Images By Jamie Soule

289 Pages·2015·1.53 MB·English

by  Jamie Soule

Images
By Jamie Soule

Posts from

alt.fan.david-bowie
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Contents
Part One .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Part Two ................................................................................................................................................ 10
Part Three ............................................................................................................................................. 14
Part Four ............................................................................................................................................... 18
Part Five ................................................................................................................................................ 23
Part Six .................................................................................................................................................. 27
Part Seven ............................................................................................................................................. 30
Part Eight ............................................................................................................................................... 38
Part Nine ............................................................................................................................................... 42
Part Ten ................................................................................................................................................. 46
Part Eleven ............................................................................................................................................ 48
Part Twelve ........................................................................................................................................... 51
Part Thirteen ......................................................................................................................................... 55
Part Fourteen ........................................................................................................................................ 58
Part Fifteen ........................................................................................................................................... 61
Part Sixteen ........................................................................................................................................... 64
Part Seventeen ...................................................................................................................................... 69
Part Eighteen ......................................................................................................................................... 74
Part Nineteen ........................................................................................................................................ 79
Part Twenty ........................................................................................................................................... 82
Part Twenty One ................................................................................................................................... 90
Part Twenty Two ................................................................................................................................... 95
Part Twenty Three............................................................................................................................... 105
Part Twenty Four................................................................................................................................. 110
Part Twenty Five ................................................................................................................................. 115
Part Twenty Six ................................................................................................................................... 123
Part Twenty Seven .............................................................................................................................. 127
Part Twenty Eight ................................................................................................................................ 131
Part Twenty Nine ................................................................................................................................ 134
Part Thirty One .................................................................................................................................... 145
Part Thirty Two .................................................................................................................................... 151
Part Thirty Three ................................................................................................................................. 157
An Unusual Part Thirty Four ................................................................................................................ 165
Part Thirty Five .................................................................................................................................... 175
Part Thirty Six ...................................................................................................................................... 181
Part Thirty Seven ................................................................................................................................. 186
Part Thirty Eight .................................................................................................................................. 190
Part Thirty Nine ................................................................................................................................... 194
Part Forty ............................................................................................................................................ 199
Part Forty One ..................................................................................................................................... 203
Part Forty Two ..................................................................................................................................... 207
Part Forty Three .................................................................................................................................. 212
Part Forty Four .................................................................................................................................... 218
Part Forty Five ..................................................................................................................................... 221
Part Forty Six ....................................................................................................................................... 224
Part Forty Seven .................................................................................................................................. 230
Part Forty Eight ................................................................................................................................... 234
Part Forty Nine .................................................................................................................................... 239
Part Fifty .............................................................................................................................................. 242
Part Fifty One ...................................................................................................................................... 246
Part Fifty Two ...................................................................................................................................... 255
Part Fifty Three ................................................................................................................................... 263
Part Fifty Four ..................................................................................................................................... 271
Part Fifty Five: BOWIE - THE LUNACY YEARS ...................................................................................... 274
Part Fifty Six: BOWIE - THE LUNACY YEARS ........................................................................................ 282
Part Fifty Seven: BOWIE - THE LUNACY YEARS ................................................................................... 286
Part One
A short time ago I was discussing something that a friend stated she felt about Bowie, and that was
that she felt he was ashamed of his middle class upbringing. I will admit that I am no expert on the
subject, only having learned about this class system from what she told me, and an employee of
mine who is from London originally. Her argument was that he disguises parts of his past and many
times the accent is "faked" to be that of a higher class Englishman. I have to take her at her word on
the accent as she is British and although a times I can hear a difference in them, I could not tell their
origins or the difference between upper, lower or I believe they call it the "working" class. I had
never thought of this before and I did at first disagree because why would Bowie care about class
distinction when he is one of the wealthiest entertainers in the world, worth an estimated 975
million in the year 2000, and he no longer resides in Britain as of 1976. She did have a valid point
though when she reiterated his re writing of his past. That is one thing Bowie has done and
continues to do to this day. He has gone from character to character, the professional actor who
uses his public life as his stage to portray what he wishes his audience to believe. David Bowie is a
puzzle that mixes fact with fantasy in each of his self created personas. What is real and what is
fabricated. We may have never seen the so called "real" David Bowie and in the vast personalities of
the characters he created there may not be a "real" Bowie anymore. As far as the "real" person,
well, he may now only be a small fragment intertwined with the self created fantasy of an invented
personality that we know and believe to be the actual David Bowie.

