Bonus Episode: Tony Zanetta Reflects on His Wild Days on the Road as Bowie’s ‘Ziggy’-era Tour Manager and MainMan President

these undoubtedly exciting times. On one hand, he was seeing America a close range, living out as Jack Caroact dreams on the road. The crowds were growing, the press followed his every move. Everything he'd been working towards seemed to becoming true. But on the flip side, he was physically and mentally exhausted. The constant travel, grueling performances, financial chaos, and psychic confusion caused by as many characters had stretched

David to his breaking point. He discovered as many newly six TuS for artists do the commercial success the man's creative repetition and repetition was one of David's least favorite words. Rather than succumb to the slow artistic death, David would have to kill off his most beloved creation. Witness to the high highs and low lows was Tony Zenetta, a legendary figure in the experimental downtown drama scene of late

sixties New York. He first entered David's orbit as a cast member of Andy Warhol's play pork Ine, co starring with last Week's guest Cherry Vanilla. Before long, both would be swept up in the whirlwind of David's management company, Maine Man. In case you're not already familiar, this was not your average suit and tie kind of company, headed up by Bowie's larger than life manager, Tony Defrees. The

organization traded in excess in style. In practice, it was more like an elaborate performance piece and a strict bottom line business. This goes a long way in explaining why Defreese hired Zenetta to be made Man's president, despite the

fact and he had no business experience whatsoever. Saneta would later be drafted into a much more demanding role as David's tour manager, overseeing the tracks for a Ziggy Stardust and later on the notoriously over the top Diamond Dogs Production, keeping the show on the road and egos and check all with a daily operating budget of close to zero dollars,

It's not a job for the faint of heart. Sanetta was gracious enough to speak to me about those thrilling days on tour with David as his star soared to New Heights and how just as fast everything changed. Before we get to Bowie, I want to take it back a little further. How did you first get involved with Andy Warhol in the theater of the Ridiculous in the downtown arts community? Well, you know, I I mean, I always loved acting and I loved theater. I did high

school plays and I did plays in college. But when I got to New York, of course it was a little different, and I didn't get involved right away. But I've been here a couple of years and I started doing some acting. Blah blah blah blah blah. Fast forward. I had met Tony and Garcia when I first got to New York, because Tony and Gracia was from Massapequa, Long Island and my college roommate, Tom Carbury was from Massapequa Long Island, so Tom had grown up with Tony

and with Jimmy Slattery, a k a. Candy Darling. So I met Candy and Tony early on. And then Tony was working with the Playhouse of the Ridiculous, John Bacaro's company, and then Tony was a playwright, and Tony began directing, and one of the early things he directed was a play by Jackie Curtis called Femme Fatale. And then the meantime his own plays were being done, had a play called Sheila. He had a play called Island But and then he directed a play called World Birth of a

Nation by Wayne County. Tony always had aspirations to be kind of a very legitimate writer director, so he always advertised in the trade papers, which most people downtown did not do, but he did. And I saw the ad for the casting for World Birth of a Nation, and by that time I had decided that I really wanted to work with the Ridiculous because I had had just seen a play that John Macaro did, or the playoffs of the Ridiculous did, called Nightclub, which was absolutely mesmerizing.

It was just incredible. So I went to the audition for World and Tony remembered me and he said, diling you don't have to where audition. Of course you could be in my play anyway. That was in like September of nineteen seventy, and from then on my world kind of changed because I entered the world of The Ridiculous and the one day I met Tony and my new Tony, I met Lee black Childer's I met Wayne Jane County.

I met Terry Vanilla, who was still Cathy Doherty. I met Jamie Di Carlo Lots Andrews, who would later come work with us at Maine Men. So I met I met basically the people that I would become closest to for the next years. I mean, Cherry Vanilla and I are still closest, closest friends, and that's been quite a that's what's that fifty years something like that. And then that leads into into Pork, which I mean, what was it like when Pork hit New York? I mean, I

can't imagine there's anything like that before on on the stage. Well, that's an interesting question for a lot of reasons. First of all, Warhole. You know, if you were in downtown, well, if you were in The Ridiculous, let me put it that way, in Downtown theater and if you went to Max's Kansas City, and if you know, or if you were somehow in the art world and the fringe of the art world, I mean, Warhole was kid and the the Factory was was what it was all about, you kind of.

I mean most of us wanted to become a part of the Factory or we wanted to be superstars or whatever whatever whatever. You know. We hung out with Jackie Curtis and Candy and Hollywood Love, I Love, Derek Emerson, who else, oh, Geraldine Smith and Andrea warholo whips. These are all people that went to the Max's Kansas City. But so to be associated with Warhol was like very exciting.

But that's one part of it. The other part of it was the play itself, because you know, this was tape recorded conversations that Andy turned over to Tony and Gracia and then Tony and Gracia I mean the transcripts. But there were hours and hours and hours and hours

of transcripts. So Tony and Garcia went through the transcripts and put them together to create this quote unquote play which brings, you know, it really questions the idea of what is a play, which Warhol had already done with his book A which was taped conversations with the Superstar and also playoffs of The Ridiculous Star un Dean. So that I mean that was a novel called A So was it a novel, you know? But but it was

also the same thing as his paint takes painted. He painted a soup can and put it on the gallery wall and said it was art. So I mean, what I'm trying to say is it just confirmed Warhol's um role as a conceptual artist. So paintings and silk screens, books and now a play. Now he was moving into

the film and then the idea of theater. So one of the most interesting things about Pork was was it brings it to question the whole idea of what makes theater or what makes a play and uh and it was definitely perceived as a play when it at the beginning of middle Internet end thanks to Ingrassias editing and how we put the thing together. So it was exciting on a lot of levels socially to be part of the factory and just artistically to be a part of

this process in this whole idea of performance. Also, I want to ask you about the culture element of the play as well. I mean, there were a lot of things going on on the stage that people didn't see very much, especially when you took the show to England.

