Tony Zanetta is a crucial figure in New York’s experimental downtown drama scene of late '60s and early ‘70s. He first entered David Bowie’s orbit as a cast member of Andy Warhol's play ‘Pork’ in 1971 (co-starring with last week's guest, Cherry Vanilla.) Soon he would be swept up in the whirlwind of David's management company, MainMan, headed up by Bowie's larger than life manager, Tony DeFries. In practice, the organization was more like an elaborate performance piece than a strict bottom-line business. This may explain way DeFries hired Zanetta to be MainMan's president despite his total lack of business experience. Zanetta would later be drafted into a much more demanding role as David's tour manager, overseeing the treks for Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs. Keeping the show on the road and the egos in check, all with a daily operating budget of close to zero dollars? It wasn’t a job for the faint of heart! Zanetta spoke to Jordan about those thrilling days on tour with David, as his star soared to new heights — and how everything changed in an instant.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off the Record is the production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
I'm your host, Jordan Runtak. Thanks so much for listening.
Our latest chapter focused on a Ladin Saying, the American
sibling of Ziggy Stardust. He was born during David Bowie's
first tour of the United States in the fall two.
(00:22):
His bisected face split in two by a lightning bolt,
goes a long way and illustrating David's conflicted views about
these undoubtedly exciting times. On one hand, he was seeing
America a close range, living out as Jack Caroact dreams
on the road. The crowds were growing, the press followed
his every move. Everything he'd been working towards seemed to
(00:43):
becoming true. But on the flip side, he was physically
and mentally exhausted. The constant travel, grueling performances, financial chaos,
and psychic confusion caused by as many characters had stretched
David to his breaking point. He discovered as many newly
six TuS for artists do the commercial success the man's
(01:03):
creative repetition and repetition was one of David's least favorite words.
Rather than succumb to the slow artistic death, David would
have to kill off his most beloved creation. Witness to
the high highs and low lows was Tony Zenetta, a
legendary figure in the experimental downtown drama scene of late
sixties New York. He first entered David's orbit as a
(01:24):
cast member of Andy Warhol's play pork Ine, co starring
with last Week's guest Cherry Vanilla. Before long, both would
be swept up in the whirlwind of David's management company,
Maine Man. In case you're not already familiar, this was
not your average suit and tie kind of company, headed
up by Bowie's larger than life manager, Tony Defrees. The
(01:46):
organization traded in excess in style. In practice, it was
more like an elaborate performance piece and a strict bottom
line business. This goes a long way in explaining why
Defreese hired Zenetta to be made Man's president, despite the
fact and he had no business experience whatsoever. Saneta would
later be drafted into a much more demanding role as
(02:06):
David's tour manager, overseeing the tracks for a Ziggy Stardust
and later on the notoriously over the top Diamond Dogs Production,
keeping the show on the road and egos and check
all with a daily operating budget of close to zero dollars,
It's not a job for the faint of heart. Sanetta
was gracious enough to speak to me about those thrilling
days on tour with David as his star soared to
(02:28):
New Heights and how just as fast everything changed. Before
we get to Bowie, I want to take it back
a little further. How did you first get involved with
Andy Warhol in the theater of the Ridiculous in the
downtown arts community? Well, you know, I I mean, I
always loved acting and I loved theater. I did high
(02:50):
school plays and I did plays in college. But when
I got to New York, of course it was a
little different, and I didn't get involved right away. But
I've been here a couple of years and I started
doing some acting. Blah blah blah blah blah. Fast forward.
I had met Tony and Garcia when I first got
to New York, because Tony and Gracia was from Massapequa,
(03:12):
Long Island and my college roommate, Tom Carbury was from
Massapequa Long Island, so Tom had grown up with Tony
and with Jimmy Slattery, a k a. Candy Darling. So
I met Candy and Tony early on. And then Tony
was working with the Playhouse of the Ridiculous, John Bacaro's company,
(03:36):
and then Tony was a playwright, and Tony began directing,
and one of the early things he directed was a
play by Jackie Curtis called Femme Fatale. And then the
meantime his own plays were being done, had a play
called Sheila. He had a play called Island But and
then he directed a play called World Birth of a
(03:57):
Nation by Wayne County. Tony always had aspirations to be
kind of a very legitimate writer director, so he always
advertised in the trade papers, which most people downtown did
not do, but he did. And I saw the ad
for the casting for World Birth of a Nation, and
by that time I had decided that I really wanted
(04:19):
to work with the Ridiculous because I had had just
seen a play that John Macaro did, or the playoffs
of the Ridiculous did, called Nightclub, which was absolutely mesmerizing.
It was just incredible. So I went to the audition
for World and Tony remembered me and he said, diling
you don't have to where audition. Of course you could
be in my play anyway. That was in like September
(04:42):
of nineteen seventy, and from then on my world kind
of changed because I entered the world of The Ridiculous
and the one day I met Tony and my new Tony,
I met Lee black Childer's I met Wayne Jane County.
I met Terry Vanilla, who was still Cathy Doherty. I
met Jamie Di Carlo Lots Andrews, who would later come
(05:03):
work with us at Maine Men. So I met I
met basically the people that I would become closest to
for the next years. I mean, Cherry Vanilla and I
are still closest, closest friends, and that's been quite a
that's what's that fifty years something like that. And then
that leads into into Pork, which I mean, what was
it like when Pork hit New York? I mean, I
(05:24):
can't imagine there's anything like that before on on the stage. Well,
that's an interesting question for a lot of reasons. First
of all, Warhole. You know, if you were in downtown, well,
if you were in The Ridiculous, let me put it
that way, in Downtown theater and if you went to
Max's Kansas City, and if you know, or if you
were somehow in the art world and the fringe of
(05:47):
the art world, I mean, Warhole was kid and the the
Factory was was what it was all about, you kind of.
I mean most of us wanted to become a part
of the Factory or we wanted to be superstars or
whatever whatever whatever. You know. We hung out with Jackie
Curtis and Candy and Hollywood Love, I Love, Derek Emerson,
(06:07):
who else, oh, Geraldine Smith and Andrea warholo whips. These
are all people that went to the Max's Kansas City.
But so to be associated with Warhol was like very exciting.
But that's one part of it. The other part of
it was the play itself, because you know, this was
tape recorded conversations that Andy turned over to Tony and
(06:30):
Gracia and then Tony and Gracia I mean the transcripts.
But there were hours and hours and hours and hours
of transcripts. So Tony and Garcia went through the transcripts
and put them together to create this quote unquote play
which brings, you know, it really questions the idea of
what is a play, which Warhol had already done with
(06:51):
his book A which was taped conversations with the Superstar
and also playoffs of The Ridiculous Star un Dean. So
that I mean that was a novel called A So
was it a novel, you know? But but it was
also the same thing as his paint takes painted. He
painted a soup can and put it on the gallery
(07:13):
wall and said it was art. So I mean, what
I'm trying to say is it just confirmed Warhol's um
role as a conceptual artist. So paintings and silk screens,
books and now a play. Now he was moving into
the film and then the idea of theater. So one
(07:33):
of the most interesting things about Pork was was it
brings it to question the whole idea of what makes
theater or what makes a play and uh and it
was definitely perceived as a play when it at the
beginning of middle Internet end thanks to Ingrassias editing and
how we put the thing together. So it was exciting
on a lot of levels socially to be part of
(07:54):
the factory and just artistically to be a part of
this process in this whole idea of performance. Also, I
want to ask you about the culture element of the
play as well. I mean, there were a lot of
things going on on the stage that people didn't see
very much, especially when you took the show to England.
I can only imagine how that was received over there,
(08:16):
because I think only a few years earlier they removed
the basically the censorship position in the government where all
the plays had to be approved by I forget that
the person's title, but I can only imagine how how
that went down in England. That must have been shocking
in the best way and just completely blew some minds. Well,
while we were there, there was and I'm not um
(08:41):
my memory fails me a little, but there was something
called the Trial of Oz. It was right, it was
all about censorship in the arts and um that was
going on while we were in England that summer summer
of ninety one. Plus the plant, the movies and I
think it was lesson trash could not be shown in
(09:02):
a cinema. They had to be shown in a cinema
club because of censorship, right, exactly funny, So yeah, there
was a censorship issue. Now I don't remember if they
came to review it, how we got past the sensors.
If it was different for live performance at that point.
But the thing about Pork that was also interesting was
(09:23):
that it was it was a lot about sex, a
lot of talk about sex. There was a lot of nudity.
Jerry Miller douched on stage. Um. However, there was also
almost a Charlie Brown kind of innocence quality about Pork.
(09:44):
It was it was very childlike and very kind of innocent.
So in its in its display of like public of sexuality,
it wasn't really well, it wasn't prurient er and you know,
it wasn't like pandering too. It wasn't pornographic in any way.
It was it was very childlike and I think and
(10:04):
it was comedy basically, it was funny. So people were
not offended by the open sexuality because of the way
it was presented. How did David first become aware of it?
I've heard multiple different stories about Dana Gleesbie possibly auditioning
and taking a script to him. How did you first
enter his orbit? I guess Well, Danna denies that. Now,
(10:27):
for some reason, I always thought that that was how
it happened. She says, no, she never auditioned. That's total bunk. Well,
I don't know where I got that story from he
became aware of it. Um he may have been aware
of it anyway. But when we were doing Pork in
New York and this that spring, um there there was
a little article in Rolling Stone magazine about him. He
(10:52):
had come to to the United States in nineteen seventy.
That movie that's out now called Start Us by the Way,
is about him coming to the United States in nineteen
seventy and doing this promotional tour for Mercury Records. He
didn't have the right visa to perform, so he went
around and talked to radio stations and met people and
(11:13):
blah blah blah, blah blah. So part of it was here.
There was a little this little interview with him or
I don't know if it was actually and I guess
it was an interview in Rolling Stone. And there was
a photo of him in in his famous man dress.
So that titilated us. Me and Lee and Wayne County especially,
we were fascinated by because he was very pretty wearing
(11:35):
this dress, and but we didn't know his music. We
didn't know much else about him. Now, when we were
in London doing Pork, Cherry was sort of a group here.
She fancied herself a groupie, and she decided she would
do uh a column for it was Cream magazine called
Cherry Vanilla Scoops for You. Basically, it was an excuse
(11:57):
for her to contact bands that she wanted to see
in concert and get in for free. So she and
Lee would go to all these concerts, leave taking photos
and Cherry meeting the band and ostensibly writing about them.
One and they saw an ad for the Man in
the Dress David Bowie. He was playing a place called
(12:19):
the Country Club, which was a small venue. I was
thought it was acoustic. It wasn't acoustic, but it wasn't
like a big rock and roll show. It's kind of
a team rocket anyway. It was a kind of a
tame concert. They went. She, Cherry, Lee and Wayne went
to see David Bowie um and either he knew they
(12:40):
were coming or somehow they connected before because he actually
announced them from the stage and they stood up. Since
Cherry stood up and took about and thrust her tid out,
which was a signature moved for pork because that's what
bridget poke. Pork is based on Bridget Pokes tape recordings.
She was a Warhol superstar well, always went around with
(13:01):
one breast. Not always, she frequently would expose one breast.
That was like a cute little thing that Bridget did.
And you know she had books of tip prints and
books of cock prints. That was her art anyway, So
Terry exposed it to it and they all make contact
and Aie was there. I don't know, I don't think
(13:23):
Dana was. But anyway, they invited David and Andy to
come to see Pork and that's how that's how the
first connection was made. And then David and Angie and
Dannick LLSB and Tony defrees them at their manager I
think Mick Ronson. Yeah, mc ronson was with them too,
came to see Pork and they came back stage and
(13:46):
blah blah blah. We ended up going to the Simba Row,
which was the dance club and Kensington High Street and
that was our first encounter, my first encounter. And said,
you were really more taken with Angie at this stage
rather than day because he was a bit more more
shy and reticent. Well, I don't know if he was
(14:08):
actually shy, but he was quiet and he didn't really Uh,
it wasn't that forthcoming. She was very effusive and very outgoing.
And yes, she was definitely kind of the diplomat of
the two. She was the one that was really reaching out. Yeah,
he kind of stood back, kind of taking it in.
And then even at the sombrero, he didn't really participate.
(14:30):
He was sitting in the corner speaking to I was
every call a Japanese boy. Uh, closely huddled. I don't
know what that was all about. But anyway, but Angie
was rocous and dancing with me and Cherry and carrying on.
So we had a good old time with Angie. Mick
ronson coward in the corner because he was scared to
death of Jerry. Jerry could be a little aggressive. It
(14:54):
was a little much for mick Um. And then at
the end of the night Angie invited me to up
to their house the next day in Beckenham, which I
did out of Hadden Hall. What was that scene, like
a pictured looking like a Gothic commune or something, Well,
it was. It was kind of a Gothic house. I mean,
it was very imposing from the exterior. It was. It
(15:16):
was an old mansion and yeah, it was quite impressive.
