Bonus Episode: Michael Oberman Recalls Hosting David Bowie on His First Night in America in 1971

he'd later sing, the taste was not so sweet. The song came and went, and David was in danger of being labeled that most sorry of artists, the one hit wonder. It was a transitional time for David as he sought to solidify his look and his sound. He morphed from the space folk hippie of Space Oddity to the godfather of glam behind the Man who Sold the World, and finally the androgynous tune smith who'd release his breakthrough but

wonderfully eccentric Hunky Dory. The album would open with the song Changes, destined to become one of his signature tunes. It was something of a personal anthem at the time. David face ages in management, changes in homes, changes in musicians, and then his personal style. The changes were mostly good ones and set him up for the success that was just around the corner. The episode opens with perhaps the most significant moment of this exciting period, his first trip

to the United States. Bowie touched down at Dullest International Airport in Washington, d C. On January. This was a major occasion for him. He'd been America Mad as a team. The moment was a triumph until he was detained by custom officials for his speminine clothes. He received a warmer welcome from Ron Oberman, his press agent sent to greet him by his label, Mercury Records. This wasn't just strictly business. Ron was joined by his entire family, his mom, his dad,

and his younger brother, music journalist Michael Oberman. David had wanted to spend his first night in the States with a typical American family, and that's exactly what he got. The future Starman crash landed at the Oberman's sub urban home in Silver Springs, Maryland, where he was welcomed like one of their own. They all piled into the car, and the senior Oberman's treated their newly and large family

to dinner at a local steakhouse. The Oberman's hospitality for shadow the warm embraced bowl had received from America throughout his career. His first night in the United States has gone down in Bowie. Laure is an important early step in his journey to global superstardom. The trip is the plot of a new film, Stardust, a movie that's been

deemed controversial first liberal reinterpretation of historical events. Ron Oberman, an instrumental force in Bowie's early career, sadly died in twenty nineteen, but his brother Michael recounted the famous visit and his new book Fast Forward, Play and Rewind one part memoir. The book also collects his interviews with over a hundred rock legends, ranging from Janice Joplin and James Brown to the Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, Leon Russell, Emmett Rhodes,

Little Feet, and of course David. I was lucky enough to speak with Michael about his remarkable career the music journalist and that special night with David Bowie and his parents living room back in Well, oh Man. I have so many things I want to ask you. I guess before I asked you about Bowie's first Night in America. I want to ask you about the very first time

you spoke to him. A few years earlier, in nineteen well, my brother had sent me a copy of Space, and I had also been subscribing to New Musical Express and Melody Maker Um because I as a writer for a major newspaper, I wanted to know what was going on with the British music scene and the of course I had subscriptions to American journals to like bill Board and eventually Rolling Stone. The interview with with David in sixty nine was very brief. I asked him a couple of

questions and it was done, and I wrote my piece. Obviously, fast forwarding to seventy one, it was a totally different story. You know. At the time of Space Oddity, that's all I knew about Ellie. He was not a household name in the United States in nineteen sixty nine, and in fact in seventy one he was far from a household name because people have already forgotten Space Obity. It was a brief introduction Hello, arranged by my brother since my

brother worked for Mercury Records, and that was it. And around this time and this is all in your incredible book Fast Forward Play and rewind You interviewed hundreds of rock legends. I mean, there's my favorite is this picture of you at the Watergate Hotel with James Brown. It's just it's unbelievable. Me. Who are some highlights from you for that era? Um? You know? My favorite interviews really maybe Joni Mitchell because she wasn't granting interviews at that

time and I got one with her. UM Jim Morrison backstage at the Spectrum Theater in Philadelphia. There was my Janis Joplin interview. It was Janis Joplin had lining with the Jeff Beck Group opening for her, and at the time, the Jeff Beck Group, the lead singer was Rod Stewart, the bass player was Ron Wood, keyboard player was Nicky Hopkins, and the gig was at the Alexandria, Virginia Roller Rink.

