On joining the David Bowie fan club in 1975
…and trying not to let my mum and dad overhear his risqué lyrics
In 1973, my older brother, Robin, got a David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust era, haircut. He would stand in front of the kitchen mirror, hairdryer in hand, coaxing his hair to stand up on end.
To achieve that perfect brush on top, Suzi Ronson, the hair stylist for Bowie’s iconic mop, had a special trick up her sleeve:
“I found the colour, Schwarzkopf Red Hot Red with 30 volume peroxide to give it a bit of lift. There was no ‘product’ in those days to help me make it stand up, so I used Gard, an anti-dandruff treatment that I kept for the old girls at the salon – it set hair like stone.”1
My brother wasn’t to know that. His cow’s lick fringe proved very stubborn to tame.
Robin remembers:
“I was 16 when I got the haircut. I rode my Yamaha 50cc to a hairdresser near Mexborough that had been recommended, but the whole exercise was a flop, given that the helmet squashed it to an unrecognisable mess! I didn't have any gel or suchlike, so it was a complete non-starter.
“I clearly recall sitting on the kitchen floor when I first heard Bowie singing Space Oddity on the radio and was hooked from then on, spending out on albums, starting I think with Ziggy Stardust, then Hunky Dory, then Aladdin Sane, which mum reacted quite badly to!”
I followed my brother’s lead, not with the hair, but in my adulation of David Bowie. So did my little sister.
Here’s his mesmering 1972 Top of the Pops performance of Starman.
We’d play Bowie albums on the turntable in the living room, with the door closed to muffle the sound, while our parents were in the kitchen.
My dad had conservative musical tastes. As I noted in my piece, Teddy Bear Eyes, one of my earliest memories is of him objecting to the lyrics of Love Me Do by The Beatles in 1962:
“‘Love, love me do, You know I love you,’ What kind of song is that?!”
My mum would sometimes have “easy listening” on the radio in the background and on Sunday evenings, when we were little, we’d be encouraged to guess the classical composer on Your Hundred Best Tunes. She urged me to join the church choir and to enter the local music festival, warbling folk ballads.
I was a music charts junkie. Mum and dad were not, though they tolerated our Thursday night Top of the Pops habit.
If I knew my parents were hovering, I’d play tracks from Bowie’s earlier, whimsical Anthony Newley-esque, era: The Laughing Gnome or The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud. Or something safe from Hunky Dory, like Life on Mars or Changes. Or his covers album, Pin-ups. (I was obsessed with the gorgeous photo of him and model, Twiggy.)
But if mum and dad came within earshot of Aladdin Sane, the cringe factor was massive. Take the lyrics from Cracked Actor:
Crack, baby, crack
Show me you're real
Smack, baby, smack,
is that all that you feel?
Suck, baby, suck
Give me your head
Before you start professing
That you're knocking me dead
I wasn’t entirely sure what it was about, but I knew it sounded rude.
Diamond Dogs, released in 1974, when I was 13, just added to the kerfuffle. Everything about it was alluringly raunchy, strange and verboten, from its fold-out cover showing Bowie as a half-human, half-dog hybrid, to its dystopian lyrics.
My sister and I would never have got away with playing it – we’d never have even dared – but our big brother gave us the courage to push boundaries.
Tracks from Diamond Dogs that had me blushing? Sweet Thing:
If you want it, boys
Get it here thing
Was it about prostitution? I was pretty sure it was about prostitution.
And I usually turned down the volume on We Are The Dead, though it was one of my favourite tracks. Too high risk. It contained the F-word.
Here’s a photo of me, my brother and our dog, Ben, in 1974, at which point Bowie had reintroduced a side parting. And so had my brother.
Member number 15,203 of the David Bowie Fan Club
Undeterred by parental disapproval, in February 1975 I joined the David Bowie Fan Club for £1. The application form was inside one of the album sleeves.
I’d forgotten all about it since, but the evidence turned up in mum and dad’s loft when I was clearing the house after they died, along with pretty much every other memento of my youth.
I’d carefully saved everything from the David Bowie Fan Club in its original big envelope, with its 5p stamp.
Here’s what it contained:
Membership card, number 15,203.
Cover letter from fan club presidents Fiona and Aindrea. (Wow. They had a lot of envelopes to stuff!)
David Bowie Discography.
David’s biography and personal details. I find this fascinating.
Height: 5'10" Weight: 8st 7lb.
