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JANUARY
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1
Appears on Dinah! and
performs Stay and Five Years. After the interview
Bowie demonstrates karate. Also on the show, actors Nancy Walker
and Henry 'Fonzie' Winkler.
Broadcast
CBS Jan 3.
Reported
by Lisa Robinson in Hit Parader
(published August 1976).
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Station
to Station LP released by RCA
The
release was delayed when Bowie, unhappy with the colour of the sleeve,
ordered a change to black-and-white to reflect the look he was developing
for the tour.
Rehearsals
for the tour begin in Ochios Point, Jamaica and New York.
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10
Interview
published with Nic Roeg in Street Life, conducted by Mike
Flood Page:
'He
has before him a miniature Sony cassette machine and offers an exclusive
preview of the Bowie soundtrack just in from LA. It's a simple melodic
instrumental based around organ, bass and drums, with atmosphere
courtesy of studio wizardry all put together and performed by Bowie
himself.'
Roeg
went on to compare the character of Newton in The
Man Who Fell To Earth with Howard Hughes.
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Bowie on set with Candy Clark and Nic Roeg
'There
is this line that he speaks in the film which is quite indicative
of his attitude: "My life is not secret, but it is private",
which is typical of Hughes. It seems to me that irritates a lot
of people.'
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FEBRUARY
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Bowie's
group for the tour:
Carlos
Alomar
Dennis
Davis
Tony
Kaye
George
Murray
Stacey
Heydon
Tour
staff
Patrick
Gibbons acting
manager
Corinne
Schwab Bowie's
personal assistant
Barbara
Le Witt worldwide
press and publicity
Tony
Mascia Bowie's
bodyguard
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The
1976 World Tour
The
tour was far removed from anything previous, opening with the Salvador
Dali/Luis Bunuel 1922 film, Un Chien Andalou. The
startling effect of white light on black setting was said
to have been inspired from some old photographic effects pioneered
by Man Ray.
The
large traditional entourage that Bowie and MainMan had maintained
was gone, replaced by a small efficient staff who handled every
aspect of the tour.
Opening
night
2
Vancouver,
Canada
Reported
by Ben Edmonds in RAM magazine.
3
Seattle Coliseum
ABC Good Morning America interviews Bowie and Angela
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Bowie
invites Iggy to join him as a travelling companion for the rest
of the tour.
Bowie
meets Hockney
11
Los Angeles Forum. After the show, Bowie introduced to David Hockney
by Christopher Isherwood.
Reported
by Lisa Robinson for Hit Parader August
1976
12
"Ground Control To Davy
Jones" published in Rolling Stone.
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4
Portland, Paramount Theatre
6
San Francisco, Cow Palace
Interviewed
before the show by Robert Hilburn for London's Melody
Maker.
8
Los
Angeles, Englewood Forum.
The
post-concert party guests included Rod Stewart
and Britt Ekland, Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr, Ray Bradbury, Linda
Ronstadt, Carly Simon, Henry Winkler, Valerine Perrine and Steven
Ford, son of the US president.
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Steven Ford with Bowie
Bowie
and Ford chatted, Bowie wanting to talk about politics, Ford more
interested in Peter Frampton.
9
Los Angeles, Englewood Forum.
After
the show, Patti Smith stopped by and spilt beer all over Angie's
mink.
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13
San Diego Sports Arena
15
Phoenix,
Veterans' Memorial Coliseum.
Interviewed
by Lisa Robinson for Hit
Parader
16
Albuquerque, Civic Auditorium
17
Denver, McNichols Sports Arena
20
Milwaukee, Mecca Arena
21
Kalamazoo,
Wings Stadium
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22
Evansville,
Riverfront
23
Cincinatti, Convention Center
25
Montreal,
Forum
26
Toronto, Maple Leaf Garden
27
Cleveland
Auditorium
28
Cleveland
Auditorium (2 shows)
29
Detroit,
Olympia Stadium
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MARCH
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Filming
of The Eagle Has Landed started without Bowie, who had originally
agreed to appear in the film. The problem was Bowie's tour commitments,
as director Jack Wiener explained:
'It's
unfortunate, because we would have liked very much to have had him,
but when you are working on a movie with a five and a half million
dollar budget you can't afford to have one of the cast involved
with something else at the same time.'
1
Detroit, Olympia Stadium
Bowie
interviewed pre-concert by Chris Charlesworth at the Pontchertrain
Hotel.
'I couldn't do anything but survive now. Once you've made the initial
bloom, what else do you have to do?'
2
The Return Of The Thin White Duke
by Richard Cromelin published in Circus Magazine.
