BowieOdyssey75 by Simon Goddard
Printed by Omnibus – April 2025
It’s been an actual pleasure to learn the most recent instalment of Simon Goddard’s Bowie Odyssey sequence, monitoring the meteoric path he left behind as he blasted rock music out of the swinging 60’s and into the rougher, harder three-day week world of the Seventies.
The earlier yr had seen the primary stirrings of the cocaine blitz that may rule for the subsequent two years, as deliberate stage variations of George Orwell’s 1984 foundered earlier than morphing into the deranged paranoid frenzy of the fabulous Diamond Canines. There clearly wasn’t going to be a return to the times of Kooks or Oh You Fairly Factor. More and more disenchanted together with his Mainman administration he moved to LA the place the craziness moved to a different degree with occult obsessed Bowie swirling deeper right into a morass of warlocks, spells, a haunted swimming pool and an exorcism – however after all being Bowie he was nonetheless making some nice music and getting hits like US no 1 Fame, adopted by Golden Years, a pastiche of doo wop and different parts cleverly dissected right here.
Very quickly he got here out with the Philly Soul-inspired Younger Individuals album. Regardless of some fantastic songs, just like the title monitor or Fascination, the album wasn’t the mega hit he or his backers had needed, as if the document shopping for public innately twigged that his try a breaking into the mainstream with a clear lower fresh-faced picture didn’t inform the entire reality. On the time the album even felt like a coke blast, aspect one setting off in a surge of power, earlier than the meandering come down of aspect two’s aimless cowl of All Throughout the Universe. Rapidly tiring of the disco foray, Bowie didn’t tour the album, quickly being diverted by a way more thrilling prospect – perhaps he may simply stroll away from the music biz and turn into a movie star…
This was the yr that noticed Angie Bowie hanging on tenaciously as her function within the Bowie expertise diminished as soon as he relocated to the US and her man succumbs to each distraction going. As soon as issues begin to get actually loopy in LA she tries to reclaim the central standing, discovering him dwelling in a completely darkened home, obsessive about magical threats, and with Iggy Pop as certainly one of his extra steady companions. All of it culminates in a rare exorcism – completely loopy, however completely convincing because it’s described right here – the place the departing Jimmy Web page-inspired spirit leaves a demonic scorch mark on the ground of the pool.
He was rescued by a shock invitation to take the lead function in Nic Roeg’s new movie, Man Who, as soon as authentic alternative Peter O’Toole had dropped out. The director had picked up on Bowie’s ‘otherness’ within the infamous Cracked Actor doco. It was by no means going to be the field workplace smash they’d hoped for, however like Roeg’s Efficiency, the movie retains its mystique to at the present time. From then on the Skinny White Duke persona takes over. The place earlier than he’d been witty and authentic in interviews – even when clearly very out of it – now he was chilly, impolite and dismissive, sneerily praising fascism and dictatorship.
Together with the examination of Bowie’s life and music, the true energy of those books has been in mixing collectively a patchwork of different gamers and occasions of the time. 1975 definitely offers some very wealthy materials – the primary stirrings of Thatcher’s bid for energy, the top of the Viet Nam struggle, aircraft hi-jackings, the Bay Metropolis Rollers teen scene, the lumpen ersatz chart crap of Mud and Showaddywaddy, whereas Malcolm Maclaren begins to assemble his punk grasp plan. There’s a chilling evocation of simply how edgy and harmful the occasions felt. Strikes, shortages, gas and power rationing had caused a common feeling of insecurity. As well as, the struggle in Eire was coming residence with a vengeance. Working within the West Finish of London on the time I had a few close to misses with bombings. Additionally there have been a sequence of excessive profile crime tales that added to the final worry – the Cambridge Rapist, a Nazi obsessed killer of OAP’s, Peter Sutcliffe’s first victims.
A nicely chosen picture part signifies the guide’s big selection – Bowie in Soul Boy mode, Telly Savalas as Kojak, Aladdin Sane wannabe ‘soccer hooligan’, our (essential)man morphs into the Skinny White Duke … going through a chilling Thatcher in mid-transformation from tweedy again bench MP to energy dressing Iron Girl, Patti Smith and Les McKeown, McLaren’s Intercourse boutique and our man as Thomas Newton.
The guide winds up with Bowie bringing his NYC musical crew out to LA because the Station to Station album took form. As indicated by the quilt variations on Younger Individuals, new materials was changing into an issue and the album’s six tracks contained a pair extra. I’d at all times considered them as filler in comparison with the grist of the opposite authentic songs – Simon Goddard makes a really robust case although for the quilt of Nina Simone’s Wild is the Wind as being a few of his strongest singing, but in addition a uncommon case of him merely being himself, not Anthony Newley, Ziggy, Aladdin Sane or the Duke. It wasn’t accomplished until the subsequent yr, with the Kraftwerk affect hinting at the place he’d go subsequent with the superb Low album. In the meantime Punk was taking form within the shadows – do you know that NY Doll Sylvain Sylvain was the unique alternative as Pistols’ singer? How becoming it was that some half-inched gear of Bowie’s made up their again line.
So that is important studying for anybody with an curiosity within the 70s zeitgeist, how and why it modified from the 60s, not simply Bowie followers. There are numerous extra insights and ideas within the guide than I’ve been in a position to convey right here. It’s a type of very uncommon books that may have you ever laughing out loud one second and cease you lifeless in your tracks just a few pages later. And in case this has learn as an excessive amount of of a fan job, the chapter on Bowie’s tried cut up from De Fries and Mainman, executed within the model of a boxing commentary, doesn’t work for me. And naturally, we’ve acquired the subsequent 1976 guide to stay up for…
Obtainable in any respect good bookshops.
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All phrases by Den Browne, you possibly can learn extra on his writer profile right here:
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