But they they lived in the entry hall. Basically you
know that this was an old mansion that was divided
into apartments into flats, so they certainly didn't live in
much of the house. That you walked in and you
were in this big entry hall and there was a
staircase that went up and there was a balcony, but
(15:39):
the balcony all the rooms were closed off up there. Oh,
there was was this balcony and although I didn't see it,
that's evidently where like Rhino and the band slept if
they stayed there, and it was kind of a sleeping balcony,
I guess. And then downstairs there was a bedroom, a
music room, and I guess the kitchen. I don't know
if I even saw all the kitchen. So it wasn't big.
(16:01):
It was like three or four room apartment. Um, yeah,
but very impressive from the outside. What was the dynamic
like between David and Angie at that time, Well, they
were they were pretty you know, they were like a
really tight couple at that time. The baby was young.
(16:24):
They were the kind of couple where you know, one
could start speaking and the other could end the sentence
sort of thing. Angie was always more outgoing, but and
she was very very um but she could she could
definitely when he wanted to take over, she would definitely
step back and put the spotlight on him. He was
the kind of he always My whole association with him
(16:47):
was he's the kind of person who if he didn't
want to be noticed, he wasn't. He didn't You didn't
even see it. He could be very It was almost
like crawling into himself. He just didn't see him. But
if he wanted to takes center stage, it was almost
like there was a spotlight that suddenly went on, the
following spot that went on him, so you didn't see
anything but him and it but almost like turning it
(17:09):
on and off. He really had that ability. It was
like great Marilyn Monrose story where she's walking down the
street with I think her photographer or friend and no
one notices her. It's just a crowded New York City
street and she's just walking around and her friend says
something like, I can't believe you're able to just do this,
and Maryland says, do you want to see her? Do
you want to see Maryland? And then just put these
little imperceptible shifts. All of a sudden, she just radiates
(17:32):
some people. Cars slowed down and people start turning and
looking at her, and it reminds me of what you're
saying about David. It's exactly the same thing, exactly. And
he was he's he was extremely charming. He was very seductive, intelligent,
you know, when he wanted to turn it on, it
was like whoa. It was pretty radiant. You couldn't luck away,
(17:56):
let me put it that way. But the two of
them were very close. She was extremely extremely I mean,
she definitely took a backseat. Everything was about him, Nomanama.
She called him noa uh she um, he could do
no wrong. You know, everything was David David, David, David, David,
David David. And he kind of soaked it up. He
(18:17):
he did like that kind of adoration and support, you know,
he did he Lindsay Kemps once said this, he was
the kind of person who opened the door for and
he was the kind of person who opened the door,
and she was pushing doors down for him. Yeah. She
(18:37):
she was very aggressive where he wasn't, and she was
like noisy and lively where he wasn't. So I think
he needed that at that time. And they were they
were really a good couple and they seemed to be,
you know, very fond of each other. And it was good.
It was good until it wasn't good. I guess it
was good for a long time. Now it was good
(18:58):
until he I think he didn't need so much anymore,
because that's again I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But
he was He's David was pretty self centered in that mean,
I don't mean that as a criticism necessarily, but everything
about him was really about and it all came out
in his art. Everything about him was but his art
(19:19):
so so the people around him. He was only interested
in people that somehow he could absorb and they would
spit back out in whatever art he was doing if
he didn't find you interesting. But believe me, he was
not gonna turn that light on or give you the
time of day and money was done. He was done,
you know. He didn't necessarily stay interested in the same
(19:42):
things of the same people all the time, although to
his credit, I mean, George Underwood was a lifetime friend.
Jeffrey McCormick was a lifetime friend. Uh. He and Iggy
James Osterberg were friends for quite a long time. I mean,
I think I think David could also be very generous
in his friendships. She certainly helped Iggy a lot. Um. Okay,
(20:06):
that's it. Well, I guess I think sort of piggybacking
of what you just said. I mean, very soon after
seeing Pork, Bowie starts putting together his own piece of performance.
Are the sort of Bractean theater pieces? Did he start us?
What kind of influence do you think Pork had on
on that the construction? But he didn't start doing that
because of Pork, that's for sure. I mean, you know,
(20:30):
everybody's always gotten carried away through the years of him
taking things from Pork. I'm sure he did, but it
wasn't really that. It's not like he was not alive
until Pork he told me about what he was doing.
You know, when that that Sunday afternoon, we talked a
lot about theater. I didn't know much about Brecktean theater.
He was explaining Breckteean theater to me and he was
(20:52):
talked and at that time it wasn't Ziggy wasn't totally evolved,
although I think the music was pretty much involved because
he was he was very infatuated with Freddie Barrett, who
was who made ended up making a lot of his
early costumes. But Freddie was a boy from the Sombrero
when Freddie was great looking and Freddie could like really
(21:13):
make an entrance, you know, you cut, you know, Freddie
was one of those boys. It was very pretty. You
noticed Freddie also, it was like very sharp witted and
kind of fun to be around. But I think David
was kind of basing Ziggy in some ways around Freddie.
He um. He wanted to record Freddie. Of course Freddie
(21:34):
couldn't sing, but he had the idea of having a
band where Freddie would be the lead singer. Again, the
fans are gonna kill me because they know this better
than I do, because he had a band called Hype,
but I can't remember if that was where Freddie was
supposed to be a lead singing or something else, but
it didn't really work out. But it was kind of
a dress rehearsal for the Ziki. Oh the Arnold Corns
(21:57):
Project ND points Yes, that's a see you no more
than I do. Um. The Honold Corns Project kind of
morphed into Ziggy in my opinion, but it was his
kind of address rehearsal, you know, for creating this character
at least, so he was in the process of really
creating this. Yes, it kind of was zinky was I mean,
(22:18):
that's that was going to go to the West End
next the next week. But it was kind of a
musical in a way, and it was about this alien
rock star that he then decided to play. But when
and when in Brecty and yes it was Brecty, and
that it wasn't him, It was him, David Bowie standing
there and saying, this is Ziggy stared us, this is
(22:43):
my creation, is this is a this is an alien
rock star. It's not me, but I'm playing it on
stage and and I don't think and I think it
was pretty remarkable because no, as far as I don't know, no,
that hadn't happened in rock and roll. So he was
accused of being, you know, authentic because he was. It
was misunderstood what he was doing. No, he wasn't ziggy
(23:05):
startnist He was showing us ziggy startist um. In terms
of Pork, what was I I do have a couple
of theories myself, and they're just my opinions. Doesn't mean
anything other than it's my opinion. One of the things
about Pork again, I was telling you how kind of
it was kind of childlike, even though it was very
kind of outrageous, and some of the dialogue and some
(23:27):
of the ideas that was presenting, so it had a
flam We had a sexual flamboyance about it and in it.
Um it wasn't that it was so gender neutral, because
I don't really think it was, but it was very
um kind of outrageous, and and and those of us
who were involved in that company were all kind of
(23:48):
sexually outrageous, kind of sexual outlaws. I like to call
them sexual outlaws. So I say, I think that now
I'm not saying he wasn't outrage It was probably more
of a sexual outlaw than any of us. But the
idea of presenting it so blatantly might have um influenced him. Plus,
you know, he was very influenced by again going back
to Warhol, the Velvet Underground and lou Read and lou
(24:14):
Reid certainly had the sexual ambiguity about him. Was he gay?
Was he straight? Was he androgynous? He's gay, he's married.
I mean, nobody quite knew what that was all about.
And then the other edge of the drugs. But it's
not even going to the drugs just the sexuality was
very um mysterious, shall we say, And I think he
(24:36):
incorporated a lot of that into the Ziggy persona um
um makeup wise, I mean, I think I think the
look of Ziggy certainly was it wasn't so much about
from Pork. It was really there was almost pure Lindsey Kemp.
But I see a lot there's also a lot of
other coincidences going on, or a lot of synchronicity Lynn
(25:00):
the Kemp's company and the Playhouse, so the ridiculous although
they weren't similar at all, were very similar, particularly visually
and particularly because of some of their influences Japanese theater
for instance. You know John Bacaro from the Playhouse had
spent time in Japan, was very interested are very um
(25:20):
um um my mind's going blank, very um Well, Kabuki
theater had a big, big influence, very influenced by kabuki
theater and the look of kabuki theater that met makeup um.
But the whole style of kabuki he really incorporated into
(25:43):
the Playhouse. But Lindsey Kemp was doing kind of the
same thing. Plus Lindsay and John had other similarities in
that they were both interested in kind of creating something
that was new. It wasn't like what Lindsay was doing.
Wasn't just mine, but you couldn't call it really egg.
You know, it was drag, it was mine, it was circus,
that was Japanese. It was all sorts of things I'm
(26:05):
mushed in together to create something new. And that certainly,
um wasn't one of the biggest influences influences on David
and taking a little bit from here, a little bit
from there, a little bit from over there, and all
taking it all in and creating something new. And I
think he always did that. So he wasn't averse to
borrowing ideas or things from other people, that's for sure.
(26:29):
But like a true artist, he borrowed and then and
then it came out in a different way his way. Um.
So sometimes people say, well, that was the playhouse or
that was this that not really there were a lot
of things happening all over the globe that at the
same time. So I think I think, if anything, he
certainly already dead. Its gratitude to Lindsey kemp Um. You know,
(26:52):
a lot of the ziggy look was from clockwork. Orange
started out as almost pure clockwork Orange, but he didn't
get it quite right, so it became again, it became
more his own. It wasn't really Clockwork Orange at the
end of the day, it was David Bowie, or it
was Ziggy Stardust. But if you if you marry Lindsay
Kemp's mind and the clockwork or in the Clockwork Orange,
(27:14):
you'll get Ziggy startist. I wanted to ask you about
sort of the very famous uh second trip to the
United States and in I think September of seventy one,
(27:35):
when David's signing with tow Our c A with Tony Defrees.
I wanted to ask you about Tony DeFries because I
feel like he's a really misunderstood character in the whole
Bowie story. What what did Tony do for David Everything? Yeah,
good answer. I mean again, that wouldn't have been a
David Bowie without Tony, or they might have been, but
(27:56):
nobody would have known about it. Um. Tony is um. Well,
he's pretty interesting character in many many ways, but I
think that the really key thing was, you know, David
was very ambitious and very focused, so it was Tony.
(28:17):
Tony was looking for um. Yeah, I think he wanted
to be Alan Klein. But he needed he needed the
Beatles or he needed whatever. At first he was going
after Stevie Wonder and that didn't not work anyway. Tony
needed a vehicle, and along came David Bowie. No one
was interested in David Bowie at that time. David Bowie
(28:39):
was old news. He had been around for a long time.
Uh so it wasn't you know, he had been around
since he was fifteen. It's it's almost ten years at
this point, not quite. But there wasn't anything but I mean,
there was nothing wrong with him, but he wasn't particularly extraordinary.
You look at all those other English bands. They were
making it a j eighteen nineteen twenties anyone. Uh, he
(29:01):
was almost getting old because he wasn't really a different
generation from the Beatles and the Stones. What wasn't two
years younger? Um? Anyway, So Tony had brand damn um.
You might call him meglomaniac. But he was a fascinating man.
He was very intelligent. Uh, he could expound on anything
(29:25):
for hours. But he was also pretty fearless. He was
not afraid of taking chances and he was smart. So um, yeah,
you know this this all took a lot of money
that Tony wasn't afraid of going out after and he
when he signed David, he uh, the deal is misunderstood
(29:48):
number one. And the deal the deal actually was not
that different from a lot of other UM English acts
at the time. The deal was a fifty fifty split
after expenses is Tony Uh. Now you have to understand
David Bowie had no incomes when Tony signed him, and
(30:08):
Tony said to him, I will support you. Don't have
to worry about anything. I'll pay your rent, by your
new guitar, by the fabrics from Liberty of whatever, whatever
you need. Don't worry. You're taken care of. And UM
we will if we make any money, we will split
it fifty fifty. If we don't, well then it's my loss.
(30:29):
That's pretty seductive if you're an artist sitting there with
nothing in your pocket. Now, of course there was enough
side to that eventually, but we'll get so Tony took
over everything. The first thing he did was he UM
got him a publishing deal. He changed the publishing to
get a little bit of money, and then he started
started shopping for a record deal. He wanted to go
(30:53):
with our c a global not our c a u K.
He did not signed David. R C a u K
signed David. That's why they came to New York to sign.
It was r C A Worldwide because he felt that
would give him a lot more cloud, which it did. Um.
So David wasn't really an English act anymore. He was
an English act starting to a global company. Um. So
(31:15):
Tony was not afraid to take huge chances when um,
when they came to the you know, and he had
he had certain like principles that he stood by. David
was not going to be a support act in the
United States and he never was. He was only going
to travel first class, which he did. Tony's philosophy was
to be a star, you had to act like a star.
