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In August 1973 and in the wake of Bowie achieving global fame through the Ziggy Stardust phenomenon, one of his old record companies reissued The Laughing Gnome single. Deram had been Bowie’s record company during the time of his first album David Bowie (1967). A time of no hits, poor album sales and eventual company disinterest. Six years later they reissue The Laughing Gnome and it gets to #6 in the charts. This reissue had on the B Side (in the UK and most other territories) as it did on the original release - The Gospel According to Tony Day. The song is a sleazy dystopian soundscape which twists, turns and slithers like a snake decrying the acts of so-called friends (’who needs ‘em’); although it is as much the perception, interpretation and evaluation of the narrator that concerns us here. A descent - albeit a more subtle and sublime descent - into a druggy nightmare, thus also linking it with the more upbeat A side (if you take it a song of oncoming madness, that is). Whatever the case, you have gotta love the use of oboe and bassoon in any pop record…

In January 1972, David Bowie launched the concept of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders of Mars with a tour, tv appearances and radio sessions. Within eighteen months he was a global superstar, the tour being extended again and again until he had toured the UK several times, the USA twice and Japan. Then on the night of 3 July 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon he announced on stage ‘not only is it the last show of the tour, but, it’s the last show that we’ll ever do’. By this time, he had five albums in the charts in the UK – and during August his latest Aladdin Sane (1973) would reach #2, while David Bowie (1969, now re-released as Space Oddity) was at #17; The Man Who Sold the World (1970) at #29; Hunky Dory (1971) at #3 and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (1972) at #7. Bowie owned the album charts, and in the singles charts his last UK release, a retrospective release of the Hunky Dory track Life on Mars? was slowly descending the rankings from its peak of #3. RCA, his record company who now owned all his material except for the earliest periods of his career, were overjoyed. The companies who owned his earliest material wanted some of this. And so in August 1973, Deram – who owned his material from 1967 to 1969, including his first album David Bowie (1967) – rereleased an old single: The Laughing Gnome. And against all odds it provided Bowie with another hit. Entering the charts in September, it appeared on Top of the Pops in early October – although, of course, without Bowie promoting it. The footage is now lost, and memories are indistinct, though the most cohesive remembrances seems to be there was a ToTP’s filmed sequence instead ‘in colour with someone looking a lot like Bowie walking around in it with a garden gnome popping up at various points’ (missingepisodes). It peaked at #6 for two weeks during October.

Concert film by D. A. Pennebaker

Filmed: 03/07/1973/: Hammersmith Odeon (last night of Ziggy Stardust Tour)

Sound mixes:

> 1973: Ken Stott mix (full film, including Jeff Beck guest spot during encore)

> 1981: Tony Visconti and David Bowie mix (full film, including Beck, though not included in any releases)

> 2002: Tony Visconti remaster (not including Beck)

Screenings / Broadcasts / Releases (including Beck songs):

> 1973-1974: Some screenings of a 16 mm full version, mostly in American college towns

> 25 October 1974: ABC-TV regular series In Concert: shortened 60-minute version of the film

> 1979: Edinburgh International Film Festival. The DOCUMENTARY 50 event was hosted during the Festival celebrating the founding of the British documentary film movement in 1929 with John Grierson’s The Drifters, and with many of the key players in attendance including Forsyth Hardy, Harry Watt, Edgar Anstey, Charles Oakley and D.A. Pennebaker.

1981+

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (film)

·         general release: 1983

·         video release: 1984

Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (album)

·         album release: October 1983

2002+

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture (film)

·         general release: 2002

·         dvd release: 2003

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture Soundtrack (album)

