The Diamond Dogs Tour

[audience clapping]
Dick Cavett: thank you, you’re very kind. Hold on to your ticket stubs, you know this is the time of the year whenthe network is adjusting its program schedule, and ABC’s gonna raffle off some of its turkeys right after the…

This will be a very good show tonight, tonight I am bringing you two very unusual people. Three actually, if you count me. Do you hear a hum? that’s because we have a lot of equipment here. My two guests here tonight make their living in very unusual ways… they’ve managed to beat the old 9 to 5 rat race…

Here’s one of them [screen shows close up of the cover of [i]Diamond Dogs[/i] [*silence*] and here’s the other [shot of an old man with funny look on his face] [*laughing*]. They’re both english, they wear makeup and costumes in their work… and the similarity ends there. David Bowie [*cheering*] is a superstar in a category that has never actually been defined. Because as soon as he tries… if a critic tries to say what he is he changes.. like a chameleon. .. where are the new chameleons going to come from? Froido Trese (?) who is aged forty eight transforms himself nightly into an ancient 17th century gossip…. [goes on about this guy], and by the same token this is also David bowie [*shows cover of Hunky Dory*]

Let’s meet our guests in alphabetical order…. this [*shows ziggy-era photo*] is David Bowie, and on the other hand [*shows cover of Aladdin Sane*] this is David Bowie, [*cover of Pin Ups*] David Bowie… [*cover of Diamond Dogs again*]..if all of these are true, can this also be David Bowie? [*the picture from the inside of David Live, in the spotlight on the bridge*].

He burst on the screen a few years ago in a dazzling display of bizzarre costumes, glitter, with an opus called the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars… if the audience will hold just a moment… I’m explaining this for the square johns at home… [*laughter*] He’s the only person I know that has appeared in the same year on the best-dressed men list and the worst-dressed women list… someone’s idea of a joke.. Rumours and questions have arisen about David such as who is he, what is he, where did he come from… is he a creature of a foreign power. Is he a creep, is he dangerous, is he smart, dumb, nice to his parents, real, a put-on, crazy, sane, man, woman, robot… what is this? His fans have seem him do almost everything but sit and talk, which he will do tonight. In this concert is still another David Bowie. Ladies and gentlemen, David bowie… [*cheers*]

**********[DB comes out and sings "1984" and "Young Americans"]*********

DC: We have a very vocal group here tonight, not only you, but the people out there… Now, it’s strange to see you off your feet like this. Welcome, nice to see you…
DB: Thank you…
DC: So you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.
DB: Yes.
C: I almost feel I should interview like that character Peter Cook does, you know.. [*does phony accent*] What is all this prancin’ about and staging trappings.. but you know, you don’t have the trappings you had in the past. You’re a little more… conventional.
DB: Yeah. At this moment. [*snorts*]
DC: What happened?
DB: [*throws head back, snorting wildly*] Um…. We did the Diamond dogs tour, and took it from New York to Los Angeles [*begins tapping floor with cane*] and I felt [*wipes nose*] [[[..?...] rather than coming back with the same thing, I wanted to give myself an opportunity just to work with the band.

DC: Yeah… so a lot of glitter is gone… that we associate with you.. and we get an entirely new…

DB: [*wipes nose*]
DC:…. new person here.
DC: Is the offstage Bowie likely to surprise people? I hear the wierdest reactions when people who know you’re going to be on.. some of them say they’d be scared to sit and talk with you, some poeple said you would bite my neck… very peculiar kind of thing…
DB: It’s what you want then, isn’t it? And what do you think I’m like? [sniffs*]
DC: WEll, i’ve only met you a little bit over the phone and backstage, [b]and to me you seem like an, um, I hope this doesn;t insult you, a working actor. [/b]
DB [*laughs*] That’s right, that’s very good.

DC: I mean…. [*watched Bowie tapping cane on floor*] what are you drawing?
audience: [laughter]

DC: Some people thought, there was a lady who said, I don’t know if i’d want to meet him, he’d make me very nervous. I have a feeling he’s into black magic … and that sort of thing. And other people say you’r just a very skillful performer.
DB: Yeah. [*nods*] Well, both of what you said [*giggles, taps cane on floor*]
DB: I am a person of diverse interests. I;m not very academic, but i flit from one thing to another a lot
DC: Flit?
DB: [*nods*] Well, not really, but it’s the 70s fashion. [*makes horrible face, twitches, taps cane madly on floor*]

