¶ Nostalgic TV Shows and David Bowie
Living with Maidalee .
Hello and welcome to series 5 , episode 11 of the podcast Living with Maidalee . We take a look back at nostalgic TV shows . I'm one of the hosts . I'm Liam . The other host is Andrew Hague . Good evening , sir .
And it's gonna be a good show today . That's my impression . That's not a bad one , is it ? I remember that guy at Chesterfield . I remember he was playing the Chesterfield stadium I don't remember what you call it now and he did that . I can't remember this , that advert he did . I can't get it . I can't play it Because I'm gonna be playing Chesterfield .
I'm hoping to bring you some Chachachangela . He said that he was a massive racist . He put loads of stuff on his Facebook account about how he ate blacks and stuff like that , so he got cancelled .
Weird one there . I didn't even know Cracked Actor was a song until you just told me that I don't know what you think . I think this is gonna be hard to do this Because I think it jumps around . There's not really a narrative . There's not loads of humour , so it's a great one for a podcast .
Well , just to back , if people have not watched it , I don't know anything about it . It's obviously about David Bowie . It was made by Alan Yentob , First shown on BBC One on January 26 , 1975 , from the omniverse series . Like I said , on the midweek mainly it's been repeated loads of times since Gone Down as one of the best ever BBC .
I've never heard of it . I really surprised me when you told me .
Yeah , there's lots of articles and all sorts on it .
It came up on my ? Is it just because at the time , this thing was rare or hadn't happened before ?
I couldn't tell you Because I was saying to you and we'll get into it , but I was saying to you I was probably expecting some real sort of shocking revelations and I'm not really any of that .
It never made available on DVD or any streaming services , despite its reputation as being a classic documentary , and that's mainly due to Bowie not liking the state he was in in the film and I said I was so blocked , so stoned . He says it was quite the casualty case . I'm amazed I came out of that period , honest .
When I see that now I can't believe I survived it . I was so close to really throwing myself away physically , completely , and Yentob said he was fragile , exhausted , but also prepared to open up and talk in a way that he'd never talked before .
Yeah , I mean . First thing I'll say is fragile . It looks ridiculous .
I mean , he's always been a thin man , a thin white Duke as he used to call himself at one stage , but he looks ill , I think , throughout this documentary .
Well , I think he looks ill because he has this big , thick head of hair so it makes him look even thinner and this big piece of hair on top of his head . But he's , he looks painfully thin throughout . He looks exhausted , he looks drained . We start with a TV interview with him and , yeah , you can kind of see he's not with it right from the start .
He doesn't want to be there .
I felt sorry for him .
I did actually , this is the criticism he gets from the TV presenter after the event .
David Bowie .
Well , I'm reluctant to make the judgment about what category you fit into , and I'm hoping that you would say yes , oh no , I wouldn't be that pretentious , but maybe you have a feeling yourself .
No , I'm really very old fashioned . I like moving from one area of writing or performing to another to keep me excited , to keep me interested , to keep the people who come to see me or buy records interested and excited as well .
David , I know you're watching tonight with the BBC film crew and it's wonderful to have your old fashioned entertainment around until the Beatles get back together . But it sure would be nice to talk to somebody who's not being evasive and discussing riddles .
Quite honest to me You're mocking him basically .
Because the clip before it wasn't being it just looked really tired , like it was just well . Yeah , you know , whatever , yeah , I think . So I don't think you were being rude .
Yeah , we , we run into quite a good song . Then I'm going to trust your music knowledge for the songs , because I quite like the first one . Are you rebel , rebel ? I've got the power .
I ain't got the power anymore . Quick sound , but he's not actually playing that live . So this this thing is actually all about the Diamond Dog Tour in 1974 . But the big thing about it is it comes a couple of years after the Ziggy Stardust explosion you know about really made his name and the entire documentary is about him trying to get away from that .
I'd say . Yeah , I'm going to play some Yen Sob overdubs this year , and this is like talking about the end of the Ziggy character .
Ziggy , real design screwed up eyes and screwed down head and ooo , like a cow from Japan . Oh you go , kill them like smiling you could leave them to hand . Ziggy became a spectacular success and so , ironically , did his alter ego , david Bowie . And then , at the height of his fame , in the presence of thousands of screaming fans , david Bowie killed him all .