Trying to sort out what is real and what is fabricated either by the media or Bowie himself is not an
easy task as both are quite unreliable. The media often writes stories which are far from accurate,
although they are not to blame all the time. The media becomes unwilling victims to the very source
of their information which quite often is Bowie himself. I wonder sometimes how after all of these
years the press still laps up every word out of Bowie's mouth and dutifully reports it as fact. Why
haven't they learned by this time that Bowie is a classic manipulator when it comes to the media and
he has a solid reputation of either bending, or going as far as inventing, the truth. You would think
that they would at least check their facts before printing a news article but they don't. It is no
wonder that people can't understand Bowie if they rely on the accuracy of the media. I remember a
classic Bowie move sometime around 1988. I opened the news paper one day and in the
Entertainment section there was a picture of Bowie grinning ear to ear with his arm around Melissa
Hurley who was a dancer on the Glass Spider Tour. The caption under the photo read, "BOWIE
WEDS." The accompanying article of several lines stated that Bowie had married Melissa Hurley in a
brief ceremony the previous day. It was not true. Nice one Dave.

It is difficult to really know when the characters Bowie invented actually started. If one looks back to
the late sixties some truths can be sifted out but his childhood is up to speculation and I have read
various accounts which all claim to be true. The best one can do is attempt to find what is fairly
common between these accounts and those are probably as close to the truth as you will likely get.
This method has revealed a number of things about how Bowie was influenced while growing up.
Bowie's adolescence seemed no worse, or better perhaps, that most. He was much closer to his
father and his half brother Terry than he was to his mother although the relationship to his mother
improved drastically in the eighties. He was asked in 1975 about the relationship with his mother in
a live interview on The Dick Cavett Show and it seemed that he was blind sided by the question and
he looked terribly uncomfortable that Cavett asked it. With an embarrassed look on his face his reply
was, "We have an understanding." Cavett changed the line of questioning. Bowie admired his father
as a role model and he greatly respected his advice. He used this advice even when it came to his
career as he would often make his manager at the time, Kenneth Pitt, get his father's approval on
various business matters. His fathers death from pneumonia in 1968 was particularly hard on
Bowie. It was his older half brother Terry however that had the most impact on David. His influence
can't be underestimated, going so far as to say that Terry is the sole reason that Bowie took the
direction he did in life and became the artist he is.

The "Alien" personality Bowie has been described as did not develop when he was fourteen years
old, however it is safe to say the physical look for this personality did. The "outer space" look came
when a schoolmate named George Underwood beat Bowie up rather severely and caused
permanent damage to his eye. This changed Bowie's appearance permanently and he spent eight
months away from school. While away from school Bowie also made a permanent change which was
a result of Terry's influence. During this period David and Terry spent the time together. Terry picked
out books for David to read. It was through Terry that Bowie discovered the writings of Jack Keroac
and William S Burroughs who both had an influence on his later work. A portion of Bowie's writing
style can be directly attributed to the style invented by Burroughs. In addition to this, with Terry's
assistance, Bowie obtained an education on the arts, music, foreign culture and Buddhism which he
later adopted for a period. It is a certainty that these eight months changed Bowie for the rest of his
life, however the truth concerning his relationship and behavior towards Terry did not always co-
incide with Bowie's version. Their relationship was not exactly the way Bowie painted it to be for the
media.

