Andy, here’s your fifteen minutes…
Speaking of Bowie-related art, (see yesterday’s news) two 1974-era pictures of the Diamond Canine himself are currently on display in England and France.
First up, Manchester artist Andy Parry has an exhibition of his work at
Andy hit the local news recently when head honcho of The Fall, Mark E Smith, turned up at the exhibition with members of his band and demanded the removal of a caricature Andy had made of him. (See below) The Gallery obliged while the hot-headed punk genius was still around, but defiantly returned the picture to it’s rightful position once Smith had left the premises.
This isn’t the first time Mr Parry has fallen foul of the locals, as he recounts in this tale of a teenage lad growing up as a Ziggy clone in Runcorn…
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I was running at the speed of life by Andy Parry
Avoiding being an oddball wasn?t helped by going to see Bowie at the Liverpool Empire in June 1973. After this ? the best gig I?ve ever seen ? I became alarmingly, a ?small town Bowie?, in Runcorn. My sudden transmutation, from a hardcore Northen Soul, suedehead didn?t go down too well with parents, peers and girlfriend.
I was duly despatched to the psychiatrists by my parents, excommunicated by my mates and dumped by my girlfriend. I coerced my mother into making me my first cosmic cowboy outfit, complete with very conspicuous ?sticky out? shoulder bits.
I purchased a pair of girls? platform boots, (just in) from Whittakers in Runcorn High Street. ?They only make them for girls Sir? said the mocking sales girl??they will do just fine?, I replied. Outside the shop I proceeded to spray them and my new brush back Ziggy hair-do, silver.
Luckily for me, the then King of the Runcorn Skins, ?Gidge Garner?, a Paul Calfe prototype, took a shine to me. ?I like you Paz ? coz you?re an oddball? he?d say. Such patronage would save me from a bigger percentage of beatings.
Naively I set about preaching the word of ?Glam? to the locals, hoping for converts, and was largely unsuccessful. Although my mate Jeff ?Psycho? Derbyshire went a bit Eno for a while. Yet again my poor mother was press-ganged into making Jeff a ?For Your Pleasure? period Eno outfit, out of a pair of curtains stolen from the school music room.
Nights out were spent hanging around in shop doorways listening to Bowie, Sparks, Lou, Bolan, Ronson and Roxy on a ?portable? tape machine. My particular ?look? so incensed passing Runcornians that some would be driven to get off passing buses in order to administer a ?good hiding?. I soon mastered the art of running very quickly in my ?platties?!
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Thanx Andy, that story most likely sounds spookily familiar to a multitude of men in their mid-forties, the length and breadth of Britain!
Andy’s paintings are still on display at
Meanwhile BowieNetter artsfactory (AKA Laurent) has sent in details of a solo exhibition by French comic artist Thierry Guitard, (who’s artwork features every month in the very Bowie-friendly music magazine Rock & Folk) which takes place this month at the Art’s Factory in Paris, France.
The show is entitled ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus’ and is showing the rendition of Bowie as Diamond Dog, above, and portraits of Elvis Presley and Iggy Pop, among many others. The show runs until February 25th.
Address: Art’s Factory – 48, rue d’orsel 75018 Paris, France. – Tel : +33 (0)1 53 28 13 50.
Opening hours: Tuesday till Friday 13:00 to 19:30. Saturday 11:00 to 19h30 – Sunday 14:00 to 19:00.
You can read the full press release