So David stay at the Plaza Hotel and went everywhere
(31:38):
in limos. Everybody's looking, I know, everybody in New York's like,
look like, what he's going on here? This guy hasn't
sold one record. Um, but you know, people began to
perceive of him, um, not as that loser who had
been around for ten years, but as oh, let's watch
what's it, what's going on with him? Um? Now they
were perfectly matched because they off. It had been working
(32:01):
for ten years. David was very smart, he had been studying,
he um, he was focused, he was ready, he was
ready to take the next step. He was ready to
go out in the world. And Sheldon Zink he started
us and the Freeze was willing to take the chance
to get the right record company, to get the bookings,
(32:22):
to do this, to do that, and they did it.
So there are ambitions for that moment at least met again.
I keep using the words in choinicity, but it was
in chronictic. They were perfect for each other at that moment.
And that moment is seventy seventy three. And then it
started to fade when the success began to commit. It
(32:44):
began to fade because they didn't need each other quite
as much. And then the money began to be questioned
by why you were were spilling fifty but you bought
that and you all that kind of thing. And then
there were some of some a few things, definitely the
um upset, the Apple car shall we say, but you
(33:05):
mentioned the synchronicity. I mean, it's just incredible thing. I mean,
even on that one trip in September when he goes
to New York, I mean's all the people that he meets,
I mean, he meets he meets Iggy, he meets Andy Warhol,
is all coming together, this convergence of influences. I mean,
what what an incredible trip that must have been. Yeah,
I mean it didn't seem it that's the time. But
now looking back, yeah see he also I get credit
(33:31):
for some of the stuff that I certainly didn't do.
I did not introduce David Bowie to Louis Lisa Robinson
and Richard Robinson did. Lisa Robins. Richard Robinson was part
of the A n R team at R C A Records.
Lisa was his wife. Lisa was a writer. She wrote
for the New York Post, and the two of them
had two magazines. They had Hit Parader and Rock Scene,
(33:54):
which were very well read amongst American teenagers. Not that
much in New York or maybe London, but in the
American Hartley and every kid, every kid in mid America
read Roxy magazine. So Lisa and Lisa was very She
was very much the queen of the rock and road journalists,
I think, and I don't remember another. I know that
(34:16):
David and Andrew went to A or David maybe Andre
wasn't even there, went to a party of their apartment
ad during that week. I don't remember if if he
actually met Lou there or he He certainly met Lou
the night of the signing when we all went to
the ginger Man after the signing, and of course Lisa
(34:36):
and Richard were very much a part of that, and
it was with Lisa and Richard that we then went
to Max's Kansas City, where Danny Fields was who had
been he's manager, and he happened to be at Danny's
apartment and Danny called him to come me. David so
um um, so yeah, he did a lot in that week,
(34:59):
and the fact revisit to I mean, it's just it's
mind boggling to think of of all the people he
met me. Now you've said that, that Bowie Warhol, and
it makes sense too, I can't imagine. Mean, they both
sort of reserved, I guess at first blush. So it
sounds like it wasn't the most successful meeting in the
world between the two. It wasn't terrible. I mean, you know,
(35:21):
these things that are kind of ordinary take on legendary reputations.
It was just that David was not a star. You know,
he was just he was He wasn't a star. He
had had some records out, Yeah, but it wasn't like
they were going to lay down the red carpet because
the superstar was walking and he wasn't a superstar and
no Andy. To be to really click with Andy, you
(35:44):
had to be kind of a certain kind of personality,
and you know, it's how funny stories and entertain and
David wasn't that kind of personality at all. He was
kind of a serious artiz if anything. And I didn't
Andy that well. I had been in pork, but I
didn't have that kind of rapport with Andy where I'm
(36:04):
going to be calling him on the phone or anything. Um.
And so yeah, we were, you know was it was
really the Defrees engineered the whole thing because he wanted
to talk to Paul Morrissey about film distribution in Europe,
a better distributor for their fat don't now you know.
(36:26):
It was one of those things so they're often the
corner talking about film distribution. Andy kept flitting in and
out and yeah, there was this video crew there, which
it's funny because I hardly was aware of it at
the time. It's years later when you see this video
and you think, oh my god, that is not the
way I remember this meeting. But I guess it's the
way it happened because here's the video and David did
(36:51):
do that weird mind thing, which to me, David was
always a little or at least in those days, was
a little bit on the edge, you know, could have
gone either way, because sometimes he could go into super
corny terry story when you let the mind take over
too much. And that was one of those moments. It's like,
(37:11):
oh my god, what is this guy doing? But it
was okay. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't like humiliatingly embarrassing.
It was just like, is he gonna hurry finished this
kind of embarrassing? What was it? Was? It just like
it was it like a disemboweling thing or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't know one of his mind routines. But to
(37:32):
do that in the middle of the factory was like,
oh my god. I'm sure nobody else didn't mind in
the factory. But see, that's the other thing about David
that it was so key that David was not bothered
by taking chances and failing, and he had been failing
for years, But what is another failure? I mean, you know,
by the time he hit again, he had been around
(37:55):
a long time. Nothing stopped him. Where most of the
people I know, you know, maybe they have one. Whatever
you do something that creative, you kind of shoot your
creative one and if it's not well received, your kind
of like, you know, hulk off into the sunset or something.
Not him, nothing really bothered him, which I think is
a great you know, it's a sign of success. First
(38:17):
of all, he wasn't bothered by failure or success. He
was involved in the process always and he was a
constant seeker that I think we see if you look
at his entire career, especially if you look at the
end of his career and the way he died, but
creating up until the last second, using his illness or
whatever he was going through as creative fodder. That's a
(38:40):
that's a true artist. We don't see that ham Fod.
Is there is there a period for you of of
his work that that really resonates the most with you?
Or I would assume the Ziggy Land the same era
(39:01):
just because it was such a part of your life.
But is there anything in particular that that you really
that's a favorite of yours. Well, of course all of that,
but I happened to love you on Americans. You know,
then I was on that. I wasn't on that tour also,
you know, that was kind of the best of times,
the worst of times, because in some ways things were
beginning to fall apart. But the music was so extraordinary.
(39:23):
The musicians were all first first rate. They were all
great kids. They were so much fun to be a
I mean, Carlos Almar and Robin Clark are two of
the nicest people you could ever ever ever meet, and
there were so much fun. Luther Vandross's fat nineteen year
old boy that was so talented, you know, a sweet Ave.
(39:45):
I love Ava Um Dave Sandborn probably one of the nicest, amazing,
one of the best sax saxophone players in the world. Um.
It was an extraordinary and I think that music it
is just really fantastic. But of course I love Ziggy
that you know, that was that was that was also great.
(40:09):
And then um the last album UM and I had
to have a a pursuit like uh scan cask had
I have an m R where they stick you into
those metal tubes. Had the toe which is like horrifying
and it claims and does this and that. But when
(40:29):
I got in um Um, they said they asked me
if I wanted to hear some music, so I said,
oh yeah. So they played Now I'm blanking out in
the name? Was that the last album Star? Yeah? Black Star? Okay?
So they played black Star and I hadn't heard it,
and I'm listening to it in this tin can Oh god,
(40:56):
may I do your association with him? I mean, that's
the I can't believe. I mean, the queen into that
is pretty overwhelming. It was overwhelming. It was really intense
because number one, it was like getting personal messages from
and the clanging, but most music would have been destroyed
by the clanging, not that. It just set right in.
It was incredible, and the music was it was just like,
(41:17):
oh my god, I can't believe he made this album
like two weeks before he died or whatever. It was
just fantastic, and it really it really gave me a deeper,
fuller appreciation for him and his work. It was absolutely incredible.
So I thought that was also, you know, I hadn't
I hadn't listened to that much of what he did
(41:39):
um Um. In the eighties or nineties really, so I
kind of lost track of him in the late seventies.
And again for me, you know, it was this was
a friendship that blossomed into something else that I had
never expected. So it wasn't like, um, I was that
smitten with the idea of David Bowie. He was just
(42:00):
somebody I happened to work with for a few years. Um.
I don't know that that sounds about making myself clear,
But I worked with a lot of talented people, you know,
they just didn't become as famous as he did. I mean,
you rapidly ascended the ranks of maineman too, I believe, president.
I mean, how how did that happen? How did you become,
(42:21):
you know, the head of the American Division of Maine
man seemingly overnight, like well, it wasn't exactly all night
right right right, couple of months. I don't know, because
I was like tight with him and Tony. Tony and
I got along really really well. Once he started coming
to he would come to New York after that signing
of URCA Records and RCA records, Tony would come to
(42:44):
New York every couple of weeks to like where the
record company up and he would always call me. I
would always get together with him. Then I started just
doing like basically errands for him. But you know, we again,
we we um we we turn all this stuff into
like legend and everything's iconac. It's just I was just
doing errands for him, and they were just doing the best.
(43:07):
You know, it wasn't. It wasn't nobody was looking at
under a micro microscope and saying, oh my god, this
is just incredible. It was me passing out records and
it was doing whatever. He didn't know anybody else in
New York. Neither did David. You were a friend in
New York. You were that guy. I was the friend
in New York. And and we got and you know, meanly,
(43:27):
it was a family. We all loved each other. I
only brought in my best friends Lee, well, they weren't
even my best friends at the time. We became best
friends Lee and Cherry because they were more involved in
the rock scene than I was, and I thought that
they would, like, you know, I'll be able to contribute more,
which they did. Um. Lee was phenomenal. We sent Lee
(43:48):
out as the advanced man and if you know anything
about Lee Black Childers. He was like the most charismatic,
charming person in the world, bleached blonde hair and black eyeliner,
and and he just walked proudly through the world with
his camera, taking pictures of everyone and making everyone feel
like a million bucks. That was lead so for him
to walk into Cleveland. He had friends immediately of everybody
(44:12):
in the tattl paving the way for us to get there.
And Cherry, none of us had ever been inside of
an office. Cherry had been a producer and advertising. She
knew it went around the office, and she wasn't working it.
She was kind of at a down period in her life.
So I we just hired Carry to answer the phones
for a few days, and she immediately took over start
(44:33):
organizing everything because she was the only one that knew how,
and she was brilliant. Tony became totally dependent on her.
She put the whole office together. She was absolutely fantastic.
And then when she got bored with that, she became
the press lady. And now she had never done press,
and she was brilliant at press. She created a press
list of like five thousand contacts we sent up the
(44:57):
main man lose letters became sort of legend, Jerry, that
was all Cherry Vanilla. Um. And then when we just
started to go in to make our own to make
TV commercials, who produced them Cherry Vanilla because again she
had worked in advertising. Um. Now, Cherry Cherry is one
of my dearest friends. I love her, and she's always
(45:18):
stressed certain things about herself, Like she was a group
heach was this she was, like, Cherry's a really smart
woman and really talented and a lot a lot of
things that she's always played down. Um, she's played up
with certain things and played down the rest of it.
And she's a very capable, resourceful person and a lot
(45:39):
of maintenance success was due to Cherry Vanilla. All of
you were doing so much were you thinking of? You mean,
not only you the you know, American president of the
American Division of Maine, man, you're the tour manager for
the city start us tour on top of all that,
Like I can't imagine when you slept, Well what do
you being president him? I mean I wasn't exactly righting
(45:59):
the Senate. I mean that was like, you know, I
signed some papers now and then I was the tour
manager is what I was? Yes, I was a tour manager.
You know, that's that was really my job, right and
you and I'll tell you how I got I became
the tour manager. Um. I went to England with Tony
(46:22):
just before they came to the United States to do
Ziggy started and it was David was doing the Rainbow,
which was a famous gig the Rainbow Theater in London.
Then we went, we went to Manasion, we went to
some other cities in northern England. We get to the
first town, I don't remember what it was, but it
(46:45):
was we got that at night. We go into this
hotel and everybody kind of sits around in the lobby
and it was like nothing's happening. We're just sitting there
and I'm like, I want to I'm tired. I want
to get to my room, but nobody's saying, oh, Tony,
your room's over there are here's your key. So finally
(47:08):
I went up to the desk and signed everyone and
got the keys made every room, you know, passed them out,
wrote down what room people were in. So that's a
room manifest. I didn't know what's called the room manifest
because I wanted to get to my room. But that's
what a road managers. You were tired and suddenly you
(47:29):
woke up a road manager exactly. I mean it was
really that simple. Nobody else was taking the initiative. Being
the only American. We do have a bit more energy.
No offense to English people, but um, yeah, exactly. So
that's how I evolved into me into the road manager then.
(47:49):
And I've told this forgive me if I'm boring you,
because you've probably heard it before. We're now we're gotting
ready to do the US tour. And for the first
week or two we were at a bus which was horrible,
but that's another story. So the bus is sitting in
front of the Plaza Hotel. So I said to Tony, Tony,
because he's said I'm the road manager, say, well, Tony,
(48:12):
what does the road manager do? He said, oh, see,
just make sure they find Cleveland. Point the bus starts
Cleveland and you're good. Yeah, And that was I mean, okay,
I can find Cleveland, and off we went to Cleveland.