Bowie has stated many times how important an influence Terry was. He said in one interview, "It
was Terry who started everything for me." He has described their relationship as "extremely close"
and said how much he admired his brother and considered him a mentor. Bowie's feelings about his
brother had to have run deep in order to have penned the lyrics found on The Bewlay Brothers,
which in my opinion are as profound as anything I have ever read. I do not think that too many
Bowie fans would argue that point. The personality Bowie showed to the media right into the
eighties was a caring younger brother. Terry, who was now living in a psychiatric hospital, had seen
David only once between 1975 and 1985 and that was after his second suicide attempt in 1982.
Bowie had broken a promise to financially support his brother in a decent care facility as well as a
commitment to visit him. The visit in 1982 was prompted after one of Bowie's aunts spouted off to
the media about the lack of support Bowie gave to his family, naming his mother Peggy and Terry
especially. His mother did say that he bought her an expensive fur coat adding that on her pension
she could not afford to go anywhere to wear it. After this appeared in the media Bowie made good
on his promise. Terry was successful in ending his own life in 1985 and although Bowie still remarks
on their closeness he did not attend the funeral. I am aware that some people are not emotionally
able to deal with funerals but this is not the truth in Bowie's case as he did attend Marc Bolan's. It is
surprising that he did not attend his brother's though or Mick Ronson's.

Bowie has said that he fell into the music industry, " Quite by accident," and "Only to make some
cash." He has insisted that he graduated from art school and his talent is in painting, with music
really nothing more that a sideline. The art school graduate is another of Bowie's inventions.
Bromley Technical is not what one would qualify as an "art" school although Bowie did study art
along with woodworking and he worked for six months in an advertising agency as a commercial
artist. This however does not qualify one to be a "painter" as he quit this job to pursue music as a
career. Bowie the painter and art critic did not emerge until much later. This character Bowie
maintains came from a family who was, "Involved in the theater," which alluded of course to the
talent which ran through the family. It was Bowie's father actually who was involved in the theater,
but not in a way Bowie would have you believe and the story does not involve any wealth of talent
coming from the Jones family. His fathers first wife was the daughter of an Irish circus clown and an
Italian acrobat. She was a singer who accompanied herself on piano in nightclubs under the name of
The Viennese Nightingale. Her real name was Hilda. Jones took the better part of a three thousand
pound inheritance, quite a sum in 1933, and financed a touring review called 11:30 p.m. Saturday
Night. This revue of course starred Hilda. The touring revue lasted all of two weeks before closing for
good. Jones bought a bar with the remainder of the money which also turned into something of a
disaster as well. So much for this character of Bowie's coming from a rich theatrical background.

David Bowie signs a five year management deal on April 25, 1967 with Kenneth Pitt. This period of
Bowie's life seems to be relatively free of any self invented personalities. Bowie it seems was quite
content with being himself during this period up until 1971. Artistically he had grown in many ways.
He was writing music and had a respectable number of recordings to his name including Space
Oddity. He had overseen his Beckenham Arts Lab, experimented with mime under the renowned
Lindsay Kemp as well as done a few acting parts including the Luv Ice Cream television commercial.
Money did not seem to be much of a problem as Kemp seemed quite willing to finance Bowie
although they did not agree on which direction Bowie should take his music and this eventually
became a problem.

In the late sixties Eastern Religions were all the rage. The Beatles had taken a well publicized trip to a
spiritual retreat in India. Books by a self proclaimed Tibetan monk named Lobsang Rampa would sell
as soon as they hit the shelves. The writings by gurus such as Carlos Castaneda, who were spiritually
heightened my the ingesting of the Mexican Shaman's sacred psilocybin mushrooms were hot sellers
too. Spiritual awareness from sources other than the mainstream religions was "hip." Bowie was
studying Buddhism, another religious fad of the day for most, however to Bowie it was not a social
statement. He was quite serious about it.

