I learnt more about a book’s subject
in two pages of James Kaplan’s second biography of Frank Sinatra,
Sinatra: The Chairman than I did in 600 of Dylan Jones’s
David Bowie: A Life.
As is often the way with works like
this, you find out more about the people interviewed and more about
the author (who seems to have a very low opinion of celebs, as he
styles them, generally, but acknowledges that Bowie did not as a rule
fall into the same traps – you get the idea however that, if
required to nod and smile and agree with a celeb, he would), than you
do about David Bowie. Despite his low opinion, he does not have
enough chutzpah to edit some of the more pointless interviews or
quotes. It’s as if he set out to interview people he knew through
his role as editor of GQ, rather than ask the people who knew
Bowie best.
Of course it’s a pitfall of any
biographic text. Kaplan has opted for completism so to compare the
two is a little unfair as Jones’s book is more like a series of
snapshots of certain scenes in the screenplay of Bowie’s life.
Unfortunately they bear more resemblance to some holiday snaps of my
childhood when a little boy managed to feature in the corner or
background of all our pictures, with Bowie being the boy there by
happenstance, not the focus of the image.
Aladdin Sane look |
It’s amazing how few people (other
stars, musicians, designers, photographers) can refrain from blowing
their own trumpet once given the chance so we get a lot of stuff
along the lines of:
‘I think he learnt that from me’/’He
might have borrowed my idea but he made it his own’/’He was a bit
of a magpie’.
Jayne County |
He loved my songwriting … I gave him
quite a few ideas. … He loved being surrounded by talented,
creative people [i.e. me].
and
I know he was also influenced by a few
of the demos I was sending him. … He was supposed to produce an
album for me but nothing ever came of that except some of my ideas
began popping up on his songs. I don't think it was intentional. …
It was mostly the subject matter …
Need I say more?
And this, from
Kevin Armstrong about the Absolute Beginners session:
David didn’t
turn up with the song fully formed and I would go so far as to say I
should have by rights had a co-writing credit on the song.
People can say anything they like now
that Bowie’s no longer around to refute it. Some of it may well be
true.
Iman and David, so happy together |
Then there are those who speculate
about why Bowie chose them as collaborators (never too shy to bang
their own drum). This usually goes along these lines:
'I didn’t treat him as a star [with
the rest of the paragraph typically proving they did] so he
liked/respected/trusted me', 'we were kindred spirits, both originals' or 'I was a bit different and he
appreciated this'.
For instance, Ivo Van Hove who worked
on Lazarus claims that Bowie wanted a director who was:
A little more innovative, experimental,
whatever [i.e. me].
Then there’s the depiction of the
suburbs, and Bromley/Beckenham in particular, as some kind of cultural
wasteland. Hanif Kureishi asserts:
The utter boredom and awfulness of the
suburbs … but actually everyone had underground records, they had
clothes.
So awful, despite the art clubs, free
festival, etc? Despite David Bowie, Peter Frampton, Kate Bush,
Siouxsie Sioux, Billy Idol, Mick Jagger, Boy George all hailing from
the suburbs? But this is probably how Kureishi relates to Dylan Jones –
with his focus on fashion. As if people who ‘had clothes’ were somehow
artistically, culturally superior to those who either didn’t or
didn’t care.
The whole thing reminds me of a girl
who went to a yoga class near where I live (in Sidcup, yes you
guessed it, I’m from a suburb in Kent, just like David Bowie),
declaring that she was going to move to Camden because she was ‘more
of a Camden girl’. I would say it takes more courage to be
different in the suburbs than it does in North London. But I believe
she probably strove to be different in exactly the same way as the
other residents of Camden.
Siouxsie Sioux, scaredy cat |
Or then there are those who consider
themselves part of a mutual appreciation society, evidenced by this
from Nile Rodgers:
'He had a surprising amount of knowledge
about R&B. That’s why we got on so well as he was shocked by
what I knew and I was shocked by what he knew.'