Was it? I mean, we're things that. Did it run
(48:34):
smoothly or was it? Was it? Really? I can only
imagine the number of moving parts going on with this,
because this was not a small entourage, right, This was
some thirty something people thirty cluss. Well, the sound was
done by h a company called ground Control, uh you
(48:55):
know to one of David's songs. But anyway, um space already,
but by a guy named Robin Mayhew who um. They
had been doing the sounds in England, so they were
pretty tight. They knew what they were doing. And we
had rented some equipment from a company in Pennsylvania called
Claire Brothers. And we didn't know like anything about lighting
(49:16):
or who to get. So we called Jerry called now
I'm blanking out in his name. He was like a
famous lighting designer in New York. Not Joshua. Well, Bob
C had just gotten out of it an y U
and he worked for this guy with the lighting, the
lighting guru, and Bob C like worked at the film
(49:38):
War He lived upstairs from the film or anyway. Yes,
so we didn't get the big guy, but they said
call called this guy Bob C. Bob C was four
years old, kind of a big hippie looked he looked
like a Hell's angel, like a motorcycle guy. And Bob
C was fantastic. He was so on top of thing.
(50:00):
So he put a little crue I mean he put
it together like immediately. So Bobcy did the lighting. But
Bob Cy was like a really one of those guys
you know that you can depend on uh and if
something goes wrong, you can depend on Bob Cy to
find a solution. And Bobcy became a very very successful
lighting guy. C Factor was his company ended up own
(50:20):
New York City block in Long Island City in New York.
I guess that he ended up doing huge shows all
over the world. But anyway, so we had Bob c
and then um, the thing was, we never had any money.
So we're on the road with no money. I need
(50:43):
no money, um um. And but Tony talked our c
A r c A Corporate into letting us book the
hotels and whatever transportation we needed through their in house
travel agency, which we did plus plus plus plus plus.
(51:07):
So because we were going, I mean we were supposed
to go to check out of the whatever hotel in
Cleveland and pay the bill, well, we didn't pay any
bills because we didn't have any money. We just look
put everything off onto our c A and we got
away with this. They said okay, and they built our
c A. R c A didn't really agree to paying
for anything. They were just supposed to be doing the bookings.
(51:30):
But by the time you know, all the dots got connected, um,
we had charged up about four dred thousand dollars and
we only earned a hundred thousand and the whole three months.
So it was a little um um um spotty. I
suppose you might say. One time we were in uh
(51:52):
we were in Florida. We were in Miami, actually Hollandale,
which is slightly north of Miami, and we had I
think I had like thirty dollars for the whole thirty people.
So Lee and I so this idea was the office
was supposed to wire me some money the next day.
(52:14):
I was supposed to go to Fort Ladder or not
for a lot of though how Hollywood, big Hollywood to
pick it up. And so Lee and I decided, well,
let's go what well, what we'll go out tonight was
the thirty dollars and the next day I'll go pick
up the money and we'll be fine. So Lee and
I did go out, and we spent about over twenty dollars.
(52:39):
We didn't spend the thirty because I saved enough to
take a cab from this hotel to to to Hollywood, Florida,
which was like five or six dollars anyway. So we
did that and the next day I got I got
a cabin and went to the bank in Hollywood. First
of all, I got there like two fifteen, thinking the
(53:00):
band closed at three. It actually closed it too, but
being an aggressive New York or, I would not take out,
and they let me in. But the money wasn't there.
They hadn't arrived. So now I'm still no. I'm with
that ten dollars because I still had a few couple
of dollars in my pocket. So now I'm standing there
(53:23):
in Hollywood. I have to get back to Hollendale, like
oh Jesus. So I thought, well, I'll get a cab.
I'll just go as far as it takes me. When
it runs out, when when the meter runs out, I'll
just say stop, let me out here. So that's what
I did. And so I'm liking a little I don't know,
jeans and whatever. I'm dressed, and I have a briefcase
(53:45):
with me, and it gets it gets to a place.
Actually I knew where we were. We were at Daniel
Beach because Lee and I had gone there the day
before we had walked there from our hotel like it
was like a good seven mile walk. But Daniel Beach
was a gay beat. So I said, oh, let me
out here, and so I paid whatever wherever money I
(54:05):
had left. Now I'm penniless on Daniel Beach. Think you know,
I'll find I'll meet some gay guys. You get asked
him to give me a ride back to Holland All
or our hitchhik or whatever. So I I go to
the beach, but there's nobody on the beach, which I thought,
that's weird. There's nobody on the beach, and I'm walking
down the beach and walking, and the more I walked,
the sicker I'm getting like sick and I'm choking because
(54:29):
it was something called red Tide, which I had never
heard of. I didn't know from red Tide. And you
gotta realize, I'm I mean, I'm all dressed, I'm carrying
my shoes with my briefcase on this beach. So then
I thought, well, let me get to the highway and
I'll hitchhick. But you know, in Florida there's all those intercoastals.
(54:53):
I had to there's a river between me and the
road now, so I I strip off all my clothes,
followed them up, put him on my briefcase, put my
briefcase on my head, and wade across this river into
this sort of like jungle in order to get to
(55:15):
the road, so I can hitchhike to get back to Hollandale.
And uh, and I did, and I got there, and
I dried off, and I put my clothes back on
and I got to the road and the car stopped
immediately some young guy picked me up and brought me
to Holland Town. But that's the kind of adventures we
would often have on the Ziggy Star Ust tour. It
(55:37):
was a little haphazard. Yes, it's gonna say, I mean,
just charging a lot of food room service, because I mean,
how are you going to get food with no cash? Food? Yeah,
no room service, which we cherished everything, the room service.
In Beverly Hill, we stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
You could buy anything at the Beverly Hills Hotel. They
had a drug store that had you know, you could
rent car anything you wanted, You could rent buy the
(56:00):
Beverly Hills Hotel on room service, and we did, I
mean just the personalities on the tour. I mean, was
it easy to was everybody relatively laid back? I mean,
were there any how is David not at all? Well again,
you know you think of these tours and you think
of David Bowie and you think, oh, so glamorous and
(56:23):
so this and so that. That was not the reality.
What the reality was a bunch of boys from northern England.
The band was off of northern England. They had never
been anywhere. Not only that, we had these bodyguards all
from Hall Stewart, George what Tony Frost wasn't wasn't anyway.
(56:45):
They were very like Stewart could be a real pain
in the ass and a real thug, and so could
the other ones. And they like we were on this
bus they started drinking eight o'clock in the morning and rock.
I mean it was not aphisticated group, let me put
it that way. And it was because it was these
boys have never been anywhere, so, you know, traveling in
(57:07):
this glamorous cavalcade, traveling with a bunch of like who
against from northern England. And but I mean a lot
of them arerow some sweet the boy the band is
very sweet, woody and Trevor Nick. You couldn't find a
nice of guy than Mick ronson Um. But it wasn't
(57:28):
what you think. It wasn't what you would want to
project it to be. It wasn't that at all. I
heard a story, I don't know if it's true, that
that David called you one morning and said, I don't
know where I am. I think I'm in a house
in the woods somewhere. Uh, And it felt to you
to sort of track him down. That is true, And
I kind of must have written about it my book
(57:49):
because I kind of don't remember it that well. But yeah,
it wasn't. We went Seattle and he had gone home
with some girl and we were well, I was freaking
out because I couldn't find him. Yeah, and then he
did call me, Yes, and I g think I said,
we just get into a cabin. I'll be waiting downstairs
(58:09):
to pay for it. But yeah, that was a little
because we treated him. Yeah, And this is on Austin,
not on him, And maybe it was a little him.
The minute he started playing the Ziggie character to us,
he was Ziggy David Bowie disappeared and Ziggy Ziggy was
who was in the room, not David, and we treated
(58:30):
him with kind of kid gloves and very we made
him very precious and very you know, he had to
be taken care of every step of the way. And
that really wasn't his demand, I don't think, because some
of it might have been a little bit. But we
we made him, um, we kind of there was a distance.
(58:51):
He was always in this very special place. Part of
it was, you know, our c a's big act was Elvis.
And I sat with the guy from our c A
who had always been like the Elvis guy he'd always
put on the road with with Elvis, and and then
he said something very interesting to me. Early on, he said,
she said that Elvis always had to be taken care
(59:13):
of because without Elvis, you know, they were like fifty
people on the road whatever. But without Elvis there, I'll
be out of a job. So it was like, you know,
you were there for Elvis, and I took that to heart,
like we were there, there were thirty something I was,
but without David Bowie, we wouldn't be there. We were
there for David Bowie. So we we treated him all.
I certainly treated him with kid gloves. It wasn't no
(59:34):
longer my friend at that point he was, you know,
the alien rock star. Basically, why did the famous Hammersmith
Odean show in seventy three were the retirement concerts? So
called retirement concert Why did that occur? Was it financially motivated,
creatively motivated? All the above, but the retirement Yeah, well
(59:55):
a few reasons. Um, it was financial. But but first
of all, you know, we've been on the road. He
had been on the road for a year and a
half of I mean, he did need a little bit
of a break. We all did. Um, that was a
year and a half solid touring. But the other thing
(01:00:15):
that happened was publishing. Um Defrees was in a dispute
with the publishing company and he wanted to get David
off of that publishing company. And and uh so he
didn't want to deliver anymore. He did not want to
deliver any new material. And if you notice, the next
album was pin Ups, which was all covers. So that
(01:00:36):
was part of it. The other part of it was
when we had been in l A. You know, the
spiders got well, Mike Garrison was a scientologist. He was
the piano player, and he got the boys a little
bit involved in scientology and and the whole thing of
money came up because because all of us had been
(01:00:57):
done on a shoe string for the all a year.
Even though the money had begun to come in a
little bit, still nobody was being paid. I mean we
were being paid very small amounts, like subsistence wages, including
the band. So the band's media expenses might be paid.
Everything was paid, but they didn't get a salary. And
(01:01:20):
Mike Garthon did get a salary. And when it came
out like well he was making eight hundred dollars a
week and they're making sev it was like what. So
that created that began to erode the relationship between the
band and David and Maine Man. They were demanding money
and there were there really wasn't any money, so um
(01:01:43):
and David took that. You know, David also had a
history of leaving bands. You know that he wasn't this
was not the Beatles, this is like his support band.
So I think he took a lot of that as
a betrayal and so he was like done with the
band once that started. Basically, plus I think creatively, you know,
he didn't want to be stuck as any starts for
(01:02:03):
the rest of his life, so he needed to recharge
and move on. Um. So all of those things had
to play. Um. He didn't They didn't know that that.
Nobody knew what it meant that he was retiring. Basically,
he was retiring as he startist. Wasn't retiring David Bowie um. Um,
(01:02:24):
but the band was being retired and they didn't know that.
So they found that out on the stage. That wasn't
so nice. But maybe that was like getting back at
them for their betrayal whatever. Um. Yeah. So and that
that was the in some ways the beginning of the end,
because it was kind of like at that moment, everyone
(01:02:46):
did stop and you could relax to a certain point.
David could relax to a certain point. The freest could
relax to a certain I mean, they could stand back
and kind of evaluate what they had been doing, what
they had been working so hard towards for the last
two or three years, because a lot of it had
been accomplished. At that point. David was responsible for four
(01:03:08):
percent of our record sales in the UK. He still
didn't have any success in the United States except for
public for publicity and press. I mean, he didn't have
wreck big record sales in the United States. He didn't
have a number one single or anything like that when
he didn't England. So all his life he had been
working towards becoming a pop star. That summer he was
(01:03:31):
a pop star, and for for the next few months
he was living in London like a pop star. An
Tonio J. Freese who wanted to be this entrepreneur and
impresario and had been working all his life towards that
could sit back and get his Park Avenue office and
ran out a big house in Greenwich and act like
the mogul that he wanted to be. So they had
(01:03:51):
both kind of accomplished their goals. And that next period
of like six months or so, before David came to
the United States to prepare for the Diamonds Us tour um,
that was kind of all about that, and it was
kind of the beginning of the end of mean Man.
My last question, is there an image or a scene
to you that really sums up that period of your
(01:04:12):
life with David There like one snapshot or vig yet
that you treasure above all others. Wow, that's an interesting question.
It's funny because I mean, I'm going to just tell
you the first thing that comes to my mind, and
I don't know why, because it's certainly not dramatic. We
were on the road somewhere and this was during the
(01:04:34):
Young Americans tour, and we were in David Sweet we
were watching television. We were watching California Split, which was
a movie directed by Robert All. It's just a nice
moment that we had because he was you know, it
was he was he was in the midst of trying
to write a screenplay and he was headed towards the movies,
(01:04:55):
and we both were just in total awe Robert All.
