“Thanx to all OUR people for making ZIGGY.” Ready for action circa 1972…from left to right: George
Underwood (Illustrator), Peter Hunsley (Stage Manager), Robin Mayhew (Sound) and Bob See (Lights)
Five years, what a surprise…
After what I think is close on five years, appropriately enough, Mike Harvey‘s brilliant
Here’s a couple of lines from the interview…
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What was the first main Ziggy Stardust gig you did?
Bristol University, Main Hall (1 March 1972) is the one that I remember – probably 200 people tops were there. I know that we did a Bowie gig at Aylesbury Friars Club (25 September 1971) and Tucky Buzzard did the warm up with our sound system and that David and what would become the Spiders went on using a Tasco system. I think David’s hair was still long like on the Hunky Dory cover. In these early gigs Cream’s ‘I Feel Free’ was used in preference to Width of a Circle.
Did you have any other duties?
On the very early gigs from the mixer position at the back of the hall and from the sides, myself and Peter Hunsley (the stage manager) would throw out handfuls of A4 pictures of David and the Spiders during the ‘Wham Bam Thank you Ma’am line in “Suffragette City” to finish the show.
One day when we were still in the Gem offices in Regent Street, I was asked to proof-read all the lyrics to The Rise and Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to make sure that they matched the sung words. They were all typed out and after listening over and over to the Ziggy Stardust track, I swear that David sung ‘like a leper messiah’ – whereas the typed lyric sheet words were ‘like a leather messiah’ – so I changed them. Again in “Rock and Roll Suicide”, I heard David singing ‘wall to wall (as in carpet) is calling’ not the ‘waterwall is calling’ as in the draft lyrics – so I changed them. If you look at any lyric sheet for the album you will see my words there. I never talked to David about it!! Maybe I’m responsible in some way for weird lyrics!!
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Wonderful stuff, Mike. Great to have you back.
You can read the whole interview