Coventry Music Articles by Pete Clemons: David Bowie

David Bowie - Lanchester Arts Festival 1972

By Pete Clemons

David Bowie, it seems, was scheduled to appear at the now legendary 1972 Lanchester Arts Festival in Coventry but withdrew at very short notice. Festival organiser Ted Little indicated Bowie pulled out because his management felt he wasn't a good fit for the bill topped by jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk on the polytechnic site. (The festival was spread across different venues including the Locarno).

And this was at a time when David's record 'Hunky Dory' had just been released - an album that today - is still highly praised. And close to that scheduled appearance in Coventry, as part of the 1972 festival, David was even interviewed.....................

Since the very early precociously talented releases of 'Rubber Band' and 'Love You Till Tuesday' way back in the mid 60s David Bowie hasn't exactly been swamped with instant recognition.

His kind of wierd tongue in cheek material and half Newley voice didn't quite fit, it seems, into the kind of things that were going down then. It wasn't really until 'Space Oddity' that his name got around, and even then it didn't fore-run a massive trail of success. It was always a very jerky passage for Bowie. Half recognised, half buried not helped by the fact that he apparently was not too keen to do live appearances, didn't see himself as part of the rock and roll circus, and every so often just disappeared off the scene.

He did, however, record. And the result of these sorties into the studio presented us - after 'Oddity' - with a rather ragged album 'David Bowie' which gave a pointer to the way he was going to move musically but never quite gelled, but then the massive peculiar and neurotic 'Man Who Sold the World' and finally 'Hunky Dory'.

And although 'Man Who Sold the World' got Bowie off finally in the States, it wasn't until 'Hunky Dory' came out earlier this month that the cluster of British critics who had 'poo-poohed' Bowie as a rather boring freak they couldn't put into a musical compartment, sat up and took notice.

'Hunky' - a tight melodic collection of rock on tracks - has been backed up with Bowie's own imagery of prancing and capering and giving outrageous quotes when he feels like having a bit of fun with someone. It's his first album with a new record company and its success, backed with new management, has given him a whole new approach not only to his recorded work but to live gigs in general.

'We've really been swamped with work - turning down bookings every day. Lanchester happened to coincide at just the right time and looked like a good place to play. Certainly I've changed my whole outlook about live appearances. We're not going to go flogging around the country every night, but we'll do much more live work than we have in the past. I think really what's happened to my approach to work is having a new enthusiastic people around me makes life so much easier and it's made me more enthusiastic myself, plus we did this gig in Aylesbury before Christmas and got such a great reception it got us off'.

For Lanchester Bowie will be backed up by his usual three-piece line up of Mick Ronson, 'Woody' Woodmansey and Trevor Bolder who replaces Tony Visconti on bass.

It will, he says, be a composite show with only a few numbers from 'Hunky Dory' - and inevitably - 'Space Oddity' because 'it's a good little tune and you can't really ignore it can you?'. The mainstay of the material he'll be using will be from past albums - stuff like 'Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud' - and from the new album he's just laid down in the studio's.
'I feel that a lot of the material from the two previous albums really didn't get much of an airing - certainly not on stage - so they'll be nice to do for people. At the time neither got much attention over here, probably they just weren't right for the time and had more empathy with what was going on in America.

'On the new album we've tried to capture the sound we had going for us on stage. A sort of phonographic representation of the stage act with a few strings added. It's such a harder sound than 'Hunky Dory' but certainly not as paranoic as 'Man Who Sold the World '.

After his Lanchester gig Bowie has his first real British tour since the very early days with Humble Pie two years back. A tour which should finally get him off the ground with British audiences before he goes back to the States, which has always reserved a special place for his talents.

'I don't know why it is but they certainly got into the music faster than they did here so really I can't help thinking of the British dates as something of a 'rehearsal' before we go to the States'.