Off the Record was a production of I Heart Radio. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. Seventeen year old David Bowie knew that distinctively. That's why he ended up on television talking passionately about his hair. It was nineteen sixty four, a time when long locks on men seemed to signal a total breakdown of law and order, the end of Western civilization as we know it. The Beatles on the Rolling Stones had caused a cultural uproar
with their shaggy mop tops. But David Bowie was not a Beatle or a Stone, not even close. Hell, he wasn't even David Bowie. He was stuck living life as Davy Jones, frontman for an endless string of doomed R and B outfits. David had met Paul McCartney once in the mid sixties, but definitely not as a peer. He camped outside Maca's London pad with the other group He's hoping to catch a glimpse. Amazingly, this earned David and audience with the cute one, who invited him to come inside.
Paul politely listened to some of David's demos before wishing him well and sending him on his way. That was about the extent of David's fastness. The incident was fitting. If Swinging London was a party, David hadn't been invited. Instead, he was outside in the cold, nose pressed against the glass, watching all the fund go down without him. Betrailing. The pack of pop stars did have an advantage. It allowed David to study them intently, reverse engineering the image and
affectations that came to them so naturally. So if the Beatles and the Stones had long hair, he'd simply grow his longer. Some slick talk led to an appearance on a BBC Current affairs program called Tonight, where David heralded the rebellion of the long hairs. The grainy black and white footage, among the earliest filmed appearances of David known to exist, shows him poised, stern and unsmiling, with his
mismatched dies peering out from underneath his flaxen fringe. He's promoting not his band, but his club, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Men. David somehow managed to keep a straight face as he railed against the injustices faced by both himself and this hairsuit brethren. We're all fairly tolerant, he deadpans, but for the last two years we've had comments like darling and can I carry your handbag? Thrown at us. It has to stop.
The bemused host asks if David modeled his hair after the Rolling Stones. David's strenuous denial comes a little too quickly. The clip is hilarious, and the funniest part, the Club's not even real. At age seventeen, David had already learned how to cultivate an image and use it to manipulate the national media. You can't help but be impressed. His day job at an advertising agency left him particularly well suited to sell this most important of products himself. He'd
perfect the technique and used to come viewed today. The Tonight clip is a kind the watching an early rocket test for a mission that would ultimately launch David out of the stratosphere. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Man Sham is admittedly very, very silly, but hey, David had finagle himself a spot on the Tube that alone gave him at least a shred of cred. But the other show biz wannabes yet When it came to David's music, no one wanted to know he'd returned
to the BBC within a year with his band. While auditioned for a performance spot on the radio, the judge's responses were unanimous. I don't think the group will get better with rehearsal. The singer's not particularly exciting, the routines dull and inoffensive, pleasant, nothing. There's no entertainment value in anything they do. It's just a group, and a very ordinary one too, backing a singer devoid of personality. Vicious absolutely, But in a way the stuffed suits at the network
weren't wrong. David was so successful at mimicking successful people that he muted all the things that made him unique. He was all bluff but no heart, all image but no substance. Not yet. At least it was a learning period to the future star. Before he's Supernova and the David Bowie, he was David Jones, a follower and a fan, just another one of the London boys. Hello and welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds of rocks, grateus Legends.
I'm your host, Jordan run Talk. This season explores the life or should we say lives of David Bowen. In this episode, We're gonna talk about David the Maud, the relentlessly ambitious team struggling to find his place in the pop pecking order of sixties London, August, a major day in the history of popular music. Today, the future David
Bowie has his first recording session. Think of all the incredible albums to come, Hunky Dorry, Ziggy, Start Us Station, The Station, Low Heroes, Young Americans, it can all be traced to the single day. Unfortunately, the day in question was an unmitigated catastrophe. It all started off so promising, too, like something out of a movie. The assistant for a big time agent happened to catch David's high school band, the Conrads, performing at a youth fair and liked what
he heard. This guy had recently signed another local band called the Rolling Stones, and he thought, maybe, just maybe, the Conrads might be the next big thing, so he invited the group to audition at Decca, one of the biggest record labels in the country. It all seemed too good to be true, and it kind of was. David may have had nerves of steel, but the rest of the band were nervous wrecks. Studios at the time, we're not the zan candlelit music haven's that we know today.