The study of Buddhism was not done by a Bowie creation to attract attention. It was a serious
interest kindled by Terry and further fuelled by Tony Visconti. Bowie was studying under a Tibetan
monk named Youngdong Rimpoche. Songs such as Karma Man reflected his belief and Bowie has
stated that he spent upwards of eighteen months in a Scottish monastery and according to Pitt this
is quite possible as he lost touch with Bowie, on and off over the same time period. Bowie has said
he came close to taking his novice vows and shaving his head, an act which he was convinced not to
do by Lindsay Kemp. True to form though, often the truth is just not quite enough, so Bowie tends to
add a little flair to a story. Bowie has said that during this period he was living on two simple meals a
day and sleeping upright in a wooden box. Those close to David at the time find this to be pushing
things a little.

Bowie, it seems to me anyway by the many interviews I have read over the last three decades, takes
almost all of the credit for the creation of his characters. He is always ready to explain how he
invented them and how he "killed them off" when it was time to change into the next costume and
assume the next role. Only a fool would deny Bowie's creativity, his ability to set a trend and his
ability to lead. I am not taking any of this away from Bowie however the reality is that he had a lot
of input along the way from others who do not get the credit they deserve. In a few circumstances
they had far more to do with the creation of certain personalities than Bowie did. This is evident in
the early seventies.

Up until now it was fairly easy to separate what was Bowie and what was an invention of his. This
line however started to become quite blurred in 1970. This is the same year in which two people
became part of David Bowie's life and whose combined influences on him changed him forever. This
was the year that Bowie married Angela Barnett and the year he met Tony Defries who would later
become his manager. Looking at Bowie's life so far one could say that it was fairly tame. Many give
Bowie credit for being outrageous but it is easy to see that he really, at least up until now, was not.
The outrageousness came into his life actually. It was brought by both Angela and Defries and at
times their ideas dwarfed Bowie. One thing for sure was, the circus was about to begin.

A good indication as to what Bowie's new wife would be contributing to his various images was felt
around the end of 1970 shortly before the release of The Man Who Sold The World. David at first
protested but was convinced enough by Angela to be photographed in the new dress she purchased
for him when she explained that, "It was after all, a man's dress." This move caused the cover to be
rejected by Mercury Records for the North American market. Angela was probably unaware at the
time but the character that she created wearing a dress and posing with a deck of cards on a lounge
would be branded a "Transvestite" in America. Unfortunately no radio station in America was
prepared at the time to broadcast any record made by "one of those."

On the first day of August 1971 Tony Defries formally enters Bowie's life with a signed management
contract. Defries would almost immediately contribute to the invented Bowie with a suggestion that
would haunt Bowie for decades to come. Defries himself is viewed by many Bowie fans as a
character himself. The character that many Bowie fans pin on him is that of a blood sucking leach
who took advantage of Bowie and did nothing more than to rob him blind. I do not share this
opinion and I believe that those fans who view Defries this way do not understand the situation at
the time and have failed to properly assess the situation Bowie was in. Many of these fans are upset
because Bowie got a raw deal. Few stop to realize that they owe Defries because there is a good
chance that if he did not enter the picture they probably never would have heard the music of David
Bowie, as his career would have ended before the release of Ziggy Stardust. People are too busy
condemning Defries to see what he did that was in Bowie's favour. He pulled off nothing short of a
miracle.

Tony Defries is entitled to a large percentage of the credit for the development of the characters
Bowie became for the next four to five years. It is important to take a close look at what actually
happened over this period to get a proper understanding of the extent to which Defries' affected
Bowie's life. It is worth noting that it was not Defries who was soliciting Bowie to become his client,
it was in fact the other way around and Bowie had a reason for taking this action. It only requires a
brief look at Bowie's career under the management of Kenneth Pitt to come to the same realization
which Bowie did at the time. Except on a few occasions his career had not blossomed under Pitt and
his latest release, The Man Who Sold The World, was yet another dismal failure at attracting a large
enough audience to help Bowie's career. Bowie went to the States on a promotional tour to support
the release of the album and to visit the top brass at Mercury. The trip was also designed so Bowie
had the opportunity to introduce himself to the executives from the other major record labels as
well. The fact remained though that Bowie was unlikely to succeed with Pitt at the helm and to
Bowie this was painfully obvious. There was no choice, either he find a new manager or stay where
he was and fade into oblivion. His career at this point was close to being over.

To those who think that Defries harmed Bowie have no valid argument until they can find another
set of answers to these questions, and I have yet to see any. Your personal feelings on the contract
and the percentage splits involved are not relevant in this case as the question is not if the terms of
the contract are fair. The question is if Defries saved Bowie's career. As I have already said it was
Bowie who initially made contact with Defries. The first question that comes to mind is why Bowie,
with all of his talent, even needed to have a manager. He did quite well on his own from 1976
onward. The answer to that is simple. First of all Bowie wound never have made it on is own because
it takes money to finance a career in the music industry and to put it bluntly Bowie had none. He
owed Ken Pitt. In all fairness though Bowie did try once to manage himself before this and the effort
was financed by a two hundred pound loan he got from Pitt. The attempt failed and there would be
no more loans again with which to try. Although having been a recording artist for some time Bowie
lacked the business experience and the contacts needed within the industry as well to make a go of
it on his own. One may wonder why Bowie was focused on obtaining the services of Defries and
where all of the other possible investors were at this time? Logic dictates that with the size of the
recording industry at the time in England there should have been several management
organizations willing to have David Bowie under contract? Usually a bidding war between labels
arises when an artist becomes available to sign. The answer here is a straight matter of common
business sense and has to do with Bowie's worth as a recording artist to any major label. Strictly
speaking Bowie was not worth signing for several reasons. Based on his past history there was no
reason to believe that there should ever be an expectation of any profit generated through his sales.
The proof of this is It is true that the last album made it into the top ten in several American cities
but Bowie's albums were in no way consistent enough sellers to warrant a financial commitment.
There was no shortage of bands around who would be worth taking a risk on. There was also the
general consensus that if he hadn't made it by now, the chances are he never would. There was a
couple of more factors here as well which would further dissuade a label from signing Bowie. He was
still under contract to deliver one more album to Mercury meaning that someone would have to buy
out the remainder of Bowie's contract valued at over $17,000.00. To put this all in perspective the
scenario was this. To retain Bowie on their roster of artists a label would first be required to pay
Mercury Records the tidy sum of $17,884.41 to get David released from his obligations and in all
probability have to pay something to Kenneth Pitt. Bowie would have to be paid something when he
signed on as well as retainers periodically to cover his daily expenses. The costs involved for the
recording and manufacturing of Bowie's first recording would have to be paid up front. With all this
done there still remained the costs to market the product and there were no guarantees that there
would be sufficient airplay, or even a market, to sell enough records to recoup the initial costs, let
alone make a profit. There was no one willing to spend this kind of money on an artist who had
never once made any profit for his management company, instead putting them into debt. Bowie
was nothing more than a liability and for this reason no one was interested in signing him. If Bowie
had no label to finance him that meant the end. Tony Defries was the ONLY ONE willing to take a
chance and invest in Bowie so I find it difficult to understand why he is despised when in fact he
rescued Bowie's career when no one else would. How many Bowie fans would have felt sorry for
Defries if David failed to make it and he lost all of his investment? I thought so, and that is pretty one
sided thinking. Just two more quick things I wish to add. I am aware of the details of Bowie's
contracts he signed with Defries, MainMan, Gem and Chrysalis and so I know that the percentages
weighed heavily on the side of Defries. One has to remember that Bowie was an extremely HIGH
RISK investment and the probability was quite high that Defries would lose his money. I think it is
fair, and it is standard business practice when it comes to investing, that a high risk investment
demands a higher rate of return and Bowie would not have suffered any drastic financial loss if the
venture failed. It was Defries, not Bowie, who took on the risk. The last thing is that no one FORCED
Bowie to sign the contract, he could have walked away.