But it was kind of because I guess by that time,
I mean, the whole thing, the whole experience for me
was not one. I was not ambitious. I did not
want to be in the music business. I got involved
in all of this because these are my friends and
we all loved each other. We were all very close,
(01:05:16):
including Lee and Cherry, Angie and and and David certainly,
but you know, you get caught up in the work
and that that kind of it kind of turns into
something else. But that was I guess, one moment where
I felt the kinship with him again. And it wasn't
based on you know, David Bowie Superstar or Tony's Aneta
president of Main Mean, it was just two people who
(01:05:38):
watching this movie. That was nice And I don't know
why it seems significant at this moment, but I guess
it was because your friends it was getting back to
originally were right exactly exactly. Off the Record is a
(01:06:00):
auction of I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard,
please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Off the Record is the production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
I'm your host, Jordan Runtak. Thanks so much for listening.
Our latest chapter focused on a Ladin Saying, the American
sibling of Ziggy Stardust. He was born during David Bowie's
first tour of the United States in the fall two.
(00:22):
His bisected face split in two by a lightning bolt,
goes a long way and illustrating David's conflicted views about
these undoubtedly exciting times. On one hand, he was seeing
America a close range, living out as Jack Caroact dreams
on the road. The crowds were growing, the press followed
his every move. Everything he'd been working towards seemed to
(00:43):
becoming true. But on the flip side, he was physically
and mentally exhausted. The constant travel, grueling performances, financial chaos,
and psychic confusion caused by as many characters had stretched
David to his breaking point. He discovered as many newly
six TuS for artists do the commercial success the man's
(01:03):
creative repetition and repetition was one of David's least favorite words.
Rather than succumb to the slow artistic death, David would
have to kill off his most beloved creation. Witness to
the high highs and low lows was Tony Zenetta, a
legendary figure in the experimental downtown drama scene of late
sixties New York. He first entered David's orbit as a
(01:24):
cast member of Andy Warhol's play pork Ine, co starring
with last Week's guest Cherry Vanilla. Before long, both would
be swept up in the whirlwind of David's management company,
Maine Man. In case you're not already familiar, this was
not your average suit and tie kind of company, headed
up by Bowie's larger than life manager, Tony Defrees. The
(01:46):
organization traded in excess in style. In practice, it was
more like an elaborate performance piece and a strict bottom
line business. This goes a long way in explaining why
Defreese hired Zenetta to be made Man's president, despite the
fact and he had no business experience whatsoever. Saneta would
later be drafted into a much more demanding role as
(02:06):
David's tour manager, overseeing the tracks for a Ziggy Stardust
and later on the notoriously over the top Diamond Dogs Production,
keeping the show on the road and egos and check
all with a daily operating budget of close to zero dollars,
It's not a job for the faint of heart. Sanetta
was gracious enough to speak to me about those thrilling
days on tour with David as his star soared to
(02:28):
New Heights and how just as fast everything changed. Before
we get to Bowie, I want to take it back
a little further. How did you first get involved with
Andy Warhol in the theater of the Ridiculous in the
downtown arts community? Well, you know, I I mean, I
always loved acting and I loved theater. I did high
(02:50):
school plays and I did plays in college. But when
I got to New York, of course it was a
little different, and I didn't get involved right away. But
I've been here a couple of years and I started
doing some acting. Blah blah blah blah blah. Fast forward.
I had met Tony and Garcia when I first got
to New York, because Tony and Gracia was from Massapequa,
(03:12):
Long Island and my college roommate, Tom Carbury was from
Massapequa Long Island, so Tom had grown up with Tony
and with Jimmy Slattery, a k a. Candy Darling. So
I met Candy and Tony early on. And then Tony
was working with the Playhouse of the Ridiculous, John Bacaro's company,
(03:36):
and then Tony was a playwright, and Tony began directing,
and one of the early things he directed was a
play by Jackie Curtis called Femme Fatale. And then the
meantime his own plays were being done, had a play
called Sheila. He had a play called Island But and
then he directed a play called World Birth of a
(03:57):
Nation by Wayne County. Tony always had aspirations to be
kind of a very legitimate writer director, so he always
advertised in the trade papers, which most people downtown did
not do, but he did. And I saw the ad
for the casting for World Birth of a Nation, and
by that time I had decided that I really wanted
(04:19):
to work with the Ridiculous because I had had just
seen a play that John Macaro did, or the playoffs
of the Ridiculous did, called Nightclub, which was absolutely mesmerizing.
It was just incredible. So I went to the audition
for World and Tony remembered me and he said, diling
you don't have to where audition. Of course you could
be in my play anyway. That was in like September
(04:42):
of nineteen seventy, and from then on my world kind
of changed because I entered the world of The Ridiculous
and the one day I met Tony and my new Tony,
I met Lee black Childer's I met Wayne Jane County.
I met Terry Vanilla, who was still Cathy Doherty. I
met Jamie Di Carlo Lots Andrews, who would later come
(05:03):
work with us at Maine Men. So I met I
met basically the people that I would become closest to
for the next years. I mean, Cherry Vanilla and I
are still closest, closest friends, and that's been quite a
that's what's that fifty years something like that. And then
that leads into into Pork, which I mean, what was
it like when Pork hit New York? I mean, I
(05:24):
can't imagine there's anything like that before on on the stage. Well,
that's an interesting question for a lot of reasons. First
of all, Warhole. You know, if you were in downtown, well,
if you were in The Ridiculous, let me put it
that way, in Downtown theater and if you went to
Max's Kansas City, and if you know, or if you
were somehow in the art world and the fringe of
(05:47):
the art world, I mean, Warhole was kid and the the
Factory was was what it was all about, you kind of.
I mean most of us wanted to become a part
of the Factory or we wanted to be superstars or
whatever whatever whatever. You know. We hung out with Jackie
Curtis and Candy and Hollywood Love, I Love, Derek Emerson,
(06:07):
who else, oh, Geraldine Smith and Andrea warholo whips. These
are all people that went to the Max's Kansas City.
But so to be associated with Warhol was like very exciting.
But that's one part of it. The other part of
it was the play itself, because you know, this was
tape recorded conversations that Andy turned over to Tony and
(06:30):
Gracia and then Tony and Gracia I mean the transcripts.
But there were hours and hours and hours and hours
of transcripts. So Tony and Garcia went through the transcripts
and put them together to create this quote unquote play
which brings, you know, it really questions the idea of
what is a play, which Warhol had already done with
(06:51):
his book A which was taped conversations with the Superstar
and also playoffs of The Ridiculous Star un Dean. So
that I mean that was a novel called A So
was it a novel, you know? But but it was
also the same thing as his paint takes painted. He
painted a soup can and put it on the gallery
(07:13):
wall and said it was art. So I mean, what
I'm trying to say is it just confirmed Warhol's um
role as a conceptual artist. So paintings and silk screens,
books and now a play. Now he was moving into
the film and then the idea of theater. So one
(07:33):
of the most interesting things about Pork was was it
brings it to question the whole idea of what makes
theater or what makes a play and uh and it
was definitely perceived as a play when it at the
beginning of middle Internet end thanks to Ingrassias editing and
how we put the thing together. So it was exciting
on a lot of levels socially to be part of
(07:54):
the factory and just artistically to be a part of
this process in this whole idea of performance. Also, I
want to ask you about the culture element of the
play as well. I mean, there were a lot of
things going on on the stage that people didn't see
very much, especially when you took the show to England.
I can only imagine how that was received over there,
(08:16):
because I think only a few years earlier they removed
the basically the censorship position in the government where all
the plays had to be approved by I forget that
the person's title, but I can only imagine how how
that went down in England. That must have been shocking
in the best way and just completely blew some minds. Well,
while we were there, there was and I'm not um
(08:41):
my memory fails me a little, but there was something
called the Trial of Oz. It was right, it was
all about censorship in the arts and um that was
going on while we were in England that summer summer
of ninety one. Plus the plant, the movies and I
think it was lesson trash could not be shown in
(09:02):
a cinema. They had to be shown in a cinema
club because of censorship, right, exactly funny, So yeah, there
was a censorship issue. Now I don't remember if they
came to review it, how we got past the sensors.
If it was different for live performance at that point.
But the thing about Pork that was also interesting was
(09:23):
that it was it was a lot about sex, a
lot of talk about sex. There was a lot of nudity.
Jerry Miller douched on stage. Um. However, there was also
almost a Charlie Brown kind of innocence quality about Pork.
(09:44):
It was it was very childlike and very kind of innocent.
So in its in its display of like public of sexuality,
it wasn't really well, it wasn't prurient er and you know,
it wasn't like pandering too. It wasn't pornographic in any way.
It was it was very childlike and I think and
(10:04):
it was comedy basically, it was funny. So people were
not offended by the open sexuality because of the way
it was presented. How did David first become aware of it?
I've heard multiple different stories about Dana Gleesbie possibly auditioning
and taking a script to him. How did you first
enter his orbit? I guess Well, Danna denies that. Now,
(10:27):
for some reason, I always thought that that was how
it happened. She says, no, she never auditioned. That's total bunk. Well,
I don't know where I got that story from he
became aware of it. Um he may have been aware
of it anyway. But when we were doing Pork in
New York and this that spring, um there there was
a little article in Rolling Stone magazine about him. He
(10:52):
had come to to the United States in nineteen seventy.
That movie that's out now called Start Us by the Way,
is about him coming to the United States in nineteen
seventy and doing this promotional tour for Mercury Records. He
didn't have the right visa to perform, so he went
around and talked to radio stations and met people and
(11:13):
blah blah blah, blah blah. So part of it was here.
There was a little this little interview with him or
I don't know if it was actually and I guess
it was an interview in Rolling Stone. And there was
a photo of him in in his famous man dress.
So that titilated us. Me and Lee and Wayne County especially,
we were fascinated by because he was very pretty wearing
(11:35):
this dress, and but we didn't know his music. We
didn't know much else about him. Now, when we were
in London doing Pork, Cherry was sort of a group here.
She fancied herself a groupie, and she decided she would
do uh a column for it was Cream magazine called
Cherry Vanilla Scoops for You. Basically, it was an excuse
(11:57):
for her to contact bands that she wanted to see
in concert and get in for free. So she and
Lee would go to all these concerts, leave taking photos
and Cherry meeting the band and ostensibly writing about them.
One and they saw an ad for the Man in
the Dress David Bowie. He was playing a place called
(12:19):
the Country Club, which was a small venue. I was
thought it was acoustic. It wasn't acoustic, but it wasn't
like a big rock and roll show. It's kind of
a team rocket anyway. It was a kind of a
tame concert. They went. She, Cherry, Lee and Wayne went
to see David Bowie um and either he knew they
(12:40):
were coming or somehow they connected before because he actually
announced them from the stage and they stood up. Since
Cherry stood up and took about and thrust her tid out,
which was a signature moved for pork because that's what
bridget poke. Pork is based on Bridget Pokes tape recordings.
She was a Warhol superstar well, always went around with
(13:01):
one breast. Not always, she frequently would expose one breast.
That was like a cute little thing that Bridget did.
And you know she had books of tip prints and
books of cock prints. That was her art anyway, So
Terry exposed it to it and they all make contact
and Aie was there. I don't know, I don't think
(13:23):
Dana was. But anyway, they invited David and Andy to
come to see Pork and that's how that's how the
first connection was made. And then David and Angie and
Dannick LLSB and Tony defrees them at their manager I
think Mick Ronson. Yeah, mc ronson was with them too,
came to see Pork and they came back stage and
(13:46):
blah blah blah. We ended up going to the Simba Row,
which was the dance club and Kensington High Street and
that was our first encounter, my first encounter. And said,
you were really more taken with Angie at this stage
rather than day because he was a bit more more
shy and reticent. Well, I don't know if he was
(14:08):
actually shy, but he was quiet and he didn't really Uh,
it wasn't that forthcoming. She was very effusive and very outgoing.
And yes, she was definitely kind of the diplomat of
the two. She was the one that was really reaching out. Yeah,
he kind of stood back, kind of taking it in.
And then even at the sombrero, he didn't really participate.
(14:30):
He was sitting in the corner speaking to I was
every call a Japanese boy. Uh, closely huddled. I don't
know what that was all about. But anyway, but Angie
was rocous and dancing with me and Cherry and carrying on.
So we had a good old time with Angie. Mick
ronson coward in the corner because he was scared to
death of Jerry. Jerry could be a little aggressive. It
(14:54):
was a little much for mick Um. And then at
the end of the night Angie invited me to up
to their house the next day in Beckenham, which I
did out of Hadden Hall. What was that scene, like
a pictured looking like a Gothic commune or something, Well,
it was. It was kind of a Gothic house. I mean,
it was very imposing from the exterior. It was. It
(15:16):
was an old mansion and yeah, it was quite impressive.
But they they lived in the entry hall. Basically you
know that this was an old mansion that was divided
into apartments into flats, so they certainly didn't live in
much of the house. That you walked in and you
were in this big entry hall and there was a
staircase that went up and there was a balcony, but
(15:39):
the balcony all the rooms were closed off up there. Oh,
there was was this balcony and although I didn't see it,
that's evidently where like Rhino and the band slept if
they stayed there, and it was kind of a sleeping balcony,
I guess. And then downstairs there was a bedroom, a
music room, and I guess the kitchen. I don't know
if I even saw all the kitchen. So it wasn't big.
