RIP David Bowie

[editor]

About the Ziggy sleeve

The photos for the front and rear of the Ziggy Stardust album were taken on 13 January 1972 on a cold, wet night by photographer Brian Ward, who had a first-floor studio at #29 Heddon Street, London. Heddon Street was the chosen site for the photographic session. Bowie (1993): Upstairs in the studio we did the Clockwork Orange look-a-likes that became the inner sleeve. The idea was to hit a look somewhere between the Malcolm McDowell thing with the one mascara’d eyelash and insects. It was the era of Wild Boys by William S. Burroughs, and it was a cross between that and Clockwork Orange that really started to put together the shape and the look of what Ziggy and the Spiders were going to become. Ward suggested they do more photographs in the street as night was falling, only Bowie was willing. Despite suffering from flu, Bowie ventured out to the street in the drizzling rain, with a guitar he borrowed from Mark Pritchett. Facing the doorway of number 23 Ward shot black and white photos from various angles. Next door, number 21 was the home of furriers K. West. As Bowie posed beneath their sign, Ward lined up the shot and took four frames, one of which became the front cover. The K. West sign was removed 20 years later by a fan.
Bowie (1993): It’s such a shame that sign went. People read so much into it. They thought K. West must be some sort of code for ‘quest’. It took on all these sort of mystical overtones.

 

[hash tag]

I like the original pin ups, at least some of it. I've just left a record shop - damn.

 

[editor]

I like the original pin ups, at least some of it. I've just left a record shop - damn.

It's a great album

 

[Sasaferrato]

It's a great album

It is. The one I play most often of his is Space Oddity. Cygnet Committee is an absolute classic.

 

[editor]

This is a really beautiful story

I Sang In David Bowie's Band. I'm Finally Ready To Talk About What He Taught Me.

"The truth is I had been a kid from the middle of the Ontario countryside without a great voice and, somehow, I had landed in the lap of musical royalty."

www.huffpost.com

 

[ice-is-forming]

I'm not sure if anyone has posted these pics. My dad sent them to me, they were taken around Beckenham

 

[belboid]

I'm not sure if anyone has posted these pics. My dad sent them to me, they were taken around Beckenham

View attachment 371677View attachment 371676View attachment 371675View attachment 371674View attachment 371673View attachment 371672View attachment 371671View attachment 371670View attachment 371669

where did he get them from?

 

[ice-is-forming]

where did he get them from?

He's almost 100 years old, and has lived in the area all his life. He's a curator of local photographs and history, and I imagine he tucked these away many years ago when he came across them. Even though we had Bowie connections ( my sister babysat for Zowie) he didn't know him well enough to take these himself

Looks like the bandstand in Beckenham rec, and I think the pub ones may be from the three tunns in Beckenham high street.

 

[cesare]

He's almost 100 years old, and has lived in the area all his life. He's a curator of local photographs and history, and I imagine he tucked these away many years ago when he came across them. Even though we had Bowie connections ( my sister babysat for Zowie) he didn't know him well enough to take these himself

Nearly 100 Fantastic photos, thanks for sharing icey.

 

[surreybrowncap]

Will try to get along to this in the next few weeks...

What's on | Southbank Centre

Browse our brilliant live gigs, classical concerts, comedy, exhibitions, family shows and free events, and book tickets now.

www.southbankcentre.co.uk

 

[ice-is-forming]

A couple more

 

[cesare]

A couple more
View attachment 371820View attachment 371819View attachment 371821

It probably isn't but that photo looks as though it was taken at a junction (with Devonshire Street?) on Harley Street.

Great info icey

 

[Raheem]

I'd have a check when Antiques Roadshow is next in town, ice-is-forming.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Amazing photos!!

Will try to get along to this in the next few weeks...

What's on | Southbank Centre

Browse our brilliant live gigs, classical concerts, comedy, exhibitions, family shows and free events, and book tickets now.

www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Yep, me n Mrs B will be getting up for that too!