The Ziggy Stardust Tour began on 29 January 1972 with a warm-up gig at Aylesbury, Borough Assembly Hall, before kicking off in earnest in London at the Tolworth Toby Jug Pub on 10 February. Bowie – back then – was pretty much forgotten, his only hit a song from 1969 called Space Oddity. Over the first leg of the tour, however, everything changed. There was the Old Grey Whistle Test appearance on 8 February; the Starman single released in April and hitting the charts in June after TV appearances on Lift Off with Ayshea and Top of the Pops in July. There were the five BBC radio sessions. And there was the live appearances – by the end of the first leg, playing pubs, clubs and uni halls, some 46 dates up to 15 July 1972 at Aylesbury, Friars Club. Bowie was famous, but that was only the beginning. The show was refashioned and premiered on 19 August at the London Rainbow Theatre. Then it was on to the USA (22 September - 2 December) and the release of John, I’m Only Dancing and The Jean Genie. Then back to the UK for a short Xmas and New Year Tour – and the completion of the Aladdin Sane album. A re-release of that 1969 Space Oddity single got Bowie his first hit in America in early ‘73, just as the band returned there for another series of shows on the once again rebooted tour, also known as the Aladdin Sane Tour for the remainder of its run. That album is released, along with some more singles, Bowie tours Japan (April 1973), and then returns to the UK for another 40 plus dates. By now he is the biggest rock star in the world. And then, on the night of 3 July 1973 (just 18 months and something like 160 gigs after it all started), Bowie and the Spiders from Mars play their last show of the tour at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. And the cameras are there. Director D. A. Pennebaker is gonna capture the event. The band kick off, as they almost always do, with Hang On to Yourself.

Hammersmith Odeon, the night of 3 July 1973, and Bowie stands centre stage. The Spiders from Mars have just concluded a blistering version of show opener Hang On to Yourself. Bowie holds his arms out wide, in a naked spotlight, as if embracing the audience. Suddenly, his blue and red full body cloak is ripped from him, revealing a short white dress, or rather,  a short white kimono. Bowie raises his arms in triumph, and the band plays the opening refrain of their signature tune – Ziggy Stardust. Here we are at the final gig of the Ziggy Stardust show, eighteen months on the road, the UK, USA and Japan. And the cameras are here. Director D. A. Pennebaker is filming the show and behind the scenes for a documentary and concert movie. As the band play Ziggy Stardust, Pennebaker’s camera crew perform superfast zooms from wideshot taking in the theater and audience, with the band mere dots, to medium shots of Bowie, Ronson and Bolder at the edge of the stage. A camera placed behind the band in the wings almost at floor level, elongates the stage with drummer Woodmansey in the foreground, Bowie and the others on the horizon. The cameras on stage capture medium shots and close-up and extreme close-ups of Bowie as he sings and teases the audience – just about capturing the star as he moves, gestures, dances. A beautiful, beautiful film, the existence of which must be cherished.

Watch That Man is the third live song from Bowie and the Spiders from Mars at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. It is the last date of the Ziggy Stardust show, a tour that has run for 18 months, from the UK, to the USA and Japan, and now back to the UK again. During that time Bowie had released two albums – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) and Aladdin Sane (1973) – and in the process become a worldwide rock star. And for this last gig of the tour, D. A. Pennebaker is here with his camera crew to capture everything. Watch That Man is the first song of the gig from the latter album. Opening Aladdin Sane, this good old rock and roll song tells of an anxiety attack at a New York party. The filming here is pretty awesome, some great shots from the back of the stage, and two sequences capturing bassist Trevor Bolder and guitarist Mick Ronson rocking out. There are also some lovely sequences of the crowd – in one (the most sustained) – there is a long take as the camera pans across the faces of audience members in close-up. Eyes fixed on the stage, on Bowie and the Spiders, singing along to the words of the song. As the lighting changes and cameras flash, the faces are captured in their joy, abandon and ecstasy.

This live medley of three songs from Bowie is just wonderful. We are at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 3 July 1973, and it is the last date of the Ziggy Stardust show. The medley begins with Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud (from David Bowie [1969] aka Space Oddity [1972-2009]), then moves on to All the Young Dudes (written for Mott The Hoople in ’72), and concludes with Oh! You Pretty Things (from Hunky Dory [1971]). We only get an early section of each song – but this triage really works, and it is tempting to look for the thematic thru-line that brings these three songs together, rather than simply just thinking of this as a way to cram a few more songs in to the show. Each of the three songs explores outsiders: the gross diversions of the boy, the nihilistic signs of the times read through the actions and passions of the young dudes, and the pretty young things driving the adult world insane as they escape mundane and maddening human affairs. Musically, the Spiders make the songs cohere beautifully… and the treatment of Oh! You Pretty Things is especially glorious. The piano waiting in Bowie’s every word as he sings ‘A crack in the sky and a hand…’ pausing before ‘reaching down’, then again… ‘to me’. Lovely…