This was before there were really concert halls. So I interviewed Jeff Beck in the dressing room and Janice's driver comes up to me says she would like to do the interview at a hotel. There were two shows, one at four pm and one at eight pm, and he would drive me to the hotel and bring me back

to my car. So I go there and she's got a suite, So there's a bedroom in the living room and I'm sitting on the couch waiting for her to come in, and on the coffee table in front of me is a bong and the bottle of Southern Comfort. And Janice comes in her favorite and she's wearing a low cut kind of Mexican peasant blouse and she had just done a great show. She's kind of sweaty, and she leaned over and grabbed the bottle of Southern Comfort while saying to me, would you like a drink? And

I said, no, not while I'm working. And when she leaned over, one breast came out of her blouse totally and it stayed out for the entire interview. Now I'm a twenty year old guy trying to interview Janice Joplin, and I'm trying to look her in the eyes. So there, you know, people asked me, what do I remember? I certainly remember her breast. And there are moments like that Grateful Dead Almond Brothers Midnight till six Am show at

the Fillmore East. I set up an interview with Jerry Garcia for after the show, which means six thirty in the morning at the hotel. And I'm in a room in a hotel room with Jerry Garcia, bab were one of their managers, John McIntyre and A Roady, And once again there's a coffee table, but on this coffee table there's a gallon jug of like cheap wine, gallow wine.

Pig pen must have been nearby, and I wanted to break the ice somehow, and I was kind of an amateur magician back then, so I had crumpled up in my hand a ball of something called flash paper, and they tested joint around to me, and I made it a habit not to smoke or drink when I was doing an interview, and when they tasted me the joint, I dropped the ash into my hand and a ball of flame shot out of my hand from the flash paper.

Jerry Garcia grabbed the jug of wine and doused my hand with wine from people was on fire, and of course they were tripping. And what happened since the interview turns into me explaining flash paper and flashpots, and soon after that the Grateful Dead began using flashpots on stage, so I think about moments, and you know, was it a coincidence that they learned about flash paper from me? Or was it providence? You know? So obviously having David Bowie spend the day with me and my parents and

my brother was great. But if you could put yourself in my shoes for a minute, this was my job. But not only was it my job, I was the same age as most of these artists, so there was a simpatico that was there already. I had long hair, blah blah blah. You know, it was such a heavy time for me because at a young age here I was interviewing the cream of the crop of the music industry.

And what you see in my book is I think about a hundred and ten or a hundred and fifteen interviews of the three hundred that were published, of the five hundred that I did, because there were a lot of interviews that I did that I just never ran um the interviews weren't weren't good, that was just stoned or drunk, et cetera. And then you know, I'll go

to an oddball interview, the legendary start Us Cowboy. How many people in the United States had interviewed the legendary start Us Cowboy when paralyzed came out not many, I imagine, not many, no, no, And then to have that connection later on with legendary start Us Cowboy and David Bowie. You know, it just still blows my mind. Oh it is incredible. I mean, I guess taking us up to tell me about going to the airport to meet him. I mean, this was the whole family, your mom, dad,

you Ron. I mean I picture like a cooler Griswolds just kind of like shot up at the airport. It's amazing. Well, you know, the nice thing is my brother had hung with Bowie in London in nineteen sixty nine, and then over the two year period between sixth nine and seventy one, my brother dealt with Bowie and his management company quite a bit, So it was old home Home week for him. For me, it was really because my brother had flown

in from Chicago. For me, it was driving my parents out to Dullars because as much as it was interesting for them to meet David Bowie, they wanted to see their son who had been living in Chicago and working for a record company. So we all get there and we were probably expecting him to come out of customs about forty five minutes before he actually did. Um. I think they probably held him up a little bit just

because of the way he looked, where he was dressed, etcetera. UM, which you know, look, my brother and I had long hair. David boy had long hair. David when he arrived at the airport was in a calf length kind of flared coat that looked like a dress. And you know, this was a Dullis airport in Virginia, and I guess they were having some fun with him in customs. I mean, Nixon's America. I can't imagine taking kindly to to to

a man in a dress arriving on their shores. That makes that makes a lot of sense, I guess for the time absolutely. I mean, it's funny this morning. When I did my radio interview in London, we talked about those times because we had a war in Vietnam going on and music played a big part in in the the war movement. David Bowie's music did not play a big part in it, but what was going on at

