David Bowie‘s work with Lou Reed (on 1972 Transformer) and Iggy and The Stooges (on 1973’s Uncooked Energy) could have helped pave the way in which for punk rock in England, however that did not essentially imply that the Class of ’77 held Bowie in excessive regard. In a 1991 interview with [now defunct] British music journal Q, Bowie recalled his first encounter with one of many Intercourse Pistols in 1977, and the way it induced him to “almost soften by the ground” with embarrassment.
On the time, Bowie was enjoying piano alongside his future Tim Machine colleagues Tony Gross sales (bass) and Hunt Gross sales (drums) in Iggy Pop’s band, touring Pop’s first solo album, The Fool, which Bowie had produced. Within the first week of March 1977, the tour stopped off for 2 nights on the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, north London, which occurred to be the place Intercourse Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten lived. So on an evening off from engaged on By no means Thoughts The Bollocks, Rotten determined to pop in to the Rainbow to say ‘Hi there’ to the Godfather of Punk.
“I used to be within the dressing room – carrying a swimsuit, because it occurred – and Johnny Rotten got here in, turned to Iggy and stated, ‘Oo the fuck’s that – your fucking supervisor or one thing?” Bowie recalled to author Charles Shaar Murray. “Then he took a re-evaluation and stated, Oh, it is fucking Bowie in a fucking swimsuit. I almost melted by the ground! My avenue credibility’s Madison Avenue.”
A number of years later, Bowie encountered one other Intercourse Pistol – the band’s bassist Glen Matlock – within the firm of Iggy Pop, and he did not obtain an enormous quantity of respect on that event both.
“We performed an additional membership gig in New York and David Bowie got here,” Matlock revealed on British TV present By no means Thoughts The Buzzcocks final yr. “And he’s obtained the identical automobile and driver [Tony Mascia] as in [Nicolas Roeg’s 1976’s film] The Man Who Fell To Earth, proper? All of us bundled in that, happening Madison Avenue, and I’m sitting on David Bowie’s knee as a result of there’s nowhere to sit down.”
“And in these large limos, there’s alleged to be two self-importance mirrors, proper, and he hasn’t obtained a conceit mirror, he’s obtained slightly portray. I went, Grasp on a second, that’s a Picasso, ain’t it? And he went, ‘Yeah, it’s’. Then I seemed [to the other side of the car] and went, Grasp on, that’s a Matisse! In his automobile…
He stated, ‘Yeah’. I stated, Nicely you’re a flash cunt!, and he went, ‘Yeah, I assume I’m’.”
