In 28 December 1967, David Bowie made his theatrical debut at the Oxford New Theater, in Lindsay Kemp’s mime Pierrot in Turquoise or, The Looking Glass Murders. Bowie wrote and performed the music. He also starred as Cloud alongside Kemp’s Pierrot, Jack Birkett’s Harlequin, and Annie Stainer’s Columbine.

The production was still in rehearsal when it played for its one night at the New Theater, which perhaps explains why the Oxford Mail described the show as “something of a pot-pourri,” though it highlighted Bowie’s contribution for praise:

David Bowie has composed some haunting songs, which he sings in a superb, dreamlike voice. But beguilingly as he plays Cloud, and vigorously as Jack Birkett mimes Harlequin, the pantomime isn’t a completely satisfactory framework for some of the items from his repertoire that Mr Kemp, who plays Pierrot, chooses to present….

...No doubt these are shortcomings Mr. Kemp will attend to before he presents Pierrot in Turquoise at the Prague Festival at the invitation of Marceau and Fialka next summer. No mean honour for an English mime troupe.

The mime told the story of Pierrot and his attempts to win the love of his life, Columbine. Of course things are never simple, and Columbine falls for Harlequin, and is then killed by Pierrot.

After a few tweaks, Pierrot in Turquoise opened at the Rosehill Theater, Whitehaven, before its proper run at the Mercury Theater, and Intimate Theater, both London, in March 1968.

Bowie’s career throughout the sixties exemplifies Thomas Edison’s adage “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration,” as the young hopeful musician worked hard and toured the length and breadth of the UK under various guises: The Konrads, The Hookers, Davie Jones and The King Bees, The Manish Boys, the Blues influenced Davie Jones and The Lower Third, Davie Jones and The Buzz, and The Riot Squad, a band described as:

“The Complete Musical Entertainers covering Pop, Tableaux, Burlesque and Parody”

Even at this early stage, Bowie was shedding musical styles quicker than he changed his hairstyle - from beat thru Blues to Music Hall and Pop. With hindsight you can see where his career was going. But by 1967 the teenager’s first recording career had come to a halt with the release of Laughing Gnome after which Bowie didn’t release a record for another two years.

It was during this time Bowie fell under the influence of mime artist and performer Lindsay Kemp. He helped Bowie channel his talent towards Space Oddity and later Ziggy Stardust. As Kemp told journalist Mick Brown for Crawdaddy in 1974:

“I taught David to free his body,” says Kemp, smiling wickedly.

“Even before meeting, David and I had felt the need to work together. I’d identified myself with his songs, and he’d seen my performances and identified himself with my songs. I was singing the songs of my life with my body; he was singing the songs of his life very fabulously with his voice, and we reckoned that by putting the two together the audience couldn’t help but be enthralled. In other words, one large gin is very nice, but two large gins are even nicer.”

The two large gins became Pierrot in Turquoise, which was filmed by Scottish Television in 1969 and broadcast in July 1970. How a small regional TV station like STV came to film this rather strange theatrical show is no doubt a tale in itself, but thankfully they did, even if one cataloguer at Scottish Screen Archives “found this quite creepy,” it is still well worth watching.

The cast:

David Bowie as Cloud
Lindsay Kemp as Pierrot
Jack Birkett as Harlequin
Annie Stainer as Columbine
Michael Garret as Piano Player

It was filmed at the Scottish Television’s Gateway Theater in Edinburgh, and was directed by Brian Mahoney. Now if only STV made programs like this today…
 
  Previously on DM

Lindsay Kemp’s Last Dance

David Bowie comes to life in ‘The Image’

 
When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Top of the Pops was essential, nay compulsory viewing. You see, for a certain age group TOTP was the only music show on British TV. Yes, there was the excellent Old Grey Whistle Test with “Whispering” Bob Harris, which had Zappa, The New York Dolls, Deep Purple and alike, but that went out long after sundown and well past most young uns bedtimes. It would really take until the arrival of the pop promo for music shows to become ubiquitous, which meant back in the days of mop tops, glitter and platform boots, Top of the Pops was King.

