1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
DAVID LIVE | YOUNG AMERICANS | STATION TO STATION | LOW | HEROES | LODGER | SCARY MONSTERS
CRACKED ACTOR | THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH | JUST A GIGOLO | THE ELEPHANT MAN
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1977 |
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JANUARY |
FEBRUARY |
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8 Berlin Bowie celebrates his 30th birthday with Iggy, Romy Haag and friends in a Berlin nightclub. |
11 Sound and Vision / A New Career In A New Town single released from Low. The single was a hit despite lacklustre promotion from RCA |
Rehearsals for Iggy Pop tour at UFA Studios, Berlin. Letter to Melody Maker I would like to correct the misconception that Iggy Pop is managed by myself. Iggy looks after his own business affairs. I would appreciate a printed correction. |
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14 Low released |
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MARCH |
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Iggy Pop tour - UK |
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1 Friars Hall, Aylesbury Supported by The Vibrators. Bowie on keyboards and backing vocals. Bowie's appearance with Iggy was rumoured before the shows, but no one was sure until the show actually started and even then, he was out of the limelight. After the afternoon soundcheck at the hall, Bowie, Iggy and friends were seen drinking in the Gun bar of the Bell hotel for half an hour before departing for the dressing room at the hall where they stayed for three hours before the show. 2 Newcastle City Hall 3 Manchester Apollo 4 Birmingham Hippodrome 5 Bowie and Iggy check into the Montcalm Hotel, London. 5-6 Rainbow Theatre, London Iggy's second London show continued through slight crowd troubles after Bowie and group had taken the stage and some of the crowd raced to the front. Fans were ejected as the show started when scuffles with security men broke out and seats were damaged. 7 Rainbow Theatre, London Third show added by demand. |
Iggy Pop's China Girl / Baby single released (RCA). Cowritten and produced by Bowie who also played on the single. Angie tells the Daily Express that she and Bowie are broke. "David's been robbed blind." While in London, Bowie is taken for lunch to Toscanini's in the Kings Road by Marc Bolan. After the meal, Bowie and Bolan, both slightly drunk, wandered down the Kings Road singing. In view of a packed bus full of school children, the two jumped up and down to attract the children's attention shouting alternately, 'I'm Bowie', and 'I'm Marc Bolan'. The school children were not interested in their antics, but they attracted some Bowie fans who were granted an autograph and a chat. Bowie spent four days at Marc Bolan's flat working together on devising a film. Apart from writing the script, they planned the soundtrack and to appear in glorious Technicolor themselves. "I hope it's going to be out in the year," says Bolan. "All I can tell you is that it's about a future society and reflects our own feelings. We're also bringing out an album, doing a side each. What a combination it's going to be, the two greatest musical influences of the seventies joined together." |
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Iggy Pop tour - US |
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18 Iggy Pop's The Idiot LP released (RCA). Bowie on keyboards, guitars and backing vocals. Music by Bowie, lyrics by Iggy Pop. Cover photo by Andy Kent (not Bowie as is often thought) in Berlin. |
10 Bowie and Iggy and Andrew Kent fly to New York for Iggy's US tour. On arrival, Bowie tells reporter Lisa Robinson, "I flew for the first time in five or six years. I think the airplane is really a wonderful invention." Bowie and Iggy see the Patti Smith Group (minus Patti Smith) at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club with friends David Johansson and wife Cyrinda Foxe. Iggy joins the group onstage for a wild version of 96 Tears. 13 Montreal, Le Plateau Theatre 14 Toronto Convocation Hall 16 Boston, Harvard Square Theatre 18 New York Palladium Attended by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard. 19 Philadelphia, Tower Theatre 21 Cleveland, Agora Ballroom TV Eye, Dirt and Fun from this show appeared on TV Eye live album. Attended by then unknown group Devo who manage to slip a demo tape to Bowie, who passed it to Eno who later produced their debut album. 22 Cleveland, Agora Ballroom 27 Chicago, Riviera Theatre 28 Chicago, Illinois I Wanna Be Your Dog from this show appeared on TV Eye live album. 29 Pittsburgh, Leona Theatre 30 Columbus |
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APRIL |
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1 Milwaukee, Oriental Theatre 4 Portland, Paramount Theatre 5 Seattle, Paramount Theatre |
7 Vancouver Gardens 13 San Francisco, Berkeley Theatre |
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15 Bowie and Iggy interviewed on Dinah! and perform Sister Midnight and Funtime. |
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DINAH: Jimmy, you've known each other for years I suppose. IGGY: Six years. DINAH: How did you meet? IGGY: In a bar in New York. We scored. We were both unrecognised. We had a lot in common. DINAH: David, what about recording? BOWIE: In the studio, Jimmy would make up lyrics on the spot and keep everything he did, and occasionally change a line after he recorded it. I'd never seen anyone able to make up lyrics just out of the head, to a track. He'll hate me for this, but, it's more like the beatnik era. |
