Like the video films we saw…
These two items can be found in the June editions of
The Q piece is part of a feature called Almost Famous which concerns itself with “the stars of classic music videos who weren’t in the band”.
As you can see, Geeling Ng fits that description playing opposite Bowie in the romantic and quite beautiful China Girl video from 1983.
You can read most of what she recalls from the making of the video in the extract above and even though she is now a TV personality in her own right, she goes on to say that she is proud of the fact that she still gets recognised as the girl in the China Girl video.
Which leads us nicely on to somebody who has stubbornly refused to appear in a certain Bowie video for over thirty five years…I know what kind of welcome you’re gonna give to…Jeff Beck!
The excerpt above is from an eight-page Jeff Beck interview/feature in the current MOJO. In the piece Beck reiterates his flimsy excuse for not granting permission to use the segment of the 1973 Ziggy retirement concert at Hammersmith Odeon that he features in.
As you know, he appeared as guest guitarist during The Jean Genie/Love Me Do and Round And Round and there has never been a complete official document of the show because of his insistence that his “really embarrasing shoes” and guitar antics are too much for a modern audience to bear.
Well, IMHO, Jeff needs to finally get over himself. Will there really be anybody wanting to look at his footwear while Bowie is on the same screen? I doubt Jimi Hendrix playing a banjo with his chin while wearing clown shoes would even be enough to distract a Bowie fan from prime Ziggy and The Spiders…even if Hendrix had been long expired by 1973.
If only Townshend, Manzenera, Bender or Wood had been the guest that night, we may have been enjoying The Jean Genie/Love Me Do and Round And Round on the Ziggy Stardust Motion Picture too. Oh well, never say never.