Back then they were more like top secret laboratories, cold and clinical, complete with engineers clad an ominous white coats, not exactly conducive to making rock and roll. The Conrads recorded just one track, an original called I Never Dreamed. The results were so shambolic that the engineers didn't even bother playing it back. David Bowie's first studio recording was unceremoniously erased, but a copy did miraculously turned up half
a century later, found in an old bread bin. By the time Decade formally rejected the Conrads, David had quit the band and a spectacular huff. His bandmates must have
seen it coming. David wasn't really a group gay. It's true the Condras fan base had grown since David made his onstage debut with them a year earlier, rocking a PTA event with this classy white saxophone and sky high pompadour, But it was obvious to David that this was strictly a suburban venture destined only for church halls, pubs and the odd birthday gig near their hometown of Bromley, England.
This realization was hammered home after they suffered a humiliating defeat on a TV talent contest, losing out to a younger former classmate named Peter Frampton. Of all people. Musical differences added the David's frustrations. He wanted to push the Contrads towards the R and B sounds of Marvin Gay, but the others wanted to stay with the same tried and true Top forty covers. He tried to get them to cover an old folk song called House of the
Rising Sun, but the band refused. David was royally peeved when it became a global hit for the Animals within the year. David was about to walk when the band got their DECA audition. After that one up and smoked, he had no reason to stick around. Now sixteen, he'd finished school with very little a show for it. One report card described them as a pleasant idler. By the time he left Bromley Tech that June, he'd failed every single one of his final tests except for art. Not
that he cared for David. His future was obvious when a school guidance counselor asked him what he wanted to do for a living. David's response was immediate, be a sax player in a modern jazz quartet. The well meaning counselor found him a job in a local harp factory, but that wasn't exactly the kind of career of music David had in mind. His father, always willing to pull some strings, got him a job as an electricians assistant, but it wasn't long before he quit. He didn't resign,
and as much as he just stopped going. David's parents were understandably worried. Mother Peggy was openly critical about her son's musical ambitions. She was frustrated by his inability to find a real job to entangle himself from the family finances. The Jones is small Bromley home felt even more cramped with her overgrown boy living there too. These musical shenanigans were just a passing fad. She thought David needed some
stable grounding to fall back on. This was, after all, the sixties, a time when job security was inconceivably strong, and then he worked at the same company from graduation to retirement. David's father John, however, was more encouraging of his ambitions. John was cut from the same showbiz cloth as David, and even tried to launch a cabaret act of his own as a young man. He followed David's music career closely, like a dutiful stage dad, offering advice
when he could. Needless to say, this created some tension with his less indulgent wife. Eventually, David secured a job at an advertising agency in central London. It wasn't as glamorous as the rather lofty title of junior visualizer made it seem. David spent his days sketching ads and commercial story boards for things like raincoats and a dietary cookie with a deeply unfortunate name, Aids. The nine to five slog kept his parents happy, but David hated it and
moaned about his bloom and job constantly. There was only one upside. The offices were a short walk from Doubles, the best record shop in London. David's lunch hour would stretch into two as he scoured the shelves. It was there that he first bought records by Bob Dylan and Johnny Lee Hooker, two artists who would have a huge impact on the young musician. David was definitely in need of some fresh inspiration. By nine three, the first wave of rock and roll with crested and many of the
biggest stars were sidelined. Little Richard to become a born again Christian and swore off the Devil's mu for a time. At least. Buddy Holly had been killed in the Midwest plane wreck that also claimed the lives of Richie Vallence and the Big Bopper. Jerry Lee Lewis's career floundered after news leaked of his big amous marriage to his thirteen year old cousin, and Chuck Berry was similarly shunned for transporting a fourteen year old girl across state lines. And
then there was Elvis. He'd been drafted into the army, and after two years stationed abroad, the King of Rock emerged and neutered and lobotomized peddler of terrible films and schlocky pop. Within the space of just a few years, the airwaves have been scrubbed with the rough and ready sounds of the American South and the inner cities in their place for syrupy confections cranked out by hit making factories with the help of any half whit with a
hip haircut who could carry a tune. These teen idols ruled the charts, but for serious music fans, pop was passe. Rhythm and blues now that was where it was at. R and B was the truth. Rock and roll in his most pure form. Blues artists like Sonny Boy, Williamson, Muddy Waters and Freddie King were the new heroes for the switched on cool kids. You know who they were. Instantly David seethed with envy as he sat next to
them on the train from Bromley to London. They were the ones dressed in the tight three button mohair jackets with slim ties and even slimmer pants, haircut short and neat, often in a meticulously groomed fringe. Everything about them was crisp, clean and cool. Who needed rock of cessed teddy boys with their feeble attempts to mimic American grease or styles. They were stuck in the fifties. It was a new decade and this emerging subculture embraced its newness along with
anything cutting edge, different and above all modern. That's why they called themselves mods. Unlike the beats who were beelled against the materialism of middle class America. Mods were shameless consumers, gleefully sampling the fruits of postwar prosperity that had finally come their way. Like proud, pilled up peacocks, they were eager to one up their friends and rivals with the
latest looks and records. Unlike the rockers who rigidly divided the sexes into casts and chicks, Mods flirted with androgyny. Men used makeup and eyeshadow to sharpen the top lines of their bones structure to match the sharp lines of their tailored Italian suits. Zipping around on tricked out Lambretta scooters.