Top of the Pops was the BBC’s legendary, Top 40 chart run-down show. It ran between 1964 and 2006, when it was pulled by the Beeb bosses due to a lack of viewers or, too much competition - depending who you read. It was an inevitable demise for music had changed after Rave, and the diversity and choice available meant what most youngsters listened to was rarely reflected by a show centered around the record sales of bland and talentless groups squeezed out by music industry execs.

Moreover, because TOTP was a chart run down show, you were likely to see David Bowie in the same studio as The Osmonds or, The Sex Pistols on the same show as Hot Chocolate. Even so, there was always moments to treasure from Jimi Hendrix, to Bowie’s “Starman”, Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”, The Smiths with a gladioli-waving Morrissey singing “This Charming Man”, to Blondie “Dreaming”.

And yes, there was The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Move and so on, right up to The Damned, The Jam, Marc Almond, and even Nick Cave. But for all the great and the good, there was always a lot of shit. Something that is more than apparent in this 2-hour compilation of forty years of Top of the Pops. It’s an odd mix with some great, and some inexcusable songs, and a lot of brilliant ones missing. Yet, for all the good, the bad and the ugly, it does tell a story of how music has changed for better and worse over the past four decades.

Top of the Pops 40th Anniversary 1964 - 2004

1964: Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas - “Little Children”
1965: Sandie Shaw - “Long Live Love”
1966: The Seekers - “The Carnival Is Over” (Performance was from 1965)
1967: Procol Harum - “A Whiter Shade of Pale”
1968: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - “Fire”
1969: The Hollies - “Sorry Suzanne”
1970: Free - “All Right Now”
1971: T.Rex - “Get It On”
1972: Roxy Music - “Virginia Plain”
1973: Slade - “Cum on Feel the Noize”
1974: The Three Degrees - “When Will I See You Again”
1975: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”
1976: The Real Thing - “You to Me Are Everything”
1977: Queen - “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”
1978: The Jam - “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight”
1979: Ian Dury & The Blockheads - “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”
1980: Adam and the Ants - “Ant Music”
1981: The Human League - “Don’t You Want Me”
1982: Culture Club - “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”
1983: UB40 - “Red Red Wine”
1984: Wham! - “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”
1985: Eurythmics - “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)”
1986: Pet Shop Boys - “West End Girls”
1987: Bee Gees - “You Win Again”
1988: Yazz And The Plastic Population - “The Only Way Is Up”
1989: Lisa Stansfield - “All Around the World”
1990: Sinéad O’Connor - “Nothing Compares 2 U”
1991: Seal - “Crazy”
1992: Stereo MCs - “Connected”
1993: New Order - “Regret”
1994: Blur - “Parklife”
1995: Take That - “Back for Good”
1996: Oasis - “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
1997: Spice Girls - “Wannabe”
1998: Manic Street Preachers - “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next”
1999: Ricky Martin - “Livin La Vida Loca”
2000: Sophie Ellis-Bextor & Spiller - “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”
2001: Texas - “I Don’t Want a Lover”
2002: Status Quo - “Rockin’ All Over The World”
2003: The Darkness - “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”
2004: Michael Andrews Featuring Gary Jules - “Mad World”

 
To celebrate Bertolt Brecht’s birthday, here is David Bowie in the BBC production of Brecht’s play Baal, from 1982. It was directed by Alan Clarke, the talent behind such controversial TV dramas as Scum with a young Ray Winstone, Made in Britain, with Tim Roth, and Elephant.

Baal was Brecht’s first full-length play, written in 1918, and it tells the story of a traveling musician / poet, who seduces and destroys with callous indifference.

Bowie is excellent as Baal and the five songs he sings in this production were co-produced with Tony Visconti, and later released as the EP David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht’s Baal.
 

 
More of ‘Baal’ starring David Bowie, after the jump…
 

 
This is a clip from The Venture Bros’ Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II) which aired in 2006.

I never thought back in the late ‘70s when I knew Klaus Nomi that one day he’d be a cartoon action hero. But upon reflection nothing about Klaus should surprise me. Here he is teaming up with Iggy Pop to defeat David Bowie. Tons of subtext for a cartoon.

More can be found here.

“Now you’re gonna be my dog.”

“Ding, dong, the queen bitch is dead.”
 

 
Austin-based comic artist Paul Maybury writes:

This is the sign that more or less got me pushed out of Wholefoods. I apparently offended a lot of people with it. One older white lady didn’t like the angry black man yelling at her. And a Vegan didn’t like that Mr. T. pitied her because she wouldn’t eat meat.