I can only imagine how that was received over there, because I think only a few years earlier they removed the basically the censorship position in the government where all the plays had to be approved by I forget that the person's title, but I can only imagine how how that went down in England. That must have been shocking in the best way and just completely blew some minds. Well, while we were there, there was and I'm not um my memory fails me a little, but there was something

called the Trial of Oz. It was right, it was all about censorship in the arts and um that was going on while we were in England that summer summer of ninety one. Plus the plant, the movies and I think it was lesson trash could not be shown in a cinema. They had to be shown in a cinema club because of censorship, right, exactly funny, So yeah, there was a censorship issue. Now I don't remember if they came to review it, how we got past the sensors.

If it was different for live performance at that point. But the thing about Pork that was also interesting was that it was it was a lot about sex, a lot of talk about sex. There was a lot of nudity. Jerry Miller douched on stage. Um. However, there was also almost a Charlie Brown kind of innocence quality about Pork. It was it was very childlike and very kind of innocent. So in its in its display of like public of sexuality, it wasn't really well, it wasn't prurient er and you know,

it wasn't like pandering too. It wasn't pornographic in any way. It was it was very childlike and I think and it was comedy basically, it was funny. So people were not offended by the open sexuality because of the way it was presented. How did David first become aware of it? I've heard multiple different stories about Dana Gleesbie possibly auditioning and taking a script to him. How did you first

enter his orbit? I guess Well, Danna denies that. Now, for some reason, I always thought that that was how it happened. She says, no, she never auditioned. That's total bunk. Well, I don't know where I got that story from he became aware of it. Um he may have been aware of it anyway. But when we were doing Pork in New York and this that spring, um there there was a little article in Rolling Stone magazine about him. He had come to to the United States in nineteen seventy.

That movie that's out now called Start Us by the Way, is about him coming to the United States in nineteen seventy and doing this promotional tour for Mercury Records. He didn't have the right visa to perform, so he went around and talked to radio stations and met people and blah blah blah, blah blah. So part of it was here. There was a little this little interview with him or I don't know if it was actually and I guess

it was an interview in Rolling Stone. And there was a photo of him in in his famous man dress. So that titilated us. Me and Lee and Wayne County especially, we were fascinated by because he was very pretty wearing this dress, and but we didn't know his music. We didn't know much else about him. Now, when we were in London doing Pork, Cherry was sort of a group here. She fancied herself a groupie, and she decided she would do uh a column for it was Cream magazine called

Cherry Vanilla Scoops for You. Basically, it was an excuse for her to contact bands that she wanted to see in concert and get in for free. So she and Lee would go to all these concerts, leave taking photos and Cherry meeting the band and ostensibly writing about them. One and they saw an ad for the Man in the Dress David Bowie. He was playing a place called the Country Club, which was a small venue. I was thought it was acoustic. It wasn't acoustic, but it wasn't

like a big rock and roll show. It's kind of a team rocket anyway. It was a kind of a tame concert. They went. She, Cherry, Lee and Wayne went to see David Bowie um and either he knew they were coming or somehow they connected before because he actually announced them from the stage and they stood up. Since Cherry stood up and took about and thrust her tid out, which was a signature moved for pork because that's what bridget poke. Pork is based on Bridget Pokes tape recordings.

She was a Warhol superstar well, always went around with one breast. Not always, she frequently would expose one breast. That was like a cute little thing that Bridget did. And you know she had books of tip prints and books of cock prints. That was her art anyway, So Terry exposed it to it and they all make contact and Aie was there. I don't know, I don't think Dana was. But anyway, they invited David and Andy to come to see Pork and that's how that's how the

first connection was made. And then David and Angie and Dannick LLSB and Tony defrees them at their manager I think Mick Ronson. Yeah, mc ronson was with them too, came to see Pork and they came back stage and blah blah blah. We ended up going to the Simba Row, which was the dance club and Kensington High Street and that was our first encounter, my first encounter. And said, you were really more taken with Angie at this stage rather than day because he was a bit more more

shy and reticent. Well, I don't know if he was actually shy, but he was quiet and he didn't really Uh, it wasn't that forthcoming. She was very effusive and very outgoing. And yes, she was definitely kind of the diplomat of the two. She was the one that was really reaching out. Yeah, he kind of stood back, kind of taking it in. And then even at the sombrero, he didn't really participate. He was sitting in the corner speaking to I was every call a Japanese boy. Uh, closely huddled. I don't

know what that was all about. But anyway, but Angie was rocous and dancing with me and Cherry and carrying on. So we had a good old time with Angie. Mick ronson coward in the corner because he was scared to death of Jerry. Jerry could be a little aggressive. It was a little much for mick Um. And then at the end of the night Angie invited me to up to their house the next day in Beckenham, which I

did out of Hadden Hall. What was that scene, like a pictured looking like a Gothic commune or something, Well, it was. It was kind of a Gothic house. I mean, it was very imposing from the exterior. It was. It was an old mansion and yeah, it was quite impressive. But they they lived in the entry hall. Basically you know that this was an old mansion that was divided into apartments into flats, so they certainly didn't live in

much of the house. That you walked in and you were in this big entry hall and there was a staircase that went up and there was a balcony, but the balcony all the rooms were closed off up there. Oh, there was was this balcony and although I didn't see it, that's evidently where like Rhino and the band slept if they stayed there, and it was kind of a sleeping balcony, I guess. And then downstairs there was a bedroom, a music room, and I guess the kitchen. I don't know

if I even saw all the kitchen. So it wasn't big. It was like three or four room apartment. Um, yeah, but very impressive from the outside. What was the dynamic like between David and Angie at that time, Well, they were they were pretty you know, they were like a really tight couple at that time. The baby was young. They were the kind of couple where you know, one could start speaking and the other could end the sentence