(16:01):
It was like three or four room apartment. Um, yeah,
but very impressive from the outside. What was the dynamic
like between David and Angie at that time, Well, they
were they were pretty you know, they were like a
really tight couple at that time. The baby was young.
(16:24):
They were the kind of couple where you know, one
could start speaking and the other could end the sentence
sort of thing. Angie was always more outgoing, but and
she was very very um but she could she could
definitely when he wanted to take over, she would definitely
step back and put the spotlight on him. He was
the kind of he always My whole association with him
(16:47):
was he's the kind of person who if he didn't
want to be noticed, he wasn't. He didn't You didn't
even see it. He could be very It was almost
like crawling into himself. He just didn't see him. But
if he wanted to takes center stage, it was almost
like there was a spotlight that suddenly went on, the
following spot that went on him, so you didn't see
anything but him and it but almost like turning it
(17:09):
on and off. He really had that ability. It was
like great Marilyn Monrose story where she's walking down the
street with I think her photographer or friend and no
one notices her. It's just a crowded New York City
street and she's just walking around and her friend says
something like, I can't believe you're able to just do this,
and Maryland says, do you want to see her? Do
you want to see Maryland? And then just put these
little imperceptible shifts. All of a sudden, she just radiates
(17:32):
some people. Cars slowed down and people start turning and
looking at her, and it reminds me of what you're
saying about David. It's exactly the same thing, exactly. And
he was he's he was extremely charming. He was very seductive, intelligent,
you know, when he wanted to turn it on, it
was like whoa. It was pretty radiant. You couldn't luck away,
(17:56):
let me put it that way. But the two of
them were very close. She was extremely extremely I mean,
she definitely took a backseat. Everything was about him, Nomanama.
She called him noa uh she um, he could do
no wrong. You know, everything was David David, David, David, David,
David David. And he kind of soaked it up. He
(18:17):
he did like that kind of adoration and support, you know,
he did he Lindsay Kemps once said this, he was
the kind of person who opened the door for and
he was the kind of person who opened the door,
and she was pushing doors down for him. Yeah. She
(18:37):
she was very aggressive where he wasn't, and she was
like noisy and lively where he wasn't. So I think
he needed that at that time. And they were they
were really a good couple and they seemed to be,
you know, very fond of each other. And it was good.
It was good until it wasn't good. I guess it
was good for a long time. Now it was good
(18:58):
until he I think he didn't need so much anymore,
because that's again I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But
he was He's David was pretty self centered in that mean,
I don't mean that as a criticism necessarily, but everything
about him was really about and it all came out
in his art. Everything about him was but his art
(19:19):
so so the people around him. He was only interested
in people that somehow he could absorb and they would
spit back out in whatever art he was doing if
he didn't find you interesting. But believe me, he was
not gonna turn that light on or give you the
time of day and money was done. He was done,
you know. He didn't necessarily stay interested in the same
(19:42):
things of the same people all the time, although to
his credit, I mean, George Underwood was a lifetime friend.
Jeffrey McCormick was a lifetime friend. Uh. He and Iggy
James Osterberg were friends for quite a long time. I mean,
I think I think David could also be very generous
in his friendships. She certainly helped Iggy a lot. Um. Okay,
(20:06):
that's it. Well, I guess I think sort of piggybacking
of what you just said. I mean, very soon after
seeing Pork, Bowie starts putting together his own piece of performance.
Are the sort of Bractean theater pieces? Did he start us?
What kind of influence do you think Pork had on
on that the construction? But he didn't start doing that
because of Pork, that's for sure. I mean, you know,
(20:30):
everybody's always gotten carried away through the years of him
taking things from Pork. I'm sure he did, but it
wasn't really that. It's not like he was not alive
until Pork he told me about what he was doing.
You know, when that that Sunday afternoon, we talked a
lot about theater. I didn't know much about Brecktean theater.
He was explaining Breckteean theater to me and he was
(20:52):
talked and at that time it wasn't Ziggy wasn't totally evolved,
although I think the music was pretty much involved because
he was he was very infatuated with Freddie Barrett, who
was who made ended up making a lot of his
early costumes. But Freddie was a boy from the Sombrero
when Freddie was great looking and Freddie could like really
(21:13):
make an entrance, you know, you cut, you know, Freddie
was one of those boys. It was very pretty. You
noticed Freddie also, it was like very sharp witted and
kind of fun to be around. But I think David
was kind of basing Ziggy in some ways around Freddie.
He um. He wanted to record Freddie. Of course Freddie
(21:34):
couldn't sing, but he had the idea of having a
band where Freddie would be the lead singer. Again, the
fans are gonna kill me because they know this better
than I do, because he had a band called Hype,
but I can't remember if that was where Freddie was
supposed to be a lead singing or something else, but
it didn't really work out. But it was kind of
a dress rehearsal for the Ziki. Oh the Arnold Corns
(21:57):
Project ND points Yes, that's a see you no more
than I do. Um. The Honold Corns Project kind of
morphed into Ziggy in my opinion, but it was his
kind of address rehearsal, you know, for creating this character
at least, so he was in the process of really
creating this. Yes, it kind of was zinky was I mean,
(22:18):
that's that was going to go to the West End
next the next week. But it was kind of a
musical in a way, and it was about this alien
rock star that he then decided to play. But when
and when in Brecty and yes it was Brecty, and
that it wasn't him, It was him, David Bowie standing
there and saying, this is Ziggy stared us, this is
(22:43):
my creation, is this is a this is an alien
rock star. It's not me, but I'm playing it on
stage and and I don't think and I think it
was pretty remarkable because no, as far as I don't know, no,
that hadn't happened in rock and roll. So he was
accused of being, you know, authentic because he was. It
was misunderstood what he was doing. No, he wasn't ziggy
(23:05):
startnist He was showing us ziggy startist um. In terms
of Pork, what was I I do have a couple
of theories myself, and they're just my opinions. Doesn't mean
anything other than it's my opinion. One of the things
about Pork again, I was telling you how kind of
it was kind of childlike, even though it was very
kind of outrageous, and some of the dialogue and some
(23:27):
of the ideas that was presenting, so it had a
flam We had a sexual flamboyance about it and in it.
Um it wasn't that it was so gender neutral, because
I don't really think it was, but it was very
um kind of outrageous, and and and those of us
who were involved in that company were all kind of
(23:48):
sexually outrageous, kind of sexual outlaws. I like to call
them sexual outlaws. So I say, I think that now
I'm not saying he wasn't outrage It was probably more
of a sexual outlaw than any of us. But the
idea of presenting it so blatantly might have um influenced him. Plus,
you know, he was very influenced by again going back
to Warhol, the Velvet Underground and lou Read and lou
(24:14):
Reid certainly had the sexual ambiguity about him. Was he gay?
Was he straight? Was he androgynous? He's gay, he's married.
I mean, nobody quite knew what that was all about.
And then the other edge of the drugs. But it's
not even going to the drugs just the sexuality was
very um mysterious, shall we say, And I think he
(24:36):
incorporated a lot of that into the Ziggy persona um
um makeup wise, I mean, I think I think the
look of Ziggy certainly was it wasn't so much about
from Pork. It was really there was almost pure Lindsey Kemp.
But I see a lot there's also a lot of
other coincidences going on, or a lot of synchronicity Lynn
(25:00):
the Kemp's company and the Playhouse, so the ridiculous although
they weren't similar at all, were very similar, particularly visually
and particularly because of some of their influences Japanese theater
for instance. You know John Bacaro from the Playhouse had
spent time in Japan, was very interested are very um
(25:20):
um um my mind's going blank, very um Well, Kabuki
theater had a big, big influence, very influenced by kabuki
theater and the look of kabuki theater that met makeup um.
But the whole style of kabuki he really incorporated into
(25:43):
the Playhouse. But Lindsey Kemp was doing kind of the
same thing. Plus Lindsay and John had other similarities in
that they were both interested in kind of creating something
that was new. It wasn't like what Lindsay was doing.
Wasn't just mine, but you couldn't call it really egg.
You know, it was drag, it was mine, it was circus,
that was Japanese. It was all sorts of things I'm
(26:05):
mushed in together to create something new. And that certainly,
um wasn't one of the biggest influences influences on David
and taking a little bit from here, a little bit
from there, a little bit from over there, and all
taking it all in and creating something new. And I
think he always did that. So he wasn't averse to
borrowing ideas or things from other people, that's for sure.
(26:29):
But like a true artist, he borrowed and then and
then it came out in a different way his way. Um.
So sometimes people say, well, that was the playhouse or
that was this that not really there were a lot
of things happening all over the globe that at the
same time. So I think I think, if anything, he
certainly already dead. Its gratitude to Lindsey kemp Um. You know,
(26:52):
a lot of the ziggy look was from clockwork. Orange
started out as almost pure clockwork Orange, but he didn't
get it quite right, so it became again, it became
more his own. It wasn't really Clockwork Orange at the
end of the day, it was David Bowie, or it
was Ziggy Stardust. But if you if you marry Lindsay
Kemp's mind and the clockwork or in the Clockwork Orange,
(27:14):
you'll get Ziggy startist. I wanted to ask you about
sort of the very famous uh second trip to the
United States and in I think September of seventy one,
(27:35):
when David's signing with tow Our c A with Tony Defrees.
I wanted to ask you about Tony DeFries because I
feel like he's a really misunderstood character in the whole
Bowie story. What what did Tony do for David Everything? Yeah,
good answer. I mean again, that wouldn't have been a
David Bowie without Tony, or they might have been, but
(27:56):
nobody would have known about it. Um. Tony is um. Well,
he's pretty interesting character in many many ways, but I
think that the really key thing was, you know, David
was very ambitious and very focused, so it was Tony.
(28:17):
Tony was looking for um. Yeah, I think he wanted
to be Alan Klein. But he needed he needed the
Beatles or he needed whatever. At first he was going
after Stevie Wonder and that didn't not work anyway. Tony
needed a vehicle, and along came David Bowie. No one
was interested in David Bowie at that time. David Bowie
(28:39):
was old news. He had been around for a long time.
Uh so it wasn't you know, he had been around
since he was fifteen. It's it's almost ten years at
this point, not quite. But there wasn't anything but I mean,
there was nothing wrong with him, but he wasn't particularly extraordinary.
You look at all those other English bands. They were
making it a j eighteen nineteen twenties anyone. Uh, he
(29:01):
was almost getting old because he wasn't really a different
generation from the Beatles and the Stones. What wasn't two
years younger? Um? Anyway, So Tony had brand damn um.
You might call him meglomaniac. But he was a fascinating man.
He was very intelligent. Uh, he could expound on anything
(29:25):
for hours. But he was also pretty fearless. He was
not afraid of taking chances and he was smart. So um, yeah,
you know this this all took a lot of money
that Tony wasn't afraid of going out after and he
when he signed David, he uh, the deal is misunderstood
(29:48):
number one. And the deal the deal actually was not
that different from a lot of other UM English acts
at the time. The deal was a fifty fifty split
after expenses is Tony Uh. Now you have to understand
David Bowie had no incomes when Tony signed him, and
(30:08):
Tony said to him, I will support you. Don't have
to worry about anything. I'll pay your rent, by your
new guitar, by the fabrics from Liberty of whatever, whatever
you need. Don't worry. You're taken care of. And UM
we will if we make any money, we will split
it fifty fifty. If we don't, well then it's my loss.
(30:29):
That's pretty seductive if you're an artist sitting there with
nothing in your pocket. Now, of course there was enough
side to that eventually, but we'll get so Tony took
over everything. The first thing he did was he UM
got him a publishing deal. He changed the publishing to
get a little bit of money, and then he started
started shopping for a record deal. He wanted to go
(30:53):
with our c a global not our c a u K.
He did not signed David. R C a u K
signed David. That's why they came to New York to sign.
It was r C A Worldwide because he felt that
would give him a lot more cloud, which it did. Um.
So David wasn't really an English act anymore. He was
an English act starting to a global company. Um. So
(31:15):
Tony was not afraid to take huge chances when um,
when they came to the you know, and he had
he had certain like principles that he stood by. David
was not going to be a support act in the
United States and he never was. He was only going
to travel first class, which he did. Tony's philosophy was
to be a star, you had to act like a star.
So David stay at the Plaza Hotel and went everywhere
(31:38):
in limos. Everybody's looking, I know, everybody in New York's like,
look like, what he's going on here? This guy hasn't
sold one record. Um, but you know, people began to
perceive of him, um, not as that loser who had
been around for ten years, but as oh, let's watch
what's it, what's going on with him? Um? Now they
were perfectly matched because they off. It had been working
(32:01):
for ten years. David was very smart, he had been studying,
he um, he was focused, he was ready, he was
ready to take the next step. He was ready to
go out in the world. And Sheldon Zink he started
us and the Freeze was willing to take the chance
to get the right record company, to get the bookings,
(32:22):
to do this, to do that, and they did it.
