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  In Others Words  

David Bowie (1972)

See also: In their own words

Ziggy Stardust & David Bowie

"The nicest fella from Mars I ever met..." - Bono

"Bowie changed the face of music and the world. Everybody's got dyed hair or mad clothes now, but until he kicked in in '72, it was rare to see that kind of flamboyance. I was 12 when 'Starman' came out and I remember hearing it on the radio before going to school. It connected with me in a way no other ever had. I saw him on Top Of The Pops, it was like "bloody hell". The presence of it. I've met loads of people since who say it changed their life as well. He met me a few times (laughs). We supported him as Electrafixion. He was lovely...looks amazing, I preferred his old teeth though." Ian McCulloch of Echo & The Bunnymen

"As a tale of a mythical rock star, it was more significant than anything since Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode; as an object lesson in media manipulation it eerily presaged Malcolm McClaren's Sex Pistols adventure, and as a blueprint for a generation's capacity for self-reinvention, it marked the turning point between the worlds of hippie and punk." - Charles Shaar Murray

"On June 6, 1972, curiously enough my 12th birthday, David Bowie released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars.   It got to number 5.  It was the first record I ever bought.  My dad embarrassed me by coming with me to the shop.  With hindsight he may have been concerned.  Imagine: your boy suddenly becomes obsessed with a gay Martian who hangs out in phone boxes - like what's that about?  Certainly he seemed relieved when pictures of Suzi Quatro and Liverpool FC joined those of Bowie, Bolan and Ferry on my bedroom wall..." - Chris Roberts - Journalist (1998)

"Maybe he likes us. People on the West Coast were saying he'd been raving about our album to them, which was very nice of him. I think I'll buy "Ziggy Stardust" next week. I liked a lot of the things on "Hunky Dory" very much. "Changes" - I liked that." - Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music (1973)

"I looked at the way Bowie presented himself in that whole 72-73 period and I just thought and still do, to this day, that it was the greatest rock n roll star image that there has ever been." - Gary Numan (1998)

"As everyone knows, Ziggy Stardust was recorded during the glam-rock boom.  In terms of concept, fashion, and grasp of the times it is an extraordinary mirror.  How could Bowie realize how Ziggy would be perceived ten or twenty years into the future?  This album simply continues to go beyond.  Its greatness becomes more evident with every day.  It is a masterpiece.  If only more pop music could reflect the state of it's surroundings as Ziggy reflected its own." - Yoichi Shibuya

"When I first met Bowie he was a London camp/cult figure, best known, if at all, for wearing a dress on an album jacket (the original UK cover to The Man Who Sold The World).  Nobody I knew was familiar with him or his music.  By chance I heard a cast-off promotional copy of Hunky Dory!   From the first it excited me like few records ever had, and then there was the face on the cover ... I tried to convince the London editor of Rolling Stone magazine for commission a photo feature on Bowie.  He agreed to submit it to the U.S. editors, but he couldn't guarantee they'd run it or pay me.  It didn't matter, I had my excuse.  The first thing David Bowie ever said to me was: 'I like your name.'  I thought he had an excellent name too.  The difference, it transpired, was that mine was given - while his was assumed, which didn't prevent us from having many tastes in common - from Syd Barrett to the Velvet Underground, Jacques Brel to Jean-Louis Barrault  ... This would be the beginning of a fascinating two year relationship with Bowie and Ziggy Stardust which would produce promo films, album jackets, posters, artwork, interviews and several thousand still photos." - Mick Rock

Billy Idol (far left) with his first band Generation X under the K West sign in 1977.
Next right is bass player Tony James who went on to mastermind the very Ziggy Sigue Sigue Spuntnik in the 1980's.

"In 1972, I had a haircut like Dave Hill out of Slade with the really high fringe. I didn't want it, but I was particularly badly behaved that year, so my mum did it to punish me.  Shortly after that I got into David Bowie, so I had it dyed and spiked as best I could, but it never really went right." - Gary Numan (1998)

"I think basically "Ziggy Stardust" was a good album and they played the parts really well.  I insisted that they look great all the time.  I told them they couldn't expect people to get excited by four scruffy ragamuffins that came in the stage door and then go put on their party clothes, which were fantastic, and then again put on their horrible Levi's and leave again. I said you're going to get mobbed coming in and mobbed going out, so you'd better look good coming in and going out....." - Angie Bowie (1986)