These kids lived for the weekend, when they packed in the sweaty basement clubs and jive to jazz ska on R and B. They're all night raves were helped along by a kaleidoscope of pills, French blues, black bombers, and purple hearts. SOHO grew jammed with image conscious, gender bending, nonconformist kids who worshiped American black music and continental fashion. Needless to say, this was David's crowd. He was a mod. Before mods existence, the term seemed to sum up as
boundless creativity and restless pursuit of the new. He joined the throngs of ace faces and high numbers who turned out on the weekends to hear homegrown bands try their hand at R and B the soundtrack to their exceedingly well dressed rebellion. The scene was crammed with musical upstarts fine for attention from labels who were tossing out recording contracts left right and center. The British music industry was generating the modern equivalent of nearly two and a half
billion dollars annually. With that kind of payoff, record companies were more than happy to comb through the twenty thousand British beat groups that had formed by nineteen sixty three. The deceptively simple blues riffs proved just as alluring as the d i y friendly sounds of skiffle years prior. It didn't take much this trauma one, four or five pattern or hanker harmonica, but capturing the emotional complexities of the blues proved a little more elusive to these British
white boys. As Seinster in Future Yardbirds manager Simon Napier Bell later observed when a down trodden black Southerner saying I'm a man. He meant I'm a human being when Mick Jaggers sang and he meant I've got a heart on. David sold the Rolling Stones in action when they opened for a Little Richard in nineteen sixty three. That same night, Mick gave David a crucial lesson in Front Man One on one. Now, the Stones had yet to be crowned
the world's greatest rock and roll band. At this point, by David's estimation, their fan base could be counted on one hand. One particularly square spectator wasn't picking up with the band. Were laying down. Hey you, he shouted to make from his seat, get your haircut mixed air the heckler down and oh so coolly replied what and looked like you. The line with forever rank among David's all
time favorite putdowns. David decided to get in on the British beet Binanza, a venerable gold rush for young rock hope calls. All he needed now was his own Rolling Stones to have his back. Seventeen year old David Jones probably wondered how he wound up singing got my mojo working to a bunch of tuxedo sixty somethings at a posh London nightclub. It was a fair question. Hell the tuxedo sixties somethings were wondering the same thing. This was
definitely not the ideal audience for the king Bes. David's new R and B group, the T shirt and denim clad Quintet, made it through just two numbers before David received the tap on the shoulder and was politely but firmly asked to leave the stage. Usually he was pretty skilled at weathering these set back, but this time the young singer's confidence deserted him. As soon as he was out of view, he promptly burst into tears. It was the prime example of David's mile wide ambitious streak biting
him in the ass. He and his school friend George Underwood had formed the king Bees in the spring of nineteen sixty four to try and ride the R and B wave of sweeping London. The success of bands like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Animals and The Kings had sparked the record labeled gold Rush, prompting groups from across the country to grab a harmonica and stake their claim. The Rolling Stones influence, and the king Be's was clear.