So there are ambitions for that moment at least met again.
I keep using the words in choinicity, but it was
in chronictic. They were perfect for each other at that moment.
And that moment is seventy seventy three. And then it
started to fade when the success began to commit. It
(32:44):
began to fade because they didn't need each other quite
as much. And then the money began to be questioned
by why you were were spilling fifty but you bought
that and you all that kind of thing. And then
there were some of some a few things, definitely the
um upset, the Apple car shall we say, but you
(33:05):
mentioned the synchronicity. I mean, it's just incredible thing. I mean,
even on that one trip in September when he goes
to New York, I mean's all the people that he meets,
I mean, he meets he meets Iggy, he meets Andy Warhol,
is all coming together, this convergence of influences. I mean,
what what an incredible trip that must have been. Yeah,
I mean it didn't seem it that's the time. But
now looking back, yeah see he also I get credit
(33:31):
for some of the stuff that I certainly didn't do.
I did not introduce David Bowie to Louis Lisa Robinson
and Richard Robinson did. Lisa Robins. Richard Robinson was part
of the A n R team at R C A Records.
Lisa was his wife. Lisa was a writer. She wrote
for the New York Post, and the two of them
had two magazines. They had Hit Parader and Rock Scene,
(33:54):
which were very well read amongst American teenagers. Not that
much in New York or maybe London, but in the
American Hartley and every kid, every kid in mid America
read Roxy magazine. So Lisa and Lisa was very She
was very much the queen of the rock and road journalists,
I think, and I don't remember another. I know that
(34:16):
David and Andrew went to A or David maybe Andre
wasn't even there, went to a party of their apartment
ad during that week. I don't remember if if he
actually met Lou there or he He certainly met Lou
the night of the signing when we all went to
the ginger Man after the signing, and of course Lisa
(34:36):
and Richard were very much a part of that, and
it was with Lisa and Richard that we then went
to Max's Kansas City, where Danny Fields was who had
been he's manager, and he happened to be at Danny's
apartment and Danny called him to come me. David so
um um, so yeah, he did a lot in that week,
(34:59):
and the fact revisit to I mean, it's just it's
mind boggling to think of of all the people he
met me. Now you've said that, that Bowie Warhol, and
it makes sense too, I can't imagine. Mean, they both
sort of reserved, I guess at first blush. So it
sounds like it wasn't the most successful meeting in the
world between the two. It wasn't terrible. I mean, you know,
(35:21):
these things that are kind of ordinary take on legendary reputations.
It was just that David was not a star. You know,
he was just he was He wasn't a star. He
had had some records out, Yeah, but it wasn't like
they were going to lay down the red carpet because
the superstar was walking and he wasn't a superstar and
no Andy. To be to really click with Andy, you
(35:44):
had to be kind of a certain kind of personality,
and you know, it's how funny stories and entertain and
David wasn't that kind of personality at all. He was
kind of a serious artiz if anything. And I didn't
Andy that well. I had been in pork, but I
didn't have that kind of rapport with Andy where I'm
(36:04):
going to be calling him on the phone or anything. Um.
And so yeah, we were, you know was it was
really the Defrees engineered the whole thing because he wanted
to talk to Paul Morrissey about film distribution in Europe,
a better distributor for their fat don't now you know.
(36:26):
It was one of those things so they're often the
corner talking about film distribution. Andy kept flitting in and
out and yeah, there was this video crew there, which
it's funny because I hardly was aware of it at
the time. It's years later when you see this video
and you think, oh my god, that is not the
way I remember this meeting. But I guess it's the
way it happened because here's the video and David did
(36:51):
do that weird mind thing, which to me, David was
always a little or at least in those days, was
a little bit on the edge, you know, could have
gone either way, because sometimes he could go into super
corny terry story when you let the mind take over
too much. And that was one of those moments. It's like,
(37:11):
oh my god, what is this guy doing? But it
was okay. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't like humiliatingly embarrassing.
It was just like, is he gonna hurry finished this
kind of embarrassing? What was it? Was? It just like
it was it like a disemboweling thing or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't know one of his mind routines. But to
(37:32):
do that in the middle of the factory was like,
oh my god. I'm sure nobody else didn't mind in
the factory. But see, that's the other thing about David
that it was so key that David was not bothered
by taking chances and failing, and he had been failing
for years, But what is another failure? I mean, you know,
by the time he hit again, he had been around
(37:55):
a long time. Nothing stopped him. Where most of the
people I know, you know, maybe they have one. Whatever
you do something that creative, you kind of shoot your
creative one and if it's not well received, your kind
of like, you know, hulk off into the sunset or something.
Not him, nothing really bothered him, which I think is
a great you know, it's a sign of success. First
(38:17):
of all, he wasn't bothered by failure or success. He
was involved in the process always and he was a
constant seeker that I think we see if you look
at his entire career, especially if you look at the
end of his career and the way he died, but
creating up until the last second, using his illness or
whatever he was going through as creative fodder. That's a
(38:40):
that's a true artist. We don't see that ham Fod.
Is there is there a period for you of of
his work that that really resonates the most with you?
Or I would assume the Ziggy Land the same era
(39:01):
just because it was such a part of your life.
But is there anything in particular that that you really
that's a favorite of yours. Well, of course all of that,
but I happened to love you on Americans. You know,
then I was on that. I wasn't on that tour also,
you know, that was kind of the best of times,
the worst of times, because in some ways things were
beginning to fall apart. But the music was so extraordinary.
(39:23):
The musicians were all first first rate. They were all
great kids. They were so much fun to be a
I mean, Carlos Almar and Robin Clark are two of
the nicest people you could ever ever ever meet, and
there were so much fun. Luther Vandross's fat nineteen year
old boy that was so talented, you know, a sweet Ave.
(39:45):
I love Ava Um Dave Sandborn probably one of the nicest, amazing,
one of the best sax saxophone players in the world. Um.
It was an extraordinary and I think that music it
is just really fantastic. But of course I love Ziggy
that you know, that was that was that was also great.
(40:09):
And then um the last album UM and I had
to have a a pursuit like uh scan cask had
I have an m R where they stick you into
those metal tubes. Had the toe which is like horrifying
and it claims and does this and that. But when
(40:29):
I got in um Um, they said they asked me
if I wanted to hear some music, so I said,
oh yeah. So they played Now I'm blanking out in
the name? Was that the last album Star? Yeah? Black Star? Okay?
So they played black Star and I hadn't heard it,
and I'm listening to it in this tin can Oh god,
(40:56):
may I do your association with him? I mean, that's
the I can't believe. I mean, the queen into that
is pretty overwhelming. It was overwhelming. It was really intense
because number one, it was like getting personal messages from
and the clanging, but most music would have been destroyed
by the clanging, not that. It just set right in.
It was incredible, and the music was it was just like,
(41:17):
oh my god, I can't believe he made this album
like two weeks before he died or whatever. It was
just fantastic, and it really it really gave me a deeper,
fuller appreciation for him and his work. It was absolutely incredible.
So I thought that was also, you know, I hadn't
I hadn't listened to that much of what he did
(41:39):
um Um. In the eighties or nineties really, so I
kind of lost track of him in the late seventies.
And again for me, you know, it was this was
a friendship that blossomed into something else that I had
never expected. So it wasn't like, um, I was that
smitten with the idea of David Bowie. He was just
(42:00):
somebody I happened to work with for a few years. Um.
I don't know that that sounds about making myself clear,
But I worked with a lot of talented people, you know,
they just didn't become as famous as he did. I mean,
you rapidly ascended the ranks of maineman too, I believe, president.
I mean, how how did that happen? How did you become,
(42:21):
you know, the head of the American Division of Maine
man seemingly overnight, like well, it wasn't exactly all night
right right right, couple of months. I don't know, because
I was like tight with him and Tony. Tony and
I got along really really well. Once he started coming
to he would come to New York after that signing
of URCA Records and RCA records, Tony would come to
(42:44):
New York every couple of weeks to like where the
record company up and he would always call me. I
would always get together with him. Then I started just
doing like basically errands for him. But you know, we again,
we we um we we turn all this stuff into
like legend and everything's iconac. It's just I was just
doing errands for him, and they were just doing the best.
(43:07):
You know, it wasn't. It wasn't nobody was looking at
under a micro microscope and saying, oh my god, this
is just incredible. It was me passing out records and
it was doing whatever. He didn't know anybody else in
New York. Neither did David. You were a friend in
New York. You were that guy. I was the friend
in New York. And and we got and you know, meanly,
(43:27):
it was a family. We all loved each other. I
only brought in my best friends Lee, well, they weren't
even my best friends at the time. We became best
friends Lee and Cherry because they were more involved in
the rock scene than I was, and I thought that
they would, like, you know, I'll be able to contribute more,
which they did. Um. Lee was phenomenal. We sent Lee
(43:48):
out as the advanced man and if you know anything
about Lee Black Childers. He was like the most charismatic,
charming person in the world, bleached blonde hair and black eyeliner,
and and he just walked proudly through the world with
his camera, taking pictures of everyone and making everyone feel
like a million bucks. That was lead so for him
to walk into Cleveland. He had friends immediately of everybody
(44:12):
in the tattl paving the way for us to get there.
And Cherry, none of us had ever been inside of
an office. Cherry had been a producer and advertising. She
knew it went around the office, and she wasn't working it.
She was kind of at a down period in her life.
So I we just hired Carry to answer the phones
for a few days, and she immediately took over start
(44:33):
organizing everything because she was the only one that knew how,
and she was brilliant. Tony became totally dependent on her.
She put the whole office together. She was absolutely fantastic.
And then when she got bored with that, she became
the press lady. And now she had never done press,
and she was brilliant at press. She created a press
list of like five thousand contacts we sent up the
(44:57):
main man lose letters became sort of legend, Jerry, that
was all Cherry Vanilla. Um. And then when we just
started to go in to make our own to make
TV commercials, who produced them Cherry Vanilla because again she
had worked in advertising. Um. Now, Cherry Cherry is one
of my dearest friends. I love her, and she's always
(45:18):
stressed certain things about herself, Like she was a group
heach was this she was, like, Cherry's a really smart
woman and really talented and a lot a lot of
things that she's always played down. Um, she's played up
with certain things and played down the rest of it.
And she's a very capable, resourceful person and a lot
(45:39):
of maintenance success was due to Cherry Vanilla. All of
you were doing so much were you thinking of? You mean,
not only you the you know, American president of the
American Division of Maine, man, you're the tour manager for
the city start us tour on top of all that,
Like I can't imagine when you slept, Well what do
you being president him? I mean I wasn't exactly righting
(45:59):
the Senate. I mean that was like, you know, I
signed some papers now and then I was the tour
manager is what I was? Yes, I was a tour manager.
You know, that's that was really my job, right and
you and I'll tell you how I got I became
the tour manager. Um. I went to England with Tony
(46:22):
just before they came to the United States to do
Ziggy started and it was David was doing the Rainbow,
which was a famous gig the Rainbow Theater in London.
Then we went, we went to Manasion, we went to
some other cities in northern England. We get to the
first town, I don't remember what it was, but it
(46:45):
was we got that at night. We go into this
hotel and everybody kind of sits around in the lobby
and it was like nothing's happening. We're just sitting there
and I'm like, I want to I'm tired. I want
to get to my room, but nobody's saying, oh, Tony,
your room's over there are here's your key. So finally
(47:08):
I went up to the desk and signed everyone and
got the keys made every room, you know, passed them out,
wrote down what room people were in. So that's a
room manifest. I didn't know what's called the room manifest
because I wanted to get to my room. But that's
what a road managers. You were tired and suddenly you
(47:29):
woke up a road manager exactly. I mean it was
really that simple. Nobody else was taking the initiative. Being
the only American. We do have a bit more energy.
No offense to English people, but um, yeah, exactly. So
that's how I evolved into me into the road manager then.
(47:49):
And I've told this forgive me if I'm boring you,
because you've probably heard it before. We're now we're gotting
ready to do the US tour. And for the first
week or two we were at a bus which was horrible,
but that's another story. So the bus is sitting in
front of the Plaza Hotel. So I said to Tony, Tony,
because he's said I'm the road manager, say, well, Tony,
(48:12):
what does the road manager do? He said, oh, see,
just make sure they find Cleveland. Point the bus starts
Cleveland and you're good. Yeah, And that was I mean, okay,
I can find Cleveland, and off we went to Cleveland.