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3
Chicago Amphitheatre
5
St Louis, Henry W Kiel Auditorium
6
Memphis, Mid-South Coliseum
7
Nashville Municipal Auditorium
8
Atlanta
11
Pittsburgh Civic Arena
12
Norfolk,
Scope Conventional Hall
Stays
at the local Holiday Inn, after the show giving an early rendition
of Sister Midnight (which was written on the 1976 tour and
occasionally sung live) in the hotel bar.
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13-14
Washington
DC, Capital Center (2 shows)
15-16
Philadelphia,
Tower Theatre (2 shows)
17
Boston,
New Boston Garden Arena
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18
The
Man Who Fell To Earth premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre,
London, attended by Angie, James Coburn, Lee Remick, Rick Wakeman,
John Peel, Amanda Lear, Stomu Yamashta, and stars from the film,
Candy Clarke, Rip Torn, Alf Martin and John Walters.
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19
Buffalo, New York, Memorial Auditorium.
Bowie
struggles through the show with severe flu. The following day he
is kept in bed until the afternoon before the drive to the Rochester
show.
20
Rochester,
New York. Interviewed before the show by Al Rudis, Bowie was still
suffering.
AR:
After your European tour, are you going to concentrate on acting
for a while?
DB:
No, no, no, the first thing I'm doing is I'm gonna finish off some
silk screens and lithographs that I've worked on. I did some earlier
this year, which I thought were very successful.
AR:
Will they be exhibited?
DB:
No.
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21
Springfield, Massachusetts.
Before
the show, in the early hours of the morning, Bowie, Iggy Pop, Dwain
A. Vaughs, a friend, and a girl, Chivah Soo are arrested at the
Flagship Americana hotel in Rochester on suspicion of possession
of 8 oz. of marijuana. Bowie later given bail of $2000. He also
put up the bail of $2000 each for the other three.
22
New Haven
23
Uniondale New York, Nassau
Coliseum
Recorded
for King Biscuit Flower Hour radio broadcast and subsequently
released on a number of bootlegs. Word On A Wing and Stay
released officially as bonus tracks on Station To Station (Rykodisc),
Queen Bitch on RarestOneBowie.
25
Appears in court in Rochester, New York. The case was adjourned
and dropped one year later. Bowie later appeared on Channel 5 news
leaving court. Reported by The
Democrat And Chronicle.
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26
New
York, Madison Square Garden.
After
this, the final US
show
of the 1976 World Tour, a small party was held at the Penn Plaza
Club for Bowie and the crew. At the party Bowie described that evening's
show as getting the best reaction he had ever received, 'I was so
nervous, I nearly threw up!' Bowie spent most of the evening in
a corner chatting with Iggy.
27
A private screening of
The Man Who Fell To Earth
Bowie had arranged for friends had to be cancelled when Bowie couldn't
get a print of his own film.
Sails
from New York for Cannes to continue the tour.
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APRIL
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2
Bowie,
while returning from a stopover trip to Moscow, is held at the Russian/Poland
border while customs men confiscated some Nazi books. Bowie said
they were reference material for a
film on Goebbels he was planning.
In
1980 Bowie discussed his Nazi fascination in an interview with Angus
Mackinnon for NME.
That
whole Station To Station tour was done under duress. I was
out of my mind totally, completely crazed. Really. But the main
thing I was functioning on was, as far as that whole thing about
Hitler and the Rightism was concerned, was mythology... I had found
King Arthur. It was not as you probably know...I mean, this whole
racist thing that came up, quite inevitably and rightly.
But
and I know this sounds terribly naive but none of
that had actually occurred to me, inasmuch as I'd been working and
still do work with black musicians for the last six or seven years.
And we'd all talk about it together about the Arthurian period,
about the magical side of the whole Nazi campaign, and about the
mythology involved.
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7
Munich,
Olympia Hall, Germany
8
Dusseldorf,
Philips Halle, Germany
10
Berlin,
Deutchlandhalle, Germany
Interviewed
earlier in the day by Stuart Grundy for The David Bowie Story,
broadcast in May on Radio One.
11
Hamburg,
Kongress Zentrum Halle, Germany.
Further
interviews conducted with Stuart Grundy for The David
Bowie Story on BBC Radio One.
13
Frankfurt
Festhalle, Germany
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TVC
15/We Are The Dead single released in the US (RCA). (highest
chart position No. 33)
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14
Zurich,
Switzerland.
Bowie
saw the new house he and Angie had rented for the first time. Originally,
the tour schedule included another German show in Ludwigshafen Franz-Eberthalle,
but was cancelled in favour of a Swiss date.
15
Frankfurt
Festhalle, Germany
16
Bowie
stopped off for the evening in a Frankfurt club and made a rare
off-the-cuff guest appearance with a local group, Linus Band.
17
Bern
Festhalle, Switzerland
24
Helsinki, Masshallen, Finland. Earlier in the day a press conference
is held.