that time, you know. To take you to a day in time, the Mayday demonstrations and I helped to organize the music for that Washington d C. I saw the saw the largest mass arrest in US history, twelve thousand peaceful protesters handcuffed in zip tie handcuffs and taken to RFK Stadium as a holding cell. And this was in May seventy one. Yeah, still holds a record. And you know, when you know, I hate to get current. Put January six at the Capitol violent protesters. Hardly any of them

were arrested. They all put in zip ties. And yet in in seventy one there were probably seventy thousand people there for the music and the May Day anti war protests and twelve thousand arrested. It was amazing. So we arrived at a seminal time in the United States history, and he was he didn't fit in musically, the man who sold the world. First of all, let let me say something about Mercury Records. God bless my brother who passed away. He did the best job he could for

Mercury promoting acts. But Mercury, there's a reason why Graham Parkers sang this long Mercury poison, and part of it was Mercury didn't know how to promote LPs. They promoted a lot of forty five at the time, you're you're talking about Keith with nine point six, you're talking about the Left Bank pretty Ballerina. But album groups were not you know, it was mercury poisoning. So they didn't know what to do with Bowie The Man Who Sold the

World was too dark of an album for them. And but my brother believed in them, and the whole idea. The movie start Us comes out, okay, and they they have a disclaimer at the beginning, the beginning of it that you know, it's a lot of fiction, Well it is mostly fiction. There are a few facts in there in the movie. They make you seem to think that Bowie was surprised when he got to the United States that he couldn't perform, but he knew that before he

came over. He didn't have a work visa at the time. In order for a British group to play paying gigs in the United States, an American group had to play paying gigs in Great Britain. Okay, so there was a tip for tat there was a tradeoff. I think the British invasion of groups earlier had caused that rule to happen because a lot of British groups were doing concerts here and kind of knocking Americans off the stage. So David was not surprised and my my my parents took

him in like he was one of their children. I mean. The funny thing is the actress who plays my mother. Have you seen the film start us? I haven't yet know. I really suggest you're watching it on video on demand. It's really a dreadful movie. So I endorsements. I say, you know, well, first of all, they have Marc Maron, who was fifty six years old, playing my brother who was twenty seven at the time that Bowie arrived. They have Mark Maroon dropping the F bomb in almost every scene,

and my brother never cursed in his life. They have my mother say to David Bowie at the airport, wait until you try my Kasha varnishkas. Well, my mother never made a Jewish aditional life. Then there is a there's a scene in my parents house where supposedly we were having dinner in the dining room with a younger brother and sister that I to this day don't know that they ever existed, but in the film they do. And we didn't have dinner in the dining room. We went

to a place called Emerson's Restaurant. But in that scene in the dining room, the actor who plays me, David even acknowledges. Hey, Michael, the actor who plays me, says to David, are you a novelty act? Now? Oh my god, how embarrassing for me. My brother Unfortunately, you know, he had to mention the last year's his wife. He didn't

even know if this movie was being made. But I had offered Salon Pictures six months before the filming started to give them background on that seventy one trip, and the Paul Van Carter, the producer of the film, said, I will put Gabriel Range, the director, in touch with you. Well, months went by, I get a call British accent. Oh Michael, yes, Gabriel Range, you the director of startus O. Gabriel Great, I guess you want to talk to me about my

brother and what happened on that trip. He said, oh wow, we just finished shooting the film eighteen days in Hamilton, Canada. And I said, okay, well, I know Mark Marion plays my brother, which I think is a big mistake, but can you tell me a little bit about the film. And he says, well, it's about the road trip that David and your brother took across the United States and your brother's beat up old station wagon. Well, that road trip never happened. It never occurred, So you know, here

I am. And then I on November when the film went on video on demand in the state, and it didn't go on video on demand in Great Britain until last week, which is why I've been getting all these calls from from England. I watched it on November and I sat here with my partner Mary Jane, watching the film and saying, oh, my god, you know my mother. That's not my mother, you know me? And it really you know it. It skips a lot of important moments.

