Tag Archives: biography

➤ Now David Bowie’s landlady tells her story of the lodger from Mars

Posted on 5 Jan 2016 | Leave a comment

David Bowie , Mary Finnigan, book, pop music, biography, Psychedelic Suburbia, 1969, Space Oddity, Beckenham Arts Lab,

David Bowie at home in Beckenham in 1969, where he became the lodger and lover of Mary Finnigan. (Photo by Ray Stevenson/Rex)

◼ AS A STRUGGLING FOLK SINGER David Bowie was 22 years old and living with his parents in south-east London when, by chance, he met journalist Mary Finnigan, eight years his senior, and moved into her flat in Foxgrove Road, Beckenham, where she lived with her two children from an early marriage.

They became lovers and launched a successful folk club which became the iconic Beckenham Arts Lab at The Three Tuns pub (now a Zizzi restaurant) on the High Street. Mary’s new book, Psychedelic Suburbia, offers new insights about Bowie in 1969, the year in which his first single Space Oddity reached the pop charts. Today The Independent runs a fabulously revealing extract:

“ We do not observe landlady-lodger conventions. I am happy with this arrangement – we share tincture of cannabis and Lucy’s deliveries of high-quality hashish. We share the space, cook and eat together. And a few days after he moves in, David and I sleep together.

The seduction is a work of art and takes me totally by surprise, when I come home one Saturday evening after a shift at The Sunday Times (edited in those days by my friend and journalistic mentor, Harry Evans). Usually I return to a messy kitchen and a sink full of dishes, showing evidence of baked beans, fried egg and tomato ketchup. But on this occasion, interesting cooking smells greet my arrival, the kitchen is clean and tidy, with the table laid for two plus flowers, candles and incense. The kids are fed, washed and tucked up in bed.

After a spliff and a nice dinner, David creates a nest of cushions on the floor of his room. He settles me into it and places speakers close to my ears on each side. Then he plays me a selection of his current favourite musical influences. Some are obscure, others well known – Jacques Brel, for example, and mind-blowing stereo phasing from Jimi Hendrix. . . ” / Continued at The Independent online

Friend, lover and landlady: Mary Finnigan and her personal new book about living with Bowie

“ Living from hand to mouth, David also does
casual shifts from time to time at Legastat, a copying office in central London ”
– Bowie as a Brook Street temp ?!?!

➢ Psychedelic Suburbia: David Bowie and the Beckenham Arts Lab by Mary Finnigan (£14.95, Jorvik Press) out now

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: Weird and wonderful new Bowie – his Blackstar man is set to blow our minds, this Thursday

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Posted in books, Culture, History, London, Pop music, Youth culture

Tagged 1969, Beckenham Arts Lab, biography, David Bowie, Mary Finnigan, Psychedelic Suburbia, Space Oddity

➤ The Voice’s rock god Lovatt surprises Britain and shocks himself

Posted on 24 Feb 2014 | Leave a comment

Moment of triumph on The Voice Feb 22: Kylie, Will, Ricky and Tom (in there somewhere), all wanting a piece of Jamie Lovatt. Screengrab © BBC

➢ Watch Jamie’s Voice performance in full plus the judges’ verdicts on BBC iPlayer until April 12 (scroll to 58 minutes)

❚ “I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS GOING to turn round and see this rock god dude!” said Kylie Monogue on The Voice UK on Saturday night. The dude in question had delivered his own steady but highly emotional and emphatically rock reinterpretation of Rozalla’s acid house smash Everybody’s Free to his own twangy Rickenbacker guitar. By his hollering climax the studio audience were on their feet and two of The Voice’s four celebrity coaches had spun their chairs in hopes of recruiting him: superstar Kylie Minogue and Ricky Wilson (“the bloke from Kaiser Chiefs”). Within minutes the dude had opted to join Ricky’s team as its final member, before the BBC TV talent contest’s real battles begin next week.

An hour after transmission he posted on Facebook: “Who saw me then eh? SURPRISE.” Jamie Lovatt, cocky 24-year-old face about Shoreditch where he runs a bar, was back. The frontman for the once glam-goth band Romance, since restyled as tribal “cabaret rockers”, had definitely stolen the show, even though the acts auditioning blind on Saturday were a cut above previous weeks, because most proved to be seasoned performers with terrific voices. This dude also looked like nobody else within miles – an eyeful of androgynous 80s glam, Jamie sported long blond hippy hair and eyeliner, a gold crocheted clingy top, snakeskin trousers and cowboy boots. His style is a fusion of Prince, Billy Idol and the 80s postpunk shamanists Death Cult, though the TV audience was spared his usual stage gambit of performing shirtless.