Occasionally there’s a meeting of
truly pretentious minds, as with Bowie and Tony Visconti:
We were talking about films that we
liked, and anything that was from far away and anything that was
black and white and made in France or Czechoslovakia or Germany …
we had a lot in common.
As if something home-grown or in colour
would have no artistic merit while everything opposite would. Again,
let’s all be different in the same way.
Leave it to me. I know exactly what to
do, to turn this into a nice, appealing place that has actually got
something in common with the prevailing zeitgeist.
Seriously, Mary? Are you sure that’s
how you phrased it? Were you really that pretentious?
This is when they turned a room at The
Three Tuns into the Beckenham Arts Lab. Been in The
Three Tuns a number of times as I used to work nearby.
Trevor Bolder claims, perhaps
disingenuously:
I don't think anyone has ever mentioned
this, principally because I don't think anyone actually knows it but
Bowie tried to re-form the Spiders when he’d finished the Berlin
period. He rang me once in 1978 at home …
Hmm. So you say.
I hate the way Jones prefaces a quote from
Martyn Ware, for some reason not included in the interview section
with ‘Oh after Bowie died, everyone had a story’ as if this were
a bad thing. But if he felt this way, why use the people he’s
essentially criticising in his book? Martyn Ware comes across as
genuine, something that can't be said of many of those quoted so I’m
not sure why he was singled out here.
It’s disconcerting and a bit
depressing to discover that the most poorly expressed pieces are from
people who write for a living like Hanif Kureishi because their prose
turns out to be very repetitive and tedious, eg,
At this stage in his life he was
worried that the young people might not like his records any more. He
felt insecure, and was obviously at a strange point in his life.
Kureishi seems to say most things at least twice and hardly ever bothers to try to rephrase it.
Kureishi seems to say most things at least twice and hardly ever bothers to try to rephrase it.
Kate Moss and David Bowie |
The first song that really hit me was
probably ‘Life on Mars?’ because I think I thought I was the girl
with the mousy brown hair [she even manages to get the lyrics wrong
so it’s evident she hasn’t listened to the song much]. I thought
it was about me. … It touched me because I thought it was my song.
Oh the sheer arrogance.
Leee Black Childers, who I admit I’d
only vaguely heard of but who Wikipedia claims: 'recorded the
legacy of a theatrical cross over between rock music and gay culture’
(whatever that is) but the fact that he spells his Christian name
with three ‘e’s does not endear him to me, says:
The glorious brilliant Gloria Stavers,
who taught Jim Morrison to shove his cock down the side of his
leather pants so it looked big and bulging. She taught him that so
she was a starmaker. And then the call came from David Bowie.
I think it's possible that Jim Morrison
might have had a bit more going for him than this but then I’m not
a gay man.
Dylan Jones |
I do give him credit for not shirking
what I like to call the wilderness years when those of us who loved
early to mid-area Bowie lost patience. And perhaps I’ll try to
listen to some songs from albums I’d rejected except I don’t
really trust the opinions of the interviewees. I’m a fan but not
the sort of fan who buys/loves everything by an artist.
Not many of those quoted come out well.
I’d say Bowie himself, Nick Rhodes, Elton John, Ricky Gervais
(typically self-deprecating), Martyn Ware are some of the few who
surface unscathed.
I did learn a few interesting facts, although these seemed to crop up incidentally, one of which is that
‘Wild Is the Wind’ was written by
Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington not David Bowie. The other is that Mick Ronson was by all accounts a lovely guy. It’s a credit to the
guy and his memory.
Errata:
Page 245 should read Water Rats not
Water Rat, I know this because I've been there many times; page 326 should read Noel Edmonds not Noel Edmunds. If
you’re going to quote somebody, at least have the courtesy to spell
their name right.
*Jayne County (born 1947) is an American singer, songwriter,
actress and record producer whose career has spanned five decades. She
was the vocalist in Wayne County & the Electric Chairs and has been known for her outrageous stage antics. She went on to become rock's first openly transgender singer.
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