I've had some family members and friends that have shown around on their first trip to the States, and it's always fun for me to see what they zero went on as being uniquely American and special to them. I remember, I add some family from Italy common They were totally taken by chocolate chip cookies. For some reason. I was wondering how David reacted to America for those first hours here. Was there anything he picked up on that was really

unique and special to him about the United States? Well, the strange thing is you would think that here David Bowie has arrived in the US for the first time, and his wish that he told my brother wasn't He spent his first day with an American family, So it was really him asking us more questions than us asking him. He wanted to about my father's work, he wanted to know about my writing. And when we went to the restaurant,

we talked about film, we talked about writing. He discussed mime a little bit, and I tried to be really nice because mime is probably my least favorite art form in the world. You're not alone in that. And when I was on the student union board at the University of Maryland, one of the people that we booked was Marcel Marceau and yeah, so um there was it was almost like it wasn't somebody from from London. It was just somebody who was from another city in America who

wanted to talk about what we were doing. Um. I had no idea at that point, but because I was going to be doing a second story with on on David, which didn't appear until and it wasn't really me interviewing the while he was here in the DC area I wanted. I wanted that could be more of a friendly thing. I had no idea what was going to happen on this three weeks in the United States, and my brother would fill me in. We talked on the phone almost

every day. Um. So, you know, in in the movie Start Us, they have David doing an unpaid gig for a bunch of vacuum cleaner salesman and that's supposed to be funny, and I guess it was a little humorous in the movie, but it never happened. Um, David didn't come with equipment, he didn't come with the band. He knew that he was not and they make a big deal of this in the movie. I was he was shocked that he arrived in America and he couldn't perform.

He was a gentleman. Um it was. It was interesting because this He ended up back at my house in Tacomo Park, Maryland, and one of the bands I was managing at the time, because besides being a writer, I was managing artists, was called Sky Cob. The drummer's name was Marcus Cuff. Marcus is now the premier tattoo photographer and motorcycle photographer in Los Angeles and when he left Sky cob he was a drummer in Emmy Lou Harris,

his Angel band. And so Bowie comes back to my place and the Scott Cobbs in the living room when they've got a bong and they're passing it around and David does not partake, and they ignored David. It was like, who is this freak? You know? And that really pissed me off. And to this day for Marcus, every time I talked to him in l A, I bring it up. Um he could kick himself for not really having befriended

David Bowie on that first day in the state. So there was nothing, you know, It was almost like it wasn't like I was walking into a dressing room to interview Jim Morris and David Bowie. It was all of a sudden had become a member of the Overman family. And that's that's really what it felt like. And I get I get a lot of mail now, email from Bowie fans who know the story of his first day

in the United States and have seen the photo. That photo of me, my brother and David and my parents living from cow started appearing in British publications fifteen years ago. I mean that that picture is just fantastic. I mean it just looks so it's so surreal. It's like David Bowie at Ozzy and Harriett's house or something. It's the coolest photo. Yeah, you know it was. For years. I would get messages from people saying that must be a joint in his hand in the photo, and it's not.

It's my father's business card. David was interested in my father's work managing a brewery um which played a part in my life to my fourth grade show until in the nineteen fifties. My father brought home hops Barley all the ingredients to beer, and that was my show and tell how to make beer in my fourth grade class, so to get popular. I think I was a little

ahead of my time with homebrewing. Wow. I one of my my favorite parts of the story of David visiting your house's show is kind of giving him the tour and you showed him your nineteen Dodgers versus Yankees World Series ticket, which is cool on its own, but autographed by Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. How that still blows my mind? How did you get that Okay. My father as manager, a manager of National Bohemian Beer in he

was the branch manager of the year. So the brewery gave us the use of the company plane and tickets to three World Series games New York Yankees versus the Brooklyn Dodgers, the classic World Series of all time. And sitting in front of us, we had box seats between home plate and the third base it was humph Directly in front of us was Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. And of course I was eight years old. I didn't know from Humphrey Bogart. My mother says, oh my god, Michael, yeah,

get their autographs, And I thought, who are they? So I went over, you know, cube little boy and his little shorts and all, and excuse you because I get your autographs and they obliged, so the you know, and it's funny because the whole Lauren Bacall thing and then David Bowie with the album cover with that Lauren Bacall look, you know, it was yeah, yeah, just you know, there's a thread of DNA that just keeps popping up. What kind of impact does Bowie have on your life? Now?