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The Voice screengrabs © BBC / Talpa / Wall To Wall

For those of us who’ve known Jamie since he deejayed in London’s fashionable Neo Romantic clubs, the fierce TV act was a surprise metamorphosis from the once shy teenager (off-stage!), through the frenetic vocalist onstage with Romance, to this assured showcase cover version bursting with intense feeling which Kylie and the other coaches sensed immediately. Almost 90 seconds into the number, Ricky hit the voting button and six seconds later Kylie followed.

She was full of admiration: “I liked the emotion in your voice. I don’t know if you always sing like that but the fact that you have the ability to sing like that is very moving.”

What set Jamie’s interview apart was the sadness that brimmed within him as he told how Romance’s first lineup had been torpedoed by ill health and their four-album record deal was cancelled when the label dropped the band in 2011. “I lost management, I lost everything.” But not his faith to carry on.

The coaches rallied. Will-i-am said: “As far as getting dropped, guess what? They lost.” And the audience cheered. Tom Jones paid a couple of quiet complements that were evidently heartfelt. Ricky had been there himself: “I know what you’ve been through. I’m in a band… and we lost a record deal.” Lucky Jamie was able to pick which team to join and as he stepped from the stage it was noticeable how all four coaches crowded in for a piece of him. He’d been dignified, determined and, incredibly, said “Thank you” more times than you’d expect from a self-declared “lone wolf” rocker.

Some think a shiny-floor TV talent show might undermine a rock singer’s credibility, but Jamie is a 21st-century man and believes it’s the only way to crack the industry these days. He told The Sun: “People don’t think of someone like Jagger or Jim Morrison going on these shows but if you were to take them at the age they were discovered and have them living now, would that happen?”

Today was spent doing the rounds of the media as a hot TV property. What’s the question they were all asking? Answer: “How did it feel?” Jamie told Shapersofthe80s: “All I can say is it was surreal then, and from all the support I have received, it’s even more surreal now! Absolutely overwhelming, humbling and shocking. I can’t thank everyone enough… Didn’t think this would happen at all. I’m really moved!”

➢ Catch Jamie Lovatt and his new “glam-noir” lineup Romance Mk2 playing live in London during March and April

EVERYBODY’S FREE: BRIEF CLIP FROM THE VOICE

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Posted in London, Media, Pop music, TV

Tagged BBC, biography, contest, Glam rock, isthisRomance, Jamie Lovatt, Kylie Minogue, Ricky Wilson, The Voice

➤ Rolling Stone puts Ziggy on its cover but has nothing new to say about ‘How Bowie changed the world’

Posted on 18 Jan 2012 | Leave a comment

❚ THERE’S A BREATHLESS FOUR-PARAGRAPH teaser online at Rolling Stone magazine’s website in an attempt to sell the February 2 issue. It’s headlined How David Bowie Changed The World. Yet it promises nothing we haven’t read a million times before. Instead, try our own tribute on Bowie’s 65th birthday, linked further down this post.

➢ Here’s the best Rolling Stone can find to say about Bowie:

“ He phoned Angela in London, asking for her help: witches intended for him to impregnate one during Walpurgis Night. He later said Satan was living in his indoor swimming pool. David needed an exorcism (“I really walked into other worlds,” he later said), and Angela got him one – though it was by way of a long-distance phone call. “David was never insane,” Angela wrote. “The really crazy stuff coincided precisely with his ingestion of enormous amounts of cocaine, alcohol and whatever other drugs.” In any event, the rite may have helped break Bowie’s fear of a fiend possessing him. “It was time to get out of this terrible lifestyle I’d put myself into, and get healthy,” he later said. “It was time to pull myself together ” … / Continued online at Rolling Stone

❏ Update Feb 8: Now this Bowie issue has reached the UK, Mikal Gilmore’s account of the Ziggy phenomenon proves a workmanlike retelling of the familiar, but is oh-so relentlessly downbeat. He even cites an alleged quotation from 1998: Bowie is supposed to have said that, “Without Iman, I’d have put my head in the oven by now”. It’s a cheap shot because the quote has never been attributed, so counts for nothing more than hearsay. Rolling Stone claims a circulation of 1.45m.