A little thing about it is that he never told the band that that will be the last gig . They found out and spurt like a cello black . So I think , surprise , surprise .
But yeah , this Ziggy Stardust thing blow my mind . For anyone who's David Bowie fan , who knows we're saying Bowie or Bowie . Which are we going with ? You say Bowie .
I say Bowie .
I know I knew that obviously released some songs under the name well , albums under the name Ziggy Stardust . What the kind of shocking revelation for me throughout this was that it was kind of another personality that he lived as he spent a period of his life as Ziggy Stardust and it kind of became too big for him and it took over .
So that was him and Bowie , or Bowie became the secondary character . Really , really odd .
Yeah , he is , and he really struggles with this because he does a lot of characters , obviously . Even by this point I mean what ?
is his own need . I think , like , first begin . That's like you , rory Bremner , or why is he talking to different people Rory Bremner , rory Bremner but constantly living in character , thinking he's like David John , john Major or I don't know ? I don't think Rodney Brenner lives the character quite well . That's what I mean .
Yeah , but I think that's where he went wrong . I don't know if he's got any issues or he's obviously a very , very talented man , but I just couldn't get my head around . As a Kickstarter thing , I still doesn't make sense to him .
Like I said the thing , like you ladding , saying there's loads of characters that appeared on it . Major Tom was one of his characters , wasn't it ? Major Tom's a janky , so I'm going to be doing that quite a lot . I hadn't decided that , but I think I just got feeling that's just going to happen .
Are you a character from David Bowie ?
He's not really dead Like up here . I'm in heaven . So this film is essentially like a collage , isn't it ? A concert footage , and really small snippets are interviewed with Bowie .
So it's actually what you're sitting on . There's loads of like actual music in it . Isn't there , because obviously make notes . There are a few notes depending on what it is we're doing , but yeah , there was loads of it where I was just watching like five or six minute songs .
I think there was not really much to say about this and this is why I was quite surprised that he's seen such a as like a revelatory .
Maybe , like you say , maybe this wasn't done in the 70s in the way that it is now , where you get behind the scenes stuff , because there's some good bits from Bowie Absolutely no doubt about it but the majority of the documentary is the music side , which is why I enjoyed it , because I love Bowie .
I know you're not as huge on him , I'm guessing and again , this is something we might come back to it and there's a conclusion , but I think possibly it's because when we've had access to pop stars and rock stars before , it's all glamorous sticking their tongues out hey look , how great this is and this was actually showing a man who was , like we said , very
fragile , like broken really , and I think maybe that's what was so unusual to see that everybody thinks he's this kind of , you know , superstar living everybody's dreams and actually , quite , he's living quite a sad life , it seems .
Yeah , we obviously did Elton in this series and it was so different with me I don't think Elton were anywhere near . I imagine this , what Elton like in the 70s , though , like sort of close to what I mean , I think .
Tauke is exhausting , isn't it ? I think that's the thing , and I think he's clearly struggling with points about this Ziggy character that he actually had to kill him off , which I think he sings Ziggy Stardust songs . Sorry , he did sing Ziggy Stardust songs yeah , yeah , yeah . He never became Ziggy Stardust again , did he ?
No , no no , that were it Got rid of the band who did that as well for a lot of the live band anyway , the concert footage I think is incredible . We're not going to go through every song that he plays and stuff , but I want to play a little bit . I thought it was a brilliant version of a sweet thing from Diamond Dogs .
The whole thing is and I suppose it's all driven by this this bowie , who plays several different characters throughout his life , it's all over the place . Some of his music are really like . Some of it , I think , is truly awful .
I think the way that he's you know , there's a bit later on that we come to when it shows some of his different looks it's crazy , it is .
I mean this show looks . I think it looks incredible . It's like it is proper theatre . It's not like we've done more or say we've done . Obviously Oasis we've done I don't know who else we've covered in these , like music wise we've done , queen or whatever .
None of them have got a show like this when he's always if you notice , he's always in like different parts of the stage like a roof and then like he's scaffolding it one bit . Yeah he's scaffolding , he's always like , and he's always in completely different clothes and it's the same gig . Do you think he's one of the fucking hells going on ?
