A winter Saturday night in Whitley Bay, a clapped out seaside resort on the frozen North East coast of England. Not the most auspicious of places to have a great night out. But I am a local girl, and I know this venue. Arisen from the ashes of 'The Cellar', another great rock and blues club, 'The Dome' has already hosted some class acts, and the booker knows his onions. I knew that if he had booked a Bowie tribute, it would be top notch. I wasn't wrong.
The Gig The room was pleasantly full of expectant punters when I arrived, and we didn’t have long to wait until the band hit the stage. First impressions : Wow, this guy really looks like David! He was wearing a mid-period suit, cut in just that db style around the eye-magnet area (stop sniggering...). The two guitars were look alike long-haired musclemen who knew their way around their instruments, and the drummer was cute and blond, like a member of a boy band.
They opened with Moonage Daydream (which pleased me for a start - you know why), and, even more amazing than the looks, the voice was quite spookily, uncannily accurate! His dancing and mannerisms were extraordinarily faithful copies of David’s and he sustained this, effortlessly, throughout the set.They swung on through Changes, Space Oddity, Jean Genie (of course), Rebel Rebel and Starman. By now, a lot of the audience were up dancing, many singing along. This is the right way to enjoy a tribute band. When was the last time you were able to dance to db live?
After a costume change, John returned in a casual hooded top, and black and white zebra striped trousers (David's current 'GAP' sales assistant look). There was a medley of Dancing In The Street, Golden Years, Fashion and Heroes, they did Life On Mars, Under Pressure, Let’s Dance, a rather lovely acoustic version of The Man Who Sold The World and ended the set with Modern Love.
The audience were very appreciative, and yelled for more.
After a short pause, they returned, this time with John in an authentic looking Ziggy cloak. Of course, it was Ziggy Stardust, followed by Suffragette City! We raised the roof when it came to ‘Wham Bam, Thank You Mam!’ (and I had a little snigger to myself when he sang ‘she’s a Total Blam Blam’) Sometimes when you get wrapped up in the internet and all its joys, its easy to lose sight of the reason you are there....... Nights like this remind me just exactly why I love Bowienet so much!
Afterwards, I asked one of the roadies if John might say a few words for Bowienet. After a few minutes, we were invited into the dressing room. I was expecting to see the same resemblance to db in the dressing room as I had on stage, but actually I wondered for a moment if this was the same man. This says a lot about his acting skills. We chatted for a few minutes, and it was immediately obvious that here was someone who very much admired db, and was interested in talking to the members of his website.
We arranged to talk on the phone (my speciality!) and that he would send me some photographs, tapes and CD’s.
The Interview We talked again a couple of days later and I learned that although John has been approached many times for web-based interviews, he has always declined! So this was to be his first......
I asked him about his first taste of David Bowie’s music. Like many people, he saw David do Starman on TOTP while still a schoolboy. He was immediately enthralled! “He was so beautiful! His voice, his movements, the words. I didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl! Next day at school, my friends said ‘but its a boy! You don’t fancy him do you?’ And I did! I did fancy him, although not in a sexual sense. I was intrigued by his beauty” From then on, John followed db’s career, fascinated by his “androgenous voice” and devouring all his output, new and old. “ I played the album ‘Man Who Sold The World’ again and again.” From this love of music (John Lennon is another big influence) gradually emerged a realisation that writing and performing music was his vocation.
John’s first band was ‘Nouveau Riche’. They were a group of lads from Sutton Coldfield and they had their first rehearsals in the local scout hut! The drummer’s father was the scout leader, and he had to fend off quite a few complaints from the neighbours. Within a very few weeks of getting their first
gigs, singing and playing their own material, Seymour Stein (a former manager of Madonna) flew from the USA to see the band. John (without the band) was signed to Warner Brothers for a large sum in 1980. This was the first of 5 recording contracts. He has made several albums , appeared on TV
and been played on Radio 1. Peter Powell was a particular champion. An early producer was Robin Miller (Sade and Big Country).His voice rises with excitement as he tells me about the moment when, sitting at home with his mum and dad, a call came out of the blue from Tony Visconti in America. Tony told John he loved his material (he had been given a demo tape by Mike Heap, the MD of WA) and invited him to London’s Dean Street for talks. The results of those talks , in 1983, were five Visconti produced tracks. His band were ‘Secret Hearts’, and they had a hit single with ‘Dance like Boy/Dance like Girl’.
He also had a number 1 single in The Lebanon and Israel in 1990 with a cover version of Tom Jones’ Delilah. (!)
I asked him whether he had ever been mistaken for the real David Bowie, and he told me about a visit to Blackpool , many years ago, when he was dressed in a teenage version of ‘Ziggy’ clothes. He was buying a stick of rock when a group of about 6 or 7 girls spotted him, and they were convinced that he was db. They chased him along the promenade for quite a way before he managed to escape. “I don’t know WHAT they would have done to me if they had caught me” he says with amusement. What would the Blackpool regulars have thought of that sight, I wonder?