‘Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe’ sings Bowie, as the camera cuts to a young girl in the audience. She knows – of course – the words. But knowing the words is nothing. She feels the words, the music, the emotion, the event. ‘Put your ray gun to my head’. Eyes closed, she moves to the music, moving her arms and hands in a complex series movements. ‘Press your space face close to mine, love’. The camera cuts back to Bowie: ‘Freak out in a moonage daydream oh yeah’. She is there, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 3 July 1973, and it is the last date of the Ziggy Stardust show. Bowie sings ‘Don't fake it’, she aint. I cannot watch this section of Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture without tears welling up in my eyes. Tears of joy for that girl, for that girl at that moment. She captures everything there is that cannot be said about music, about a live show, about Bowie. Tony Oursler – who worked with Bowie on the Where Are We Now video, years later, says this: ‘As an artist, I’ve always been fascinated with, and jealous of, pop music’s ability… to enrapture people. Sound directly enters the brain and evaporates, leaving only neuronal traces. Direct, simple, and free for the people, perhaps music is the greatest and most egalitarian art form. It’s almost the perfect model… Exactly when did poetry become subsumed by rock and roll? When was experimental film swallowed and digested by music videos?’ (Jones, David Bowie: A Life, 411). D. A. Pennebaker’s images in Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture, those images of Bowie, the band, the audience, that girl, those images which are carved in light torn from the past for the future allow us to feel the music and the words. As Bowie and Ronson do their dance across the stage… ‘Freak out… Far out’ in the awesome guitar solo that spirals and echoes and twists and reverberates through the Hammersmith Odeon… through the audience… and that is the absolute beauty of Pennebaker’s film – its the cameras with the audience, it is the affective close-ups of the face, of faces, of the joy, the ecstasy, the rapture. Here is art – in these audio-visual images.

There is a lovely cut in this sequence of Bowie performing Changes, a cut that mirrors that of the performance. Shot from stage right, Bowie sings the line ‘So I turned myself to face me’. Bowie swings his head, and the film cuts to a shot from stage left. D. A. Pennebaker’s Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture is filmed on 3 July 1973, the last night of the Ziggy Stardust tour, and Bowie has just had his first costume change, done invisibly during Mick Ronson’s tripped out guitar solo of the preceding song, Moonage Daydream. Bowie had begun the gig in a darkk cape. This cape was ripped from him before the second song to reveal a short white kimono. Now Bowie is in alien spacesuit. These clothes were all designed by Japanese fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto. Bowie had used three of Kansai’s designs earlier in the tour, and had then been commissioned to create nine more costumes. These were to be based on traditional Japanese Noh dramas sci-fi-ed up for Bowie to collect during the Japanese tour in Tokyo in April 1973. These were the flamboyant, androgynous Ziggy Stardust costumes Bowie wore on this third UK tour of ‘73. "He has an unusual face, don't you think? He's neither man nor woman.  If you see what I mean; which suited me as a designer because most of my clothes are for either sex.  I love his music and obviously that has influenced my designs but most of all there's this aura of fantasy that surrounds him.   He has flair." - Kansai Yamamoto (5years.com).

A trippy visual to this version of Bowie’s first hit from 1969 – Space Oddity. We are at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 3 July 1973. It is the last night of the Ziggy Stardust tour, which has been all over the UK, the States, and Japan for 18 months. To mark the conclusion of this tour, which has seen Bowie transformed from a one-hit wonder hippy with Space Oddity and into a global rock superstar with Ziggy Stardust, D. A. Pennebaker is there to film the event. And it is this film which will eventually become Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture. Space Oddity begins with an image of a spinning mirror globe caught in a spotlight. Pennebaker them films the audience, panning across the sea of bodies in the darkness, scattered fragments of light dancing over their faces. Hands outstretched, the young reach out towards Bowie, towards the Spiders, towards the light. This is the fascination of Pennebaker’s images – he is not just focused upon Bowie, but it is the event, and the audience, the people who make every gig possible. ‘The stars look very different today’ – sings Bowie, as Pennebaker captures the stage in a wide shot. Bowie stands at the centre of a swirling cascade of stars, which spiral around the venue. Just beautiful.

