Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

On the train back to London, Bowie was low-key
and cheery, chatting happily to the very people, like
Keith Altham, that his own security had tried to eject
from the studio. ‘You must read this book by Kurt
Vonnegut, you won’t regret it,’ he told him, showing
him his copy of Cat’s Cradle. ‘He wasn’t heavy at all,
once you took him away from this suffocating
protection,’ says Altham. Back in Manchester, there
was a hurried, miserable debrief with producer
Muriel Young about the fate of the programme,
before Bolan, Howard and Dexter returned to
London. Later that night, says Tony Visconti, Marc
and David went out to dinner and made up their
quarrel.
The heavy-handedness that had overshadowed
Bolan’s show was an example of behaviour that
would soon become commonplace in the music
industry. For writers like Chris Welch, who’d
championed Bowie a decade before, ‘It was new in
pop terms – that distancing. Mick Jagger would have
still been going around on the subway back then;
David set this entourage to create a vibe. Really it’s
just a way to draw attention to yourself.’ It was ironic
that, having decried the hype of the MainMan years,
David would unwittingly replicate the same heavy
behaviour.
In this respect, as in so many others, David would
establish a new convention. Those who followed in
his wake – Madonna, Prince – also employed a
protective screen of minders to shield both their
person and their image. To this day, friends who
send David Bowie packages of photos or records