By Madeline Bocaro ©
Ziggy was our saviour. He rescued my only friend Lisa and I (two American kids with very British taste in music) from teenage boredom and launched us through outer space to his very own planet, somewhere beyond Pluto. The U.S. TV show In Concert featured the final Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars concert at England's Hammersmith Odeon. It was the first time we would see Ziggy in action (besides the hundreds of magazine photos and posters we already had). The stage was dark, the focus was soft, and the camerawork shaky and evasive. Ziggy was shrouded in mystery. He was definitely from the cosmos; androgynous, surreal and seductive, perfect porcelain skin, unearthly mismatched eyes with a foreign, piercing stare. It was impossible to discern if he was for real, or if this was the most impeccable performance ever. We had found our ultimate icon, and there he was announcing his final performance. Our devastation mounted.
We never got to see him live. When Ziggy landed his space ship on stage a few months prior at New York's Radio City Music Hall I was alone in my room watching the clock, forbidden by mom to attend such an event, yet knowing that he had landed on stage - at the exact moment the second hand reached eight o' clock - in a cloud of smoke with "Moonage Daydream" reverberating throughout the stratosphere, I could swear I heard it faintly from my room twenty miles away.
Although we were into Bowie for a year already, his latest incarnation as Ziggy Stardust was the most fascinating. His final appearance as Ziggy was when Lisa and I saw him in quasi-kabuki drag on the TV show Midnight Special in 1974 (from the Marquee club in London) when we were in our highly impressionable pre-teens. We were now sexually damaged for life. We had no concept of "camp" (except for summer camp) or about gay culture. Our innocent perception of gender was instantly perverted. We didn't know any other way to take this but at face value, and we took it – SERIOUSLY! It was the most impressive sight we had ever seen (in all of our mere fifteen years on earth) and I remain to this very day as I said, damaged. Something cracked my world open that night and the void has never closed. When I watch the Floorshow now on video it's truly hilarious and just as colourful, but back then it was utterly intriguing and so damned IMPORTANT. This glowing, fleeting kaleidoscopic instant in history was gone in a flash with no hope of ever being seen again (in pre-VCR days). I didn't blink once in the entire 90 minutes! We thought this must be the highest form of art or theater (or whatever alien genre it was), and what did the mere boys at school know about art or beauty.
On TV that night, Bowie had an angel beside him dressed all in white - from platinum hair to white platform boots. The way he played guitar sounded so sweet it made me cry. Mick Ronson the icon, the perpetrator of guitar head, the ROCK in Glam rock was later to become a dear friend to me but this was yet inconceivable. For now, he was the most sublime being who ever lived. Mom sat at the kitchen table polishing her nails, exhaustively apathetic. How could she so blatantly ignore this astounding spectacle?! Actually, she had a disdainful look on her face as if she knew how deeply I was mesmerized by such "trash" when in fact it was in direct rebellion to all the corny old-fashioned music she listened to.
History books depict minute details of eras and civilizations long ago, which capture the curiosity of later generations. People are fascinated by,and wish they could have lived in Dickensian England or during the Renaissance, the Gay 90's or Picasso's blue period. We were fixated on the histrionics of the Ziggy period. We had lived in those times but merely as children. We were forever combing the earth for fossils and artifacts (our history books were rock magazines) that could piece the whole story together. England seemed a distant foreign land to us. When Ziggy landed in America we were not yet allowed to attend concerts. Forbidden fruit begat an insatiable hunger for the truth which was slowly revealed in momentary flickerings of the TV screen. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was our favourite real-life fairy tale. Just as an excited child would ask for his favourite part of a story to be told again and again ("Tell me the part about when they threw the witch into the oven!!!!) I'd love to repeatedly hear the part about how Bowie got the macho Spiders (Mick, Woody and Trevor) to dress in Glam drag! Mick Ronson looked like George Washington or a pilgrim on-stage at the Hammersmith Odeon with his glittery knickers and leotards, buckled platform shoes and bleached silver hair, yet it somehow worked. He was beautiful, and he rocked!
