DAVID BOWIE’S MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN SCOTLAND

David Bowie album cover 

As fans celebrate the late great David Bowie's birthday, theshowbizlion.com thought it would be fun to remember some of his most memorable moments in Scotland.

The Life On Mars singer and Man Who Fell To Earth star passed away in 2016 after a battle with cancer.

He was born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947, in Brixton, London but he spent much of his life travelling and frequently visited here over the years.

One of his earliest headline gigs, still using his real name, was in 1964 in December 3 in Lothian Road, Edinburgh at the ABC cinema. He was in a group called the Manish Boys.

Five years later he played as David Bowie, the name of his second studio album in Kirkcaldy at the Adam Smith Theatre in November 1969. The album was later re-released oin 1972 by RCA as Space Oddity.

1969 also saw Bowie perform at the Edinburgh Fringe, as an actor this time round, in Lindsay Kemp's The Looking Glass Murders which incorporated his music.

One year later he plays at Grampian TV studios - now STV - in Aberdeen for the Cairngorm Ski Night show.

In 1973 the Starman also played the now defunct Apollo, then known as Green's Playhouse in Glasgow with songs from Hunky Dory,The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

One year on he and Scots Shut belter Lulu had a fling, despite him being married to Angela Barnett and Lulu subsequently covered and had a hit with The Man Who Sold The World.

1978 saw Bowie play four-nights at Glasgow's Apollo from June 19 - 22 and in 1983 he brought Let's Dance to Murrayfield Stadium and played to a crowd of 47,000.

Six years on he also played with Tin Machine at The Forum in Livingston before returning to the capital to perform for the Royal Highland Exhibition Centre in 1990 and Glasgow's Barrowland.

2003 was sadly the last time David Bowie performed in Scotland at Glasgow's SECC but in 2014 he asked for Scotland to remain part of the UK, via Kate Moss at the Brit Awards.

His impact and influence on Scots will never be forgotten and many today paid tribute as Bowie’s widow Iman shared a quote from author Margaret Atwood, saying: "I exist in two places, here and where you are."

THE BEATSTALKERS WERE SCOTLAND’S BEATLES

Beverley Lyons
THEY were known as the Scottish Beatles,  mobbed at airports and train stations and having their clothes ripped by thousands of frenzied female fans, closing down Glasgow’s George Square, selling out fourteen nights at the iconic Barrowland Ballroom, and even having three songs penned for them by David Bowie.
Now, almost fifty years on since their sudden split in 1969, mod band The Beatstalkers have lifted the lid on their incredible encounters with the Fab Four, Bowie, Freddie Mercury, The Kinks and even the notorious gangster Arthur Thomson.
In a brand new book with writer Martin Kielty, then ‘boyband’ members singer Dave Lennox, bass player Alan Mair, rhythm guitarist Ronnie Smith, keyboard player Eddie Campbell and drummer Jeff Allen talk of a five year long period of Beatstalkermania which saw them perform on TV’s Ready Steady Go! and sell out a six week residency in London’s Marquee club before splitting suddenly after their van was stolen in London with all their musical gear inside.
Alan Mair, 70, who started the group at Shawlands Academy with school mate Eddie Campbell in 1962 ages sixteen admits: “We were the only band back then that could match the mass hysteria of the Beatles, actually being banned from venues because of the mayhem.”
Introduced as ‘the Scottish Beatles’ to John Lennon and Ringo Starr at London’s Scotch of St James Club, Alan added: ”Ringo told us to come over and we sat down with them for five minutes. John indicated he had heard of us and was very civil and wished us good luck.”
Filling miners clubs, nightspots like the Lindella club, run by Betty Allan, Lulu’s aunty, Baillieston Cafe Club and Shawlands Scout Hall where they had their first ever gig, the group’s reputation for blasting away the competition like The Yard birds (Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck) who they supported at Paisley Ice Rink, was solidified - but the real recognition from the press came after they managed to close down George Square,  Central Station and even Glasgow airport with Beatstalkermania.
Alan recalled: “We’d blast other bands off the stage - like Herman’s Hermits at the Barrowland. The Pretty Things were hard to blast off the stage, but we stood our ground. The English bands were starting to say, ‘Watch out for the Beatstalkers – make sure they’re not supporting you because you'll have a tough time.’
The band’s life changing jam packed  George Square concert in ‘65 followed quieter gigs there by Chris McClure, and Dean Ford and the Gaylords .

Alan said: “There was hysteria. People were going mental, screaming, and the two policemen there were on their radios calling for backup. That was before we’d even played! Suddenly there was a helicopter above us and the press were there. People were getting crushed. The chief of police said, ‘You need to stop playing. The stage is going to collapse.’ “