"You rarely see albums like that. The Rolling Stones you could play every track, maybe the Who, and it was unusual because he [Bowie] was so new. But boy, when Ziggy Stardust came out, all of those songs were so strong. Every track went on the air, and every track hit." - Denny Sanders - Cleveland Disc Jockey

"As 1972 rolled in, that was when I first came across David Bowie. He was slightly known - for a recent record cover 'The Man Who Sold the World' - in which he appeared in a dress. I don't think he was taken very seriously at that point in time. The first show I went to, there were three hundred people. So, I mean, he had a small following. When I met him he had just cut his hair and had just gone into his Ziggy Stardust mode. I was very impressed with David. One, because he was very bright. Two, there was a refinement to what he was doing. Very distinctive, very different. Three, because he was very colorful. I tend to be drawn to the very colorful things in life. David and I hit it off very well. We did some interviews, some pieces for magazines. I did a lot of pictures. I did videos. I did album cover layouts. I got really caught up in his whole trip. And through David I met Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Mott The Hoople and a gentleman called Lindsay Kemp who was the guy that taught David all about theatre and colorful presentation. And how catching the eye was key: first you caught the eye then you appear to the other senses. By the time I met David, he had philosophically absorbed that and was acting on it. Certainly when I looked back he was very special ... he's still very special, seeing him last night [23 August, 1999] which is like twenty-seven and a half years later after meeting him - my, he looked unbelievably good! He's still the master of his art." - Mick Rock (1999)

"Ziggy was a marvel of genetic pop engineering, a brilliant and authentic collision of classic rock and roll extremes - erotic frenzy, gender confusion, celebrity arrogance, private dread - animated by the ring of truth in Bowie's scenarios of apocalyptic fear and the futurist punk snort of the Spiders from Mars.  Nearly twenty years later, the rise and fall of Bowie's star-crossed glam-Christ remains one of rock's most compelling morality plays." - David Fricke (1990)

"He was never camp.  I was not close to him during the Ziggy period, but I think he was being more flamboyant and theatrical rather than making a sexual statement.  He was never a cross-dresser.  I think he suddenly realised that he could do something outrageous to get noticed - he was ignored for years until he appeared on the front pages of the tabloids, pushing a pram and wearing a dress.  It was a clever move - the first of many" - Tony Visconti

"Well for a start, David Bowie has an aura around him one can actually feel a mind at work.  The brain ticks and you can almost hear it - one is immediately aware of how perceptive he is.  Though many people consider him a writer of marvelous fantasies and futuristic notions, his awareness of simple everyday events has an acuteness that in turn results in songs of great power.  Sure its fashionable to praise Bowie now that recognition has come - and numerous people over the years have acknowledged his talent.  To be so good at so many varied activities is rare, but to be good so young is even rarer." - Billy Harry - ex-Bowie publicist (1973)

""Ziggy Stardust" had just been released in England and David was doing well with it, or so I'm told, but no-one had heard of him in America, so Tony DeFries gave us each a box of 25 albums to just give to whoever we thought was cool, which actually turned out to be a pretty good idea.  We took them down to Max's Kansas City and gave one to Micky Ruskin the owner, we gave one to the DJ; and we gave one to Lisa Robinson, the reporter. We just passed them out to crazy people and artistes and people who were always on the scene in New York." - Leee Black Childers (1986)

"I remember David coming to me, prior to doing the album, and saying, "You're not going to like this album.  Its gonna be much harder." I don't know who he compared it to; maybe it was Iggy.  He thought I would hate it, but I loved it!" - Ken Scott

"I don't think he conceived "Ziggy Stardust" as a concept album, but the songs slotted together in a way that it became a concept, and the way he presented it on stage, how he wanted to look, how the boy's costumes looked (facsimiles of his - though his were patterned and theirs were simple) meant that he'd breathe life into a concept hero.  I think he got confident.  I think he got confident of knowing what he could do..." - Angie Bowie (1986)

"I think in a way we were all Ziggy Stardust and we were all living out this myth of Ziggy Stardust and treated him as if he was Ziggy Stardust.  We began to treat him like a strange alien person who needed to be over-protected, who needed to be shielded from outsiders and the press and it was all self-perpetuating.  An incredible arrogance and corruption and decadence set in..." - Leee Black Childers (1986)

"When I first saw Bowie on Top Of The Pops, I remember my dad nearly fell out of his chair. He went berserk. Top Of The Pops was so bland, and then you suddenly see this skinny, big Adam's apple, fucking bat teeth, weird sort of bisexual alien thing. That changed my life. I realised I didn't want to be what anybody else wanted me to be, I wanted to be like David Bowie. Then I went out and bought the album, and it was so fucking sexy, and so wrong. I went straight in and put on my mum's make-up. I know for a fact that's one of the greatest albums ever made." - Nick Sanderson of Earl Brutus (1999)

"He has an unusual face, don't you think?  He's neither man nor woman.  If you see what I mean; which suited me as a designer because most of my clothes are for either sex.  I love his music and obviously that has influenced my designs but most of all there's this aura of fantasy that surrounds him.   He has flair" - Kansai Yamamoto (June 1973)

"What Bowie invented was a new cartoon figure, a semi-serious, almost human commentator on contemporary conditions, from an imagined universe (combining "real" and "imaginary" events, people, places), just like Superman, Batman or the Marvel comics" - Mike Jones of Latin Quarter

"The reason I got into rock n roll is because I saw David Bowie on Top Of The Pops with a bright blue acoustic guitar playing "Starman" in July 1972 and Mick Ronson on 10-inch platforms, bending over, giving the guitar fellatio.  I was gob-smacked.  My reaction was part wanting to be David Bowie and part sexual arousal.  I have since discovered my sexuality, and bizarrely its not towards men.   I can honestly say the first person who turned me on was David Bowie.  Respect to Ziggy Stardust." - Alan McGee - Head of Creation Records (1998)

"He's a real star. Not in the sort of record business style, not a Rod Stewart style, if you like, or a Cat Stevens, but a Marlon Brando or a James Dean-type star. I see him more in that category of large scale-untouchable. It's like he doesn't quite belong here." - Tony DeFries (1972)

"I remember being frightened by "Starman" on Top of The Pops and my Mum thought he was horrible." - Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne (1998)

"I bought Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars when I was 10 and that is when my life began to be engulfed by music.  I was at junior school in Hollywood, Birmingham and all the groovy kids were into Bowie, Roxy and T-Rex...We saw Mick Ronson together once he'd gone solo.  He really is a forgotten icon of that period.." - Nick Rhodes - Duran Duran (1998)

"I remember eating beans on toast watching Bowie on television and nearly spilling my dinner.  I think it was on Lift-Off With Ayshea, which was this brilliant Granada programme.   It was during Glam Rock that I realised that I was a square peg in a round hole...." - Martin Fry of ABC (1998).

See also: Various contributors to ICA's "A Rock N Roll Suicide" Programme

"I had a life size Ziggy Stardust poster on the wall in my bedroom; it was 6 feet tall or more.  It was 1974 and I was eight years old.  My brothers and sisters were much older so I was into things through them.  My mother was absolutely horrified - this man in makeup and tight trousers.  She must have been really terrified because she mentioned other things that I liked and she didn't approve of this, she couldn't even bring herself to speak about.  She was too scared to mention it.  I grew up in a really working class area of Glasgow and I thought Bowie was one of the bravest people I'd ever seen.  There was fighting and tough men in my area but Bowie was really brave.  Wearing make-up and space clothes at that time.  It was the most putting yourself on the line activity I'd ever experienced.  From the moment I saw him, he has easily been the biggest influence in my life.  I didn't find him appealing sexually but I knew that I wanted to be like him.  That Ziggy poster was great quality.  It was massive and really thick.  It probably cost only 50p but I remember having to save for ages to get it.  Back then, 50p could buy you a lot." - Michael Murphy, DJ SMASHING / GIGI'S

"All that Glam look influenced punk. I've never met a punk who wasn't a Bowie fan - even Johnny Rotten's orange hair was a throwback to Ziggy Stardust.." - Paul Draper of Mansun (1998)

"There was a lot of garbage said about him feeling schizoid and it was all so crazy and easy to say that he felt schizoid because of Ziggy Stardust.  At the time he was perfectly rational - he didn't feel schizoid - he was playing a part. A lot of actors have problems playing parts.  It's easy to feel like Ziggy - of course it is - you play it on the stage half the time and then you come home and have to be David Jones and I don't have much patience for that talk.  The band, for instance, they played "The Spiders From Mars"  Did they feel like Spiders From Mars?  I'm sure Mick Ronson lay awake at night and worried about being like a Spider from Mars. Its ridiculous. It was just a good album and they played the parts really well..." - Angie Bowie (1986)

The Spiders From Mars

"I would put him up there among the best I've ever worked with.  I think Ronno was better than any of The Beatles as a guitarist...his playing was much more from a feel point or melodic point of view.  A lot of Ronno's stuff was first take." - Ken Scott on Mick Ronson (1997)

"No other combination, including Jagger-Richard, was as visually strong.  They were riveting." - Marc Bolan on David Bowie and Mick Ronson

"I don't know that The Spiders would have broken up quite so fast if it hadn't been for him [Tony DeFries]. I know that they were making certain monetary threats because they were being paid peanuts at the height of all of that but then David was making peanuts as well because guess who was getting all the money?   But their threats became a threat to Tony, so they had to be got rid of - so he came up with this whole thing about "Ok I'm not going to tour anymore" then they weren't needed." - Ken Scott (2000)

"He's fabulous. He was a very sweet man. I don't know anybody that will tell you other than the fact that Mick Ronson was an extremely sweet human being. I don't think there was any malice or any ill intention at any time I ever saw as manifested by Mick. And he was enormously successful. I mean, enormously talented. And what the two of them [Bowie and Ronson] did together! Obviously David was the driving force but Mick, you know, Mick provided a lot of the risk, and a lot of the famous songs. Mick also did the arranging. He was the musical organizer of the live shows. Mick was a masculine force. When the two of them got together you can see - David's on his knees! David's playing the girl. Not Mick [laughs]. He was very special, totally important. He was like the other element. He actually co-produced, along with David, Lou Reed's 'Transformer.' And he's probably under-credited. I think maybe David could see that. But Mick had a lot to do with the production and arrangement of things, as well as being the definitive glam guitar player. If he isn't, who else is? Johnny Thunder? Well, maybe. Johnny was Johnny. But this man was it. He looked the part. He looked fabulous. Mick Ronson was an incredible guitar player. And he was a great mate. Mick has a beautiful daughter of whom I did some photographs recently. She's 20 years old, also a singer who's just started to make moves of her own. So maybe the spirit of Mick will live on in the daughter. He died of cancer in '92 or '93. He did drink. Mick did a lot of things but alcohol was probably the primary thing that did him in. He worked with John Mellencamp, he did a lot of things over the years. He co-wrote his first big hit, produced a number of albums for different people including Morrissey in England. Mick had his head in a lot of different things. He worked with Bob Dylan at one point. But he was a close friend of mine. He was like the fourth element out of these - David, Lou, Iggy - and then there was Mick. He was less heralded but musically and image-wise, the other important element. Mick didn't have much to do with Iggy, but totally everything to do with David. And a lot to do with Lou." - Mick Rock on Mick Ronson (1999)

"One day David came in with some fan mail that was addressed to Ronno and gave it to him - Ronno was sitting behind board and he was reading through it about what this fan wanted to do to him sexually and he was getting very turned on by the whole thing and David and I were just standing there, grins on our faces waiting for him to get to the end and finally he got to the name and it turns out it was a male and he almost threw up on the mixer. Of course, David and I thought it was absolutely hysterical" - Ken Scott (2000)

The Concerts

"I was right there .. I was going to gigs every night and got kind of blase about it in the end but if it wasn't for the expressions on some of the audience's faces.  David said "The audiences aren't actually responding very much," I said "You know why they have got their mouths wide open and they are sort of completely agog - they haven't ever seen anyone like you before." It was pretty obvious that he was going in the right direction and brave too dressing like he did and stuff like that takes some doing really .  I couldn't have done that - no way.  That was guts. I mean they had to cancel Texas for some reason. I thought going around dressed like he was it was probably a wise idea" - George Underwood (2000)

"I did get his autograph in 1972...at the Newcastle City Hall, which I have to say was over half-empty! During "Suffragette City", when he sang "Wham Bam, thank you mam" they showered the audience with pictures of David as Ziggy Stardust, which was just about to come out.  And I got him to sign one of those on his way out, which I still have funnily enough..my brother and I used to tape [his BBC radio Sessions} and by the time Ziggy Stardust came out we knew almost every song on it already.  "Hang Onto Yourself", "Moonage Daydream", "Ziggy Stardust" I'd all taped off the radio.  "Starman" had been on the single.  "Five Years" he did on the Old Grey Whistle Test...One actually forgets that "Starman" wasn't a particularly big hit.  David didn't have a Top Three single until "The Jean Genie", and it seemed rather frustrating at the time.  But the thing that really did it for us was the advert for "John, I'm Only Dancing" - the picture where he's got his arm outstretched (laughs). It was a bit of a classic glam era image, that! I had a Ziggy haircut - dyed red as well! We did have Ziggy Stardust the week before it came out though, that's because RCA's records were produced in County Durham and I had a friend whose father worked at the factory there. - Neil Tennant (1997)