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15 Los Angeles, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium Bowie celebrates the end (for him) of the tour with a night on the tiles with Mick Jagger. Bowie and Iggy return to Berlin to work on Iggy's Lust For Life recorded in a three week frenzy at Hansa By The Wall Studios. |
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MAY |
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Lust for Life sessions continue for the first week. Iggy recalled later that he took a more dominant role than he did when they recorded The Idiot the previous year. "The band and David would leave the studio to go to sleep, but not me." The title track came about when Bowie knocked out the staccato riff on a ukelele in his apartment watching TV, inspired by the morse code like beat of the Allied Forces Network theme. |
Encouraged to contribute ideas for the album, guitarist Ricky Gardiner proposed a chord sequence which had come to him while on a spring walk. Iggy came back the next day with lyrics for it - The Passenger. Be My Wife / Speed of Life single released in the US on RCA (PB-11017). |
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"Heroes" recording sessions begin in Studio Two at Hansa By The Wall, Berlin with Tony Visconti producing. Sessions continue into July and August. » read more |
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JUNE |
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With Lust For Life finished, Bowie and Iggy travelled to Paris for promotion of Low, staying at the Plaza Athénée Hotel in the Avenue Montaigne with his PR Barbara de Witt. On previous visits crowds of French fans had kept vigil outside the George V Hotel whenever they heard he was in Paris. Iggy stayed at the Tremoille Hotel near the Plaza. 17 Be My Wife / Speed of Life single released in UK on RCA (PB-1017). 27 Bowie interviewed on French TV by Yves Mourousi (TF1 Actualités) and Danielle Gilbert (Midi Premiere) |
28 Be My Wife promo video shot in Paris, directed by Stanley Dorfman. |
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JULY |
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Paris 6 Bowie attends the French premiere of The Man Who Fell to Earth at the Gaumont Champs-Elysées with actress Sydne Rome. After the screening, Bowie was caught in a throng of admirers, avoiding strangulation by donating his scarf to the person pulling the end of it. He also fends off an attempt by a pickpocket to steal his wallet. |
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Sydne Rome had travelled to Paris for discussions with Bowie on the possibilities of work on Wally, the film Bowie was hoping to make about expressionist artist Egon Schiele. The film was never made because of problems finding a suitable script. Bowie and Sydne Rome worked together later on Just A Gigolo. |
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Rock et Folk: You seem to be fascinated by cities like Berlin… DB: Berlin, because of the friction. I've written songs in all the Western capitals, and I've always got to the stage where there isn't any friction between a city and me. That became nostalgic, vaguely decadent, and I left for another city. At the moment I'm incapable of composing in Los Angeles, New York or in London or Paris. There's something missing. Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things - anything else you don't mention, you remain silent, and write nothing … and in the end you produce Low. Heroes album sessions continue at Hansa 2 |
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Bowie spent late July going out with Bianca Jagger (in Paris to work on her film, Flesh Coloured) and taking a short holiday together in Spain at the Costa Del Sol where they were seen at the Marbella Club |
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AUGUST |
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Heroes album sessions continue at Hansa 2, moving to Mountain Studios in Switzerland for mixing |
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SEPTEMBER |
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"Heroes" promotion |
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Manchester Bowie holes up with Marc Bolan at the Manchester Post House, write and rehearse two new songs for Bowie's upcoming appearance on the Marc show, Standing Next to You and Madman, later covered by Cuddly Toys. |
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9 Bowie records appearance on Marc - Bolan's Granada television show, singing a live version of his forthcoming single "Heroes" and ending with a jam between Bowie and Bolan, a song written just before the recording called Standing Next to You. |
Bowie takes the train back from Manchester to Euston, sharing a carriage with Eddie and The Hot Rods, who – along with Generation X – were also on the show. Reporter Tim Lott, on tour with the Hot Rods, scores an exclusive interview with Bowie published in Record Mirror. |
9 Iggy Pop's Lust for Life LP released (RCA). Iggy's maniacally grinning portrait was taken by Andrew Kent during a BBC radio interview. |
11 London Bowie records his piece for Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas TV special, singing Heroes followed by a scripted segment with Bing before they sing a duet, Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy. Bing later reported, "He sings a lovely counterpoint." Bing died October 14 and the show went out on CBS November 30. |
16 Marc Bolan killed in Barnes, southwest London when his Mini, driven by girlfriend Gloria Jones, runs off the road into a tree.