Yeah , he's kind of . You know it's mentioned that he started off doing Mime and that's prominent . He says actually you know I might be saying this a little bit early , but he does say that he never thought his voice was good enough , so he kind of thought he had to bring more to the party and that's why he does some of the . I'll come on to that .
But yeah , I think that we're really interested in that , to be fair . But the first thing that I found really interesting about the whole thing is how he gets his lyrics and stuff , which I've read about this before , but I've seen it Crazy , yeah .
I mean sorry , just before that , just something . I wanted to mention there is that . Do you think he does ? He make up these little anecdotes , like just twice he does it , he's drinking . It made me laugh because he's obviously , you know , mega rich rock star .
Well , I'm guessing he is , I don't know , but he's drinking milk from a low-fat carton in the back of a taxi and it's like cheap looking , $1 milk . And they say to him how do you feel ? And you make me feel like a natural woman's playing in the background .
Yeah .
And that must be Yentob's choice , I'm assuming . But yeah , they say how do you feel ? And he says , oh , there's a fly in this milk . That's how I feel in here in America . It's like I don't know . It just seems a very forced kind of he was drinking out the milk a minute ago and now there's a fly in here and that's how he is in America .
But yeah look our own body in the milk .
That's how he feels .
Obviously he's this extravagant stage performer and I like to say I think from the very start which is that's the first thing he says basically you can say this is a man who's not . He's not . I don't think he's with it , is he ? But all he done he's not like I once is like a druggy where you see , oh my God , he's out of it .
I've seen some stuff with Sid Vicious where he falls asleep in an interview and stuff like that , because he's that hammered . But it's not that , it's more , it reminds me of someone who's like , literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown .
Yeah , she was completely burnt out . He's on his way to a wax museum to record a music video . I found that all really odd that there's some old celebrities in there . But yeah , I was sure there right , and he's got a wig on definitely a wig .
But then did you see the bit afterwards where he's laid down and it looks like he's crying , he's asking for some tissues for his eyes and he's rubbing his head ? It's definitely not a wig .
He's got a red-haired head of hair , brilliant head of hair and , yeah , I mean brilliant eyes as well . I think we might mention before . He's got different coloured eyes , I know .
Yeah , yeah , but then so this is coming to a bit you mentioned , but then so in the music video for this I don't know which song it is he's playing , actually , but it's coming up with lyrics on the scraps of paper and I thought this is a bit odd . That's really weird . And then it comes to how he writes a lot of his songs .
Do you want to try and describe it ?
So I think what he sort of does is he writes a diary not necessarily , I felt like this today just thoughts and phrases or whatever , and then he cuts them all up and sees and that sort of puts them together and what we get here is Moon Age Daydream , which is obviously his startles , and he starts I'm an alligator , I'm a man , I'm a papa coming for you ,
I'm a space invader , I'll be a rock and roll bitch for you . And I've always thought about his lyrics . I could never hope to match Bob Dylan or Morrissey , but I can sort of see where they come from , if you know what I mean , if I had that talent to write like that
¶ Analyzing Bowie's Lyrics and Looks
. I've always thought with Bowie's lyrics where is this ?
from . Do you know what I mean ? Yeah , because it's not completely random , but yeah , it's just crazy . It's just writing down a load of thoughts and then just muddling them all up into it . I mean , they often don't make sense and now , all of a sudden , when I'm listening , I think , oh , that's why he's obviously just pulled two different phrases together .
I've got a couple down that really stick with me from Bowie's , obviously , life of Mars . When he goes , it's on a merry cow's touch and brow . The Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow and you think , oh well , what is that ? And then there's a .
And then Ziggy started us a song where he goes Ziggy really sang , screw the pies and screw down hairdo , like some cat from Japan .
Just maths . Have you ever kept a diary ?
I've never kept a diary . No , no , I don't think I have .
But if I have , I've never written in it . I'm an alligator , I'm a mama-papa .
Have you ever heard what about ? My brain hurts like a warehouse .
But this is one of my favourite .
I'm just going to play a really short clip here . This is not from the documentary , but this is one of my favourite lyrics for him . I remember when I first I went to Brendan and I made we eventually lost three episodes in actually and I bought a Hunkidori album and we were playing it and he said this bit and we were laughed for about an hour about it .
And then I got the layers upon the rocks . He could be dead , he could be nice , he could be you .