Still, it was a blessing in disguise for Paul Maybury, who has moved on to far greener pastures than an over-priced yuppie grocery chain as an award-winning artist and writer for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, Ubisoft, Metro, Image, Criterion and Mirage Studios. WTF was Whole Foods thinking firing a talent like this? This guy rocks!

 
See more of Paul’s awesome Whole Food signs after the jump…

 
Flickr via Flash Glam Trash!

The very charming Cherry Vanilla discusses her new memoir, Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla, a book with far more sex, drugs and rock-n-roll per page than probably any book you will ever read! Topics include her role as “Amanda Pork” in Andy Warhol’s Pork in 1970; working for David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust/MainMan era; her punk backing band (young Sting and The Police) and, of course, being a rock super groupie.

 
David Bowie sings “Drive-in Saturday” and is interviewed by British TV host, Russell Harty, from 1973.
 

 
This weekend for two nights (Sat/Sun) at the intimate Steve Allen Theater, Ann Magnuson and backing band, the Star Whackers From Mars (Kristian Hoffman, Jonathan Lea, Joe Berardi, Kristi Callanand, Miiko Watanabe, plus guest performer Michael Des Barres), will present a special evening of David Bowie songs in honor of the Thin White Duke’s 64th birthday (which is January 8).

La Magnuson told the LA Weekly: “I’m not impersonating Bowie so much as rekindling the ecstasy of a teenager who is singing and dancing along to those records in the basement of the house she grew up in back in West Virginia. I feel all the radiant joy those songs brought me then - with all the attendant hormones and unbridled excitement over the endless possibilities that lay ahead. In short, I feel what Bowie was bringing to the world- permission to step out of the black & white mundanity of a Kansas farm house and enter the wild, wonderful Technicolor world of Oz! And since Bowie isn’t performing at all anymore, someone has got to sing these songs live on stage!”

As another teenaged Bowie fanatic from the hills of West Virginia, I add a “+1” to what Ann says. The shows are nearly sold out, but standing room tickets will still be sold on the night of the performances. And so you know, a “little birdie” (okay, Ann via email this morning) told me that like the Spiders from Mars’s last stand at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, this will probably be her last show for quite some time—and she’ll be doing her “infamous” Jobriath medley (not performed since 1997)—so be warned. You snooze, you’re gonna lose, got that?

The Steve Allen Theater at the Center for Inquiry-West, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. L.A., CA 90027 (323) 666-4268. Get Tickets here

More Ann Magnuson on Dangerous Minds

 
A fine example of the Banksy-esque artwork of fictional artist 15Peter20 from the Nathan Barley TV series created by Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker, who described the character like so, in a February 12, 2005 article from The Guardian:

Either a genius or a dazzling genius, depending on which way you look at it, 15Peter20 (real name Ian Phillips) has made his mark in the world of contemporary photography thanks to a series of shocking, gimmick-heavy exhibitions in which the gimmick quickly becomes attached to the underside of the art, then scuttles up its back, hops on its shoulders and screams which direction it should go in, while simultaneously flashing its bum at passers-by. His new collection, Piss Bliss, consists entirely of photographs of celebrities urinating, thereby expertly capturing their animal vulnerability while exquisitely forcing jocular postmodernity to commit taboobicide. These pictures are at once the most revealing portrait photographs ever taken and an absolutely bloody flabbergasting waste of the world’s time.

This piece appears in the book Fucking With Your Head Yeah? that came with the original Nathan Barley DVD release.

Via Kraftfuttermischwerk

 
BLING!

Cause Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight
And a fistful of dollars can’t change that,
And someone copped his watch fob, and someone got his ring
And the newsboy got his porkpie Stetson hat”

 

 
Via

 
Watch a FREE video stream of The Nomi Song, Andrew Horn’s excellent 2004 documentary about New Wave opera diva from outer-space, Klaus Nomi. Follows the rise of Nomi’s unlikely career until his death in 1983 from AIDS complications. With Kristian Hoffman, Kenny Scharf, Ann Magnuson, Tony Frere, Page Wood, David McDermott and in a great performance clip, David Bowie and Joey Arias. Oddly sponsored by American Express.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: