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Bits & Pieces
No, not what's on the uncensored Diamond Dogs album! This is a goldmine of little-known, not to mention fun, Bowie facts.
Have a Bowie bit or piece? Or maybe both? Send it to StardustGrrl at stardustgrrl@hotmail.com.
Since we're on the subject of the Diamond Dogs bit...
For the aforementioned album, famed rock artist Guy Peellaert was chosen to paint Bowie on the cover of his new album for 1974, Diamond Dogs. Explains Bowie:
"It's a painting of me changing into a dog and they're a bit worried that its cock shows."
The half-man, half-dog oddity on the gatefold cover shocked and stunned many people, especially RCA executives. They panicked and recalled the first batch of albums while the offending artwork was airbrushed over. The copies of the original vinyl albums that reached the public became sought-after collectibles. The 1990 Rykodisc reissue, as did the 1999 Virgin/EMI reissue, included the original artwork in its full uncensored glory.
The Censored Cover:
The Uncensored Cover: yeah, baby!
On a sidenote, David and Mick Jagger were once talking and the subject wandered to art. Mick mentioned that he was going to hire Guy Peellaert to paint the cover of a Rolling Stones album. David must have really liked Peellaert, because he hired him for the Dogs job. Says David about this incident:
"Mick was silly. I mean, he should never have shown me anything new. I went over to his house and he had all these Guy Peellaert pictures around and said, 'What do you think of this guy?' I told him I thought he was incredible. So I immediately phoned him up. Mick's learned now, as I've said. He will never do that again. You've got to be a bastard in this business."
More about album cover art...
David wanted the acclaimed American artist Norman Rockwell to do the cover of Young Americans. Here's what Bowie said about this:
"I got his phone number and called him up. Very quaint. His wife answered...I asked if Norman could paint the cover. His wife said in this quavering, elderly voice, 'I'm sorry, but Norman needs at least six months for his portraits.'"
Bowie was a little disappointed, but he managed to get the photographer Eric Stephen Jacobs to take his picture for the cover of the album.
So what's the deal with the eyes? Here's the lowdown:
David, being the ladies' man (naturally!) as a teenager, had no problems getting girls. One day, he was outside with his best friend's (George Underwood's) girlfriend. George discovered David and his girl together, punched David in the eye, and said, "You won't be doin' that again!" Unfortunately, David's pupil or something burst inside of his eye and he had to have numerous operations to save his sight. His sight was saved, but what resulted was aniscora, or paralysis of the pupil, in one of his eyes. Both of his eyes are actually the same colour, it's just that with different lighting, they appear different.
Even though George cause David all this grief, they remained best friends. George even designed some of David's future albums, such as a picture in Space Oddity and the front of Hunky Dory.
Pierre Laroche, who can be seen in the video documenting the last Ziggy concert as the makeup artist, also did the makeup for the Aladdin Sane album and, of course, the tour. In 1975, he did the makeup for the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Perhaps this is why the flag on top of the castle has a lightning bolt emblazoned on it. Even more convincingly, maybe this is why in the floor show scene of the film that the actors and actresses are made up like Bowie and Twiggy on the cover of the 1973 Pin Ups album. It's something to think about...
The inside picture in the Aladdin Sane LP shows a silvery-coloured Bowie. He was actually sprayed with silver paint for the photo. It was claimed that the cost of producing such a complex cover was so high that the album had to be priced highed than average...a staggering 2.38 pounds! Even though it cost more than the other albums, Aladdin Sane shot to the top of the charts. Now that light is shed on that issue, the real question is whether or not Bowie was wearing anything for that inside picture...
"I'm a very sexual person..."
So proclaims Bowie in the Black Tie/White Noise video. This is very true.
During the great Diamond Dogs Revue of 1974, the stage was set as a dystopian city, "Hunger City." Onstage, a rocket launcher was shaped like a penis, and spurting blood yet. Also, on the Serious Moonlight Tour of 1983, the tall plastic towers onstage vaguely resembled condoms. Nearly all Bowie songs seems to incorporate sex into their main themes. Maybe all this is because David knows that he's sexy, and he likes it...
Recently, many a fan has been raving about this certain issue...
Just think, what do these two letters together look like?
db
Heheheheh...
