14.The American Tour

I looked at the way Bowie presented himself in that whole 72-73 period and I just thought ,and  i still do to this day, that it was the greatest rock'n'roll star image that there has ever been

 Gary Numan 1998          

            In the autumn of 1972, Bowie set sail for the States. Already the biggest pop star to have emerged in the UK during 1972, it was vital that the holy grail of American success came Bowie's way. The Bowie contingent were on a high, full of hope, and sure that American success was just around the corner.

            One aspect of British pop that had completely failed to grab the Americans' attention was its androgyny. Whereas Britain has had an arty wing of lipstick-glossed rockers since the 1970s, America has, despite the early intervention of Little Richard, been very late in developing the tradition (with the Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails or Suede)

            It's usually only a certain type of act that can clean up the dollars. In the 1970s, Elton John's high musical values in the studio and showmanship on stage made him the biggest-selling British artist there, with Rod Stewart not far behind. The largely anonymous Mick Jones sang his way to multi-dollar success,as did Fleetwood Mac,who were at least half-British. But the likes of art rockers Roxy Music went largely unloved. Bolan had had some limited success, but he was hardly a big star. Intensely competitive and driven, Bowie was determined to go one better.

            Back to the tour, Angie was an unwanted distraction on tour - after causing a disturbance in a hotel pool with one of her affairs late at night during a tour of the Southern States she was packed off home. From that moment on, Angie was never an integral part of Bowie's touring regimen. The cracks in the Bowie marriage were already beginning to show. Both were massively promiscuous, and when both started to parade their affairs in front of each other's noses (and then to make love to each other's friends), jealousy started to rot their 'open' relationship. Angie, convinced that Bowie and MainMan would make her a star, became increasingly disillusionated when the focus resolutely remained on her husband. 

            Despite generating a fortune for his record company and manager, the artist himself lived on advances, handouts and credit in rented accommodation in the UK, and hotels and apartments abroad. He lived in the myth of being David Bowie, driven, almost maniacally, from album to tour to album by a cold, indomitable will.

            Bowie's friends and workmates noticed him becoming more distant, and perhaps less friendly. Reminiscing in 2004, Bowie remembers feeling "displaced" : "There was a time when what I was doing...didn't seem to resemble anybody else was doing. I didn't understand what I was doing, but it just seemed out of touch with what everyone else was doing."

            Travis Bolder recalls: " We only saw him as we walked on stage. He separated himself from us towards the end, he was like a solo artist that didn't need us. The bigger he got, the bigger his head got, and the less important you were to him".

            Bowie signed an employment agreement with MainMan management and production company in September 1972 that assigned to Defries a 'timeless' term of office as Bowie's manager. Under the terms of agreement, Bowie was given a guaranteed allowance of 300 £ . In return, he'd signed his life away. Mainman had exclusive rights to Bowie's person and could also 'fictionalise' the singer's biography for press purposes. In effect, Mainman could tell a pack of lies about Bowie and he would have no comeback.
            By late 1973, as Ken Scott recollects, Defries' influence over Bowie was all-encompassing: " It was difficult to tell how much was David and how much was Defries"
            The MainMan days were possibly the most controversial of Bowie's career, involving as they did a hugely extravagant 'shagathon', with Bowie largely broke, and his wife Angie running up colossal debts in shoe shops and boutiques while desperately trying to cut as an actress ( she was later notably turned down for the lead in Wonder Woman)


            Friend and photographer Mick Rock puts it like this:
"It was part of the theatre to treat him like a star. Defries could then start talking about David having an exclusive photographer.  People were saying, 'David Bowie's got an exclusive photographer.Who the fuck is David Bowie?' The people reasoned: 'If he's got an exclusive photographer and bodyguards, there must be something going on. ' That was a piece of living theatre, if you like, part of the whole thing that Tony and David cooked up between them".


            Ken Scott remembers:
 " Defries made a fortune for himself! Bowie was completely stiffed by Defries and when something like that happens, you just pass it on, it's a fact of life.... Bowie got completely stiffed by Defries and he passed it on to others. Bowie had to become tight to survive and he just kept it going because he certainly wasn't tight to start with. Bowie was broke! He was putting on these incredibly extravant tours and he was paying for them completely out of his 50 per cent. it was completely unheard of! "


            The personality of Bowie's band was changing rapidly. The whole Bowie entourage was becoming considerably more weird than Bowie himself - he has just hired a new pianist, Mike Garson ,which was a scientologist.
            This general unrest among the ranks came at a time when Bowie was called upon to deliver new product, the first album to be written from a position of fame. In many cases such albums are either a frightened excursion in water-treading,with the artist cowed into giving the punters more of what they know ( the boring option and one preferred by artist too numerous to mention) , or a confused melody of paranoia and unhappiness in an interesting gee-it's-hell-at-the-top-having-all-this-money sort of way. For this new album, Bowie chose the second option, but fashioned the paranoia of the superstar into a fantastically innovative record.