Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

player, was stealing their gear out of the back of the
venue. “We knew we wanted a band and there was
no way we could afford to buy the gear, so we stole
it,” he told Jon Savage in England’s Dreaming. That
very gear might have been used in early Sex Pistols
rehearsals. It serves Bowie right. In “Hang On to
Yourself,” Bowie indicated that the beat comes out
better on a stolen guitar.
The after-party at the nearby Café Royale was
fraught. Bowie was celebratory and relieved. The
Spiders were sulky and bewildered. Ziggy would live
on long enough to record and release one more
album. The following week, Bowie and Ronson
almost immediately flew to France to record a
collection of cover songs that inspired him called Pin
Ups. The album was recorded at composer George
Sand’s studio at the Château d’Hérouville in France.
Marc Bolan, who recorded T. Rex’s 1972 album The
Slider there, recommended it to Bowie. Elton John
had immortalized it the previous year on his smash
Honky Chateau album (its success was largely due
to the “Space Oddity”–indebted “Rocket Man”).
In the sunny countryside, Bowie reflected on the
last year’s ascension. The music of Pin Ups
seemed to give him closure; he was taking the hits
from the sixties, by the Kinks (“Where Have All the
Good Times Gone”), the Easybeats (“Friday on My
Mind”), Pink Floyd (“See Emily Play”), Them (“Here
Comes the Night”) and the Who (“I Can’t Explain,”
“Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere”), ones he could not
make, and finally making them his own by camping