sort of thing. Angie was always more outgoing, but and she was very very um but she could she could definitely when he wanted to take over, she would definitely step back and put the spotlight on him. He was the kind of he always My whole association with him was he's the kind of person who if he didn't want to be noticed, he wasn't. He didn't You didn't even see it. He could be very It was almost

like crawling into himself. He just didn't see him. But if he wanted to takes center stage, it was almost like there was a spotlight that suddenly went on, the following spot that went on him, so you didn't see anything but him and it but almost like turning it on and off. He really had that ability. It was like great Marilyn Monrose story where she's walking down the street with I think her photographer or friend and no

one notices her. It's just a crowded New York City street and she's just walking around and her friend says something like, I can't believe you're able to just do this, and Maryland says, do you want to see her? Do you want to see Maryland? And then just put these little imperceptible shifts. All of a sudden, she just radiates some people. Cars slowed down and people start turning and looking at her, and it reminds me of what you're saying about David. It's exactly the same thing, exactly. And

he was he's he was extremely charming. He was very seductive, intelligent, you know, when he wanted to turn it on, it was like whoa. It was pretty radiant. You couldn't luck away, let me put it that way. But the two of them were very close. She was extremely extremely I mean, she definitely took a backseat. Everything was about him, Nomanama. She called him noa uh she um, he could do no wrong. You know, everything was David David, David, David, David,

David David. And he kind of soaked it up. He he did like that kind of adoration and support, you know, he did he Lindsay Kemps once said this, he was the kind of person who opened the door for and he was the kind of person who opened the door, and she was pushing doors down for him. Yeah. She she was very aggressive where he wasn't, and she was like noisy and lively where he wasn't. So I think he needed that at that time. And they were they were really a good couple and they seemed to be,

you know, very fond of each other. And it was good. It was good until it wasn't good. I guess it was good for a long time. Now it was good until he I think he didn't need so much anymore, because that's again I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But he was He's David was pretty self centered in that mean, I don't mean that as a criticism necessarily, but everything about him was really about and it all came out in his art. Everything about him was but his art

so so the people around him. He was only interested in people that somehow he could absorb and they would spit back out in whatever art he was doing if he didn't find you interesting. But believe me, he was not gonna turn that light on or give you the time of day and money was done. He was done, you know. He didn't necessarily stay interested in the same things of the same people all the time, although to his credit, I mean, George Underwood was a lifetime friend.

Jeffrey McCormick was a lifetime friend. Uh. He and Iggy James Osterberg were friends for quite a long time. I mean, I think I think David could also be very generous in his friendships. She certainly helped Iggy a lot. Um. Okay, that's it. Well, I guess I think sort of piggybacking of what you just said. I mean, very soon after seeing Pork, Bowie starts putting together his own piece of performance. Are the sort of Bractean theater pieces? Did he start us?

What kind of influence do you think Pork had on on that the construction? But he didn't start doing that because of Pork, that's for sure. I mean, you know, everybody's always gotten carried away through the years of him taking things from Pork. I'm sure he did, but it wasn't really that. It's not like he was not alive until Pork he told me about what he was doing. You know, when that that Sunday afternoon, we talked a lot about theater. I didn't know much about Brecktean theater.

He was explaining Breckteean theater to me and he was talked and at that time it wasn't Ziggy wasn't totally evolved, although I think the music was pretty much involved because he was he was very infatuated with Freddie Barrett, who was who made ended up making a lot of his early costumes. But Freddie was a boy from the Sombrero when Freddie was great looking and Freddie could like really make an entrance, you know, you cut, you know, Freddie

was one of those boys. It was very pretty. You noticed Freddie also, it was like very sharp witted and kind of fun to be around. But I think David was kind of basing Ziggy in some ways around Freddie. He um. He wanted to record Freddie. Of course Freddie couldn't sing, but he had the idea of having a

band where Freddie would be the lead singer. Again, the fans are gonna kill me because they know this better than I do, because he had a band called Hype, but I can't remember if that was where Freddie was supposed to be a lead singing or something else, but it didn't really work out. But it was kind of a dress rehearsal for the Ziki. Oh the Arnold Corns Project ND points Yes, that's a see you no more

than I do. Um. The Honold Corns Project kind of morphed into Ziggy in my opinion, but it was his kind of address rehearsal, you know, for creating this character at least, so he was in the process of really creating this. Yes, it kind of was zinky was I mean, that's that was going to go to the West End next the next week. But it was kind of a musical in a way, and it was about this alien

rock star that he then decided to play. But when and when in Brecty and yes it was Brecty, and that it wasn't him, It was him, David Bowie standing there and saying, this is Ziggy stared us, this is my creation, is this is a this is an alien rock star. It's not me, but I'm playing it on stage and and I don't think and I think it was pretty remarkable because no, as far as I don't know, no, that hadn't happened in rock and roll. So he was accused of being, you know, authentic because he was. It

was misunderstood what he was doing. No, he wasn't ziggy startnist He was showing us ziggy startist um. In terms of Pork, what was I I do have a couple of theories myself, and they're just my opinions. Doesn't mean

anything other than it's my opinion. One of the things about Pork again, I was telling you how kind of it was kind of childlike, even though it was very kind of outrageous, and some of the dialogue and some of the ideas that was presenting, so it had a flam We had a sexual flamboyance about it and in it. Um it wasn't that it was so gender neutral, because I don't really think it was, but it was very um kind of outrageous, and and and those of us who were involved in that company were all kind of

sexually outrageous, kind of sexual outlaws. I like to call them sexual outlaws. So I say, I think that now I'm not saying he wasn't outrage It was probably more of a sexual outlaw than any of us. But the idea of presenting it so blatantly might have um influenced him. Plus, you know, he was very influenced by again going back to Warhol, the Velvet Underground and lou Read and lou Reid certainly had the sexual ambiguity about him. Was he gay?