"My strongest memory is not being able to get a ticket to see Bowie on the Ziggy tour at Romford Odeon.  I realised then that I'd really fucking missed the boat, that I was not part of the cool crowd.  It was so seldom that any of the people we worshipped came anywhere near our school, and there was Bowie - Romford!   It's fuckin' incredible.  Couldn't get a ticket, and my parents probably wouldn't have taken me anyway." - Billy Bragg (1998)

"What will I see tonight?  I think I'll see an amazing show.  I've followed him since he was doing gigs at The Marquee - years ago.  I remember him from the Lower Third and all that rubbish.  I think he's great.  I think Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust are masterpieces.  The lyrics and the story in "Ziggy"?  Well I don't know too much about that.  I just enjoy the music" - Elton John at The Rainbow Concert (19 August 1972)

"I went to see Ziggy Stardust and I screamed all the way through it, much to the annoyance of everyone in the balcony.  I ran out after the encores and was standing alone when he came out the stage door, and I just stood there all on my own screaming! I can remember he tried to smile at me, but I was verging on irritating.   He had these amazing platform shoes with palm trees on, and beautiful legs.   He just looked staggering.  Such presence." - Toyah Wilcox (1996)

"...We played with Bowie at The Greyhound in Croydon and later on the Ziggy tour..." - Phil Manzanera (1998)

"I went on the road with David for three or four years starting in 1973, from the end of the Spiders, and worked with him on six of his albums.   And I always traveled with him. And I think that kept him alive during those years, during the whole stardom trip.  Because he pushed himself so hard, doing a different album every year, the travelling by land and sea gave him a brief respite from the madness.  Because it couldn't have got any crazier" - Geoff MacCormack (1993)

"I got Freddie out in my little Mini and I remember the lights didn't work very well and we were going around the roundabouts and he was going "Oh dear - I don't think you can see dear, can you?" and I said "Don't worry Freddie it will be all right" and anyway we did get around the roundabouts and we got out to Friars Aylesbury which seemed like the end of the earth at the time.  I think it could have been the first-ever Ziggy Stardust gig and it blew us away - we were blown away - it was so fantastic like nothing else that was happening and so far ahead of its time - the guy he had so much talent to burn really and charisma to burn as well, I hate to gush but he did have it like no one else did at the time" - Roger Taylor of Queen (2000)

"...Freddie and I saw the first Ziggy gig at Friar's Aylesbury. We drove down in my Mini. We loved it. I'd seen him there about three weeks before in the long hair and the dress. Suddenly you saw this spiky head coming on stage. You thought, wha-a-at??? They looked like spacemen." - Roger Taylor of Queen (1999)

"[The first gig I went to was] David Bowie at the Liverpool Empire, June 10, 1973. He'd played the Top Rank the year before but I couldn't get my brother to take me. I was in Row 23 at the Empire. I had to go on my own 'cos some lad who wanted to go with me got chicken pox. I loved Bowie but all my mates thought he looked weird."  - Ian McCulloch of Echo And The Bunnymen (1999)

"The first time I saw DAVID BOWIE performing was on THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST, on TV. Everything changed, and that was basically the end of normality for me. I was obsessive about BOWIE. I saw my first ZIGGY STARDUST concert when I was 13 at the Lewisham Odeon and followed him to every concert hall and radio gig. Saturdays and Sundays, and sometimes after school, I'd go to Beckenham on the bus and just stand outside his house and hang out with all the other fans. We'd talk about him nonstop, about his latest records, latest outfits, his boots, his hair. One day we were being quite noisy outside his home, and his wife, Angie, opened the window and shouted: 'Will you all fuck off!' It was the highlight of our year; we were all quite chuffed to be acknowledged." - Boy George (1999)

"The first time I saw Bowie singing live was on The Old Grey Whistle Test.  He was doing three or four songs. I never actually had seen him in real life before so it was quite a seminal moment in my youth. I was about 11 or 12 - I think probably 12. I can remember my Grandmother kind of almost screaming in horror and saying "Who the hell is that big poof!" and I was just totally transfixed. It was so exciting to actually see this guy in shaved eyebrows, spooky hairdo and interesting clothes. It was a fabulous moment for me" - Boy George (2000)