They got their name from a slim harpo song that Mix sang on their debut LP, and much of the king Best set was made up of the same Muddy Waters and Elmore James songs the Stones frequently covered. David took his self appointed roles the group's leader, very seriously and set about trying to secure management for the king Bees.
In typical style, he aimed high. Egged on by his father, David wrote a letter to John Bloom, a flamboy and entrepreneur whose washing machine empire made him one of Britain's wealthiest men. David really laid it on thick. The complete at or has tragically been lost to history, but it did include this gem, Brian Epstein's got the Beatles You need Us? Big talk for a kid who's who lived
at home with his parents. Now. John Bloom had no interest in becoming a rock and psario, but he was amused by the kids spunk and passed the note along with his friend Leslie Kahn. Leslie actually did know a thing or two about music. By day, he managed Doris Day's song publishing and boasted relationships with a host of hot young producers. He could make things happen to. One client described Khan as a man who could set fire
to a bucket of sand. Les wanted to get a look at the band and booked them to play a set at John Bloom's anniversary party, which is how David Jones wound up singing got my Mojo work into a bunch of tuxedoed sixty somethings at a posh London nightclub. The performance was a disaster from beginning to premature end. Most of the money glitterati covered their ears in a desperate attempt to block out the deafening noise, so loud that the band didn't hear John Bloom shouting get him off.
They're ruining my party. In fact, the only person that the gig was impressed by the King Bees was Lesliekhn himself, who agreed to take them on as full time clients. David left his dreaded junior visualizer day job and threw himself into the group full time. Unfortunately, there was next to no demand for the band, so he spent most
of his days hanging out aimlessly at Kahn's headquarters. Les put him to work painting his office, along with another of his young, slightly hopeless clients, a South London boy named Mark Feld, who soon changed his name to Mark Bowland, later to front t Rex. In ten years, Bowling and David will be dukes of the British glam rock scene. But for now, they went up to each other while they whitewashed their manager's office. Where'd you get those shoes? Man?
Who'd you get your shirt? I'm gonna be a singer and I'm gonna be so big you're not gonna believe it. Man. All right, well, I'll probably write a musical for you one day, because I'm gonna be the greatest writer ever. David was just as good at hyping himself and the press releases he wrote for Lez. Here's one sample from the summer of sixty four. David just likes Adam's apples and lists his interest as baseball, American football, and collecting boots.
A handsome six foot or with a warm and engaging personality, Davy Jones as all it takes to get to the show business heights, including talent. Unfortunately, this talent was not on display when the kingbes entered Decca Studios that summer to record their debut single, Liza Jane. David and George had written the song in fifteen minutes, and it shows the B side a cover of Paul Revere in The Raiders. Louis Louis Go Home was exactly a great piece of
work either. The rest of the band suffered from nervous jitters, but David was undaunted. You'd better get used to this, he teased the others as he approached the mike to Unlesha Cockney John Lennon impression. Liza Jane was a totally derivative rush job, a transparent attempt to cash in on the R and B boom. But it had attitude. But attitude alone doesn't sell records. Leslie Cohen had to call in some serious favors just to get it released in June.
It marked an inauspicious beginning for the future David Bowie's recording career. Appearances on early rock TV shows like Jukebox, Jury Ready, Steady Go in the beat Room couldn't lift Liza Jane out than other regions of the charts. David's father, John delivered perhaps the most astute assessment of his boy's achievement. I think he sounds terrible, but he must be some
good because he's made a record. The failure sour David on the Kingbyes once and for all, And in July n six four he dramatically informed his bandmates he was quitting The other Kingbs couldn't have been too surprised. David had always been rather shamelessly out for self nothink personal. You understand. He had a favorite expression which summed up his cheerful selfishness perfectly. Numero Uno mate, That's who he was looking out for. Leslie Khen quickly found him a
new bandy he could beat Numero Uno. They were the Manished Boys, another acting is stable on the surface. It was a good fit, with their name borrowed from a muddy Waters to The Managed Boys shared David's passion for four and the floor horn driven R and B. But the group had been together for years and they weren't thrilled about letting some young interloper into their midst les Kohen had to do some fast talking. He's been on TV, he's got a record, big news in the mid sixties.