Looks like Youtube isnt allowing this video to play, so here it is on Dailymotion in a longer clip, with Space Oddity playing at 03'35":

‘Angel or devil I don’t care… for in front of that door... there… is…’ so sings Bowie at the very end of his cover of Jacques Brel’s My Death. He is no longer strumming his twelve string, and he is whispering these words, pausing between the phrasing. But he never gets to sing the last word. For a voice in the audience shouts ‘Me!’, then another voice, and another… ‘David, Me!’ and soon a hundred voices are shouting ‘Me!’. Bowie smiles, says ‘thank you’, unslings his acoustic guitar from his shoulder and exits the stage. This is the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973, the last night of the Ziggy Stardust tour, and we are seeing images captured by D. A. Pennebaker for the film which will eventually become Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture. Pennebaker and his camera crew film this solo(ish) acoustic number in close-up and extreme close-up for most of the sequence, Bowie bathed in blue light, his face a ghostly ahuman mask, a living corpse as he whispers, sings, and shouts the lyrics to what he later says is ‘very important to me as a song’ (Pegg 190). As well as Bowie’s acoustic guitar, Mike Garson plays a romantic piano accompaniment. Bowie had been playing the song live since a gig in the Rainbow Theater in August ’72, some time before Garson joined the tour and the band in the States late the following month. As Nic Pegg says, Garson’s piano transforms the tune from a ‘softly strummed acoustic number’ (as can be heard on the version recorded for the Russell Harty Plus Pop UK TV show in January ‘73) into a full blown torch song’ (190). In post-production an organ had been recorded and mixed in too (the sound had quite a few overdubs including backing singers, piano and guitar on some songs). The result is just awesome – a beautiful, melancholic way to end the first half of the show… and as the announcer says as the applause dies down (and can be heard on the 30th anniversary edition of the soundtrack, along with Bowie telling the audience to ‘shush’ at the beginning)… ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the part of the performance we call the interval’…

Cracked Actor is the song that kicks off the second half of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust show at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. During the intermission Bowie has changed his costumes once again, and emerges on to the stage in a long white cloak. As Mick Ronson’s electric guitar tips the opening chords of the song to shreds, Bowie stands illuminated in a naked spotlight. There are Japanese characters on his gown, designed by Kansai Yamamoto. What do the characters on the cape mean? 5years.com writes: ‘folklore has it that Bowie (in 1999) jokingly said that it meant "Get your potatoes here". However, each of the Chinese letters (Chinese letters were utilized in the Japanese language when Japan didn't have letters in ancient times) actually means (from upper to lower): "exit" or "out", "fire", "breath out" or "puke", "wild" or "riot", "force". But as words they mean nothing!!! The letters should be pronounced (again upper to lower); "De" "Vi" (vi of video) "To" (to of tomato) "Bow" "I" and so they really read "David Bowie"! or alternately can be read as: "The man who vomits and fires out provocative words threatening violently"....’ Can you imagine a better analysis of Cracked Actor?

As the opening notes of Time echo through the Hammersmith Odeon, Bowie stands centre stage – arms outstretched. Cloaked in the voluptuous gown designed by Kansai Yamamoto, from the darkness that surrounds him hands tear away the garment to reveal Bowie now dressed (as 5years.com describe it) in a: ‘Multi-colored knitted body sock/suit made of metallic yarn in sections of pink, red, and blue geometric patterns on black or white. It has one long sleeve and one pants leg on opposite sides with only a cutout for the other arm and the other leg. The long sleeve has diagonal green and white stripes, and donut-like stuffed bangles to go with it in green, red, yellow and blue made from the same metallic knit fabric. With turquoise feather boa and large padded wrist bangles.’ This reveal echoes the first half of the show. The gig kicked off, as they almost always do, with Hang On to Yourself. Then on to Ziggy Stardust where his blue and red full body cloak is ripped from him, revealing a short white kimono. We have just had the interlude, Bowie has returned to the stage for Cracked Actor wearing the white gown, and now with Time this in turn is torn from him as Mike Garson introduces the vaudevillian charms of the song on the piano. What follows is a dramatic interpretation of the song. Bowie stands frozen as he is draped with that feather boa, and after singing the first few lines of the song, the rest of the Spiders join in, Mick Ronson’s guitar a distorted fist of noise. Then there is that pause at the beginning of the second verse, the band is silent, and we just get the sound of Bowie breathing…

