Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

the UK pop world, signed to his third label. He had
survived his parents’ remoteness and the specter of
his brother’s illness by finding solace and
understanding in music. The advanced selfeducation
process of the previous two and a half
years, spent studying Buddhism and devouring the
libraries and lectures of both Kenneth Pitt and
Lindsay Kemp, had also strengthened his values.
But they had also solidified a conflict, one of real art
vs. commercial art, that began at Bromley Tech and
would last for the rest of David Bowie’s career. This
conflict was set in cement at the Beckenham Arts
Lab.
“The Arts Lab was originally going to be a folk
club,” Finnegan says, “just David having an outlet to
perform, but it soon became a place where all sorts
of ideas were met with unbridled enthusiasm and
intensity. The least likely place you would imagine. It
couldn’t be more sleepy middle-class suburban.
With the Lab, what we wanted to do was reach out to
people and broaden their horizons. His means of
reaching people psychologically and socially was via
music and entertainment. Also street theater. We
would walk up and down the Beckenham High Street
dressed up in the most outrageous outfits. Engaging
with people on a grassroots level. Really quite
shocking. Not political in the sense that we would
interpret that word today. More social action. Not
talking; doing. Taking art into the streets and making
it accessible. Taking it out of its ivory tower.”
Bowie found that he could reconnect with his