But when David walked into rehearsal flat on a buckskin fringe jacket and thigh high boots. The man Wished boys knew they had their man. Who cares what he sounded like? He looked like a rock star. Any lingering doubts vanished when David pulled had his cream colored sacks and blew them away with King Curtis riffs. Needless to say, he got the gig. David spent much of the next year crammed in the back of a beat up Bedford band bound for pubs, clubs, and US Air Force bases across
southern Britain. It was the first serious touring that he had ever done, and his skills as a frontman improved greatly. David learned to use the microphone like a pro and smashed moroccas like a man possessed as usual. He quickly assumed creative control of the band, pushing for covers from his beloved copy of James Brown Live with the Apollo, as well as songs by Ray Charles, Solomon Burke and
Conway Twitty. He also gave the Mannished Boys a style makeover, stealing clothes from the trash bins outside the trendy boutiques on Carnebi Street. The billowing Russian peasant shirts knee length suede boots, leather vests and longer than long hair certainly caught people's attention, especially women. David's skills at seduction were also honed on the road. His pursuit of women bordered
on the obsessive. As soon as gigs ended, he made a bee line to the dance floor to chat up the girls before his bandmates had a chance to move in. On one occasion, he brought a lady up to the bed and breakfast room they all shared. No one slept much that night. During the Manished Boys debut performance at Soho's Marquee Club in November of nineteen sixty four, David caught the eye of an aspiring singer named Dana Gillespie. David also liked what he saw. He found her after
the show, casually brushing her waist length hair. David wordlessly took the brush and tenderly carried on brushing it for her. Moving right along, he asked Danna if he could walk her home. Dana was hip to this polite euphemism and immediately accepted. David may have given her some half hearted excuse about missing the last train home to Bromley, but there was no need for corny lines. She was happy
to share her single bed. After a night of what Dana later referred to as quote exploration sex, she brought her new bow downstairs to meet her father. It was the bohemian household and sex was hardly shocking, But what gave them paused was the unruly length of David's hair, which hung to his shoulders in a blonde Veronica Lake like swoop. The Beatles mop top was funny, but this
was something else entirely It's on sorrel transvesticism. Dana's parents were genuinely unsure whether David was a boy or a girl until he opened his mouth to speak. It's hard to imagine now, but too many in the mid sixties long hair on manmos sin is a serious threat to God and country, which was precisely why David insisted on keeping his hair longer than even those bad boys in the Rolling Stones. It singled amount as a certain type of undesirable and caused a great deal of hassle for
the band. One club promoter declared the managed boys have seen because of David's hair and is increasingly faye on stage mannerisms. Another gig ended with the band fleeing for their lives, while a gang of heavies followed in hot pursuit, shouting various homophobic slurs along the way. The harassment was indeed ugly, but it inspired David's first major public relations coupe. The ever indulgent John Jones had called in a favor
and Nedda David an interview with a London newspaper. Never won the miss an opportunity for self promotion, David was determined to give the reporter a better story than the old wanna be rock star singer angle. In addition to his musical ventures, David claimed to be the president of the International League for the Preservation of Animal Filament translation a club from men with long Hair. He declared his intent to approach fellow long hairs like the Beatles and
the Stones, for potential membership. It was obvious to the reporter that this club was a complete and utter fiction and David was lying through his teeth, but he went along with it anyway. It made great copy. The BBC caught wind of the story and invited David to appear
on the nationally broadcast current affairs program Tonight. The Cliff Mitchell Moore Flanked by his fellow Managed Boys, David touted his non existing club, which had been given a much more media friendly name, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty a Long Haired Man. It was a masterful performance, and the network conspired with David and Les Khan for
an encore A few months later. In early nineteen sixty five, the Mannished Boys were booked to perform on the music show gad Zooks It's All Happening, but the BBC publicly claimed that they wouldn't let them appear until David cut his luscious locks. It was a totally manufactured controversy, shamelessly ripping off similar stunts pooled by the Rolling Stones, but
the Manished Boys really leaned into it. They printed up placards with indignant slogans like let's be faired to long Hair and paraded around the BBC headquarters until the producers supposedly caved. The Escapador and David press is some of London's biggest newspapers. It could have been the band's big break, but within two weeks of the gad Zook's appearance, David abruptly quit the Mannished Boys. It was all because of their new single, a cover of soul singer Bobby Blands
I Pity the Fool. On the surface, the song had a lot going for it. Shell Tell Me, who worked on recent hits by The Who and The Kinks, was called them to produce, and it featured guitar work by a young hotshot session player called Jimmy Page. But as the future led Zeppelin God packed up his Fender Telecaster, he frostily informed the group that the song was fine, but it wasn't a hit, and he was right. I Pity the Fool flopped, adding insult to injury for David.