Was he straight? Was he androgynous? He's gay, he's married. I mean, nobody quite knew what that was all about. And then the other edge of the drugs. But it's not even going to the drugs just the sexuality was very um mysterious, shall we say, And I think he incorporated a lot of that into the Ziggy persona um um makeup wise, I mean, I think I think the look of Ziggy certainly was it wasn't so much about from Pork. It was really there was almost pure Lindsey Kemp.

But I see a lot there's also a lot of other coincidences going on, or a lot of synchronicity Lynn the Kemp's company and the Playhouse, so the ridiculous although they weren't similar at all, were very similar, particularly visually and particularly because of some of their influences Japanese theater

for instance. You know John Bacaro from the Playhouse had spent time in Japan, was very interested are very um um um my mind's going blank, very um Well, Kabuki theater had a big, big influence, very influenced by kabuki theater and the look of kabuki theater that met makeup um. But the whole style of kabuki he really incorporated into the Playhouse. But Lindsey Kemp was doing kind of the

same thing. Plus Lindsay and John had other similarities in that they were both interested in kind of creating something that was new. It wasn't like what Lindsay was doing. Wasn't just mine, but you couldn't call it really egg. You know, it was drag, it was mine, it was circus, that was Japanese. It was all sorts of things I'm

mushed in together to create something new. And that certainly, um wasn't one of the biggest influences influences on David and taking a little bit from here, a little bit from there, a little bit from over there, and all taking it all in and creating something new. And I think he always did that. So he wasn't averse to borrowing ideas or things from other people, that's for sure. But like a true artist, he borrowed and then and

then it came out in a different way his way. Um. So sometimes people say, well, that was the playhouse or that was this that not really there were a lot of things happening all over the globe that at the same time. So I think I think, if anything, he certainly already dead. Its gratitude to Lindsey kemp Um. You know, a lot of the ziggy look was from clockwork. Orange started out as almost pure clockwork Orange, but he didn't get it quite right, so it became again, it became

more his own. It wasn't really Clockwork Orange at the end of the day, it was David Bowie, or it was Ziggy Stardust. But if you if you marry Lindsay Kemp's mind and the clockwork or in the Clockwork Orange, you'll get Ziggy startist. I wanted to ask you about sort of the very famous uh second trip to the United States and in I think September of seventy one, when David's signing with tow Our c A with Tony Defrees.

I wanted to ask you about Tony DeFries because I feel like he's a really misunderstood character in the whole Bowie story. What what did Tony do for David Everything? Yeah, good answer. I mean again, that wouldn't have been a David Bowie without Tony, or they might have been, but

nobody would have known about it. Um. Tony is um. Well, he's pretty interesting character in many many ways, but I think that the really key thing was, you know, David was very ambitious and very focused, so it was Tony. Tony was looking for um. Yeah, I think he wanted to be Alan Klein. But he needed he needed the Beatles or he needed whatever. At first he was going after Stevie Wonder and that didn't not work anyway. Tony needed a vehicle, and along came David Bowie. No one

was interested in David Bowie at that time. David Bowie was old news. He had been around for a long time. Uh so it wasn't you know, he had been around since he was fifteen. It's it's almost ten years at this point, not quite. But there wasn't anything but I mean, there was nothing wrong with him, but he wasn't particularly extraordinary. You look at all those other English bands. They were

making it a j eighteen nineteen twenties anyone. Uh, he was almost getting old because he wasn't really a different generation from the Beatles and the Stones. What wasn't two years younger? Um? Anyway, So Tony had brand damn um. You might call him meglomaniac. But he was a fascinating man. He was very intelligent. Uh, he could expound on anything for hours. But he was also pretty fearless. He was

not afraid of taking chances and he was smart. So um, yeah, you know this this all took a lot of money that Tony wasn't afraid of going out after and he when he signed David, he uh, the deal is misunderstood number one. And the deal the deal actually was not that different from a lot of other UM English acts at the time. The deal was a fifty fifty split after expenses is Tony Uh. Now you have to understand David Bowie had no incomes when Tony signed him, and

Tony said to him, I will support you. Don't have to worry about anything. I'll pay your rent, by your new guitar, by the fabrics from Liberty of whatever, whatever you need. Don't worry. You're taken care of. And UM we will if we make any money, we will split it fifty fifty. If we don't, well then it's my loss. That's pretty seductive if you're an artist sitting there with nothing in your pocket. Now, of course there was enough side to that eventually, but we'll get so Tony took

over everything. The first thing he did was he UM got him a publishing deal. He changed the publishing to get a little bit of money, and then he started started shopping for a record deal. He wanted to go with our c a global not our c a u K. He did not signed David. R C a u K signed David. That's why they came to New York to sign. It was r C A Worldwide because he felt that would give him a lot more cloud, which it did. Um. So David wasn't really an English act anymore. He was

an English act starting to a global company. Um. So Tony was not afraid to take huge chances when um, when they came to the you know, and he had he had certain like principles that he stood by. David was not going to be a support act in the United States and he never was. He was only going to travel first class, which he did. Tony's philosophy was to be a star, you had to act like a star. So David stay at the Plaza Hotel and went everywhere

in limos. Everybody's looking, I know, everybody in New York's like, look like, what he's going on here? This guy hasn't sold one record. Um, but you know, people began to perceive of him, um, not as that loser who had been around for ten years, but as oh, let's watch what's it, what's going on with him? Um? Now they were perfectly matched because they off. It had been working for ten years. David was very smart, he had been studying, he um, he was focused, he was ready, he was

ready to take the next step. He was ready to go out in the world. And Sheldon Zink he started us and the Freeze was willing to take the chance to get the right record company, to get the bookings, to do this, to do that, and they did it. So there are ambitions for that moment at least met again. I keep using the words in choinicity, but it was in chronictic. They were perfect for each other at that moment. And that moment is seventy seventy three. And then it

started to fade when the success began to commit. It began to fade because they didn't need each other quite as much. And then the money began to be questioned by why you were were spilling fifty but you bought that and you all that kind of thing. And then there were some of some a few things, definitely the um upset, the Apple car shall we say, but you

mentioned the synchronicity. I mean, it's just incredible thing. I mean, even on that one trip in September when he goes to New York, I mean's all the people that he meets, I mean, he meets he meets Iggy, he meets Andy Warhol, is all coming together, this convergence of influences. I mean, what what an incredible trip that must have been. Yeah, I mean it didn't seem it that's the time. But now looking back, yeah see he also I get credit for some of the stuff that I certainly didn't do.