He's comedian , comedian Corinthian and caricature , yeah , obviously it makes sense when you know it's just jumbled up words now , but yeah , yeah , so hold on . Then let me get my head around this timeline . I thought it finished with a gig status by this time .
Yes , we finish with Ziggy Stardust , but it was still pretty cool , I think you just said that one album is that song is just written , is off Ziggy Stardust .
That's not the song he's wrote , though they put that together as a . You know what I mean , because Moon Age Daydream is off the one before . They just obviously put that together as a . I don't think he would put in those words together , if you know what I mean . I think they just sort of you know put it . I could be wrong , but unless he's lying .
So next bit after that . This is another one of them things where I kind of things confuse me and it blows my mind . So I thought he'd invented Frank Spencer , I thought . But he is actually doing a Frank Spencer impression , is he ? Aye ? So he's in the back of the car and I thought God , that's mental .
I wonder if they saw that and thought , hey , we could do a character like that . Well , that's if it did come out this year .
So I think , potentially he is doing a Frank Spencer then , but you remember it ? Yeah , this is what I'm about to say . He's in America , though , so he won't have seen .
you know what I mean he's doing a Frank Spencer .
I don't know if he's seen , if someone sent him a VHS of Frank Spencer and said I've seen this and Bowie loves his comedy , Bowie .
I mean no VHS in 73 would I .
I don't know , to be honest , but he might have got it , though they might have played it on American TV and he thought , oh my God , this is amazing .
It's either he's got massive coincidence that he does a perfect Frank Skinner and Frank Skinner .
Frank .
Spencer . Impression Frank Skinner . I love the impression of Frank Skinner doing his 90s comedy . Welcome to fantasy football .
I don't know how to remember a cock now , but yeah , I don't know , it is real . Yeah , it is real . I do know what you mean . To be honest , I thought I've not wrote it down , but I did think he must have seen Frank Spencer . But , as you've said , obviously it came out that year that I don't know . Maybe that's another thing we should give him .
What was it in the interest of it Like would everybody know of it ? I think that might have been him .
Another one of his . Another one of his comedian , comedian , comedian cartoon .
It was Michael Ball playing Frank Spencer . That was another one of his characters .
yeah , my mind says I played it . He's just done loads of things that we did now about . I don't know . He's Jim Royal Wolfie Bruce Smith .
Absolutely brilliant .
The next song that we hear there is one of the classics . It's Changes and it's going through his looks and this is crazy , do you ?
know what ? I'm going to shock you even more . I think here how many years do you think these looks go through ?
I mean there must be 30 or 40 , so you must be talking . I don't think how old he is . What would he be ? Mid-20s ? There must be six or seven years worth there , maybe eight .
It's five years worth anyway , and I can't put into words how completely different I mean . It doesn't even look like the same man .
No , no , they're a bit early on , I didn't realise it was him and then I thought , are these all him ? And sometimes it's like he's got straight hair , then he's got fuzzy hair . Sometimes he looks really serious and he's got like sort of gingery hair and then he's got black hair . They're completely different looks , aren't they ? He's like what is his name ?
He used to go to the shop and shit , mr Ben was it ? He used to go and have like an adventure in a different outfit .
What are they ? Obviously , like I say , in the background , I mean , this became one of his ultimate songs . It weren't even a big hit to be like when it hit old , in fact , when it first came out Changers , but obviously , because of the way he was like and the way he changed his thing , that became like a homelessist theme tune , didn't it ?
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changers . It's another one where he's sing real weird .
It's another one where I kind of wish that people would tell him you're a decent singer , just sing more Like I don't know why he talks in a lot of his songs .
My favourite bit of any sort of like in terms of why the song that I'd love to know why he sung it like this is Space Oddity when he goes . It's a really serious song , like my wife . Tell my wife I love her very much . She now Are you singing it like that he's never going to see his family again because he's lost in space ? She now .
They played that in this and I was going to mention it . I was going to yeah at some point . I'm not sure where it is , but they do use that in the background .
Yeah , they play the full song and there's nothing happening . It's just him on stage , but he's not singing . It's quite an art . He filled them in again . Tobias trying to I don't know just going for the awards , didn't I ? I reckon ?