The single was credited simply to The Manished Boys, rather than David Jones and the Mannished Boys as he had been promised, So, just as he had with The Conrads and The King Bees, David left the Manished Boys with little fanfare. His bandmates last saw him after a gig in April, heading off into the night with a female fan. Typical young David Jones has struck out with three different
bands in as many years. That's enough to make most want to be rockers give up and enroll on accountancy school, but the experience seemed to bolster David's self belief and stoke his impatience with those who weren't helping him get to where he wanted to go. Danna Gillespie, who becomes something of a steady girlfriend at this point, recalls as unshakable self confidence. David just had to keep going until
eventually somebody got it. She later said, he wasn't going to just stop and get a job in a shop for Christ's sake. David was already a start to Danna's classmates, who pressed their noses against the window to catch a glimpse of the sharp dress singer with the prince valiant haircut, who picked her up from school and gallantly carried her
ballet slippers. They usually went to her parents house, but once David took her out to Bromley to see his folks, the visit provided an unsettling insight into what drove David's limitless ambition. Danna described Jones home as cold and soulless, a claustrophobic suburban hell be rift of joy and color. David's parents worthlessly munch tuna sandwiches and stared at the TV set, sharing nothing but space. Dana later said there
didn't seem to be any love in the house. When his parents left the room, David turned to Dana and said, whatever it takes, I want to get out of here, but there weren't a lot of options. Leslie Cohn had grown weary of David's deevi a tendencies, and soon he was out of the picture. George Underwood, David's old musical comrade, was busy at art school. Without much else to do, David frequented the Giaconda Coffee Bar, the hip hop for music hopefuls deepened the heart of London's Tin Pan Alley.
David spent hours there nursing a single cappuccino, hoping that someone from one of the nearby song publishers be need a background singer to help with a demo. Unfortunately, they rarely did. Then, one day David noticed a group of men gopping at him in a good way, not just because of his hair. It was a case of mistake and identity. They thought he was a member of the Yardbirds. David admitted they had the wrong guy, but inform them that he was, in fact an experienced singer of some renown.
As luck would have it, they were in a band actively looking for a singer they invited him to audition for their group, the Lower Third. The next day at a nearby club. David showed up with a friend for moral support, Steve Marriott, later of The Small Pass and Humble Pie. He proceeded to blow them away with this musical talent and most importantly, his outfit. David became one of the Lower Third. He dove into the group with
his usual enthusiasm. Days after joining, he signed a playful pledge written on the back of a napkin, I David Jones hereby, I promise not to become too big headed while I'm famous, Signed this glorious day, the tenth of May. If David thought the Lower Third was his ticket to instant fame, he was sorely mistaken. He spent most days crammed into the back of a converted ambulance that served as the band's touring van, speeding to and from their latest small time gigs at ice, skating rinks or pubs.
