Beck On Bowie – Jan On Bowie – Bowie On Jan!

We passed upon the stair… (or so Jan reckons at least)

BowieNetter Swebby pointed this one out on the MBs, after he tuned in to Dermot O’Leary’s Radio 2 show on Saturday. Dermot’s special guest was Beck who chose a few of his all time favourite tunes, including A New Career In A New Town from David Bowie’s 1977 Low album.

Beck, (who you may remember remixed Seven for David and has covered both Diamond Dogs and Win) had some very complimentary things to say about DB, including this: “I was a kid and punk and disco hit at the same time, and there was so much junk. There was so much bad music and I remember him being this sort of figure that came through the detritus and the junk that was out there.”.

Dermot and Beck went on to talk further about Bowie before taking a phone call from a lady called Jan. Jan claimed David stayed at her house in Purley in London “for a couple of weeks on and off” in September 1977.

This was supposedly a ploy to escape press attention around the time of Marc Bolan’s funeral.

Again, I thought it wise to check Jan’s story with David before I posted it, as there was something about it that didn’t seem quite right.

It seems my hunch paid off as he described her tale as: “four different kinds of unbelievable multi-levelled tosh”.

So there you have it. Residents of Purley can withdraw their application for an English Heritage blue plaque for the side of Jan’s house..

The Beck interview is still worth a listen. The whole thing starts around half an hour in, but if you rudely want to skip to the relevant Bowie bit, then you’ll be interested from around 50 mins and 30 secs in.