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26
Stockholm, Kungliga Tennishallen, Sweden.
After
the show, pursued by a persistent Swedish reporter, Bowie made his
infamous and ill-fated remark about fascism, a remark that Bowie
has since repudiated on many occasions.
'As
I see it I am the only alternative for the premier in England. I
believe Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all,
fascism is really nationalism.'
27
Stockholm,
Kungliga Tennishallen, Sweden.
Bowie
meets the press by Ben Edmonds published in Circus magazine.
28
Gothenburg, Sweden
29
Copenhagen,
Falkoner Teatret, Denmark.
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MAY
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2
Bowie
arrives at Victoria Station to a well-publicised return to the UK,
after an absence of over two years, the national press showing particular
interest in him after the political declaration made a few days
earlier in Stockholm.
For
Bowie's
arrival at the station RCA supplied a PA system on the platform
for him to make a speech on arrival. This never actually took place
as the PA had broken down. Bowie left the station after only thirty
seconds waving to excited fans. The
media ran a photograph of Bowie in mid-wave making it appear to
be a Nazi salute. In the furore it created Bowie was furious at
the claim and repeated denied it in subsequent interviews.
4
Wembley,
Empire Pool
Interviewed
earlier that day by Jean Rook for the Daily
Express in his only press interview while on tour.
5-8
Wembley,
Empire Pool
9
The
Man Who Fell to Earth released in the UK.
Review
of a Wembley show ran in the UK Sunday
Times.
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13
Rotterdam,
Ahoy Sports Stadium, Holland
15-18
Paris, Pavillon de Paris, Porte
de Patin
After
the show on 15 May, Bowie and famous transvestite Romy Haag celebrate
the end of a successful world tour at the Alcazar club in Paris.
Haag suggests to Bowie that he should visit Berlin.
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20
ChangesOneBowie
LP released.
Cover
photo by Tom Kelley, famed for the Marilyn Monroe nude calendar
photograph.
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JUNE
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JULY
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AUGUST
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Bowie
family move into the rented cuckoo-clock house near Montreux in
Corsier-sur-Vevey, to relax after the tour. After a short stay there,
Bowie and Iggy Pop leave for the Chateau d'Herouville in France.
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Bowie
and Iggy begin work on Iggy's The Idiot and Low. Sessions
continue throughout July.
9
Suffragette City / Stay single released (RCA). Initial
release in picture sleeve.
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Bowie,
Iggy and the Chateaus studio engineer complete recording of
The Idiot at Musicland studios, Munich. Final mixing done
at Hansa Studios By The Wall, Berlin.
DAVID
BOWIE: An In-Depth Look At The Illusion by Lisa Robinson published
in Hit Parader magazine.
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Stay
/ Word on a Wing single released in the US (RCA).
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SEPTEMBER
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OCTOBER
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Low
sessions
Bowie,
Brian Eno, Tony Visconti, Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis, Ricky Gardener,
George Murray and Roy Young record eight tracks in two and half
weeks at Chateau dHerouville.
Bowie
takes four days out for court proceedings in Paris against his manager
Michael Lippman over his management percentage.
In
Bowies absence Eno prepares groundwork for Warszawa.
Eno
(in 1980) on the recording of Low.
"The
way he worked impressed me a lot. Because it reminds me of me. Hed
go out into the studio to do something, and hed just come
back hopping up and down with joy. And whenever I see someone doing
that I just trust that reaction. It means that they really are surprising
themselves."
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Home
for Bowie in Berlin at this time was a seven-room flat above a car
spares shop, at 155 Hauptstrasse, Schoeneberg.
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The
flat, which was only walking distance from the studios, was in a
very poor area of Berlin, mostly populated by a Turkish community.
Berlin
gives me something I dont get from London or Los Angeles.
-
interview with the Berliner Morgen Post, Bowies last
press interview in Berlin.
Low
sessions
Bowie
and Eno continue recording at Hansa Studios, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.
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NOVEMBER
|
DECEMBER
|
Bowie
interviewed on Australian television show, Countdown.
Bowie
suffers a reported 'coronary' in Berlin. Later reports revealed
a less serious incident. A hospital spokesman at the Berlin British
Military hospital where Bowie was taken said:
"In
the early hours one morning, the hospital received a call from a
lady in some distress saying her British husband had had a heart
attack. Though we dont usually admit non-military personnel,
as an act of mercy we sent out an ambulance to get him. Hed
just overdone things, and was suffering from too much drink. We
ran various tests and proved he hadnt had a coronary."
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Bowie
awarded the US Academy of Science, Fiction, Fantasy And Horrors
Best Actor Of The Year award for The Man Who Fell To Earth.
Christmas
at the rented chalet near Montreux with Angie and Joey.
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