel 1984 to adapt
into what she probably saw as a Broadway based production for the
weird.  Call it Todd Browning meets William Shakespeare. The problem
also remained that even if she did allow MainMan to go ahead with the
production there was no money to pay any royalties. Broadway would have
to wait for its new protégé.

Now, I am sure that I will be called someone who is nitpicking or making
a mountain out of a mole hill but I think this correction needs to be
made. Almost everything I have read relating to Bowie's career, as well
as what most fans will say as to when this event occurred, is totally
incorrect.  I am referring to the date on the Death Certificate of Ziggy
Stardust. It is stated as July 3rd, 1973. That is wrong. The correct
date is October 20th, 1973.  Bowie, backed by The Spiders had one last
appearance together and that was to film a special one hour long
television presentation called The 1980 Floor Show that would appear in
America on NBC's weekly show, The Midnight Special. I refer to it
personally as The 1980 Fashion Show as well, and for those who have seen
it I think that I would escape any criticism for that. The show was to
be in support of the newly released Pin Ups but it eludes me exactly
how. The show is brilliant in any case, and for the sake of history it
was the end of Ziggy, and the end of The Spiders. Bowie's new character
was for the most part already fully  developed before the taping of this
show. All that was left to do was to put on the costume and present
himself to the world.

AladInsane

To be continued..........



""I don't begrudge any artist for finding an audience"
- David Bowie abt. 1987
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MoonyDonatedPosted at 2024-12-16 19:08:35(8 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 05)


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thank you once again for these posts.!

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