//Members of the audience from Edinburgh who preferred Australian support act Icehouse to Bowie//

Fittingly Britain’s most surprising rock star has found his way to Britain’s newest and most surprising city, where high tech meets ecologic, where concrete meets conservation, where the silicon chip meets the fibreglass rod…

Steve Taylor, South Of Watford, Summer 1983, London Weekend Television

While putting the finishing touches to my forthcoming book about The Face magazine, I followed a line of research which lead me to an excellent documentary about the late David Bowie which I hadn’t seen since it was screened in 1983.

Shown as part of London’s regional broadcaster LWT’s South Of Watford strand, the film focused on Bowie’s immersion in the mainstream with the Let’s Dance LP and companion Serious Moonlight tour (sponsored by Levi’s in a groundbreaking marketing deal, this inaugurated the era of corporate and branded live music events).

The doc’s point of entry was Bowie’s weekend of sold-out gigs that summer at Milton Keynes Bowl, the open-air arena in Britain’s newest city north of London in the Buckinghamshire countryside.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alex Graham, David Bowie, Icehouse, Let's Dance, London Weekend Television, Melody Maker, Michael Watts, Milton Keynes Bowl, Nick Logan, Paul Tickell, Serious Moonlight, Sheryl Garratt, Steve Taylor

This is the little-seen promo video for Brian Eno’s song China, My China (from 1974’s Taking Tiger Mountain [By Strategy]).

Eno appears with Polly Eltes and Judy Nylon.

Eltes is a former model turned actress and singer; she contributed vocals to the same album’s Mother Whale Eyeless and has collaborated with Michael Karoli and Jah Wobble. She is also a photographer.

Judy Nylon is the American-born performer, writer and artist who took 70s London by storm – I wrote about her a couple of years back here.

Nylon was often in cahoots with her partner in Snatch, Patti Palladin. Here they are performing at Hurrah! in 1979. I think this was shot by the estimable Paul Tickell:

Tags: 1974, 1979, Brian Eno, Jah Wobble, Judy Nylon, Michael Karoli, Patti Palladin, Paul Tickell, Polly Eltes, Snatch, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

I haven’t had it confirmed – nor seen this in any music history – but I believe this line ad to have been placed by Jerry Nolan three years before he replaced Billy Murcia as the drummer in the New York Dolls.

It appeared in the June 14, 1969 edition of Rolling Stone, the “first British issue” of the magazine produced in collaboration with newly recruited staff in London.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Billy Murcia, Charlie Watts, Frendz, Friends, George O'Dowd, Jack Bruce, Jann Wenner, Jerry Nolan, Mick Jagger, New York Dolls, Paul Tickell, Pete Townshend, Peter Green, Roy Harper