 

[belboid]

Bowies Baal is back on the Beeb for a month

Baal with David Bowie

David Bowie stars in Brecht's first play, which depicts the life of an amoral poet-singer.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[editor]

Not seen this pic before:

 

[editor]

Damn I would have loved to be in the audience for this at the Marquee Club!

The audience was far from regular and compiled of David Bowie Fan Club members, all gawping and fanning themselves as they were filmed over two days. With the conditions in the nightclub, the cramped camera crew could only shoot from two angles. It meant Bowie and Co. were repeating their songs over and over bnut somehow it only adds to the performance.

Marianne Faithfull was actually invited as one of the reserve acts, ready to be called upon should someone else drop out but Bowie saw fit to include her on this track. As much the performance is incredible, and the vocals enjoyable, the show really hangs on the striking imagery of Bowie and Faithfull together.

The costumes of the pair are magical. David Bowie at this stage was in full Ziggy attire featuring a red PVC suit complimented by black ostrich feathers—aka his ‘Angel of Death’ costume—while Faithfull has on a nun’s habit that was open at the back. It makes the clip and the song even more desirable.

Bowie reportedly told the audience: “This isn’t anything serious, it’s just a bit of fun. We’ve hardly even rehearsed it.” With that line in your heads take in the splendour of this brilliantly nuanced performance of ‘I Got You Babe’ form David Bowie & Marianne Faithfull.

Revisit David Bowie and Marianne Faithfull’s cover of Sonny & Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’ - Far Out Magazine

David Bowie and Marianne Faithfull perform 'I Got You Babe' in London as a cover of Sonny & Cher's iconic classic.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

Watch David Bowie’s Final Performance as Ziggy Stardust, Singing “I Got You Babe” with Marianne Faithfull, on The Midnight Special (1973)

If you had to choose a living cultural figure to represent nineteen-seventies America, you could do much worse than Burt Sugarman.

www.openculture.com

 

[editor]

I enjoyed this

Last chance to visit the Bowie & Beyond Ziggy Stardust exhibition in Kingston, London -

Now in its final week, this free David Bowie exhibition in the Kingston Museum provides a fascinating insight into when the Ziggy Stardust character was first unveiled to the world. The exhibition starts from the pivotal moment in David Bowie’s career when he launched his Ziggy persona at...

www.urban75.org

 

[editor]

Well here's something I didn't know about the Bowie 'Nazi salute' incident, as told by the photographer:



This photo became the centerpiece of what came to be known as 'The Victoria Station Incident'.

David Bowie hates flying, so when he returned to the UK for some concerts as the Thin White Duke in 1976 he arrived by a special train. It pulled into Victoria Station in the middle of a quiet Sunday afternoon, that's if you call a bunch of girls screaming at the top of their lungs quiet.

He walked a few yards from the train carriage to a waiting open topped BMW which then whisked him to another platform where the car reversed towards the hordes of screaming girls. It stopped near us photographers, David stood up in the back of the car and waved to the crowd, then, he drove of to an undisclosed location.

Unfortunately because of the gloomy late afternoon light at Victoria Station I used fill in flash on the four or five frames I managed to rattle off before he split.

When I showed the image to the NME the following day they decided to enhance his left arm by drawing a hand on the image, because of the flash it was partly missing. But when we saw the paper on Wednesday it looked very much like he was giving a Nazi salute.

The press picked up on this and put it together with some quotes on fascism he had made in Europe and lo and behold David was vilified as a Nazi. I feared it might harm our relationship but he shrugged it off saying it wasn't my fault, that I'd just caught a wrong moment and that he was indeed waving at the crowd. Nobody believed him of course and the Victoria Station Incident became part of a Bowie folklore.

David Bowie at Victoria Station — Chalkie Davies

www.chalkiedavies.com

 

[belboid]

You can kinda tell in the video (tho there isn't enough to be 100% sure)

 

[editor]

By God he looks stunning here!