Yeah , he sticks around on the music . There's lots of background and the history . I mean it's almost this bit's a bit almost like a tribute to him , as if he's kind of finished but he's only made 20s by then .
27 years , which I'll get onto later . But he said that he used to play saxophone and he had a choice of being in a jazz band or being in a rock band . But he chose rock because he likes writing and he said it was the only thing he was good at at school not grammatically but creating stories and I think he's probably completely right with that .
And there's some Bowie fans out there who say he intentionally keeps his personality a mystery . And there's another fan out later who says he's not from Earth , he's from the Bowie universe .
Yeah , yeah , I mean , he's got some very cool fish fans , hasn't he ? But yeah , there's a bit of I don't know how funny it actually is , but it made me laugh that I'm going to play where this is like it's almost like he's arguing with his multiple personalities is how many times he tells us that things are all Japanese .
This is my choise in other Japanese costume . These are all Japanese and most of the stuff is Japanese . Most of my clothes are Japanese .
It reminds me of David Bren . Can I go to work today , david ? Yes , you can , dave . Can I stay in bed today , david ? That's not me in bed with another man called David . Was it all Japanese , david ? Have you ever heard David Bren ? Ricky Gervais's band , what's it called ? Shiona Dancer what's it called ?
I thought it was foregone conclusion . But was that an early name ? No , no , no , I mean before he was famous ?
I can't remember . He sounds exactly like Bowie Basal . I mean he even sings like Bowie . He's been serious , he's like good coming down . I remember Paul Merton saying David Bowie's needs all your stuff .
He did a couple of all right songs , didn't he ? He kind of looked the part early on . Mr Gervais , this is a bit now where he tells us about how he does his three-dimensional stuff . He's not confident in his voice . He looks absolutely exhausted .
He asks how long till he goes out on stage , a bit like the Elton thing where he just looks like it's the worst thing I want to do . He's mad though this and this is where you know and I guess people love him and he's clearly a genius , but I just found it's really
¶ Ziggy Stardust's Influence and Impact
odd . It comes on stage , there's a hand opening with a really loud , alarm going , wow , wow , wow . And then he does a bit of singing and there's like a clicking noise , you know , like them wind up teeth , that chatter that comes in in the background .
It is like art , like a piece of art rather than a song , and I just thought , good , I would hate to go and see that .
I Think one of the worst things is . Any boy in any bowie song is the man who sold the world with that . I can't what the fuck that instrument called . You know what I mean that always through it .
Yeah , like click it . That's not a nice noise . I do that like clicking , you know .
I can every sound listening to . I think you thought Do you know what this needs ? And I'm convinced that's why people think of our version is better , just purely because of that . Yeah , not my , but yeah , there's a bit here , actually about half an hour in now already because obviously , like , say , a lot of its concert footage , but this is how frightened .
Or frightened any fine success . So this is just like when he says like it's been like being in a car where you're in back and you're not in control .
Yeah , clearly this is a man who's he's not kind of loving life at the moment is he feels out of control and yeah , I mean it shows you , don't it , when he's because he finishes the concert and they just sort of whisk him straight off into a car and he's gone , and you can see that , I Don't know , seemingly there's not much chance .
That's the envoy enjoy life on the road . You just rushed from one place to another that maybe there's loads of good bits that they're not showing us in this , but it looks very stressful , I think the difference between this one .
By the way , there's not a lot of children during life on the road . It's a shit film . My role jazz is not right , it's just a joke .
Just a joke in that I love it . Everyone randomly likes him after randomly hating him for no reason .
Anyway , it's not about him , it's about Bowie . Yeah , and I think the difference between this one of the Elton John one and this is probably possibly how it's filmed . I think he's totally alone , bowie Elton John is got .
He's making banter with people and even Morris a who's renowned , has been like he's got Nancy Salatra coming round to see him , and do you know what I mean ?
Yeah , yeah , this is just pure him in a room like and he does look like such a kind of a little boy , like just because of what he's wearing and how he sits . And yeah , you're right , actually I think that is it . That's the sadness , isn't it ? He's on his own all the way through .
It's certainly not playing . Tennis is a saying . You find vile pigs or whatever you know by a picture . Now , oh , um , he says that the characters Iggy were a monster , so they grew out of proportion and overshadowed everything , and you can tell his Lost who he isn't .
