David Bowie

What dreadful news to wake up to. The last few weeks have seen an epidemic of much loved celebrities and musical heroes pass on, but I never in my wildest nightmares expected this one to happen.

Seeing what looked like a flippant post on Twitter, I quickly went to the BBC News app on my phone and there is was for real. 

David Bowie. Dead.

Given my rock and roll history, I've had an anecdote to post on social media for most of the recent passings. My Bowie stories deserve more than 140 characters, so here I am blogging for the first time in forever.

As you can see from the bit of paper above, the first one came in 1979. The venue was The Nashville, a music pub in West Kensington. It's now called the Three Kings I believe. It was one of my favourite places to see bands and I've so many fond memories of seeing people like The Cure, The Specials, Madness, even Joe Jackson there. My fondest memory of all was of this particular night.

It was a Friday and the second day of The Human League's two night stint at the club. This was them in their original form. Four fellas, some dodgy trousers and a slide show. I absolutely loved them back then and with my pal Heather we'd got to know the band fairly well, in a purely "Ligger" sense of the word.

As we were leaving the show on the Thursday night, Bob Last - their manager and boss of Fast Records - said to me to be sure to come back on the Friday night and that he'd leave our names on the door. He was grinning when he said it, but I didn't pay much heed. I was 18 and had no skills at all when it came to interpreting human behaviour.

Friday night, me and Heather turn up, watch the show - which was brilliant - and then went to go backstage to say thanks. There was extra security at the door, but Bob spotted us and waved us through. When we got into the grotty dressing room, there he was with an aura that lit up the shitty brown carpet and grotty nicotine-stained walls, David Bowie. 

At that point in time I would have to say I "liked" David Bowie, rather than loved him. In 1972 when he came to play at Preston Guildhall, I chose to spend my money on a Bay City Rollers ticket for the week after, but I liked his tunes, and of course his image which was always exceptional.

He was with his assistant Coco, though she was standing off to one side. DB was in the centre of a group of people who were hanging on his every word. He was discussing 'snuff films' with the band and talking of his time in Berlin. Heather was star-struck to the point of speechlessness, she really was a Bowie fan, and so once there was a lull in the conversation I launched into my spiel.

"Hi David, I'm Gaye Abandon and this is Ann R Key and we have a fanzine called The Ligger, and we'd love it if you would do an interview with us". He fixed his gaze on mine and said "I don't really do interviews at the moment, but if you give your address to Coco, I'll send you my thoughts on tonight". 

Now we didn't really use 'guest' reviewers in The Ligger, but fuck me what a coup! He asked about the fanzine and what kind of music we liked, and offered us a Marlboro Red. I didn't smoke at the time but a few years later when I started those were my fags of choice for no other reason.

As you can see from the scrap of paper, I was uncool enough to ask for his autograph and somehow it's survived 37 years and endless moves. I gave my address to Coco, but that review never arrived. I didn't hold it against him.

After that meeting I really began to explore his back catalogue. There were certain periods I loved more than others, but if I had to pick my all time favourite album it would be Young Americans. I've always been a bit of a soul girl, and this one - introduced to me by Kevin Rowland when I was working for Dexys Midnight Runners - I really got into. 

To this day it's the one I play most, so when he released the soulful Let's Dance I was bang into that too. Not to mention how fabulous he looked in those videos. So when, in 1983 it was announced he was going to be playing at Milton Keynes Bowl, myself and my flatmates got tickets and went. 

Now one of my flatmates at the time seemed to have access to all kinds of pharmaceuticals and our drug of choice that day was acid. I can still feel the warmth I felt laying on the grass in the Bowl, the sun beaming down and me tripping off my tits listening to IceHouse (god help me) and watching cruise missiles fly overhead. 

It'd mostly worn off by the time DB came onstage but there was no comedown, we soared higher and higher as he did his wonderful thing onstage. That was the first and sadly only time I ever saw him play truly live, but what an amazing experience it was.


My final DB experience came a year later. By now I was doing PR for a small, very small Ladbroke Grove record label called Trouserwear, run by a mate. He'd made a sampler LP called Blatant, featuring lots of local talent, including yours truly. It was set up like a game where the listener got to be an A&R man. The idea was you would wear the cardboard Ray Bans and attach your 'Backstage Pass' and listen to the tracks to try to pick a winner. Thinking about it now, it was an excellent idea!

Anyway, a pal of mine was telling me how his girlfriend was rehearsing with a choreographer - David Toguri - for the new David Bowie video. There were at Pineapple Studios. I grabbed a copy of the album, dolled myself up and headed over there. The girlfriend came out and introduced me to the choreographer and I explained about the album and was there a way to get a copy to DB because he was name checked on the record. 

He took it, and went back inside the rehearsal room. I was just about to leave when the pal's gf came running after me. 'David (Toguri, not Bowie) loves your look and he wants you to be in the video!' I almost fainted.

My phone number was taken and later that day I got a call telling me to be at the Roof Gardens in Kensington two days later. I'd get paid (£20 I think I got), and I had to be there at 8am wearing what I was wearing that day. 

I was there with bells on. As with all things filmic, the day dragged on for an eternity, with an awful lot of sitting around doing nothing, but when DB came out to film his bits, time evaporated. 

Julien Temple was directing the video, and while the choreographer loved my look, he wasn't so keen, I can still hear him telling me to 'move back, move back' the fucker. I made the final edit though and if you can be arsed to watch it here's the video 

https://youtu.be/DXvAaNcXNzI

I'm in the 'concert' part of the video and wearing a white jacket.

After a 14 hour day, they finally called a wrap. DB was standing out on the stage and I seized my chance. I said hi, took a fag this time, and asked if he'd received the album. I told him I was one of The Serious Sisters who featured on it. What I'd forgotten was that in the fictionalised biog I wrote for my group, I'd claimed we'd sung backing vocals for him when we were only 12 years old or something. As I said 'Serious Sisters' he broke out into a huge grin and said 'Oh yes, my backing singers'. He pretended to be annoyed but I just said 'showbiz innit?' and he laughed. He then went on to say how much he loved the idea of the album and some of the music too.

Now obviously a gazillion people will have a gazillion stories about David Bowie and many, many words will be written about him today and in the coming weeks, months, years. This is my contribution. 

Of all the "stars" I've met over the years, he always stood out for his sense of humour, his lack of condescension, his elegance, charm and good nature. He was also very generous with his cigarettes.

What a diamond.