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STAR. I'M TRYING to get people to take notice of David Bowie.  Lots of us recognize David for the incredible star he is, but we're still a minority.  People interested should write to Hilda Williams, 57 Northern Road, Aylesbury, Bucks. - A. LANG, LONDON SW7. (1972)

DAVID BOWIE APPRECIATION SOCIETY
57 Northern Road, Aylesbury Bucks

Hi,

Hilda has decided to move on to another job so I have taken over running the Fan Club from her, and, as you can probably imagine, I am really enjoying myself.

David apologizes to his appreciators that the BBC refused to show the "John, I'm Only Dancing" film on Top of The Pops recently.   David's new single "JEAN GENIE" was released 24th November.  It would be nice if you could write to the BBC requesting them to show the film which David has had made for showing on Top of The Pops. David is to be presented with a gold disc from RCA early in the new year for the sale of 100,000 copies of his current album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars."

The Spiders return sometime in the middle of December, and David and Angela arrive at Southhampton at 2am on 21st December.  As yet the following concerts have been booked:

December 24th - Rainbow Theatre, London
December 28th - Hardrock, Manchester
January 5th - Green's Playhouse, Glasgow
January 6th - Edinburgh Empire
January 7th - City Hall Newcastle (and possibly 8th)
January 9th - Guild Hall, Preston

Studio time has been booked in January for David to record a new album. MOTT THE HOOPLE are successfully touring America, and they and IGGY POP are expected to tour America early next year.  LOU REED'S new album "Transformer" has now been released, and "Walk on The Wild Side" is really nice.

The following posters are for sale:

STARMAN - black/white - 20p
DAVID BOWIE LIVE - colour - 30p
ZIGGY posters - colour - 20p
RAINBOW SOUVENIR PLUS SKIN TRANSFERS - 20p

DAVID BOWIE T-SHIRTS now available from:

RENAISSANCE, 23, Northgate, Cottingham, Yorkshire.

They cost 80p including post and packing , and different colours and sized are available.

THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD has been released with a new cover and the album MAN OF WORDS, MAN OF MUSIC has been re-released, re-tilted SPACE ODDITY.   They are both in the album charts.  The PYE maxi-single (7NX 8002) has now been released and on it is "Do anything you say/Dig Anything/Can't Help Thinking About Me/I'm Not Losing Sleep."

David and The Spiders wish all their fans a Merry Christmas

"Live till your rebirth and do what you will"

I bless you madly

Sue Townsend
Secretary

Fan Club newsletter (December 1972)

BOWIES NOT NEW. I'M SICK of everybody hailing David Bowie as the greatest thing since T-Rex.  I can remember him playing in 1964, when he used to play a lot in Bournemouth.  I've even got a copy of the first record he ever made - "You've got a Habit of Leaving" - recorded under the name of David Jones.  I've got every single and every LP he's released since that time.  So all these people who think he's a discovery are wrong: he's been around for years and at last someone has had the sense to recognise him for his great talent.  Good luck to David and Ziggy.  You'll both go far. - SUE PARTRIDGE, Dorset. (1972)

HAVING BOUGHT your New Musical Express '73 Hot Rock Guide, I read with interest the article "Gay Times/David Bowie".  Could you please send onto me some colour photos of David as he is in the nude as well as in clothes; also some info on his age and interests etc.  Please send me the appropriate info and photos colour (full length nude front as well as back) as soon as poss., please.   I'll pay postage. - John Bradnum, North Ferriby, East Yorkshire. Over to you David - ED (December 1972)

SO MOTT The Hoople have got a hit single on their hands and it's what all their followers have wanted for years.  Yet all the credit goes to David Bowie (the single even sounds like him).  Mott have the ability to write their own songs, so why use a Bowie composition? - DISGUSTED. Oxley. (1972)

Fan Club Magazine #1 (1973)

How true your reader was when he claimed that Dylan has been dethroned.  How very wrong when he hinted that [Rod] Stewart had deposed Dylan.   Stewart of all people!  It is an accepted fact that back in 1971 America quoted Dylan as being the King and Bowie as an English Bob Dylan.  Today due to Bowie's advanced and much improved musical style he has been quoted as being "caustically penetrating", "disquieting", "disturbing", "mystically beautiful" and "occasionally freaky".  The quotes help me to prove that David is in an enchantingly beautiful class of his own.  Dylan and Stewart are alike in the sense that they're giving the public the same old rot as they did back in the late '60s.  No wonder Stewart went to see Bowie at the Rainbow.   I would have thought that he could have learnt from it.  Surely a "King" has got to be incomparable and exceptionally different.  Bowie easily slips into this class.  Whoever dared put over a bisexual image on an album such as "Ziggy Stardust"? - TUDOR CROMBEY, Disraeli Crescent, High Wycombe, Bucks  (1972)

STAR MAN. HERE's a straight prediction.  Within one year, David Bowie will be the biggest star in the British pop scene.  And once he's up there on top, it'll take a bulldozer much bigger than a Bolan to dislodge him.  I'm no Lord Luck, just stating the obvious. - JAMES KERNELL, The Stack, High Road, Broomgrove, Worcestershire. (1972)

IS HE FOR REAL? IS DAVID Bowie for real?  That's the question my friends and I have been asking ever since "Starman" started to get all that airplay.   Obviously the dee jays think so but it's hard to tell beneath all that showmanship and glitter.  It isn't a case of Bowie better than Bolan but at least Marc doesn't hide behind all that sparkle and posing; he's more open and natural and the music's real - JEAN BUCK, East Lodnon (1972)