➢ Here’s what Shapersofthe80s had to say on his recent birthday:

“ As a cultural lightning rod Bowie has bequeathed insights into the realm of the imagination. As a performer he has delivered a repertoire of life-skills through a cast of mythical personalities invented for himself as a popstar, from the self-destructive Ziggy Stardust and the amoral Thin White Duke, to his romanticised “Heroes” (his own quote marks added to emphasise self-awareness). Through their formative years, Bowie invited his acolytes to do A…. and B…. and C…. ” / Read on to discover what

➢ With 12 early videos, Shapersofthe80s asks where each of these turning points in Bowie’s career might otherwise have led him

➢ Try also Strange Fascination by David Buckley (2005) — “One of the most authoritative Bowie books you’re ever likely to read” (Mojo)

➢ The Complete David Bowie, by Nicholas Pegg (2011) — “I can’t imagine how this book could be better… the definitive read for Bowiephiles” (Uncut)

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Posted in Culture, Fashion, London, Media, North America, Pop music, Social trends, Youth culture

Tagged biography, Blitz Kids, Bowie's Bequest, David Bowie, Glam rock, Major Tom, New Romantics, Rolling Stone magazine, Video, We Can Be Heroes, Ziggy Stardust

2001 ➤ The other 9/11 assassination: could Massoud have become his nation’s spiritual leader?

Posted on 8 Sep 2011 | Leave a comment

Ahmad Shah Massoud and followers photographed by the Japanese photographer and anthropologist Hiromi Nagakura who knew him over two decades... “Massoud said to me, ‘We are fighting against terrorism. If we don’t fight here, the war will only expand.’ After September 11, I finally understood what he was talking about.”

❚ SUNDAY IS THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, but this week also marks a decade since Al Qaeda assassinated the one figure who was holding out against its protectors, the Taliban. This was Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Afghan guerrilla commander known variously as The Lion of Panjshir and the Afghan Che Guevara who became the nation’s defence minister. Following his death he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, declared a National Hero of Afghanistan and Sept 9 is now observed there as a national holiday known as Massoud Day.

He was assassinated at the age of 48 two days before the Twin Towers fell, ostensibly as part of the 9/11 process to draw the US into the Afghan war in 2001. Two Tunisian suicide bombers posed as overseas television journalists to interview Massoud in Khvajeh Ba Odin, a small village in north Afghanistan, where they detonated a bomb hidden in their camera.

In 1996, during the civil war in Afghanistan, the Taliban seized the capital city, Kabul, and soon the majority of their fighting force were soldiers imported from abroad by Al Qaeda, the Sunni Islamist militant group founded by Osama Bin Laden and designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations.

In 1989, Massoud had been instrumental in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. In the 90s, with the Taliban gaining control of 90% of the country, he opposed them by creating the United Front (Northern Alliance), and so posed a constant threat to Al Qaeda.

What was revealed only last December, when the 30-year rule released previously secret UK Cabinet papers, was that western powers had decided in 1980 to provide “discreet support for Afghan guerrilla resistance” after the Soviet invasion of their country. This not only meant Britain secretly supplying arms to Massoud, but also that one faction of the mujahideen fighters were covertly funded by the CIA. These went on to become founding members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

➢ Afghanistan’s “lost pillar of stability” — Listen to yesterday’s flagship Today show on BBC Radio 4, when security correspondent Gordon Corera discussed why Massoud had to die before the Twin Towers fell. If he had lived, many believe Massoud would have become a vital pillar of stability for his nation.

Massoud Tomb, Afghanistan,video,DocsOnline

Annual pilgrimage: Ahmad Shah Massoud’s chauffeur brings flowers from his leader’s garden to his tomb overlooking the Panjshir Valley. (Grabbed from video documentary by Iqbal Malhotra)

➢ VIEW a scene from Ahmad Shah Massoud, a documentary (above) by Indian film-maker Iqbal Malhotra (from DocsOnline)

An Intimate Portrait of the
Legendary Afghan Leader

“ A freedom fighter, a warrior, a man of God, an intellectual, a humanitarian, a liberal… the list goes on. Massoud was a renaissance man, though his modesty would never acknowledge it. This is perhaps his greatest quality – humility. Unlike radical leaders such as Che Guevara, his desires were modest: Freedom and prosperity for his people.

“ Massoud was a passionate enemy of terrorism. He strongly objected to any terrorist-style actions by mujahideen during the war with the Soviets, and identified the war against the Taliban as a war against terrorism.