On May 28th, 1971 Bowie enters the role of a father when his son is born. Over the period of the
making of The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory Bowie the musician experimented with
what many musicians experiment with having been smoking a considerable amount of hash and he
admittedly tried heroin. The heroin was tried mostly to say he had done it and he never tried it again
as it scared him enough that he warned others against even trying. Visconti stated that The Man
Who Sold The World is more of a Ronson/Visconti effort than one by Bowie as they did almost all of
the final mixing and the finishing touches needed before it was given to the record company. Bowie
was difficult to get hold of to drag into the studio and Visconti blames this on smoking too much
dope. Thankfully, for Visconti's sake anyway, this was a short lived experiment.

On December 17, 1971, RCA, which is now his new label courtesy of Defries, releases Hunky Dory.
This is truly one of Bowie's most brilliant albums but that was not realized at the time of its release.
Bowie had started to record Hunky Dory in July and there was studio time booked right through
until mid January of 1972. The reason for this is that they were also laying down the tracks for The
Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars at the same time. Ziggy was scheduled for
release in the early summer of 1972.
The characters were also scheduled for release. The first one was quite unique as it did not come
into being by Bowie's hand alone, it was a group effort.

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

AlaDINsaNe
Posted 6 January 2002
Part Two

Unlike Instant Karma there is no "instant salvation," especially if one is attempting to resurrect a
career that was in the state that Bowie's was shortly after the release of Hunky Dory. This state is
best described as dismal. One of the problems that occurred between Kenneth Pitt and Bowie was
that neither could agree on what direction Bowie should go with his music and therefore lacked a
plan. Without the know how it is easy to see why Bowie was in the position he was in. He had not
had a hit in years and it didn't take long to realize that Hunky Dory was not about to give them one
either. Bowie was out of the media spotlight as there was nothing worth writing about where he was
concerned and being out of the press results in certain death for the career of a celebrity. Defries
had a major problem on his hands in January of 1972. Between February and March a fourteen date
tour of the UK had been lined up to promote Hunky Dory and the way it looked at the time it would
have to be cancelled. The problem was that there were not enough tickets selling to even cover
expenses. It was time to face the cold hard fact that David Bowie had no audience. Defries had no
choice, he had to get rid of this David Bowie. It was the only way out.

Tony Defries, unlike the previous manager, had a plan. Since there was little interest in this David
Bowie a new one would have to be invented that would attract an audience. Defries knew that
people are gullible, they believe what they see, even if what they see is staged. Perception was far
more important than truth. The idea that Defries had to market Bowie was brilliantly simple. There
is an infatuation people have about celebrities, the public adores them and will easily part with their
money to have a piece of them. They will buy their music, see their films and attend their
performances. The media will fuel this infatuation by elevating them to the status of Deities. People
believe what the media tells them and all Defries reasoned he had to do was get the media to
announce that David Bowie was indeed a star. If Bowie was proclaimed to be a star by the press
then the audiences will come. Easy.

Perception. Perception is everything and this is why the old Bowie must die, and so he did. The
death was swift. The character which eventually replaced the former Bowie did not develop
overnight, it was more like a metamorphosis, it developed over time. Every aspect concerning the
image of this creature was manufactured, with not one detail overlooked, and like any theater
production, the players must have costumes. It was known as "Unisex" in the early seventies and it
was a fashion trend of androgyny. Gone were the "his" and "hers." Clothes could be worn by both
men and women and hair could be short or long on either sex. To the average person this trend was
outrageous enough and to get the attention Defries wanted it would be necessary to go even
further. They would have to create a character that would be even more outrageous. They had to
shock even the Unisex Generation. This character would eventually grow to become known as Ziggy
Stardust. Many believe that Ziggy was Bowie's own creation and this is not the case at all. Of course
Bowie does nothing to dispel this myth and takes all the credit. Bowie may have conjured up the
idea of the persona of Ziggy, but in reality he had little to do with the actual physical development
of him. The Ziggy look was not Bowie's idea.

Unlike Pitt, who would often succumb to David's wishes, Defries was firmly in control. The "man's"
dress Angie procured for David came from Mr. Fish, who also designed the dress Mick Jagger wore at
the tribute concert for Brian Jones at Hyde Park. There would be no more store bought clothes