15: “Didn’t attend school much; Played tenor sax with Modern Jazz group; Buddhism.”
16: …tripped on Capitalism; Re-read ‘On the Road’ … felt that he could only express himself fully through music.
20: First album; Dropped out of music completely and devoted most of his time to the Tibet Society; Helped get the Scottish monastery underway.
24: “I cannot breathe in the atmosphere of convention. I only find happiness in the realms of my own eccentricity.”
(Can you imagine putting that on your CV?)
A black and white photo of Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust, on which he’s written ‘beat out & love on Bowie xx’
Black and white photo of Bowie on the phone. On the back it says it’s to mark David being presented with an award from his record label, RCA, for having all his albums in the charts for 19 consecutive weeks.
Black and white photo of Diamond Dogs phase Bowie, wearing a white suit.
A sew-on Aladdin Sane-era patch, weirdly captioned ‘Dave Bowie’, rather than ‘David’.
Offers for: Aladdin Sane poster (£1); back-issue of the first David Bowie Fan Club magazine (50p plus 10p P&P); membership form for the Mick Ronson Fan Club (£1).
‘Tell a friend’ membership form: “Please pass on to a Fellow Bowie freak who is not yet a member.”
Programme from Bowie’s Madison Square Garden concerts on 19 and 20 July 1974.
“Direction and mime improvisation by Bowie. Co-direction Tony Basil” (That’s the same Toni Basil who had her own hit with Hey Mickey in 1982).
Bowie live
I would have most loved to see Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust phase. So would my brother. He recalls,
“I was toying with the idea of traveling down to see him at Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, but annoyingly didn't do, only to discover that at the concert he announced he was killing off Ziggy, which left me devastated.
“He was never the same after that and his next phase of reinvention seemed a disappointing step backwards.”
In the event, I got to see him perform live twice.
The first time was in July 1983, with my brother and sister, at Milton Keynes Bowl, during his Serious Moonlight tour.
Bowie was a dapper, blond, yellow-suited speck in the distance, grooving to Heroes, Golden Years and Let’s Dance from the newly-released album of the same name, alongside some old favourites.
My only diary note from the event is that he was “more excellent than I expected”.
The second and final time was at Isle of Wight Festival on 13 June 2004, where he performed a satisfying pick and mix from all his musical incarnations. My view was much better than at Milton Keynes. I was awestruck to be there, but felt he lacked passion.
Later that month, he experienced heart problems on stage, for which he needed surgery. He never toured again.
Blackstar, the album released on Bowie’s 69th birthday in January 2016, just two days before his death from cancer, has become one of my favourites. It is so broodily atmospheric, ethereal and elegiac. It felt to me that he had written his own funeral music.
I thought of including a link to its title track here, but I still feel like my mum and dad are going to pop their heads round the door and ask me to “Turn down that racket!”
© Wendy Varley 2024
Was there a gulf between the music you liked and what your parents liked (or permitted)? Were there lyrics that made you cringe if your parents were within earshot?! Were you a Bowie Fan? Did you join any fan clubs when you were a teenager? Please do comment below.
Thanks to everyone who liked, shared and or/commented on my piece last week, Picture Book Heaven, about children’s picture books that have stood the test of time. I loved reading about your own favourites. Some of those you mentioned were omitted from my own list, simply because the original copies hadn’t survived! (Eg Judith Kerr’s Mog; John Burningham’s Harquin the Fox; most of Shirley Hughes.) Some I’d never heard of, and it’s given me a new list to explore, with Christmas coming up.
Clicking the heart and/or sharing this piece will help other people find my writing. And please do comment below if you’re able. Welcome to those of you who’ve newly subscribed and if you’ve read this far and haven’t already subscribed, I do hope you will!
Or there is a Wendy’s World Tip Jar, if you wish to contribute.
Suzi Ronson quoted in Daily Mail’s You magazine, 4 June 2017.
Not so much the music, more the fashions that triggered my parents – a little, they weren’t especially censorious about it. They got used to my dancers’ leg-warmers (FAME! I’m Gonna Live Forever! [twirl kick twirl smash]) and using a long silky ribbon as a belt. Sartorially, my peak years. (So far.)
My dad worked at the local concert hall in Wolverhampton and Ziggy Stardust was my very first concert. I must have been about 9 years old and Ifound it very unnerving, hardly knowing what to make of it! How I wish I could go back and watch it again. This was such a lovely post to read.