This is there there's a bit that plays them , obviously pulling his words together again . It's Iggy Stardust on stage . He was a NAS with God given ass . Is the sun ? Is there some darkness there ? You know ? Is this because he Was Iggy a monster and he sort of pauses and looks quite sad ?
This is he certainly was , as if like , yeah , that was a really kind of dark period for him . Did you know what was the ?
yeah , absolutely not . I mean before Ziggy Stardust he wasn't big at all . He had one hit space all day , I think in 69 , and he were a one , it wonder because . And then up , and it was until 74 I think , ziggy Stardust come out , nothing . He were releasing stuff , wonky-dorsion , brilliant songs , but never at the charts . I had no one knew who he were .
And then Ziggy Stardust come out and it was like fucking out . I'm the biggest rock star , arguably in the world .
He kind of didn't sort of step away from him for the character .
He had to kill him off because it had become that it kind of taken over him and I just I think this might be most interesting bit for me that one of the one of the fans in it and we don't see much from the fans but one of the fans and it says he sees a lot of enter Jimmy Hendricks in Ziggy Stardust and Hendricks we're getting that big that his
manager were pumping in full of drugs just to get him out on stage and eventually killed him . And Bowie Says that the idea was that Ziggy was to good , was going to be the ultimate rock star that went too far and couldn't survive . And obviously the irony to it is that it pretty much killed Bowie because Bowie became the ultimate rock star .
He didn't know Ziggy were gonna be as big as it was just a character that happened to blow up .
I know you're not a Ziggy Stardust expert , but did he live as Ziggy then or did he just perform on Ziggy ? So I got the feeling that for a couple of years he lived as Ziggy .
Stardust , I think , like certainly in the public eye . Yeah , I mean I think . Yeah , I mean obviously on stage and stuff like that as well . I mean he says himself it . He talks a couple times about schizophrenia , don't I ?
Yeah , yeah , I can pass it .
But I think it might be a bit of it in a minute . He says that he didn't understand that the characters he would create in were actually him , which is bizarre , isn't it ?
Yeah well , he says , doesn't it is a bit where , because obviously in stages it changes a lot .
And he says , you know , every time is a new outfit , basically is a new version of himself , and there were times when it wasn't sure which was kind of the real one and that whether bowie had become Like an act , character act , which is really confusing to kind of be in that space . Yeah .
Well , it's all like as if Ziggy is a person and it's him .
Does he know that he's a character ? Because it's . Sometimes he speaks as if it's character and sometimes he speaks as if that that is actually him .
It's all about . I was constantly trying to get rid of the Ziggy character because he's always following me around . It's like what I ? I mean , I love bowie , absolutely love bowie , but I'm not an expert . There's a lot he's not one of the people that I'm proper clue it up on . So people who would massive bowie fans .
I'll be able to say more here , but I can't . He obviously never . He never went back to that Ziggy character , but I'd like to know how long it haunted him for , if you know , I mean he seemed and obviously you only see a very small part people he seems to be much more in control in the late years .
I would say , is that right ?
Oh yeah , I mean he's seen a lot of puny late years . I mean there are a lot of what ? A drugs going around . I mean after this he did low and heroes and stuff like that with Brian E know , and by sounds of it we just fucking took drugs central . They went to Berlin and just got Like literally like fucking cocaine heaven .
I Don't think this is like the sort of drugs like that here , because he's not wild .
Yeah , I don't know if , kind of behind the scenes , if he's taking stuff and then to do the interviews , is having to take down as to it could be down and and that's where you're getting this kind of almost stone-looking version of him . Yeah , I don't know , it's interesting it's .
It's needs people with Far more intelligence than us to where to get to the bottom of it .
I'm sure yeah , but there's a great version of this batch like a rock and roll suicide off the Ziggy , start a salvo . I'll play a little bit here , but what found interesting ? This is as it would be in play . He shows you Showed your montage of all the people who died young . She's got Jimmy Hendrix in the Rockwells for me . So you got Jimmy Hendrix .
On that kind of chocolate , brian Jones in there . I'll just play a little bit of clip anyway .
When someone's accelerating very , very fast and you're not driving and you get that thing in your chest , when you've been forced backwards and think , oh , and you're not sure whether you like it or not . It's that kind of feeling . That's what success was like the first thrust of being Totally unknown to being what seemed to be very quickly known .