Alone in the darkness of night so quiet that one could hear rumblings on a distant planet, with mom and dad tucked away asleep upstairs, the intergalactic sounds of Ziggy Stardust blasted through the blackness and static of my stone suburban life. I would imagine there was an amplifier on each planet, beaming this sonic fantasy toward all farthest reaching points of the galaxy. The emotional wailing of Ronson's stellar guitar reverberated in crashing sound waves and wrenched my heart, while Ziggy sang of earth's impending demise. I felt as though everyone in the universe could hear it (I surely played it LOUD enough!). I wished everyone could hear it the way I did, and feel all the glory - yet I was happy to be among the minority of kids in America to be aware of the Ziggy phenomenon. As the planets vibrated and the room mutated into a rocket ship, I'd drift and moonage daydream of the starman who would "like to come and meet us but he thinks he'd blow our minds". Who's to say he wasn't really singing to us on that record? Lisa and I felt like those two kids in the song;
"I had to phone someone so I picked on you
Hey that's far out - so you heard him too!
Switch on the TV we may pick him up on Channel 2
Look out your window, I can see his light
If we can sparkle he may land tonight
Don't tell your papa or he'll get us locked up in fright"
That's how we'd discovered Ziggy - flickering upon TV signals beamed in from Mars late at night - when I phoned Lisa and we both knew that this was special and not of this world. We shared a sacred secret which we were dying to tell the world, but nobody would listen. We could strongly relate to a fictional British rock star from space, but our parents and friends were beyond reach. They foolishly ignored our pleas and warnings that the earth would destruct in 'Five Years'. And we didn't care. We wanted to die before we reached the old age of twenty anyway!
We were drawn to Bowie's music by its fantastic, futuristic nature. Each song had its own landscape and inhabitants like Marc Bolan's mythological songs, only in outer space! Bowie was the storyteller and main character with his double tracked up-front British accented vocals. In headphones it sounded as if he were right there with you in your room. We'd read the lengthy lyric sheets to "Cygnet Committee", "Width of a Circle" and "Quicksand" deeming them pure genius although incomprehensible to our young minds. The lyrics inspired wild imaginings. We thought this was the highest form of intellect, allied with supreme decadence and a bit of flambouyance thrown in for good measure. And the fact that he wore makeup and nail polish clinched the deal for us! We were sold! Later it was revealed that the lyrics were a product of Burrough's cut-up and paste technique which Bowie admits to 'borrowing' which put an abstract expressionist twist on the interpretive end. It all seemed so cryptic and alluring.
Lisa and I began to water-colour our hair red and green, wear glitter on our faces and fingernails and wore various home-made Glam outfits and platform boots to school. Nobody was doing this at the time. Now you can buy all kinds of crazy hair colours and mass-produced rock n' roll clothes, but this was the early 70's - the drab age of denim. All the kids in school had never seen the likes of Glam rock, in fact they were the opposite - messy, sloppy, hairy, pimply Deadheads. Lisa and I would save our lunch money each day to buy records and magazines (we were both rail-thin to begin with, and we got thinner by skipping lunch). We began to resemble our idol with our skinny bodies, anemic complexions and colour-streaked hair. Our teacher came back to class after a 6 month illness emaciated and pale, and we told her how fabulous she looked! We gave ourselves shag haircuts since there was nothing other than old ladies' hair salons at the time who refused to give us the Ziggy cut (layered on top and long on the bottom). They would say, "That's two different haircuts" and we'd reply, "Is there a law against that?" Why wouldn't they just do it for us? Years later, while Suzi Ronson (Mick Ronson's wife, and creator of the Ziggy cut) was doing my hair, I told her that story. She said that the Ziggy cut was actually a combination of three different haircuts!