Was it? I mean, we're things that. Did it run
(48:34):
smoothly or was it? Was it? Really? I can only
imagine the number of moving parts going on with this,
because this was not a small entourage, right, This was
some thirty something people thirty cluss. Well, the sound was
done by h a company called ground Control, uh you
(48:55):
know to one of David's songs. But anyway, um space already,
but by a guy named Robin Mayhew who um. They
had been doing the sounds in England, so they were
pretty tight. They knew what they were doing. And we
had rented some equipment from a company in Pennsylvania called
Claire Brothers. And we didn't know like anything about lighting
(49:16):
or who to get. So we called Jerry called now
I'm blanking out in his name. He was like a
famous lighting designer in New York. Not Joshua. Well, Bob
C had just gotten out of it an y U
and he worked for this guy with the lighting, the
lighting guru, and Bob C like worked at the film
(49:38):
War He lived upstairs from the film or anyway. Yes,
so we didn't get the big guy, but they said
call called this guy Bob C. Bob C was four
years old, kind of a big hippie looked he looked
like a Hell's angel, like a motorcycle guy. And Bob
C was fantastic. He was so on top of thing.
(50:00):
So he put a little crue I mean he put
it together like immediately. So Bobcy did the lighting. But
Bob Cy was like a really one of those guys
you know that you can depend on uh and if
something goes wrong, you can depend on Bob Cy to
find a solution. And Bobcy became a very very successful
lighting guy. C Factor was his company ended up own
(50:20):
New York City block in Long Island City in New York.
I guess that he ended up doing huge shows all
over the world. But anyway, so we had Bob c
and then um, the thing was, we never had any money.
So we're on the road with no money. I need
(50:43):
no money, um um. And but Tony talked our c
A r c A Corporate into letting us book the
hotels and whatever transportation we needed through their in house
travel agency, which we did plus plus plus plus plus.
(51:07):
So because we were going, I mean we were supposed
to go to check out of the whatever hotel in
Cleveland and pay the bill, well, we didn't pay any
bills because we didn't have any money. We just look
put everything off onto our c A and we got
away with this. They said okay, and they built our
c A. R c A didn't really agree to paying
for anything. They were just supposed to be doing the bookings.
(51:30):
But by the time you know, all the dots got connected, um,
we had charged up about four dred thousand dollars and
we only earned a hundred thousand and the whole three months.
So it was a little um um um spotty. I
suppose you might say. One time we were in uh
(51:52):
we were in Florida. We were in Miami, actually Hollandale,
which is slightly north of Miami, and we had I
think I had like thirty dollars for the whole thirty people.
So Lee and I so this idea was the office
was supposed to wire me some money the next day.
(52:14):
I was supposed to go to Fort Ladder or not
for a lot of though how Hollywood, big Hollywood to
pick it up. And so Lee and I decided, well,
let's go what well, what we'll go out tonight was
the thirty dollars and the next day I'll go pick
up the money and we'll be fine. So Lee and
I did go out, and we spent about over twenty dollars.
(52:39):
We didn't spend the thirty because I saved enough to
take a cab from this hotel to to to Hollywood, Florida,
which was like five or six dollars anyway. So we
did that and the next day I got I got
a cabin and went to the bank in Hollywood. First
of all, I got there like two fifteen, thinking the
(53:00):
band closed at three. It actually closed it too, but
being an aggressive New York or, I would not take out,
and they let me in. But the money wasn't there.
They hadn't arrived. So now I'm still no. I'm with
that ten dollars because I still had a few couple
of dollars in my pocket. So now I'm standing there
(53:23):
in Hollywood. I have to get back to Hollendale, like
oh Jesus. So I thought, well, I'll get a cab.
I'll just go as far as it takes me. When
it runs out, when when the meter runs out, I'll
just say stop, let me out here. So that's what
I did. And so I'm liking a little I don't know,
jeans and whatever. I'm dressed, and I have a briefcase
(53:45):
with me, and it gets it gets to a place.
Actually I knew where we were. We were at Daniel
Beach because Lee and I had gone there the day
before we had walked there from our hotel like it
was like a good seven mile walk. But Daniel Beach
was a gay beat. So I said, oh, let me
out here, and so I paid whatever wherever money I
(54:05):
had left. Now I'm penniless on Daniel Beach. Think you know,
I'll find I'll meet some gay guys. You get asked
him to give me a ride back to Holland All
or our hitchhik or whatever. So I I go to
the beach, but there's nobody on the beach, which I thought,
that's weird. There's nobody on the beach, and I'm walking
down the beach and walking, and the more I walked,
the sicker I'm getting like sick and I'm choking because
(54:29):
it was something called red Tide, which I had never
heard of. I didn't know from red Tide. And you
gotta realize, I'm I mean, I'm all dressed, I'm carrying
my shoes with my briefcase on this beach. So then
I thought, well, let me get to the highway and
I'll hitchhick. But you know, in Florida there's all those intercoastals.
(54:53):
I had to there's a river between me and the
road now, so I I strip off all my clothes,
followed them up, put him on my briefcase, put my
briefcase on my head, and wade across this river into
this sort of like jungle in order to get to
(55:15):
the road, so I can hitchhike to get back to Hollandale.
And uh, and I did, and I got there, and
I dried off, and I put my clothes back on
and I got to the road and the car stopped
immediately some young guy picked me up and brought me
to Holland Town. But that's the kind of adventures we
would often have on the Ziggy Star Ust tour. It
(55:37):
was a little haphazard. Yes, it's gonna say, I mean,
just charging a lot of food room service, because I mean,
how are you going to get food with no cash? Food? Yeah,
no room service, which we cherished everything, the room service.
In Beverly Hill, we stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
You could buy anything at the Beverly Hills Hotel. They
had a drug store that had you know, you could
rent car anything you wanted, You could rent buy the
(56:00):
Beverly Hills Hotel on room service, and we did, I
mean just the personalities on the tour. I mean, was
it easy to was everybody relatively laid back? I mean,
were there any how is David not at all? Well again,
you know you think of these tours and you think
of David Bowie and you think, oh, so glamorous and
(56:23):
so this and so that. That was not the reality.
What the reality was a bunch of boys from northern England.
The band was off of northern England. They had never
been anywhere. Not only that, we had these bodyguards all
from Hall Stewart, George what Tony Frost wasn't wasn't anyway.
(56:45):
They were very like Stewart could be a real pain
in the ass and a real thug, and so could
the other ones. And they like we were on this
bus they started drinking eight o'clock in the morning and rock.
I mean it was not aphisticated group, let me put
it that way. And it was because it was these
boys have never been anywhere, so, you know, traveling in
(57:07):
this glamorous cavalcade, traveling with a bunch of like who
against from northern England. And but I mean a lot
of them arerow some sweet the boy the band is
very sweet, woody and Trevor Nick. You couldn't find a
nice of guy than Mick ronson Um. But it wasn't
(57:28):
what you think. It wasn't what you would want to
project it to be. It wasn't that at all. I
heard a story, I don't know if it's true, that
that David called you one morning and said, I don't
know where I am. I think I'm in a house
in the woods somewhere. Uh, And it felt to you
to sort of track him down. That is true, And
I kind of must have written about it my book
(57:49):
because I kind of don't remember it that well. But yeah,
it wasn't. We went Seattle and he had gone home
with some girl and we were well, I was freaking
out because I couldn't find him. Yeah, and then he
did call me, Yes, and I g think I said,
we just get into a cabin. I'll be waiting downstairs
(58:09):
to pay for it. But yeah, that was a little
because we treated him. Yeah, And this is on Austin,
not on him, And maybe it was a little him.
The minute he started playing the Ziggie character to us,
he was Ziggy David Bowie disappeared and Ziggy Ziggy was
who was in the room, not David, and we treated
(58:30):
him with kind of kid gloves and very we made
him very precious and very you know, he had to
be taken care of every step of the way. And
that really wasn't his demand, I don't think, because some
of it might have been a little bit. But we
we made him, um, we kind of there was a distance.
(58:51):
He was always in this very special place. Part of
it was, you know, our c a's big act was Elvis.
And I sat with the guy from our c A
who had always been like the Elvis guy he'd always
put on the road with with Elvis, and and then
he said something very interesting to me. Early on, he said,
she said that Elvis always had to be taken care
(59:13):
of because without Elvis, you know, they were like fifty
people on the road whatever. But without Elvis there, I'll
be out of a job. So it was like, you know,
you were there for Elvis, and I took that to heart,
like we were there, there were thirty something I was,
but without David Bowie, we wouldn't be there. We were
there for David Bowie. So we we treated him all.
I certainly treated him with kid gloves. It wasn't no
(59:34):
longer my friend at that point he was, you know,
the alien rock star. Basically, why did the famous Hammersmith
Odean show in seventy three were the retirement concerts? So
called retirement concert Why did that occur? Was it financially motivated,
creatively motivated? All the above, but the retirement Yeah, well
(59:55):
a few reasons. Um, it was financial. But but first
of all, you know, we've been on the road. He
had been on the road for a year and a
half of I mean, he did need a little bit
of a break. We all did. Um, that was a
year and a half solid touring. But the other thing
(01:00:15):
that happened was publishing. Um Defrees was in a dispute
with the publishing company and he wanted to get David
off of that publishing company. And and uh so he
didn't want to deliver anymore. He did not want to
deliver any new material. And if you notice, the next
album was pin Ups, which was all covers. So that
(01:00:36):
was part of it. The other part of it was
when we had been in l A. You know, the
spiders got well, Mike Garrison was a scientologist. He was
the piano player, and he got the boys a little
bit involved in scientology and and the whole thing of
money came up because because all of us had been
(01:00:57):
done on a shoe string for the all a year.
Even though the money had begun to come in a
little bit, still nobody was being paid. I mean we
were being paid very small amounts, like subsistence wages, including
the band. So the band's media expenses might be paid.
Everything was paid, but they didn't get a salary. And
(01:01:20):
Mike Garthon did get a salary. And when it came
out like well he was making eight hundred dollars a
week and they're making sev it was like what. So
that created that began to erode the relationship between the
band and David and Maine Man. They were demanding money
and there were there really wasn't any money, so um
(01:01:43):
and David took that. You know, David also had a
history of leaving bands. You know that he wasn't this
was not the Beatles, this is like his support band.
So I think he took a lot of that as
a betrayal and so he was like done with the
band once that started. Basically, plus I think creatively, you know,
he didn't want to be stuck as any starts for
(01:02:03):
the rest of his life, so he needed to recharge
and move on. Um. So all of those things had
to play. Um. He didn't They didn't know that that.
Nobody knew what it meant that he was retiring. Basically,
he was retiring as he startist. Wasn't retiring David Bowie um. Um,
(01:02:24):
but the band was being retired and they didn't know that.
So they found that out on the stage. That wasn't
so nice. But maybe that was like getting back at
them for their betrayal whatever. Um. Yeah. So and that
that was the in some ways the beginning of the end,
because it was kind of like at that moment, everyone
(01:02:46):
did stop and you could relax to a certain point.
David could relax to a certain point. The freest could
relax to a certain I mean, they could stand back
and kind of evaluate what they had been doing, what
they had been working so hard towards for the last
two or three years, because a lot of it had
been accomplished. At that point. David was responsible for four
(01:03:08):
percent of our record sales in the UK. He still
didn't have any success in the United States except for
public for publicity and press. I mean, he didn't have
wreck big record sales in the United States. He didn't
have a number one single or anything like that when
he didn't England. So all his life he had been
working towards becoming a pop star. That summer he was
(01:03:31):
a pop star, and for for the next few months
he was living in London like a pop star. An
Tonio J. Freese who wanted to be this entrepreneur and
impresario and had been working all his life towards that
could sit back and get his Park Avenue office and
ran out a big house in Greenwich and act like
the mogul that he wanted to be. So they had
(01:03:51):
both kind of accomplished their goals. And that next period
of like six months or so, before David came to
the United States to prepare for the Diamonds Us tour um,
that was kind of all about that, and it was
kind of the beginning of the end of mean Man.
My last question, is there an image or a scene
to you that really sums up that period of your
(01:04:12):
life with David There like one snapshot or vig yet
that you treasure above all others. Wow, that's an interesting question.
It's funny because I mean, I'm going to just tell
you the first thing that comes to my mind, and
I don't know why, because it's certainly not dramatic. We
were on the road somewhere and this was during the
(01:04:34):
Young Americans tour, and we were in David Sweet we
were watching television. We were watching California Split, which was
a movie directed by Robert All. It's just a nice
moment that we had because he was you know, it
was he was he was in the midst of trying
to write a screenplay and he was headed towards the movies,
(01:04:55):
and we both were just in total awe Robert All.
But it was kind of because I guess by that time,
I mean, the whole thing, the whole experience for me
was not one. I was not ambitious. I did not
want to be in the music business. I got involved
in all of this because these are my friends and
we all loved each other. We were all very close,
(01:05:16):
including Lee and Cherry, Angie and and and David certainly,
but you know, you get caught up in the work
and that that kind of it kind of turns into
something else. But that was I guess, one moment where
I felt the kinship with him again. And it wasn't
based on you know, David Bowie Superstar or Tony's Aneta
president of Main Mean, it was just two people who
(01:05:38):
watching this movie. That was nice And I don't know
why it seems significant at this moment, but I guess
it was because your friends it was getting back to
originally were right exactly exactly. Off the Record is a
(01:06:00):
auction of I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard,
please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.