It wasn't the most comfortable ride, but the siren came in handy if they were ever running late, which was often considering. An ambulance filled with a bunch of long hairs was something of a cop magnet. The mattresses piled on the back were good for those late nights when David couldn't make it back to Bromley, or for brief affairs with fans after shows. Many brainstorming sessions went down in the back of that ambulance as David tried to
convince the others to update the band's image. They embraced some of his or fashion forward ideas, like sharp suits, sculpted hair and Italian loafers, but any talk of oaring makeup on stage was halted with an immediate hell no or where's that effect. They were a bit more receptive to David's musical suggestions, which could get pretty far out. Not many bands were performing chim Chimmery from Mary Poppins or rocked up version of the Mars movement from Gustav
Holtz's orchestral suite The Planets. For the most part, they played ear splitting covers from Tamla Motown, the Detroit label that cranked out irresistible R and B with a poppy Veneer. They also played songs by Maud standard bearers like The Who and The Kinks. The Who in particular were a great influence inspiring the Lower Thirds, noisy experiments with feedback,
and David fledgling attempts at songwriting. The band's first single, a David original called You've Got a Habit of Leaving Me, sounded so much like a Who's song that Pete Townsend once approached them in a gig and angrily asked, was that one of my songs you played? You've Got a Habit of Leaving Me tanked on the charts. What's worse, they also bombed that audition the BBC and endured a volley of insults from a squad of the network's sharp
tongue talent selection group. Lame material, lack of any entertainment, out of tuned vocalists, devoid of personality. Usually this was Davids q to quit the group in a fit of peak, but he held out hope for the Lower Third. Unfortunately, there was discontent in their ranks. David's bandmates were less than thrilled when You've Got to Have It of Leaving Me was credited solely to Davy Jones and not the
Lower Third. What's more, it was becoming obvious that David was the favorite of their new manager, a guy by the name of Ralph Horton. David had met the former Moody Blues roadie several months earlier at the Jaconda Coffee Bar and hired him to look after the group. Soon it was abundantly clear that Ralph's interest in their flaxen haired frontman extended the more than just business. Ralph was completely besotted with David and paraded as attractive new client
around the clubs like a prize show pony. David, for his part, was only too happy to indulge him. He began staying overnight at Ralph's apartment, where his bandmates noted there was only one bed. David often told people he was bisexual, even during his days in the Conrads. Considering that homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom until nineteen sixty seven, this was a fairly shocking claim. Social attitudes towards same sex partnerships were not exactly enlightened in the
mid sixties. The Nason LGBTQ community was centered around the underground gay clubs and SOHO literal and metaphorical neighbors to the mod jazz clubs. David slight build, handsome face, flamboyant fashion, and intentionally campy mannerisms allowed him to move freely between these overlapping scenes, which lent him a certain credibility In the mod music world. Homosexuality was considered taboo and dangerous, the ultimate subversion. As The Who's Pete Townsend explained, we
thought David Bowie was gay. We thought all cool people were gay. It's unclear how much of David's alleged homosexuality was exaggerated to cultivate an image is of boldly experimental air to the Beats and other radicals, There's far more evidence of David's heterosexual exploits around this period. His colleagues in the Lower Third bore witness to many of these liaisons, as did his band made some prior groups too many you knew him. David was neither heterosexual, homosexual, or even bisexual,
but merely sexual. It seemed to ooze out of him. He was a gleefully on apologetic libertine who delighted in both the psychological chase and the sheer sensual thrill. Moreover, he was fearless about displaying his prodigious physical attributes and pants so tight they may as well been painted on. One earlier review featured this memorable description to David's manhood
as quote unusually large, almost inhuman. David certainly knew how to flirt when the needs suited him, and in the budding business of British rock, he could work it through his advantage. Once, as a member of the Managed Boys, a club promoter called him over the talk man and the man which way do you swing? He asked David that question meant only one thing, and David's response was instant boys. Of course, that sort of thing happened all the time. If you were young and desperate for a break,
you knew the right answer. It's unknown of David used his powers of seduction to score extra point. It's in his management deal with Ralph Horton, but he would have hardly been the first struggling musician he traded sex for favors. Simon Napier Bell, manager of the Yardbirds, claimed that Ralph Horton once approached him to co manage David. To sweeten the deal, Ralph supposedly promised Simon sex with a young musician who sat demurely with an earshot of the entire
conversation and raised no objection. Simon knew his credit to climb the offer, or so he says. Ralph Horton's blatant pro david bias grew harder for the other members of the lower third of Tolerate, and a rift began the form well. The rest of the band continued to take their second hand ambulance to gigs. Ralph schauffeured the singer personally in a flashy Jaguar sports car rather than helped load up the heavy amplifiers and gear. After gigs, David
regally sat and watched. At industry events, Ralph always directed the press to David, ignoring the others completely. A showdown between the band and singer seemed imminent. It occurred on January nine, sixty six, as the group prepared to take the stage at a club in Bromley. David was excited to play the hometown hero, but there was a snag. Just before showtime. Ralph informed the band that they would not be getting paid that night. Their wages were going
towards promotional expenses. The band wouldn't hear of it, no pay, no play. A standoff ensued, but David caught in the middle, pacing nervously as his old friends and classmates waited expectantly. In the crowd. His silence damned him in the eyes of his soon to be ex bandmates. They walked, David cried, and that was the end of Davy Jones and the Lower Third, but they still had a record to promote. Earlier that month, the Lower Third released a second single,
another David original, called Can't Help Thinking About Me. The title was braddy enough to stand a chance with the supremely narcissistic Mods, but the laughably conceded words masked a more personal meaning. Can't Help Thinking About Me had its roots in those unhappy evenings at his parents house in Bromley, grappling with feelings of alienation and dissatisfaction. The character in the song ultimately leaves town for never never Land, after
having apparently blackened the family name. The narrative can be vague at times. David forgot the lyric sheet on the day of the recording session and had to make up words on the spot. But Can't Help Thinking about Me does feature a particularly telling line when he had no trouble recalling I've got a long way to go. I hope I make it on my own. The image of a lonely traveler leaving home for the first time reflects his own creative quest, which had so far been fruitless.