At the time, we had no idea that Bowie had in part fashioned his image after Marc Bolan of T. Rex, and had written "Lady Stardust" for Marc (we grew to love Bolan too) - or that the name Ziggy was in equal parts derived from the Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Iggy Pop (thanks also to Bowie for my introduction to Iggy!) We devoured every article about the Ziggy phenomenon we could find. The UK papers NME and Melody Maker had the best coverage but were scarce in the states, so we relied on the US monthlies, Circus and Creem. We heard that green Martian cocktails were served at the record release party. Plane-loads of journalists were flown to London to see Ziggy live and it seemed that money was flying in the air around David Bowie. In fact, this was untrue. David and the band had small allowances themselves - the money was all spent on the big hype; the costumes, the limos, the wining and dining of industry people, etc.
Ziggy was always exposed in brief instants. His stage shows were dimly lit, and photographers banned. The more fleeting the images, the more we craved to see. It became an addiction - an obsession. It doesn't take much to enrapture a fifteen year old, and this was over the top. The hype worked beautifully. Less is more.
We were fascinated by all the people involved in the Ziggy star-making machine; the manager Tony Defries who perpetuated the myth by shrouding Ziggy in mystery, supporting him and his entourage of Andy Warhol's freaky friends so lavishly. (Little did Bowie know the financial impact that this would have until decades later, due to the licensing of his music to the controlling Defries and RCA).
When Warhol's play Pork was touring the UK, the cast went to see Bowie perform one night at a small club in late 1971 when David was just a pretty long-haired hippie. David performed "Andy Warhol" and asked the Pork stars to take a bow. Shortly after this, Bowie announced his bisexuality. The gay Warhol stars at once fell in love with David, the fabulous Angie and the beautiful Mick Ronson, and they began to hang around them. A year later the Warhol stars became Ziggy's entourage, employed at his management office MainMan. Tony Zanetta was crowned 'President' and acted as Bowie's assistant. Photographer Leee Black Childers jumped on the bandwagon, capturing the gorgeous, elusive images. Cherry Vanilla was the groupie/secretary. Tony Visconti was the producer. Bowie's wife Angie inspired and encouraged the outrageous costuming, makeup and hairstyles, executed by Ziggy's wardrobe mistress and Ronson's future wife, Suzi Fussey. Ziggy would not have existed without these people.
Strangely enough, I'm now in touch with many of the people who created Ziggy Stardust, who have all settled in New York. It's as if I've gone through the looking glass and all the storybook (magazine) characters I'd read about and admired came to life. Suzi Ronson coloured my hair Ziggy red for years. Mick became my dear friend from 1975 (when I met him on tour with Mott The Hoople's former frontman Ian Hunter) until his death in 1993. Ian was Mick's best friend. Mick gave me an impromptu guitar lesson on his actual Ziggy guitar - the famous unpainted Les Paul! I play entirely by ear and Mick encouraged that. He was against too much technicality and in favor of emotion and impulse. Although he was highly technically proficient, he favoured simplicity. He taught me to play "Starman" and Ian taught me Mott's version of "Sweet Jane" and for a moment, I was Ziggy unplugged! Mick and Ian are the funniest, greatest guys I've even known. Super rock gods, and really nice dudes.
Suzi, Lisa Ronson and I went to see Bowie at Roseland in 1996. It was strange to be standing with Mick Ronson's daughter as Bowie performed "Moonage Daydream" without him. Ronson never got the credit he deserved for fashioning, producing and arranging the entire Ziggy sound. Suzi recently showed me some of Mick's legendary Ziggy costumes. As I held these sacred items in my hands, still glowing and glittering, a great sadness came over me because Mick is no longer here, yet I felt his warmth. I then realized how itchy the glittery material was, especially the knickers! No wonder he hated wearing these things!
