The New Cue #483: Bowie Odyssey 75: extract + interview with Simon Goddard

"He believes a coven of witches are trying to steal his piss and semen..."

Good morning,

Excitingly, today our TNC Book Club has an extract from the latest instalment of Simon Goddard’s must-read Bowie Odyssey series, Bowie Odyssey 75, as well as an interview with the author.

Picture the scene. 1975 is David Bowie’s year: he’s starring in motion pictures, scoring number 1s on both sides of the Atlantic, releasing sweet soul music from another dimension in the shape of his Young Americans album that’s gobbled up by all.

But high (so very high) in the Hollywood Hills, our prince is losing his mind on cocaine, sinking ever deeper into witchcraft, paranoia and the darkness enveloping his new fascist alter-ego, The Thin White Duke. And yet, from this mad quagmire he will pull another era-defining album. The year ends with the first message sent from Station To Station’s new dimension, Golden Years, the transition from the funk of Young Americans to Station to Station’s harsher climate. We can perhaps deduce Bowie’s mental and physical state from this performance of the song on Soul Train in November ‘75…

It’s another amazing book by Goddard, intricately plotted and travelling through the culture of the time with masterful poise. We are huge devotees of the Bowie Odyssey series, and as such I don’t really want to stick a paywall in this edition. But think of the ledges who are our subscribers! We rely entirely on subscriptions and they are the wind beneath our wings. We spend a few days a week working on The New Cue (no, really) and to ensure we can keep this joyous enterprise going, please hit the button below.

Enjoy the edition, we’ll see you all on Friday,

Ted and Niall.

---

TNC Book Club: Simon Goddard

Where are we on the Bowie Odyssey, Simon?
Over the halfway line, book six of ten. The previous book on ’74 was a sort of end of part one for the first five years/books set against the rise and fall of glam rock. So Bowie Odyssey 75 is an equivalent start of part two, the next five years/books set against the rise and fall of punk rock.

Take us into David’s world as 1974 closes and ’75 opens?
He starts the year as a cocaine addict in New York. Then he moves to Los Angeles, which is where most cocaine addicts go to die. He doesn’t quite, but this year is the depth of his coke psychosis. People commonly associate his Thin White Duke period with 1976, when Station To Station was released and when he toured it, but he’d already lived and breathed the character for real throughout ’75, the year he recorded it. So we’re entering prime fascist-flirtation Bowie.

Who are the main characters in Bowie Odyssey 75, what are their motivations?
1975 was International Women’s Year so there are a lot of prominent female characters. As ever, his wife Angie who’s as good as separated from him by now and has ambitions to finally grab some limelight for herself only to end up flying to his rescue to help exorcise Satan from his swimming pool. Equally prominent is his estranged and somewhat neurotic mother, whose unhappiness that he never rings her has very public consequences. There’s also a cameo from the fabulous Cher and, though not directly in Bowie’s life, one of the biggest female characters in the book, the villain if you like, is Margaret Thatcher. 1975 was her year as much as anyone’s.

Some of the best parts of your other Bowie Odyssey books are the detours into the wider cultural and current affairs of each era. What awaits us this time?
For all sorts of reasons one of the main motifs of the book is monsters. So apart from Maggie, there’s a murderer living a few streets away from where Bowie was born whose obsession with the Nazis is second only to his own, and an equally serious subplot involving the Cambridge Rapist, which connects to another strand involving Malcolm McLaren, the SEX shop and the Pistols. Not just because it’s thematically relevant, but also to enlighten people who’ve been led to believe that “Cambridge Rapist” is just a cult punk T-shirt what a genuine monster the actual perpetrator was and how badly, and shamefully, McLaren got it wrong. So, like all the books in the series, there’s light and dark, high comedy and grim drama.

Creatively, where was Bowie in ’75? What are musical highlights?
The incredible thing is that at the end of a year when he as good as loses all humanity, he still manages to pull off Station To Station, which for many, including myself, is up there in the top three greatest albums he ever made. So for that peerless piece of art alone, yes, all that addiction and madness seems to have been worth it. Apart from that, his only major endeavour that year is filming The Man Who Fell To Earth, so the scenery shifts from New York to LA to New Mexico and back as he, too, shifts from Bowie to the fictional alien Newton and back.

How’s his mental health?
Well, he reaches the point where he believes a coven of witches are trying to steal his piss and semen for all sorts of diabolical shenanigans. So not at its best.

Can you précis a favourite anecdote from the book?