"We used to go and stand outside his house in Beckenham.   You had all these like ideas about what was going on in there - that it was real psychedelic, trippy household and it was a kind of the idea of what they were like that was so fascinating and I can remember when we stood outside the house, Angie kind of opening the window and telling us to shove off - it was a little bit more extreme than that - and we were so excited to be told to get lost by Angie Bowie - it was the highlight of our lives - we were really happy." - Boy George (2000)

"Bowie kind of tapped into the sort of sexual undercurrent of the times and nobody else had kind of done that.  Lots of glam bands were putting on makeup and wearing flamboyant clothes but Bowie took it one stage further because he actually said he was bisexual, he used word like "queer" in his songs, his music was very ambiguous, it  was mythical, it was theatrical in a very unusual way.   It was the first time I'd ever seen anyone like that. My Aunt gave me a Ziggy Stardust hairdo. It was a pretty bad one and I kind of failed in my attempt to look like Bowie. I got it right eventually but at that time I was a bit of a novice so it was like entering this incredible, exotic world full of interesting people." - Boy George (2000)

"[The Lewisham Odeon Ziggy Stardust concert] changed my life, and I've never seen anything more exciting since" - Boy George (1995)

"I think 1972 and 73 blended into one for me. I saw Bowie for the first time ... singing "Starman" in a snakeskin catsuit and then went to see him on the Ziggy Stardust tour at Lewisham Odeon.  My auntie Joan tried to give me a Bowie haircut, but it went horribly wrong and I ended up looking like Dave Hill from Slade." - Boy George (1998)

Q: "How did you come to include a cover of Bowie's "Suffragette City"? [on your latest rarities album entitled 'UNRECOUPABLE']

"Well, this came about because I always do one Bowie song in my set, and I'm actually planning to do a whole album of Bowie covers. You know, like "Bassey Does Gershwin", "Boy Does Bowie"! We just did "Starman" for the new Culture Club album, and there's some great Bowie stuff I'd like to record, like obscure album tracks and some weird B-sides I think I could do justice to. I'm a big Bowie fan, he's my God. I'm just the space cadet and he's my commander!" - Boy George (1999)

"Before Culture Club formed, Boy George used to stay with me in Birmingham and once he bleached his hair in an attempt to look like Ziggy Stardust.  But he fell asleep with the bleach still on and his hair dropped out.   It was hilarious.  We called him Wiggy Stardust." - Martin Degville of Sigue Sigue Sputnik (1998)

"...he is incredible to watch. I mean, I could see myself getting a hard-on just looking at him sometimes, which is ridiculous. But I think that the reason we made it was because RCA said, we have this guy and he's going to do a concert, maybe the last one he's going to do, and you've got to go make a film. I thought they said Bolan. I thought it was Marc Bolan I was going to do. And I was very excited because I really dug glitter rock. So I kind of set off with the wrong guy in mind. But I've spent time with Bowie, and I've seen him go into his head. He just disappears. He's like Dylan. He has someplace where it's just all music, and he's all alone." - DA Pennebacker on why he filmed The Farewell Concert (1999)

"The retirement speech wasn't a shock, I knew the night before.   David suddenly jumped up and said.  That's it, I'm going to retire!  I don't know if he had been cooking it up before, but the declaration to people that were close to him was "I'm retiring". Well Ziggy retired.  David didn't." - Mick Rock (1995)

"I was recording that show and when he made that announcement I was just flawed. Nothing had been said about it up till then." - Ken Scott (2000)

"On the Aladdin Sane tour I saw him three times, including the "farewell" show.  I was in the second back row.  I went both nights!   It was confusing at the time when he suddenly said "Its the last show we'll ever do," because even now when people speak at concerts you can't always work out what they've just said because of the acoustics.  But there was a gasp, and you didn't really quite believe...He was always a bit of a drama queen anyway!  Still is, I think!" - Neil Tennant (1996)

"I saw Ziggy Stardust at the King George's Hall in my home town of Blackburn in about 1972 when I was 11.  I remember the "shock, horror" headlines in the local paper and the feeling that I have seen something musically and visually special.  The energy. and individuality of Ziggy Stardust stayed with me through my youth.  Punk and New Romantic clubs always played Ziggy and looked to Bowie for style inspiration.  When you hear the music today and see the photos the energy feels as contemporary as ever." - Wayne Hemmingway - RED OR DEAD

---This page last modified: 15 Dec 2018---

 Ziggy Stardust Scarf (1973)