After the concert, Bowie threw a party in his three-room suite at the Flagship Americana hotel in State Street and invited a couple of ladies he met in the hotel bar. In the early hours of Sunday morning, two women revealed themselves as narcotics officers. At 2.25am four vice squad detectives and a State Police investigator charged Iggy Pop, Dwain Vaughns and a 20-year-old Rochester woman, Chiwah Soo, on suspicion of possession of eight ounces of marijuana. This was a Class C felony, carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The four were held in the Monroe County jail for a few hours before being released on bond – at Bowie’s expense.

Bowie later said he bore the police no grudge: “They were just doing their job.”
Bowie (1976): Rest assured the stuff was not mine. I can’t say much more, but it did belong to the others in the room that we were busted in. Bloody potheads. What a dreadful irony – me popped for grass. The stuff sickens me. I haven’t touched it in a decade.

 

[editor]

This was fabulous

In photos: David Bowie and the Fitzrovia Chapel, central London -

Now this was a real treat: earlier this month, the beautiful Fitzrovia Chapel in central London hosted an exhibition of 20 photographs of David Bowie, all taken from a photo session in 1992. The chapel was once part of the Middlesex Hospital and the adjoining chapel was designed by John...

www.urban75.org

 

[editor]

Filming Jean Genie in San Francisco on 28th October 1972.

Mick Rock states that along with Space Oddity (1972)and Life on Mars? (1973) film promotions, this video was produced for less than $350, shot in one day and edited in less than two days. Cyrinda Foxe, a MainMan employee and friend of David and Angie stars in this video (see image below). That Bowie could laugh at himself is evident in a scene showing him posing outside the "Mars Hotel."

 

[RD2003]

Well here's something I didn't know about the Bowie 'Nazi salute' incident, as told by the photographer:



This photo became the centerpiece of what came to be known as 'The Victoria Station Incident'.

David Bowie at Victoria Station — Chalkie Davies

www.chalkiedavies.com

Bowie and Hitler etc.

Golden years: David Bowie and the Third Reich

Still the world mourns David Bowie, and rightly so. He’s had an amazing career and he made the world a little brighter by being in it. He…

medium.com

 

[editor]

Bowie and Hitler etc.

Golden years: David Bowie and the Third Reich

Still the world mourns David Bowie, and rightly so. He’s had an amazing career and he made the world a little brighter by being in it. He…

medium.com

And you know the story about the fake Hitler salute yes?

 

[RD2003]

And you know the story about the fake Hitler salute yes?

Yes, I read your link, and numerous other articles can also be found that examine the photos.

The article I posted details Bowie's fascination with, and approving statements about Hitler and fascism generally around the time. It's got quotes from him and everything.

 

[discokermit]

Yes, I read your link, and numerous other articles can also be found that examine the photos.

The article I posted details Bowie's fascination with, and approving statements about Hitler and fascism generally around the time. It's got quotes from him and everything.

yeh, but he had nice hair and did some tunes people like so it is ok to overlook the fascism and peadophilia.

 

[freshapple]

yeh, but he had nice hair and did some tunes people like so it is ok to overlook the fascism and peadophilia.

Interesting article in the guardian about this kind of thing

Who’s bad? From Michael Jackson to David Bowie, why are some stars uncancellable?

A Michael Jackson jukebox musical has just opened – with no mention of sexual allegations – and a biopic is coming. What makes some celebrities immune to cancel culture? We examine who gets ostracised and who doesn’t

www.theguardian.com

 

[Hollis]

This featured in the Pet Shop Boys documentary last night... Per Tennant he met Bowie at an event and told him it should've been a single. Bowie duly asked if he'd remix it, then he asked what voice they wanted him to do on the vocals... Tennant replied "Cockney".

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

I'm not sure if anyone has posted these pics. My dad sent them to me, they were taken around Beckenham

View attachment 371669

That last pic, right after the wedding at Bromley town hall, was taken in North Bromley. A few of these appeared in a book i had as a child called the Bowie Black Book i think - first book about bowie i ever owned.