I did not introduce David Bowie to Louis Lisa Robinson and Richard Robinson did. Lisa Robins. Richard Robinson was part of the A n R team at R C A Records. Lisa was his wife. Lisa was a writer. She wrote for the New York Post, and the two of them had two magazines. They had Hit Parader and Rock Scene, which were very well read amongst American teenagers. Not that much in New York or maybe London, but in the American Hartley and every kid, every kid in mid America

read Roxy magazine. So Lisa and Lisa was very She was very much the queen of the rock and road journalists, I think, and I don't remember another. I know that David and Andrew went to A or David maybe Andre wasn't even there, went to a party of their apartment

ad during that week. I don't remember if if he actually met Lou there or he He certainly met Lou the night of the signing when we all went to the ginger Man after the signing, and of course Lisa and Richard were very much a part of that, and it was with Lisa and Richard that we then went to Max's Kansas City, where Danny Fields was who had been he's manager, and he happened to be at Danny's

apartment and Danny called him to come me. David so um um, so yeah, he did a lot in that week, and the fact revisit to I mean, it's just it's mind boggling to think of of all the people he met me. Now you've said that, that Bowie Warhol, and it makes sense too, I can't imagine. Mean, they both sort of reserved, I guess at first blush. So it sounds like it wasn't the most successful meeting in the

world between the two. It wasn't terrible. I mean, you know, these things that are kind of ordinary take on legendary reputations. It was just that David was not a star. You know, he was just he was He wasn't a star. He had had some records out, Yeah, but it wasn't like they were going to lay down the red carpet because the superstar was walking and he wasn't a superstar and

no Andy. To be to really click with Andy, you had to be kind of a certain kind of personality, and you know, it's how funny stories and entertain and David wasn't that kind of personality at all. He was kind of a serious artiz if anything. And I didn't Andy that well. I had been in pork, but I didn't have that kind of rapport with Andy where I'm

going to be calling him on the phone or anything. Um. And so yeah, we were, you know was it was really the Defrees engineered the whole thing because he wanted to talk to Paul Morrissey about film distribution in Europe, a better distributor for their fat don't now you know. It was one of those things so they're often the corner talking about film distribution. Andy kept flitting in and out and yeah, there was this video crew there, which it's funny because I hardly was aware of it at

the time. It's years later when you see this video and you think, oh my god, that is not the way I remember this meeting. But I guess it's the way it happened because here's the video and David did do that weird mind thing, which to me, David was always a little or at least in those days, was a little bit on the edge, you know, could have gone either way, because sometimes he could go into super corny terry story when you let the mind take over

too much. And that was one of those moments. It's like, oh my god, what is this guy doing? But it was okay. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't like humiliatingly embarrassing. It was just like, is he gonna hurry finished this kind of embarrassing? What was it? Was? It just like it was it like a disemboweling thing or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know one of his mind routines. But to do that in the middle of the factory was like, oh my god. I'm sure nobody else didn't mind in

the factory. But see, that's the other thing about David that it was so key that David was not bothered by taking chances and failing, and he had been failing for years, But what is another failure? I mean, you know, by the time he hit again, he had been around a long time. Nothing stopped him. Where most of the

people I know, you know, maybe they have one. Whatever you do something that creative, you kind of shoot your creative one and if it's not well received, your kind of like, you know, hulk off into the sunset or something. Not him, nothing really bothered him, which I think is a great you know, it's a sign of success. First

of all, he wasn't bothered by failure or success. He was involved in the process always and he was a constant seeker that I think we see if you look at his entire career, especially if you look at the end of his career and the way he died, but creating up until the last second, using his illness or whatever he was going through as creative fodder. That's a that's a true artist. We don't see that ham Fod.

Is there is there a period for you of of his work that that really resonates the most with you? Or I would assume the Ziggy Land the same era just because it was such a part of your life. But is there anything in particular that that you really that's a favorite of yours. Well, of course all of that, but I happened to love you on Americans. You know, then I was on that. I wasn't on that tour also, you know, that was kind of the best of times, the worst of times, because in some ways things were

beginning to fall apart. But the music was so extraordinary. The musicians were all first first rate. They were all great kids. They were so much fun to be a I mean, Carlos Almar and Robin Clark are two of the nicest people you could ever ever ever meet, and there were so much fun. Luther Vandross's fat nineteen year old boy that was so talented, you know, a sweet Ave. I love Ava Um Dave Sandborn probably one of the nicest, amazing,

one of the best sax saxophone players in the world. Um. It was an extraordinary and I think that music it is just really fantastic. But of course I love Ziggy that you know, that was that was that was also great. And then um the last album UM and I had to have a a pursuit like uh scan cask had I have an m R where they stick you into those metal tubes. Had the toe which is like horrifying

and it claims and does this and that. But when I got in um Um, they said they asked me if I wanted to hear some music, so I said, oh yeah. So they played Now I'm blanking out in the name? Was that the last album Star? Yeah? Black Star? Okay? So they played black Star and I hadn't heard it, and I'm listening to it in this tin can Oh god, may I do your association with him? I mean, that's the I can't believe. I mean, the queen into that