Because you were saying You've had a busy few months with the fiftieth anniversary of his first America trip and the at lease of the Stardust movie, plus the release of your own book. Is he a big figure in your life still? It's it's just it's blowing my mind. You know that all of this boist when main Man got in touch with me and wanted me to do one of their podcasts, and then that David Bowie fanatics and Great Britain heard. I was gonna do it, but in touch with me, don't do it? I said, why? Oh,

David hated Tony DeVries at the end. You know, there was a very acrimonious breakup, and I thought, well, you know, when I did my Dude Village incident and saw that Tony Devrees was taking of what David made, I I thought that was akin to Colonel Parker and Elvis because that was the same arrangement. But Tony Duvrees really really launched David's career. But unfortunately David had a drug problem I think got very bad, and Tony had a zero pop tolerance for drugs. That was part of the breakup.

So on David's part, it was is ripping me off and on Tony's part, I can't deal with the drug thing. Um and Bowie fanatics are really fanatical. It's it's almost once again a kid to Elvis Presley fans. He has such a great fan base. You said that you saw Bowie one more time years after he became your adopted English brother for that night. Tell me about the last

time you saw him. I had a two year consulting contract in l A that took me out there one week a month, so I ended up staying at the Hotel Al Niko, which is a Japanese hotel, and one night at the depo, I'm at the bar and David Bowie walks in with nine inch Nails. They had been in concert delay that night, and on the end the other end of the bar is Soupy Sales. So I'm in the middle of the bar between nine inch Nails and Soupy Sales and David Bowie. So I'm I'm in

total heaven, you know. I go over and say hi to David, renew my acquaintance, and then leave him and him be and I'm wondering what SUPI Sailor is doing here? And this guy walks over and sits down next to me in a tuxedo and he says, ah, that's David Bowie over there, isn't. I said, yeah, that's David. I said that Soupy Sales there, and he says, yeah, I know, that's Soupie there. There's a roast here tonight for my uncle. And in the ballroom. I said, who's your uncle? He says,

Milton Burrow. So he brings Milton Burl out of the roast to the bar. So I'm at the bar with David Bowie, nine inch nails, Soupy Sales, and Milton Burrow. Well a joke, yeah, I know. And when that evening ended, I had watched because I was staying at a Nika one week a month for two years, and I had watched these people come in and put two bills on the bar and get a tiny snifter out of a glass, out of a bottle that was in a locked cabinet. And after this nine inch nails David Bowie thing, the

bartender says, wow, let me buy you a drink. What would you like? And I said, I'll have what's in that lock? Did he do it? Yeah? Yeah he did. It was like three year old Brandy. It was like tasting silk in your mouth. It was pretty incredible. What did David say when he saw you? That must have been a shock for him. Well, he didn't realize who it was at first. Um, this would have been in the mid ninety nineties, so it had been twenty four years.

And how many people has David met? But as soon as I said, Oberman, oh my god, how are you? You know? How's your brother? How? And you know he had just come off playing that night, And you know, I said every every fine, I said, my parents are still alive and they certainly remember you. Well, oh, give them my regards and say hello Iron for me. And that was it. Wow, what incredible code of to your bowie experience. What's next for you with your book coming out?

Is there a sequel or what are you working on? You know, my book is sitting with HBO right now and with the head of production for HBO. I don't know what's going to come of that. Um. I don't know how they could. You know, they'd have to make a long series out of it. Um. It's been an interesting trip. And to think, Look, when I was five years old, I didn't think i'd live to see fifty. When I was fifty, I got out of the music

business and became a wildlife photographer. So I left the wildlife for wildlife, and I never thought that at age seventy seventy one, I would be doing this book. It's been incredible. I thought that being out with great blue herons and all the eagles and all would uh put an end to my music business stuff. But this has been a really good trip for me writing this book. I've got a lot out off The record is a production of I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard,

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