The Width of a Circle was always the craziest moment of a Ziggy Stardust show. And the version captured on film for Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973 is just awesome. It is the last show of Ziggy tour after 18 months, and D. A. Pennebaker and crew are there to capture the event. What we get is something heavy, wild, and psychedelic/psychotic from The Man Who Sold the World (1973). Bowie sings the first section of the song, and then exits to stage, and it is over to the Spiders from Mars. Ronson then rips the song apart with one of the most spectacular guitar solos ever recorded – and filmed! Playing one handed, wah-wahing, fractal feedback circuits, notes sustained for what seems like infinity, complex patterns of notes – all the while returning to the theme of the song before going off on tangentials. Leaping across the stage, charging at the audience. Then there is the sequence of visuals which focuses upon the crowd. A cold blue strobe – darkness then light. Faces in ecstasy, tripped out. Arms outreaching. Then back to the stage – Ronson is now dueling with Trevor Bolder, the bassist kicking out a hyperfast series of notes as Ronson creates dissonance. They push each other, Ronson almost falls to the floor, and then he is down. Crawling across the stage on his knees. Then up on his feet, and he attacks, swinging at Bolder with the neck of his guitar, again and again, driving him back from the centre of the stage. Bolder is defeated, Ronson paces the stage with his arms held high – just the drums are keeping the song alive now. This is theater – the audience are enthralled. Then the bass and guitar join the fray once again and slowly the outlines of The Width of a Circle emerge once again. Then suddenly, Bowie’s voice begins to sing the second verse of the song (after nearly eight minutes of the Spiders). The editing by Pennebaker is brilliant here, he doesn’t capture Bowie re-entering, nor does he even cut back to him as he begins to sing, instead teasing the viewer with the faces of the audience looking at what we cannot see. And when we do return Bowie has had another costume change. Bowie later says – in the documentary Cracked Actor (1975) – that all the costume changes were meant to express the schizophrenia of the performance, of him as a performer, fragmenting on stage, suffering but surviving the horror of madness. ‘God did take my logic for a ride’, he sings, and mimes wheels turning in his head… and now it’s Bowie’s turn for theatrics. A mime sequence with the singer caught behind an invisible membrane that he pushes at, feels his way along, cuts open and pushes through – as the Spiders slow down and quieten the mood, and as the lights pulse and track every movement. Before we are on to the end sequence of the song and we rock out once more. The Width of a Circle as captured on Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture is one of the most stunning moments in 70s rock… 15 minutes of rock theatre. And while early versions of the soundtrack edited the song down to 9 or so minutes, in 2003 the 30th Anniversary edition restored the song on the album to its film-length majesty.

‘Let’s do it’, sings Bowie, leaning out over the audience, touching hands with all those nearest to the stage ‘Let’s make loooove’. And everyone goes wild as Ronson pumps out his orgasmic, dirtorted guitar chords. We are at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973, the last show of Ziggy tour after 18 months, and D. A. Pennebaker and crew are there to capture the event for what will become Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture. The Spiders are playing the cover version of The Rolling Stones’ 1967 hit Let's Spend the Night Together, and which the band had laid down in the studio for that year’s album release of Aladdin Sane (1973). It is a storming live version of the track, except… those backing vocals. Truth is that Bowie and producer Tony Visconti on reviewing the tapes felt that some of the songs recorded that felt a bit thin, so added backing vocals (not captured properly on the recording of the night) to many of the tracks, and even some instrumentation on other tracks. ‘The sound quality was poor and I was called in to beef it up, which also required David and me to resing many of the backing vocals. They were simply not recorded well on tape – partly because Trevor Bolder and Mick Ronson didn't sing into the microphones!’. So, not much of the album is completely live. This happened in 1981 when preparing for the release of the film and album. So for a long time, the versions of the film that were screened on US TV, college campuses and at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1979 would have had a much more basic and fully live soundscape.