is pretty overwhelming. It was overwhelming. It was really intense because number one, it was like getting personal messages from and the clanging, but most music would have been destroyed by the clanging, not that. It just set right in. It was incredible, and the music was it was just like, oh my god, I can't believe he made this album like two weeks before he died or whatever. It was just fantastic, and it really it really gave me a deeper,

fuller appreciation for him and his work. It was absolutely incredible. So I thought that was also, you know, I hadn't I hadn't listened to that much of what he did um Um. In the eighties or nineties really, so I kind of lost track of him in the late seventies. And again for me, you know, it was this was a friendship that blossomed into something else that I had never expected. So it wasn't like, um, I was that smitten with the idea of David Bowie. He was just

somebody I happened to work with for a few years. Um. I don't know that that sounds about making myself clear, But I worked with a lot of talented people, you know, they just didn't become as famous as he did. I mean, you rapidly ascended the ranks of maineman too, I believe, president. I mean, how how did that happen? How did you become, you know, the head of the American Division of Maine man seemingly overnight, like well, it wasn't exactly all night

right right right, couple of months. I don't know, because I was like tight with him and Tony. Tony and I got along really really well. Once he started coming to he would come to New York after that signing of URCA Records and RCA records, Tony would come to New York every couple of weeks to like where the record company up and he would always call me. I would always get together with him. Then I started just

doing like basically errands for him. But you know, we again, we we um we we turn all this stuff into like legend and everything's iconac. It's just I was just doing errands for him, and they were just doing the best. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't nobody was looking at under a micro microscope and saying, oh my god, this is just incredible. It was me passing out records and it was doing whatever. He didn't know anybody else in New York. Neither did David. You were a friend in

New York. You were that guy. I was the friend in New York. And and we got and you know, meanly, it was a family. We all loved each other. I only brought in my best friends Lee, well, they weren't even my best friends at the time. We became best friends Lee and Cherry because they were more involved in the rock scene than I was, and I thought that they would, like, you know, I'll be able to contribute more,

which they did. Um. Lee was phenomenal. We sent Lee out as the advanced man and if you know anything about Lee Black Childers. He was like the most charismatic, charming person in the world, bleached blonde hair and black eyeliner, and and he just walked proudly through the world with his camera, taking pictures of everyone and making everyone feel like a million bucks. That was lead so for him

to walk into Cleveland. He had friends immediately of everybody in the tattl paving the way for us to get there. And Cherry, none of us had ever been inside of an office. Cherry had been a producer and advertising. She knew it went around the office, and she wasn't working it. She was kind of at a down period in her life. So I we just hired Carry to answer the phones for a few days, and she immediately took over start organizing everything because she was the only one that knew how,

and she was brilliant. Tony became totally dependent on her. She put the whole office together. She was absolutely fantastic. And then when she got bored with that, she became the press lady. And now she had never done press, and she was brilliant at press. She created a press list of like five thousand contacts we sent up the main man lose letters became sort of legend, Jerry, that

was all Cherry Vanilla. Um. And then when we just started to go in to make our own to make TV commercials, who produced them Cherry Vanilla because again she had worked in advertising. Um. Now, Cherry Cherry is one of my dearest friends. I love her, and she's always stressed certain things about herself, Like she was a group heach was this she was, like, Cherry's a really smart woman and really talented and a lot a lot of

things that she's always played down. Um, she's played up with certain things and played down the rest of it. And she's a very capable, resourceful person and a lot of maintenance success was due to Cherry Vanilla. All of you were doing so much were you thinking of? You mean, not only you the you know, American president of the American Division of Maine, man, you're the tour manager for the city start us tour on top of all that, Like I can't imagine when you slept, Well what do

you being president him? I mean I wasn't exactly righting the Senate. I mean that was like, you know, I signed some papers now and then I was the tour manager is what I was? Yes, I was a tour manager. You know, that's that was really my job, right and you and I'll tell you how I got I became the tour manager. Um. I went to England with Tony just before they came to the United States to do Ziggy started and it was David was doing the Rainbow, which was a famous gig the Rainbow Theater in London.

Then we went, we went to Manasion, we went to some other cities in northern England. We get to the first town, I don't remember what it was, but it was we got that at night. We go into this hotel and everybody kind of sits around in the lobby and it was like nothing's happening. We're just sitting there and I'm like, I want to I'm tired. I want to get to my room, but nobody's saying, oh, Tony,

your room's over there are here's your key. So finally I went up to the desk and signed everyone and got the keys made every room, you know, passed them out, wrote down what room people were in. So that's a room manifest. I didn't know what's called the room manifest because I wanted to get to my room. But that's what a road managers. You were tired and suddenly you woke up a road manager exactly. I mean it was really that simple. Nobody else was taking the initiative. Being

the only American. We do have a bit more energy. No offense to English people, but um, yeah, exactly. So that's how I evolved into me into the road manager then. And I've told this forgive me if I'm boring you, because you've probably heard it before. We're now we're gotting ready to do the US tour. And for the first week or two we were at a bus which was horrible, but that's another story. So the bus is sitting in

front of the Plaza Hotel. So I said to Tony, Tony, because he's said I'm the road manager, say, well, Tony, what does the road manager do? He said, oh, see, just make sure they find Cleveland. Point the bus starts Cleveland and you're good. Yeah, And that was I mean, okay, I can find Cleveland, and off we went to Cleveland. Was it? I mean, we're things that. Did it run

smoothly or was it? Was it? Really? I can only imagine the number of moving parts going on with this, because this was not a small entourage, right, This was some thirty something people thirty cluss. Well, the sound was done by h a company called ground Control, uh you know to one of David's songs. But anyway, um space already, but by a guy named Robin Mayhew who um. They had been doing the sounds in England, so they were

pretty tight. They knew what they were doing. And we had rented some equipment from a company in Pennsylvania called Claire Brothers. And we didn't know like anything about lighting or who to get. So we called Jerry called now I'm blanking out in his name. He was like a famous lighting designer in New York. Not Joshua. Well, Bob C had just gotten out of it an y U and he worked for this guy with the lighting, the lighting guru, and Bob C like worked at the film