DC [now holding a copy of Diamond Dogs]: this picture is very striking, I mean the first time you see it in a record store window, I could see it actually stopping traffic… This is the picture you sent to the draft board obviously? [*laughter*]
DB: [*giggling, cane now hooked around his neck, sniffs a few times*]
DB: Well, it’s an artist from Belgium called Guy Peelaert, he did a book called rock dreams… [*tapping cane*] i nicked… i nicked… welll i didn’t nick the book but i saw the book at Mick Jagger’s house and I got the idea of doing a cover…
DC: What does ‘nicked’ mean?
DB: Oh, stolen, stolen….
DC: You stole the idea…
DB: Yeah
DC: Does this make you nervous, to sit here without your band and just chat…
DB: [.....] I’d rather not know….
DC: Where’s the kick for you David, in performing? When you’re onstage?
DB: That’s it. Complete. Really.
DC: Being there?
DB: Yeah
SC: I imagine it wouldbe ery exciting.. there are people in the world who’ve never stood on a stage…

DB: [*now twirling cane in both hands*] an incredible feeling … productionsl ike Diamond Dogs, but it was one of putting together bits and pieces and remembering a thousand things at once.. that was one kind of fulfullment but now I am finding a new kind of fulfilment [*cane still in both hands, he is banging ti up and down on his knees*] I’ll go back to doing productions… I just wanted to go out and dsing my songs as a singer/songwriter… [*waving cane in the air*]
DC: We have to take a break right now [*here we hear David sniffing loudly*]

**************************************************************************

DC: David, what kind of student were you in school?
DB: Um, as they say not very academic. I suppose I was considered arty.
DC: Arty?
DB: [grunts]
DC: Did you go through college? Or to college?
DB: Um, yeah. I went to an um technical college near London. an {….} for people from 12 and up (?) … maths and physics … so I took art.
DC: You know taht Jagger studied economics…
DB: Yes
DC: And  mentioned that once when he was on, and some of his fans were disappointed to hear that. And it ties into somethign you said in an interview you did with William Burroughs, which I thought was interesting… if it’s in fact true.. uh…
DB: Oh, don’t believe it!
DC: Well.. [laughs]
DC: Everyting ties in with something else… which is, don’t ask me any questions because I’ll say something different every time… but taking a chance here, a stab in the… light… you said that[b] the lives of rock stars are really not as strange as the lives of their fans.[/b]
DB: [nodding]
Audience: {laughing, cheering]
DC: It’s an interesting point.. the fans sort of envy the stars, but… the stars are kind of more conventionalized and envy the fans. It strikes me as odd you know, the idea that fans are shooting macrame or something under their fingernails and trying to be really freaky, and you and Jagger are sitting around discussing economics before the [.....] or something.. Am I exaggerating?
DB: No no. He speaks about economics and I don’t understand him… [laughs]

DC: Is this in fact, true? What is your private life like?
DB [taking his jacket off]: Can I take this off?
Audience: [Cheering, clapping] Take it all off!
DB: What I meant was that when i first started I used to get out and about a bit, and I used to go to clubs and dance, and you know.. and I sorted out what I wanted to wear and what I wanted to do… But later on, things became slightly cocooned. Cocooned, you know. I was kind of… in there somewhere. I saw that I was seeing what everyone else was wearing… {…] to the shows… I kind of get influenced by the people who come to see me.. [....] it wasn’t me, it was them….
DC: getting influenced by your audience?

DC: How do you dream up your latest manifestation..?
DB: Which one in particular…?
DC: In any case. Do you sit at a sketchpad? Do you work from your own dreams?
DB: I travel {something about fear of flying] so i take a ship, a train, or something
DC: You don’t fly?
DB: No.
db: [something about taking a train through Moscow]
DC: Why won’t you fly?
DB: Oh,it scares me… I don’t like the feeling of… going up… always feels like I’m running very fast [makes running motions] going to the edge of a cliff [makes horrible face] and jumping [...] to theother side [gesticulating wildly].

DC: Why do rock stars have premonitions of doom.. it seems to be a theme int heir work?
DB: I think I’m pretty nutty to be doing it in the first place… very tangled minds, very messed up people.
DC: Do you ever try to picture yourself at sixty?
DB: [laughs]
DC: Like the idea of a reunion of the Beatles in their 70s… adn they come tottering out, someone holds the guitar up in front of them while they pluck it…

DC: This is a rather personal question, but is that your real hair color?
DB: Of course it isn’t. I’m a blonde.
DC: When you walk around ew York and some guy in a hard hat says "Hey Sweetheart"..
DB: I DRIVE around New York. [laughs]
DC: Good idea….

[goes on to talk about angie, zowie, his coffee table, and a book he is writing)

************* "footstompin'"**********************************

[more interview here]