1973

L. McPUADE (Gasbag, December 2) should open his ears and listen to all the words of "Lady Stardust" by David Bowie, then he'd find that the lyrics are a tribute to whoever the song was written for.  So come on, stop getting at a superior musician just because its the in-thing to do." BOWIE FREAK   (January 1973)

DAVID DISAPPOINTMENT. JUST what are David Bowie and his management playing at?  Not content with staging a show at Earls Court - at least I think there was a show, but I couldn't see or hear one - he fixes another, only to cancel it and so disappoint all the fans who were prepared to give Bowie another chance.  We know that business is business, but surely show business implies than an artist should at least show himself.  - Wendy Baker, Wimbledon, London (1973)

BASHING DAVID BOWIE. I thought it was over.  Grand Funk may break up, but now come Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie) and his Spiders From Mars!  They are even more hyped-up and undertalented than the last two hype groups: Grand Funk and Blue Oyster Cult, "possibly the best album of 1972"? I thought it was below a magazine of your status to hype these lousy groups' albums into the charts.  Seeing ads in every magazine and paper possible for Ziggy makes me ill.  The best album of the year, ha!   Is Ziggy a messiah from outa space? Oh sure, and Mark Farner is a good guitarist.   Spiders From Mars? Oh crap! they should have stayed there (God help Mariner!).   The hype seems to be working: the album is selling.  People, don't be taken in.  Weird lyrics, ha!  I've heard better lyrics in a high-school football cheer.  If you want poor music with strange lyrics, listen to AM radio and read a HP Lovecraft book (no cut meant on HP).  The business about "extraterrestrial saviors" is ridiculous.  Intelligent life would want nothing to do with a fool like Bowie - or if Bowie is from outer space, it proves there is no intelligent life on other planets.  Parting word: if our savior is a fag like Bowie, we're better off doomed. - HYPE HATERS - Ronald Ertman, Scott Schultz, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (January 1973)

We're writing this letter because of a letter we read in the January issue of Circus.  We don't see why two jocks from Milwaukee put down David Bowie.  At least Bowie has the guts to admit he is homosexual.  You two (Milwaukee Jocks) don't know sheep-dip about music.  David Bowie wrote "All The Young Dudes" for Mott The Hoople in 180 minutes.  So you two mongoloids just sit and freak out on your Osmond albums.  Thank You. UJHA (United Jock Haters Association) & GMAS (Great Music Appreciation Society) Fridley, Minnesota (May 1973)

BE GENTLE WITH BOWIE! Please print this letter because I don't know where else to turn or what else to do.  I read something in a rock newspaper yesterday that really upset me.   It said that on Valentine's Day at a David Bowie concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall David was knocked down and passed out onstage because of the inconsiderate people who were lucky enough to be so close to him.  David is a human being, in addition to being a pacifist, and this type of action upsets him terribly.  I know how much everyone wants to touch him and be near him, but if they continue in this way he could really be hurt and probably stop reaching out to the audience.  He gives a much better show when the people just feel and not attack.  I'm just asking everyone who goes to a Bowie concert to please be gentle because there are so many who love him. - a devotee Wayne, Pennsylvania. (July 1973)

ALADDIN SANE (1973) Fan Club Application form

LOST FOR WORDS. I HAVE just bought David Bowie's new LP "Aladdin Sane" When first played, I was lost for words, what an absolutely brilliant LP.  The track "Lady Grinning Soul" in my opinion, is the best he's made.  Long live Bowie - Phil Harvey - Packham, London (1973)

SO THE last great bastion of British pop music, the supposedly influential Melody Maker, has crumbled into the dust and is now fawning at and licking the boots (covered in silver glitter, of course) of a drag artist.  I am, of course, referring to your choice of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" album as "Album of The Year." Just what have you been attracted by?  Bowie's introverted "poetry" which has as much relevance to his substandard dustbin rock as his "camp aura" has to Frankenstein.  If this is the best album of the year in your coveted opinion, then what are we to expect as your 1973 choice - Shirley Temple's Greatest Hits? God help rock." - Steve Ralphs, Abbotleigh, Freshford, Bath, Somerset. (1973)

BOWIE NOT A WEENYBOPPER. I AM writing in answer to THAT letter you dared to print (December 16) from Kenneth Kessler. Wow!  Did that cap it all - David Bowie a "Weenybop" band: my God, you make my blood boil, people are always slanging each other - OK, that's part of being a superstar, but to call David's band Weenyboppers! I suggest you go to a Bowie concert and you'll soon see that most people there are over 20 years.  I'm fifteen and when I went, I felt out of place.  Also if you listen to David on this subject, he says "I want all people to enjoy my sounds, it doesn't matter what age.   Nowadays, the people who come to my shows are about 20." I do agree with him on the other points he mentions, but just listen to the words of Bowie's songs, any Weenybopper would never understand or enjoy the beautiful lyrics or music." - Judith Simms, Manor Farm Cottage, Upton Noble, Shepton Mallet, Somserset. (1973)

DEDICATED TO SURREAL MR. BOWIE. DEDICATED to David Bowie, from a person who lives solely because he exists.

In my innermost eyes I can only fantasise the incredible pleasure,
the indelible delight of knowing you.
Hero from the stars, all I ever ask is to touch you.
A whole dimension of strange new feelings has opened up for me.
You are the centre of my Earth,
the core of my universe.
Vision of wild surrealism, impermanent, changeable, yet never-ending.
Doctrine for the World, guiding light to heaven,
the secret bliss is within you.
Haven of wonder,
live electricity,
sheer complicity,
utter superiority.

Gail McNally, I Malcolm Court, Parkdale, Wolverhampton. (1973)

Fan Club Magazine #2 (1974)

---This page last modified: 10 Dec 2018---

 Ziggy Stardust Scarf (1973)