March 1, 1973 - Rock Scene

ALL ABOUT DAVID

Half an hour out of London, down a side road and behind a screen of trees to David Bowie's birthday party we go. It is the eighth of January, just a year ago this month, and David is by all reports about to be a golden twenty-five.

The he celebration is more of an evening at home with the Bowies: David, wife Angela and little son Zowie. Plus the band who've brought an electric razor, battery powered, as a gift. And Lionel Bart, Lou Reed, a few other friends.

Out of the cab, through the drizzle, up to the doorstep where Angela is greeting one and all. In the front door to find a huge entrance hall the center piece of which is a grand stairway, leading up to the second floor. Not that there is a second floor as the Bowie's don't have the whole house, just the first floor, others live in flats on the second floor, entrance around the back. David will eventually make his entrance down the stairway, but now we're ushered into the living room, pleasantly victorian with electric fire, David's record collection, tape recorder, hi-fi, and color tv.

David was born in Brixton, a suburban area of London. He grew up in what he describes as a "standard non-poor, non-affluent London milieu." He went to Bromley Technical High School, eventually dropping out to study the sax and Tibetan Buddhism. After working for a while as a commercial advertising artist, he got into music, performing as David Jones And The Lower Third.

It is a pleasant evening, full of mulled wine and plates of food that Angela has set-out at the foot of the stairs. Then the birthday boy appears, his hair close-cropped by Angela's hair-dresser just that week. Not yet bright orange, but on the way. And David is wearing his clockwork orange jumpsuit and red platform boots, he says he hasn't seen the movie, maybe he is the movie even so. All dressed up and ready to assume the media shocking pose that will be what eventually the world knows David Bowie as. Gone is the image before, Lauren Bacall long blond hair, floppy trousers, diamond star pins, and an occasional cap. This is the new space-age David Bowie, launching himself into orbit on his twenty-fifth birthday.

The evening goes on, the laughter comes for the folks and the glow of the warm wine. Then everyone wraps up, and a long run through the Lon-don night to the after-hours clubs, in this case El Sombrero for an after birthday party until they close the bar and everyone trips out onto the street.

David Bowie has begun his second quarter century. As it's turning out, these are the years that will count, his time has come.