It was very frightening for me , and coping with it with something that I tried to do and that's what happened . That was me coping . Some of those albums were me coping , taking it all very seriously , and I was but what's interesting is they're all from the famous 27th , or the infamous 27th .
Well , you've heard of that before .
Yeah , yeah .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , kirk Bage in March , all that 27 , but we were 27 at the time of this recording , so I don't know if , like because he mentions all this sort of stuff , is that is he thinking ? I don't know if he's thinking of committing suicide , but is he thinking like he said , since is Realist is amazing survived that period .
Yeah , yeah , I don't know . It's quite dark to think about in it .
Just .
Delight in the mood a bit . Let's have a go . Mike Perry , when he on the quiz he thought what the next line to that was . Yes , I wanted to sing the next line or say the next line . What Can you not say the next line of the song , very famous song .
I hear that again , we're here again .
Said yes , it's such a small snippet of the song that .
I reckon the next line was but the world has blown up , everything is going south .
Still think the best ever might parade like lyrics . Wrong is if you want my body and you think I'm smooching . Come on , baby , open wide .
Yeah , brilliant , I think it's . If you , if you want to smooch me on , you think I'm groovy or something , that's if you want to smooch me ?
hang you think I'm groove . Or come on , baby , open wide Mike Perry fans . We've got got treats here coming up , by the way .
Yeah , we are gonna get to it Definitely .
And basically we've done the down .
by the way , I put really good vocals in that one because I thought I was oh yeah .
¶ David Bowie's Album and Career Evolution
There's a weird be it where , because I think and I know nothing about it , so you might know , you might not , but I think the Ziggy Stardust album was a kind of a story , wasn't it about ? Yeah , I read up a tiny bit an alien comes to earth to save the world . There's no music on his planet or something , and yeah .
But then there's just like a really weird voice over where bowie's doing it and it's it's sort of skimming over the earth almost and he's saying that Everybody flees there . They're a flea the size of rats and rats the size of that's not , that's a different , that's a different album .
You you're right with Ziggy Stardust story , but that's the beginning of diamond dogs album . What you're talking about the place over here .
Why does that ? The whole thing is very jumbled to me . Why was that bit played in there , do you think ?
I'm not sure . I'm not sure that was the album that was coming out or were out or whatever at that time . That album was actually going to be based around the book 1984 . The song on it called 1984 .
Don't it ? Just threw me a bit of thought . We've been watching some of his songs and then we got this really weird .
It's like War of the Worlds type thing , yeah yeah , it's not one of my favourite albums , to be honest with there's got some good songs on it , it's not one of my favourites . I'm not too clued up on it .
He's back out on stage . He's completely changed again . He looks a bit like Mick Jagger in this to me , Not only how he looks , but how he's strutting about and moving . He's become Mick Jagger now . But yeah , and then there's a bit .
We mentioned it earlier , so I don't know if you want to play the clip or just mention it , but it ends in a really , really funny way it's the weirdest ending .
I don't think so . I mean , yeah , fuck it , we'll play the clip , because people might think we're exaggerating . This is how the documentary ends , so David Berry becomes a solo singer .
Yeah , that is the last piece of dialogue . We get a little bit more music after that and you assume ?
Yeah , there's a good soul version of John Amoni dancing , but yeah , basically you see him just reusing with some soul singers for literally about five seconds and then suddenly he was a soul singer , that's it .
I was looking , thinking have I missed something here ? Is there an ending to it that I've missed , which again , obviously Ensob ? Very well , renan , he's done some fantastic stuff . I can't really tell you what he's done , if I'm honest , but I know he's very well thought of . To say this was so well thought of . I don't get it . It's not that it's bad .
It wasn't a bad way to spend 50 minutes and it did make me think oh yeah , I could listen to a couple of Bowie songs .
Actually , that's the best thing I can say for it is that I've watched it and then I've done this one really quick and I watched it and I've been listening to Bowie all day today because he's got me into it . The period he went on after this , after the this is like the glam rock period , if you like it became like a plastic .