“ Massoud was a deeply spiritual man and a devout Muslim. It is important to make these distinctions, for “Massoud the man” has perhaps more in common with Mahatma Gandhi than Che. We are exposed to a man of grace, who revelled in the beauty of his country and his creed. ”

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Posted in Asia, Politics

Tagged 2011, 9/11, Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassination, biography, Iqbal Malhotra, Tributes, Video, war on terror

1904 ➤ The day Nora made a man of Joyce

Posted on 16 Jun 2011 | Leave a comment

Bloomsday celebrations: James Joyce Tower and Museum is a Martello tower in Sandycove near Dublin. Joyce’s stay here is said to have inspired the opening of his novel Ulysses

❚ “THE GREATEST ENGLISH PROSE STYLIST”, Irish-born James Joyce, met his partner for life Nora Barnacle “sauntering” along a Dublin street on June 10, 1904. The chance encounter is described in Finnegans Wake:

“ If he’s plane she’s purty, if he’s fane, she’s flirty, with her auburnt streams, and her coy cajoleries, and her dabblin drolleries, for to rouse his rudderup, or to drench his dreams ”

James Joyce and Nora Barnacle in 1904, the year they met

In those days, romantics young and old didn’t “date”. He asked if he could meet her again and on the chosen day she blew him out, so he sent her a note and then they agreed to take a walk.

On the evening of June 16 Nora, a 20-year-old chambermaid, and James, the 22-year-old writer, went walking to the village of Ringsend. Several aspects of Joyce’s life converged on this day and he was to tell Nora later “You made me a man”. Years on, the author who gave the word “epiphany” its special meaning chose this sacred date for the setting of Ulysses, a modern re-telling of Homer’s Odyssey, in which all the action takes place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The date was to become Bloomsday, derived from Leopold Bloom, the 38-year-old protagonist of his yarn.

The book was published by the American ex-pat Sylvia Beach who ran the bookshop Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 1922 — the same year as T S Eliot’s The Waste Land, both works resonating to the cultural incoherence thrown up by the First World War. Ulysses furnished a touchstone for the whole 20th-century modernist movement in literature, as well as being spiced with racy humour deemed too “obscene” to publish in England until 1936 (and indeed banned in Ireland until the 1970s). Joyce personalised the chaotic stream-of-consciousness technique — writing as if thinking aloud — by employing a rich lexicon of 30,000 words, greater than Shakespeare’s and most everyday speakers of English, since many words were Joyce’s own musical inventions. About the book’s size, Joyce joked: “I spent seven years writing it. People could at least spend seven years reading it.” Samuel Beckett said of Joyce’s prose: “It is not to be read. It is to be looked at and listened to.”

Leopold Bloom drawn by Joyce

For the past 50 years Bloomsday has been commemorated annually in Dublin as fans dress in Edwardian costume to enjoy readings and merriment as they retrace Bloom’s footsteps through and around the city, taking in landmarks such as the site of Leopold and Molly Bloom’s home in Eccles Street, Davy Byrne’s pub and the old brothel quarter. Tradition has it (though the biographer Richard Ellmann disagrees) that the day before Ulysses begins, Joyce had spent a week in the Martello tower in Sandycove, eight miles south of Dublin on the coast road, where a university friend fired a gun at him, to be immortalised as “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan” in the novel’s opening. Today the tower houses a museum of mementoes and is well worth the metro ride.

The paradox is that not a word of Ulysses was written in the city on the Liffey, because Joyce chose to spend his adult life in exile, variously in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. When he died there in 1940, Nora Barnacle was asked which living writers she liked, and her reply was: “Sure, if you’ve been married to the greatest writer in the world, you don’t remember all the little fellows.” Nora lived on in loneliness and also died in Zurich in 1951, where she shares his grave in a wooded cemetery to this day.

➢ As the current book of the week being serialised on BBC Radio 4, Gordon Bowker’s James Joyce A Biography (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, May 2011) paints a wonderfully detailed portrait of the eccentric author in 15-minute segments

➢ The James Joyce Centre at North Great George’s Street in Dublin

Joyce and Nora in later years ... Ulysses ends with Molly Bloom’s words: “I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes”

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Posted in Culture, Europe

Tagged biography, Bloomsday, Dublin, Gordon Bowker, James Joyce, literature, Nora Barnacle, Tipping points, Ulysses