Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

practised incessantly on the saxophone. His
schoolwork languished, but he became a good sax
player, mastering a raunchy King Curtis-style tone on
the Conn tenor to which he’d recently switched, and
there was something about the way he stood,
relaxed on stage, that was effortlessly cool. But his
fellow Kon-Rads were unimpressed by many of
David’s ideas for updating their outfits or their setlist.
‘When you’ve got seven people in the band you
can’t change things overnight,’ says Hadfield. ‘Our
attitude was, if we go out on a limb we’re going to
lose all our local bookings – and lose what popularity
we have.’
But there was a bigger world out there than local
bookings, a world populated by people like Joe
Meek, who had scored a huge hit that summer with
his space-rock hit ‘Telstar’. The pioneering, gay
producer had recorded some of the UK’s most
radical early rock ‘n’ roll hits in a self-built studio,
crammed into a tiny flat above a leather goods store
on the Holloway Road. Meek was an obsessive; he
recorded day after day without a break, auditioning
hundreds of bands, lavishing each session with
sonic adornments. Within a few weeks of Hadfield
joining the Kon-Rads, the band made their way up to
Meek’s flat for an audition session. The producer
was already known for becoming obsessed with
some of the young musicians in his studio, often
hassling young, blond lookers – but for the Kon-Rads
session he was uncommunicative and surly,
unimpressed by their best shot, an MOR version of
‘Mockingbird’. The sappy, undistinguished ditty,