He classed it as plastic soul and he did Young Americans , young Americans . Yeah yeah , yeah , and FOOM that one how many ?
sort of reinventions did he do , or is it ?
too hard to say , absolutely no idea . Top and bad . I mean started off as the space man , obviously , or whatever Ground control to my age at home . And then he went . I don't know what he was , man who Sold the World really . I mean I'm not like a huge expert . Then obviously Ziggy .
Then he became like a lad insane Diamond Dogs were a completely different thing , it was supposed to be 1984 . Then he became like a soul singer . Then he became the thin white juke , which I love , the thin white juke . And then he went on these ambient stage with Brian Eno and doing drugs in Berlin . Then he became Disco King with Yo let's Dance .
Yeah , yeah , I mean he was an iteration of him , wasn't he ?
He's crazy , yeah , then he did like Eddie Rock with Tim Machine at night . He's ridiculous how many times he invented himself .
I mean , he's clearly unbelievably talented , isn't he ? Like you know , I don't love everything that he's done . I'm not his biggest fan , Like I've said , some of it I actually find really unpleasant to listen to . But I think , to be able to do all these different kind of genres and have hits in them all really , really talented man .
Well , I've got something theory early . We knew this one was going to be a fairly short one , because a lot of it is concert footage , and what I'd say is if you like Bowie , absolutely watch this . I enjoyed it because I love Bowie . If you're not a fan of Bowie , you're not going to get anything out of this .
I don't think no because there's no , you know , and probably it's probably shown in the episode there's no real great humorous moments to get old over . It is there , it's , you know , it's some songs and a guy who's not very happy . That's what I meant .
Yeah , really good performer and a guy who's not happy , but looking at me with a little bit of a game here . Liam , there's a fantastic website called Sub Bowie and it's about what was David Bowie up to at your age . So I'll type your age in now for you . You want to know what David Bowie was doing .
David Bowie at age 48 was co-starring with Tina Turner in a Pepsi commercial . Wow , any other ages that have barroled , I don't know . I mean , have you got any more ages that are special to ?
you . Yeah , what was he doing when 30 ? What was he up to ?
At 30 years old , david Bowie was singing in a completely self-invented language on the 1977 album Wow on Subterranean's , a decade before it was popularized by the Coptu twins .
About when he was 15 , and then in 10 years' time we'll have a look and see if I'm in the same position .
He created the Bowie Bond's financial security back with Royaltyd from his pre-1990 work . He issued the bonds in 1997 and then £55 million from the sale . The rights to his back catalogue were returned to him and the bonds matured in 2007 . Businessman business time .
Did he finish mega rich then ? I suppose , a bit like Elton , when you've got the back catalogue that people are going to keep by it , you must generate income year after year . So he must have died a very , very rich man .
Just while you're on a David Bowie network . £230 million , not bad . You're going to do one more age before you go , liam . What shall we say ? What else you were up to in this year 27 .
What do you mean ? Oh , when this would have been filmed .
This is not on the documentary . Apparently , moonwalk before Michael Jackson did on this tour and his footage of it , wow , so he did the Moonwalk as well , jack O .
He stole Paul McCartney's songs and he stole Bowie's Moonwalk . Unbelievable , it's not well is it .
No , he's not , but yeah . So he invented the Moonwalk and invented singing .
¶ Living With Maidley
Surprise , Last week I called a scratch and a wallpaper over there and when I told her to stop she did a whoops in my beer eye Living with me .
Yeah , so we did it . We did a difficult episode there . I thought Just purely because not actually that much to say about it , but yeah , we got through it . The last episode do you want to hit them with the facts ?
Well , we've not talked about it for a while and we feel it's time to bring him back . We're going to cover the full Maidley and the Squatters . I'm lucky for this . I've never seen the full thing . We've got a surprise , a Mike Parry special surprise , coming up as well , so it's not the end but the final of the actual series .
We're going back to Maidley , yeah and it's on YouTube , is it ?
Yeah , yeah , yeah , Maidley and .
Squatters .
For anyone who's been with us since the start , we played some clips from this on the very , very first episode . We've not touched it since and , to be honest , I think that first episode we probably need to remove or redo or do something with . I think not sure we'll watch this space . Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changers .
Living with .
Maidley .
If anyone wants to get in touch with us , send us anything . Find us on Twitter at Living with Maid1 . Or you can send us an email at livingwithmaidleyoutlookcom . Living with Maidley .