War He lived upstairs from the film or anyway. Yes, so we didn't get the big guy, but they said call called this guy Bob C. Bob C was four years old, kind of a big hippie looked he looked like a Hell's angel, like a motorcycle guy. And Bob C was fantastic. He was so on top of thing. So he put a little crue I mean he put

it together like immediately. So Bobcy did the lighting. But Bob Cy was like a really one of those guys you know that you can depend on uh and if something goes wrong, you can depend on Bob Cy to find a solution. And Bobcy became a very very successful lighting guy. C Factor was his company ended up own New York City block in Long Island City in New York. I guess that he ended up doing huge shows all over the world. But anyway, so we had Bob c and then um, the thing was, we never had any money.

So we're on the road with no money. I need no money, um um. And but Tony talked our c A r c A Corporate into letting us book the hotels and whatever transportation we needed through their in house travel agency, which we did plus plus plus plus plus. So because we were going, I mean we were supposed to go to check out of the whatever hotel in Cleveland and pay the bill, well, we didn't pay any bills because we didn't have any money. We just look put everything off onto our c A and we got

away with this. They said okay, and they built our c A. R c A didn't really agree to paying for anything. They were just supposed to be doing the bookings. But by the time you know, all the dots got connected, um, we had charged up about four dred thousand dollars and we only earned a hundred thousand and the whole three months. So it was a little um um um spotty. I suppose you might say. One time we were in uh

we were in Florida. We were in Miami, actually Hollandale, which is slightly north of Miami, and we had I think I had like thirty dollars for the whole thirty people. So Lee and I so this idea was the office was supposed to wire me some money the next day. I was supposed to go to Fort Ladder or not for a lot of though how Hollywood, big Hollywood to pick it up. And so Lee and I decided, well, let's go what well, what we'll go out tonight was the thirty dollars and the next day I'll go pick

up the money and we'll be fine. So Lee and I did go out, and we spent about over twenty dollars. We didn't spend the thirty because I saved enough to take a cab from this hotel to to to Hollywood, Florida, which was like five or six dollars anyway. So we did that and the next day I got I got a cabin and went to the bank in Hollywood. First of all, I got there like two fifteen, thinking the band closed at three. It actually closed it too, but being an aggressive New York or, I would not take out,

and they let me in. But the money wasn't there. They hadn't arrived. So now I'm still no. I'm with that ten dollars because I still had a few couple of dollars in my pocket. So now I'm standing there in Hollywood. I have to get back to Hollendale, like oh Jesus. So I thought, well, I'll get a cab. I'll just go as far as it takes me. When it runs out, when when the meter runs out, I'll just say stop, let me out here. So that's what I did. And so I'm liking a little I don't know,

jeans and whatever. I'm dressed, and I have a briefcase with me, and it gets it gets to a place. Actually I knew where we were. We were at Daniel Beach because Lee and I had gone there the day before we had walked there from our hotel like it was like a good seven mile walk. But Daniel Beach was a gay beat. So I said, oh, let me out here, and so I paid whatever wherever money I had left. Now I'm penniless on Daniel Beach. Think you know,

I'll find I'll meet some gay guys. You get asked him to give me a ride back to Holland All or our hitchhik or whatever. So I I go to the beach, but there's nobody on the beach, which I thought, that's weird. There's nobody on the beach, and I'm walking down the beach and walking, and the more I walked, the sicker I'm getting like sick and I'm choking because it was something called red Tide, which I had never

heard of. I didn't know from red Tide. And you gotta realize, I'm I mean, I'm all dressed, I'm carrying my shoes with my briefcase on this beach. So then I thought, well, let me get to the highway and I'll hitchhick. But you know, in Florida there's all those intercoastals.

I had to there's a river between me and the road now, so I I strip off all my clothes, followed them up, put him on my briefcase, put my briefcase on my head, and wade across this river into this sort of like jungle in order to get to the road, so I can hitchhike to get back to Hollandale. And uh, and I did, and I got there, and I dried off, and I put my clothes back on and I got to the road and the car stopped immediately some young guy picked me up and brought me

to Holland Town. But that's the kind of adventures we would often have on the Ziggy Star Ust tour. It was a little haphazard. Yes, it's gonna say, I mean, just charging a lot of food room service, because I mean, how are you going to get food with no cash? Food? Yeah, no room service, which we cherished everything, the room service. In Beverly Hill, we stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

You could buy anything at the Beverly Hills Hotel. They had a drug store that had you know, you could rent car anything you wanted, You could rent buy the Beverly Hills Hotel on room service, and we did, I mean just the personalities on the tour. I mean, was it easy to was everybody relatively laid back? I mean, were there any how is David not at all? Well again, you know you think of these tours and you think of David Bowie and you think, oh, so glamorous and

so this and so that. That was not the reality. What the reality was a bunch of boys from northern England. The band was off of northern England. They had never been anywhere. Not only that, we had these bodyguards all from Hall Stewart, George what Tony Frost wasn't wasn't anyway. They were very like Stewart could be a real pain in the ass and a real thug, and so could the other ones. And they like we were on this bus they started drinking eight o'clock in the morning and rock.

