Retires Ziggy Stardust
Ziggy plays guitar for the last time at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, at the last concert of The Aladdin Sane Tour comprising 60 shows in North America, Japan and the U.K. Bowie is tired of the character and he’s been touring and promoting his albums for nearly a year without a break. Only his manager Tony DeFries, Mick Ronson and some music press know beforehand.
I wanted the whole MainMan thing away from me. It was circusy. I was never much of an entourage person – I hated all of that. It’s a relief for all these years … not have a constant stream of people following me around to the point where, when I sat down, fifteen other people sat down. It was unbearable. I think Tony [DeFries] saw himself as a Svengali type, but I think I would have done okay anyway. Now, I look back on it with amusement more than anything else. Everybody was always going to get their teeth done or something, brand new people appearing in the office, having changed their appearance completely from the day before, and so forth.
Space Oddity
Bowie writes what will become his first hit after watching the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey several times, stoned. It reaches #5 in the UK single charts. It is released to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing and the BBC uses it as the background music for their moon landing programs. The session players are Rick Wakeman (mellotron), Mick Wayne (guitar), Herbie Flowers (bass) and Terry Cox (drums), plus string musicians. They are paid just over £9 each.
In England, it was always presumed that it was written about the space landing, because it kind of came to prominence around the same time. But it actually wasn’t. It was written because of going to see the film 2001, which I found amazing. I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing. It was picked up by the British television, and used as the background music for the landing itself. I’m sure they really weren’t listening to the lyric at all (laughs). It wasn’t a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. Of course, I was overjoyed that they did. Obviously, some BBC official said, ‘Oh, right then, that space song, Major Tom, blah blah blah, that’ll be great.’ ‘Um, but he gets stranded in space, sir.’ Nobody had the heart to tell the producer that.
First gig as Ziggy Stardust
Bowie unveils his new character at the Friars Club, Market Square, Aylesbury, England, performing with his band The Spiders from Mars: Mick Ronson (guitar), Trevor Bolder (bass) and Woody Woodmansey (drums). In the crowd are America’s best rock press, as well as Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor of Queen. Photographer Mick Rock films the performance on 16mm.
