Rock star David Bowie, his wife Angie and their son Zowie. Date: 01/02/1974
IT’S 1974, and all the cool kids are buying David Live, David Bowie’s first live album, recored at Philadelphia’s Tower Theatre.
Well, they would buy it once they’re pocket had been emptied by this TV advert:
The album reflects the Diamond Dogs Bowie was promoting at the time. David Live had been recorded on US Diamond’s Dogs Tour.
You can discover more on that tour in the documentary Cracked Actor.
A fan of glitter-rock singing star David Bowie wears makeup at Bowie’s weekend concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Nov. 3, 1974.
David Live was recored over the fist two legs of that tour.
The advert for Diamond Dogs was a different affair. This time the speaking part is not with someone in knitted driving gloves asking a passer-by if they can recognise Bowie from a photograph before showcasing a new computer programme, but from the man himself *.
“You alright?” he asks, his jaws chomping away.
* Is the answer dubbed? Does the passer0-by answer “Ziggy Stardust”, the character Bowie was moving away from? Or does he says ‘If it ain’t DJ Kool Herc, then I have no idea.”
In December 1974, John Dover directed this more to-the-point advert for the Young Americans album.
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