I was very surprised, shocked and sad to
hear of the passing of David Bowie. He seemed like a man who might
roll on longer than a lot of us. He was one of the great characters and great innovators of style and form in music.
Many years ago the EBB was booked to
appear at Brighton Dome. The gig was booked by a local promoter who
managed a very mediocre local band. David was on first. His Space
Oddity was breath taking and I had to go out of the dressing room to
check it was just David onstage. There he was resplendent as always
with his acoustic guitar bashing out “Ground Control to Major Tom”.
He was with Angie Bowie back then. They were an astonishingly
beautiful couple. I don't remember much else of what he sang but
there, in his show, were the elements of greatness.
The local band went on after his solo
show. They were very dull and with out any real merit. They went onstage but would not come
off. They over ran eating into our set. Eventually I instructed our
road crew to pull the power on them. I only ever did this on
that one occasion. We played for a while but because the local band
over ran the council officers turned all the power off. We continued
Out Demons Out acoustically. David joined us onstage and we all
chanted together while Steve tapped out a rhythm. The audience went
wild and eventually the police brought proceedings to a halt. A week
later David and I received a very official letter from Brighton
council informing us that we were banned for life from appearing at
the Brighton Dome.
"1973, I ended up in DB's rented
Chelsea pad after a heavily-alcoholic record company lunch. He played
me some Diamond Dogs demos and said that he wanted Rob to play guitar
on a session ... asked me if I had a phone number for him, which i
didn't. We ended up calling EMI and trying to get said number, but
no-one there had it either, and we were both too smashed to pursue
matters further. Who know what might've happened if one of us had
been slightly more sober that afternoon …" Charles Chaar
Murray
As it turned out Ric Rogers, our manger
at the time, told me David wanted me to play guitar on a track called
The Candidate. My memory of what happened after that is not clear but
I was told David had some kind of mental health episode, probably
exhaustion. Any way he went to Switzerland and that was that.
Ric emailed me the other day to ask if I remembered getting dressed up and the carnations he bought for us both to wear at the final Ziggy gig. David admired his so Ric gave it to him. It's funny how some of the little things stay in the memory and others do not. I will always remember the final Ziggy
gig in Hammersmith. I remember what appeared to be a look of
surprise on the faces of The Spiders when Ziggy broke up the band on
stage, announcing it would be their last gig. Any way it was a great
gig. The after show party at the Cafe Royale was a lavish affair
and we all had a great time. One of those nights when the champagne glass is refilled as soon as it is emptied.
I saw David's show at Wembley Arena in around 75, with Carlos Alomar, Adrian Belew, Sly and Robbie and co. What a band! I remember when David
started his first song the PA sound was awful. He stopped every thing
and did a mimed ballet dance with his fingers, in a needle spot light on his vocal
monitor. If you were back in the hall you would have seen this on a
large on stage screen. I was fortunate to be seated near the stage
and it was a very clever and elegant thing to do and I could see he
knew it. From then on the sound was superb.
Many years later Angie, no longer with David, became a neighbour and we were friends for a while when Luke went to the same primary school as her daughter Stasha. Angie and I used to swop tales of the road and she still liked to party hard. We had some great times. Eventually Angie moved back to America and Lemmy moved into the same rented house for a time. Now he has gone too, bless him.
I think the work David Bowie did in Berlin, on
that iconic music, provided some of the most innovative material he
made. His broad appeal to a huge audience is partly because he covered all the bases and partly because he
never stood still. I especially liked the Tin Machine material. He some times disappointed hard core fans when he refused to play old material. He certainly didn't lack courage. He always brought a huge style and newness to
things even when he drew on the material of other artistes that
influenced him. Top man! R.I.P.
peace