I mean it was not aphisticated group, let me put it that way. And it was because it was these boys have never been anywhere, so, you know, traveling in this glamorous cavalcade, traveling with a bunch of like who against from northern England. And but I mean a lot of them arerow some sweet the boy the band is very sweet, woody and Trevor Nick. You couldn't find a nice of guy than Mick ronson Um. But it wasn't what you think. It wasn't what you would want to

project it to be. It wasn't that at all. I heard a story, I don't know if it's true, that that David called you one morning and said, I don't know where I am. I think I'm in a house in the woods somewhere. Uh, And it felt to you to sort of track him down. That is true, And I kind of must have written about it my book because I kind of don't remember it that well. But yeah, it wasn't. We went Seattle and he had gone home with some girl and we were well, I was freaking

out because I couldn't find him. Yeah, and then he did call me, Yes, and I g think I said, we just get into a cabin. I'll be waiting downstairs to pay for it. But yeah, that was a little because we treated him. Yeah, And this is on Austin, not on him, And maybe it was a little him.

The minute he started playing the Ziggie character to us, he was Ziggy David Bowie disappeared and Ziggy Ziggy was who was in the room, not David, and we treated him with kind of kid gloves and very we made him very precious and very you know, he had to be taken care of every step of the way. And that really wasn't his demand, I don't think, because some of it might have been a little bit. But we we made him, um, we kind of there was a distance.

He was always in this very special place. Part of it was, you know, our c a's big act was Elvis. And I sat with the guy from our c A who had always been like the Elvis guy he'd always put on the road with with Elvis, and and then he said something very interesting to me. Early on, he said, she said that Elvis always had to be taken care of because without Elvis, you know, they were like fifty people on the road whatever. But without Elvis there, I'll

be out of a job. So it was like, you know, you were there for Elvis, and I took that to heart, like we were there, there were thirty something I was, but without David Bowie, we wouldn't be there. We were there for David Bowie. So we we treated him all. I certainly treated him with kid gloves. It wasn't no longer my friend at that point he was, you know, the alien rock star. Basically, why did the famous Hammersmith Odean show in seventy three were the retirement concerts? So

called retirement concert Why did that occur? Was it financially motivated, creatively motivated? All the above, but the retirement Yeah, well a few reasons. Um, it was financial. But but first of all, you know, we've been on the road. He had been on the road for a year and a half of I mean, he did need a little bit of a break. We all did. Um, that was a year and a half solid touring. But the other thing

that happened was publishing. Um Defrees was in a dispute with the publishing company and he wanted to get David off of that publishing company. And and uh so he didn't want to deliver anymore. He did not want to deliver any new material. And if you notice, the next album was pin Ups, which was all covers. So that was part of it. The other part of it was when we had been in l A. You know, the

spiders got well, Mike Garrison was a scientologist. He was the piano player, and he got the boys a little bit involved in scientology and and the whole thing of money came up because because all of us had been done on a shoe string for the all a year. Even though the money had begun to come in a little bit, still nobody was being paid. I mean we were being paid very small amounts, like subsistence wages, including the band. So the band's media expenses might be paid.

Everything was paid, but they didn't get a salary. And Mike Garthon did get a salary. And when it came out like well he was making eight hundred dollars a week and they're making sev it was like what. So that created that began to erode the relationship between the band and David and Maine Man. They were demanding money and there were there really wasn't any money, so um and David took that. You know, David also had a

history of leaving bands. You know that he wasn't this was not the Beatles, this is like his support band. So I think he took a lot of that as a betrayal and so he was like done with the band once that started. Basically, plus I think creatively, you know, he didn't want to be stuck as any starts for the rest of his life, so he needed to recharge and move on. Um. So all of those things had to play. Um. He didn't They didn't know that that.

Nobody knew what it meant that he was retiring. Basically, he was retiring as he startist. Wasn't retiring David Bowie um. Um, but the band was being retired and they didn't know that. So they found that out on the stage. That wasn't so nice. But maybe that was like getting back at them for their betrayal whatever. Um. Yeah. So and that that was the in some ways the beginning of the end, because it was kind of like at that moment, everyone did stop and you could relax to a certain point.

David could relax to a certain point. The freest could relax to a certain I mean, they could stand back and kind of evaluate what they had been doing, what they had been working so hard towards for the last two or three years, because a lot of it had been accomplished. At that point. David was responsible for four percent of our record sales in the UK. He still didn't have any success in the United States except for public for publicity and press. I mean, he didn't have

wreck big record sales in the United States. He didn't have a number one single or anything like that when he didn't England. So all his life he had been working towards becoming a pop star. That summer he was a pop star, and for for the next few months

he was living in London like a pop star. An Tonio J. Freese who wanted to be this entrepreneur and impresario and had been working all his life towards that could sit back and get his Park Avenue office and ran out a big house in Greenwich and act like the mogul that he wanted to be. So they had

both kind of accomplished their goals. And that next period of like six months or so, before David came to the United States to prepare for the Diamonds Us tour um, that was kind of all about that, and it was kind of the beginning of the end of mean Man. My last question, is there an image or a scene to you that really sums up that period of your life with David There like one snapshot or vig yet that you treasure above all others. Wow, that's an interesting question.

It's funny because I mean, I'm going to just tell you the first thing that comes to my mind, and I don't know why, because it's certainly not dramatic. We were on the road somewhere and this was during the Young Americans tour, and we were in David Sweet we were watching television. We were watching California Split, which was

a movie directed by Robert All. It's just a nice moment that we had because he was you know, it was he was he was in the midst of trying to write a screenplay and he was headed towards the movies, and we both were just in total awe Robert All. But it was kind of because I guess by that time, I mean, the whole thing, the whole experience for me was not one. I was not ambitious. I did not want to be in the music business. I got involved in all of this because these are my friends and

we all loved each other. We were all very close, including Lee and Cherry, Angie and and and David certainly, but you know, you get caught up in the work and that that kind of it kind of turns into something else. But that was I guess, one moment where I felt the kinship with him again. And it wasn't based on you know, David Bowie Superstar or Tony's Aneta president of Main Mean, it was just two people who

watching this movie. That was nice And I don't know why it seems significant at this moment, but I guess it was because your friends it was getting back to originally were right exactly exactly. Off the Record is a auction of I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.