The song had substance. Even David, notoriously harsh critic of his own work, recalled can't help thinking about me fondly in later years, referring to it as quote an interesting little piece. David wrote another interesting piece in late nineteen, but it would take years before it would see the light of day. He was called The London Boys, a bright lights, big city tune about a seventeen year old fleeing the suffocating boredom of the suburbs for the adventure
and excitement of the capitol. Once they're the sharp dress character falls in with the mod scene, pops pills, jettison's their dead end job and sleeps on the street. Those who a lynching look at the perils of chasing the hip life. It's a strangely non judgmental song, yet it ends on a decidedly downbeat note. Now you'd wish you'd never left your home. You've got what you wanted, but you're on your own now you've met the London Boys. Whether or not the song was an intentional self portrait
is immaterial. David has spent the last few years living the lyrics. He hadn't formally moved out of his parents home, but emotionally he was already gone, a suburban kid living in exile, lonely, ambitious, and desperate to fit in with the London Boys. Producers were scandalized by the drug references and the song was temporarily shelved. David wrote, Can't Help Thinking About Me is something of a spiritual sequel, but it barely registered on the charts. Can't Help Thinking about
Me it was David's most impressive work to date. It's fitting that his first mature artistic statement marked the birth of his artistic identity. You see, the record wasn't credited to Davy Jones, but to someone else. He knew early on that Davy Jones would never do as a showbiz moniker. That name belonged to the shy boy he was determined to leave behind him, Bromley. He briefly tried out many
aliasis before tossing them aside, like ill fitting clothes. Much like his Stints and the Conrads, the King Bees, the Mannished Boys and the Lower Third, they were doomed exercises and self discovery. Who was he? David had to figure it out. He got a nudge in the fall of sixty five when management advised him to change his name to avoid confusion with another Davy Jones, an actor and singer soon have become famous worldwide as one of the Monkeys.
David considered Tom Jones for a bit, but then some well singer hit the scene and that was the end of that. So we thought back to a John Wayne film he saw a few years earlier, The Alamo. He'd been drawn to the name of one of the characters, Jim Bowie, a real life figure who tried in vain to defend the title four. Adding the historical pedigree. Jim Bowie gave his name to the Bowie Knife, which lends
a certain dangerous alert of the surname. It was kind of cool knives, cutting edge get It also helped him compete with the Rolling Stones front man, who been dubbed Jagger Dagger in the press in later years. David with wax poetic about this new moniker. It is the medium for a conglomerate of statements and illusions, he said, But come on, more than anything else, you liked how it sounded. Bowie, His friends and bandmates thought the name was stupid and
tried to talk him out of it. It's ludicrous, it will never catch on, and the insisted. But ever the rebel, he stuck to his guns. Can't help thinking about me. Hit shelves in January sixty six, just after the singer's nineteenth birthday. For David glimpsing the record that bore this new name was like seeing his reflection for the first time. After years of trying on persona's styles and faces, this one fit, yeah, he thought, David Bowie, Let's see who
this guy is. Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel Brown and shan Ty Tone. The supervising producers so Taylor Skoyn and Tristan McNeil. The show was written and hosted by me Jordan run Tug and edited, scored and sound designed by Tristan McNeil. 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.