The police got the band into the City Chambers, where they had to escape through underground corridors from the 7000 strong crowd of hormonal fans.
The incident made the front page of most papers and Alan said: ”The Scottish press were like, ‘Finally we have our own rock stars, we don't have to keep writing about English music.’
Similar situations occurred at Central Station where the band’s manager was called up by a concerned chief of police who asked them not to depart from Central Station again. An alternative of Glasgow Airport saw thousands invading  the tarmac.
The band even had to employ major security in the form of the notorious Arthur Thomson.
Alan explained: “After George Square the gang thing got really bad. A lot of the gangs were getting aggressive because their girlfriends were watching us and screaming, so they didn’t like us.
Backstage, some gang members would turn up and quite flamboyantly show you the latest razor they’d bought. We hired Arthur Thomson, who was known in Glasgow as ‘The Godfather,’ and one of his associates. For our protection we put hammers, big files and things inside the amps – things that couldn’t go down as weapons.”
“Those riots started going on everywhere we played. In Coatbridge a show was stopped and we were banned. We were paid in advance for six concerts and they paid us not to come back after the first one.”
Recording Ready Steady Go! saw the creative Scots perform first single Everybody’s Talkin bout My Baby alongside The Who, and meet The Small Faces who loved their homemade clothes. Alan said: “They were all over us – ‘Where did you get the clothes? You can’t get them in Carnaby Street.’ We went, ‘We made them!’ To save time we were all using Gerry and the Pacemakers’ drumkit, but then The Who went on, and what does Keith Moon do at the end? He kicks the drums all over the place. So big Freddie Marsden was kicking Keith’s head in. ‘My drums!’”
Signed down south with Decca and then CBS, the boys were assigned a songwriter by their manager - in the form of David Bowie - then known as Davey Jones - who wrote three tracks for them - and they were not impressed.
Alan said: “Ken Pitt our manager brought in Bowie. We were thinking, ‘What’s he got to offer? He was just a budding writer, writing kind of slightly odd songs at that point. Silver Tree Top School For Boys is not really a Beatstalkers-style song. That was a very strange time. He was trying to teach Davie to sing ‘When I’m Five’ in an English accent.”
Davie added: “It was embarrassing to sing a song like that. I felt like Bernard Bresslaw from the Carry On movies. I had to actually act it. I remember Bowie trying to get me to sing the line ‘Silver Tree Top School For Boys’ in a particular way, and I just couldn’t get it. The feeling stays with me till this day: ‘Bowie, I’m going to lamp you. Your song’s rotten. School for boys? I’m from f****in’ Govan!’”
I mean, the song’s reflective of a story about boys smoking dope in a posh private school. It was quite clever – but no’ mah thing. All Bowie’s songs were nightmares. We should never have recorded them.
The management were totally wrong to even consider Bowie as our songwriter.”
Alan who remained in touch with Bowie during his post Beatstalker career - as clothes designer  - said: “In retrospect I like the idea of David Bowie being around at that time – but only with history. At the time we thought, ‘He's alright for B-sides...’ and that’s how we approached it. But Bowie had unbelievable confidence. He would come in and go, ‘I’ve got this song,’ and he’d sing it like he was on stage, and he’d sell the song by being so confident.”
Marc Bolan also agitated the band and their friends The Kinks  during a TV gig in Germany.
Alan remembered: “Mark Bolan would sit playing guitar on the floor for soundcheck. And he said ‘There’s a spider - someone take the spider away’ and we thought ‘Are you serious?’ It was too affected for us and he left the stage and the Kinks were like ‘Get on with it.’ We had to hold them back.”
Despite Scottish success with seven singles  and regular trips to London where they performed well, the band felt they were delivered an unfair hand by management regarding song choices and a jaded Alan admits the theft of their van and equipment coincided with a feeling that at 21 he was becoming too old to be in a boyband.
He had a real passion for making clothes and his band mates also felt it was time to move on.
He opened up a stall in Kensington Market where he had none other than Freddie Mercury work for him.
He said: “After The Beatstalkers  broke up I made clothes and leather trousers for Bowie and The Marmalade, and Freddie Mercury who I met at Kensington market, became my full time manager.  He talked about  getting a band together called Smile then changed the name to Queen. He’d ask me to go to his early gigs because I’d been in a successful Scots band  and the rest as they say is history.”
The Beatstalkers reformed for reunion gigs in 2005 and 2013 and following his fashion career Alan went onto perform in The Only Ones while his bandmates pursued their individual careers.
Jeff Allen stayed in music bands like East of Eden and John Martin while  Eddie campbell went into events management for the Queen, Pope and Prime Ministers. Ronnie Smith became a tailor and David Lennox was singing and performing in various places too.
Alan said: ”We all ended up self employed which was quite funny. We’d all bought flats in Scotland, at seventeen or eighteen years old, which was remarkable really. So that was something. We’d achieved everything we’d hoped for and more in our homeland, which was the most important thing to us.”

MARC ALMOND SLAMS HATERS AFTER BOWIE GIG

MARC Almond has hit back at the haters who claim he 'murdered Bowie' after he performed two of the legend's songs at the BBC Proms.
The Soft Cell singer who bumped into theshowbizlion.com at Rewind festival in Perthshire's  Scone  Palace just last weekend, defended himself after some claimed he sang out of tune and forgot his words on David Bowie's Starman and Life On Mars.
He said: "Well if you're given two untouchable iconic classics to sing with totally new arrangements, you have to expect the flak. Stumbling over one word due to sound and nerves in LOM becomes forgetting all the words and singing COMPLETELY out of tune! Love Twitter."
He added: "I'd rather listen to Musical experts than some musically ignorant obsessed Bowie Fan and people who just have a problem with me period."
"Apparently I'm not a true Bowie fan and have no respect for him or his songs and let down the whole event. Oh please Give me strength.
That's why Tony Visconti Bowies friend and Producer asks me to sing at his Bowie shows."
The unusual versions of the songs he sang were arranged by Scottish Album of The Year winner Anna Meredith.

- From Scotland with love from theshowbizlion.com