Mick's sister Maggi invited me to the memorial concert she organized in on April 29, 1994 (the one-year anniversary of his death) at the sacred site of Ziggy's last gig, the Hammersmith Odeon. At the rehearsals I had lunch with the Spiders From Mars, Woody Woodmansey and Trevor Boulder. Ian Hunter spent many hours with us at the Knightsbridge hotel bar - remembering Mick with tears and laughter. Ian took Mick's death really hard. They were very close.
In 1989 Tony Zanetta asked me for assistance with his Bowie biography Stardust. Z dispelled an illusion; when "Ziggy" wore an eye-patch and one earring (a pretty-pirate look) it was really because he had conjunctivitis in his eye!
Tony Visconti, producer of all the early 70's Bowie and T-Rex albums invited me and a friend who was writing a Ronson biography (The Spider With the Platinum Hair), to his New York studio in 1995. Tony entertained us with fantastic stories and also let us mix unreleased T-Rex tapes on his mixing board - what a thrill! He had several gold Bowie records on his wall. Tony told us that while Bowie and the Spiders From Mars were living at Haddon Hall in the UK, they'd agreed to take turns buying the groceries for the week. Tony would spend a hundred dollars for a week's worth of food, and David and Angie would come back with a bottle of wine and some caviar bought with their week's allowance.
Ziggy's official photographer Mick Rock contacted me about my video collection, and he's such a great guy. Visiting his studio is like being in heaven itself, and his photos wrote the pages of history!
Leee Black Childers is a fascinating guy to hang out with. He was the Vice President of MainMan's New York office (as well as tour photographer), and he tells fabulous stories of the days in Hollywood with Ziggy on tour. The band and entourage would be put up in the best hotels but they had empty pockets. To get money, Leee and the road crew would walk out to Hollywood Boulevard and offer tourists a fine lobster dinner for $50.00 cash, give the tourists their hotel room keys, and tell them to order room service. One of Leee's jobs was to baby-sit the drug induced, out of control Iggy and the Stooges - who were then MainMan artistes - in California after Bowie produced their Raw Power LP. Defries forbid the Stooges to play live, thinking they'd steal Bowie's limelight. Leee learned to swim by repeatedly rescuing Iggy who would daily be found floating face down in the pool stoned out of his mind.
Jayne (formerly Wayne) County is a fabulous transvestite punk rock singer who was also a star of Warhol's Pork. David was fascinated him/her. Jayne was to record an album for MainMan which was delayed indefinitely, yet she was kept on retainer (just like the poor Stooges) after signing a ten year contract. Jayne was yet another MainMan hostage.
Angie is a piece of work! I went to some of Jayne's shows with Leee, and the wild and uninhibited Angie. One night. Angie flashed her breasts at Jayne during his/her show, complaining that Jayne's boobs were bigger than hers!
I often ran into the late Cyrinda Foxe (the girl in Bowie's Jean Genie video). She's the ultimate rock n' roll cool chick. She's in the "Jean Genie" video and is 'Lorraine' in Bowie's "Watch That Man". Cyrinda was married to David Johansen when he was a New York Doll, and later to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. She was in the Ziggy clique - a girlfriend of David's and Angie's. A vivacious and extremely entertaining girl! Andy Warhol adored her, and I can see why. We had a nice brunch one morning and talked about old times. After one of Jayne's gigs, I was showing Jayne some photos. Cyrinda sat down next to us and asked, "Oh can I see too?! There I was sitting between these two important characters from the Ziggy days, feeling like I was sitting with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter.
Today, these people are more fascinating than Bowie! I'm honoured that they are my friends. 'Ziggy' absorbed all the talents of Iggy, Lou Reed, Marc Bolan, Mick Ronson, etc. That's why he was so great. Bowie was the center of their universe at one time - a true icon. Many people gave Ziggy the gift of life. He was simply the monster they created. Bowie ceremoniously dumped the Spiders that night at the Hammersmith Odeon as if he were simply cleaning out his closet, but those records - especially Ziggy, will live on forever!