20 Bowie attends Marc Bolan funeral at The Chapel, Golders Green, London. Afterwards he takes a nostalgic drive past his old houses including Haddon Hall in Beckenham, where his landlord presents him with a bill for rent arrears. |
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23 International RCA releases of "Heroes": Heroes - in English German 12" single including 6:03 mixes of Heroes/Helden and Heroes/Héros |
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OCTOBER |
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1 Rome Interviewed for L'altra Domenica ("A Different Sunday") |
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Records an appearance on Odeon, featuring performances of Heroes and Sense of Doubt with Bowie on piano. Records half-hour show radio for Radio 21, 25 dedicated to an analysis of "Heroes". |
13 Amsterdam Pop Shop television interview with Vic Dennis (broadcast on Dutch TV 6 November).
Performs Heroes on TopPop (Dutch TV) and is presented with a gold record. Bowie calls The San Francisco Chronicle from Amsterdam after learning that a Bowie imposter is at large in the city. "I have not been in San Francisco since April of 1977 and I am highly irritated by this imposter," he is quoted as saying. |
14 "Heroes" album released (RCA PL12522) The LP issued in Germany and France varied from the English release, using the 6:03 split mixes of Heroes/Helden and Heroes/Héros respectively. |
16 Paris Interview for French television with Michel Drucker broadcast on Le Rendez-Vous Du Dimanche (TF1). French radio interview with Jean-Bernard Hebey, including a phone-in for Bowie's French fans (RTL). Bowie had now taken to staying at the Plaza Athenee Hotel in the Avenue Montaigne, to avoid the crowds of fans who kept vigil outside the George V whenever they heard Bowie was in Paris. |
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19 London "Heroes" promotion continues, performing "Heroes" on Top of the Pops with Tony Visconti on bass. |
During his short London stay Bowie was seen with nineteen-year-old actress, Suzy Bickford, who later told a reporter, "He wants to go back to painting". 20 A heavy press schedule at the Dorchester Hotel with interviews with music journalists including Melody Maker's Allan Jones. |
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The early evening spent at a private viewing of an unknown film which Bowie had been asked to score. Bowie later gives an interview for Capital Radio with Nicky Horne for Your Mother Wouldn't Like It, including a phone-in. 21 Leaves Heathrow for a safari visit to Kenya. |
NOVEMBER |
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| New York
14 Introduces Devo onstage at Max's Kansas City 15 Interviewed at the Mayfair house by the New York Daily News |
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25 Interview for 90 Minutes Live, This Hour Has 5 Decades, broadcast on CBC Canada. Throughout this interesting conversation Bowie appears affable and open about his confused personality and the complexities of Ziggy. He also speaks about Berlin allowing him a simple life, and holidaying with Joe in Kenya. |
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DECEMBER |
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While in New York Bowie is best man for bodyguard Tony Mascia (who played Arthur, Bowie's driver in The Man Who Fell to Earth). Mascia later said of Bowie: "David's a cool kid to work for, I got offered twice the money to work for Rod Stewart, but I turned it down. David's a brilliant guy, the painting, the writing. He's a very generous kid, very shy, but with me he can be himself. I'm like his father." The wedding, which was held on Hudson Street, was also attended by Iggy Pop. Bowie records an appearance for the Superstars Radio Network, interviewed by Sonny Fox. Later released as An Evening With David Bowie. Beauty and the Beast / Sense of Doubt single released in the US. |
Records the narration of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf – a favourite of Zowie's – at RCA Studios in New York. The music was supplied by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Eugene Ormandy. |
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Switzerland Bowie returns to Clos Des Mesanges to spend a rare week together with Angie. When he announces he will be spending Christmas in Berlin she takes the first plane out of Geneva to spend time with friends in New York. Bowie returns to Berlin where he is joined by Joe and his nanny. |
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1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
DAVID LIVE | YOUNG AMERICANS | STATION TO STATION | LOW | HEROES | LODGER | SCARY MONSTERS
CRACKED ACTOR | THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH | JUST A GIGOLO | THE ELEPHANT MAN