Ziggy Stardust?
The central inspiration for Bowie’s androg- ynous, sexually-fluid alien persona was Vince Taylor, a rock’n’roll singer who rose to fame in the 50s and 60s before retiring quietly to Switzerland. Taylor’s life before this, however, was anything but quiet. In an interview celebrating his 50th birthday with the BBC, Bowie recalled meeting him during his fixation with UFOs and gods.
“The guy was not playing with a full deck at all. He used to carry maps of Europe around with him, and I remember him opening a map outside Charing Cross tube station, putting it on the pavement and kneeling down with a magnifying glass. He pointed out all the sites where UFOs were going to land.” Taking to the stage in France in white robes and proclaiming himself Jesus Christ was the final straw for audiences. Cosmic origins, messianic ego, rock music, a meteoric rise and fall from grace… The Ziggy story is all there.
As for the name itself, that’s a bit more complicated. Bowie’s glam and pre-punk contemporaries Lou Reed, Marc Bolan, Iggy Pop and psychobilly oddball, Leg- endary Stardust Cowboy are all said to have fed in alongside Taylor. The latter two are the most obvious linguistic templates, though a wrinkle in the former idea comes from a Bowie interview with Q magazine in 1990, citing a tailor shop called ‘Ziggy’s’ as its real origin, marrying with the char- acter’s fashion-forward qualities. “Ziggy Stardust was a real compilation of things,” he eventually summarised.
Who was
What to expect from Cardiff’s Bowie weekender
Ringing in the five-decade mark for semi- nal 1972 Bowie album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Newsoundwales has programmed a stimulating mix of talks and music around the late great icon at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts, Fri 17-Sun 19 June. First up is an evening knees-up from tribute band Un-
der Pressure, who formed for a one-off charity show in the wake of Bowie’s death as Let’s Dance, and haven’t looked back since. They’ll be joined by “angry and queer agitprop” artist Dead Method. On Saturday evening, the aforemen- tioned Dana Gillespie will regale audi- ences with Bowie tales from the Ziggy era, perform some music herself and take questions. Sunday afternoon will include a vinyl playback of the album in question in its entirety before the weekend wraps up with Cardiff-born music journalist and Bowie author Simon Goddard in conver-
sation with Nation Cymru’s David Owens, whose 10-book Odyssey series makes him one of the foremost authorities on the art- ist and era Ziggy was born. Cast your eyes elsewhere in this very issue to see what we made of the latest (third) instalment, looking at the year Ziggy Stardust was released.
Newsoundwales Bowie Weekend, Fri 17-Sun 19 June, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. Tickets: £5-£12.50. Info:
chapter.org
Also on release to mark this landmark year for Bowie is immersive film Moonage Daydream, which premiered at Cannes. Documentarian Brett Morgen was given “unprecedented” access to the Bowie Estate’s archive and spent over five years compiling footage and designing the film’s look and sound, helped by legendary Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti. It opens in cinemas this September.
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Mick Rock Mick Rock
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