By 1993, John hadn’t toured for some time, and “I wanted to perform live again. I knew I wouldn’t get enough bookings with my own material and I was hearing about the increasing success of Bjorn Again (Abba) and The Bootleg Beatles. I had always been told that I sounded just like David Bowie, and I thought, why not?”
Jean Genie took off straight away. He decided he would go the whole hog. He dyed his hair, shaved his legs and got a full set of Ziggy costumes. His first gig was at The Marquee in London, strangely on Mick Ronson’s birthday. “I was very nervous”, he says, but the night went off wonderfully well and the bookings have been steady ever since. The band used to concentrate mainly on Ziggy Stardust material, but have since diversified to include all facets of David’s career. “I wish I had time for more of my own work now” he says. He is still working on his own material, writing and recording, in between Jean Genie bookings in the UK and tours of such diverse places as Ireland and the UAE. He also does session work. His own material is interesting and diverse. There are obvious db and Lennon influences, and some soaring, heavy and unusual moments. He says, “Each song is like a painting in my head. I like to work with someone who can interpret that painting. The songs are all recorded by my working partner and myself. (His partner is married to his ex-wife, which he says provides useful tension......) We play all the instruments and do all the vocals. This present work is quite far out. In fact it might be an idea to release it only in Art Galleries, Museums and other places of historical interest”, he laughs.
I was hoping to offer you some audio clips of his current work, but since we started this article, John has signed another recording contract. We should be able to hear it when the album is released.
One of his favourite times was when he was approached to tour with former ‘Spiders From Mars’, Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey. When Trevor first heard him sing he was gobsmacked. He told John that his voice was uncannily like David Bowie’s. They performed on stage together at the Mick Ronson Memorial Concert After Show Party, playing to V.I.P. stars such as Joe Elliott (Def Lepperd), Roger Daltry (The Who) and Roger Taylor (Queen). For this show, he had his hair cut by Sue Fuzzey who, with Angie, cut David’s long hair when he was transformed into Ziggy.
John has also been touring recently, as Ziggy Stardust in the Rock and Roll Theatre show ‘Freak Out’.
He is a well known face on the UK Bowie scene, having headlined the David Bowie Fan Club Convention twice. A fan club convention has to be the acid test for a tribute band. I have talked to some fans about John while writing this article, and they were all VERY complimentary.
He has also appeared on MTV, The Big Breakfast, and GMTV and given many press and radio interviews, including an hour long interview for Talk Radio with Lorraine Kelly. His ‘claim to fame’, he tells me, was ‘meeting Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, when he was invited to appear as Ziggy at the launch of the Apollo 13 video at the London Planetarium.
I asked him about the raw material he uses to add new songs to his set. He listens to new db albums and sometimes watches his videos, but he says “it was in me anyway, right from the early days”. I asked him if he could ‘do’ anyone else, and he says he has had some success as both Frank Spencer and Larry Grayson (we both giggle here), but he gave all that up when “I kept waking up in the mornings not knowing who I was!”
I asked him about his favourite db songs, and he mentioned several. His first loves are Heroes and Width Of A Circle, and he also enjoys performing Life On Mars, Moonage Daydream, Something In The Air and I Can’t Read.
My final question was “Do you have anything you would like to ask David Bowie?” He has given this question quite a lot of thought, and gives me some great answers. A selection follows :-
“David, The lyric to Starman inspired me to buy a watch, so that I always knew what time it was. Has a song ever inspired you to buy something on impulse?”
“I am someone who impersonates you on stage. Have you ever considered the publicity you would get from doing a season with me at Butlins? Or, do you and Iman often go to Butlins for your holidays, and so can’t see any mileage in the concept?”
“Besides myself, who would you most like to work with?”
“You are quoted as saying that you used to cut up words and paste them onto paper to write your lyrics. As you are keen to attract a wider audience for your paintings, might IKEA be interested in a range of wallpaper based on that method?”
“Songs like Starman, Life On Mars, Space Oddity and Moonage Daydream were obviously inspired by the Space Program, and the Moon Landings. Is the fear of a follow up album the reason that NASA have never been back?”
“How much did the Man Who Sold The World get for it?
“I have been covering your records for the last 8 and a half years, David. The least you could do would be to cover one of mine? (laughs) You like to be the first at something new. You would be the first original artist to cover a song written by someone who pays tribute to that artist.”
That last one could be fun David?
John struck me as a very charming, warm and likeable person (Oh, all right, I did, I did fancy him...), who is enthusiastic about his work and his future, takes a perfectionist yet pragmatic attitude to his tribute work, and enjoys what he does very much.
If you would like to see John, he is at Butlins for the whole summer season..... Friday-Bognor Regis, Saturday-Skegness, and Sunday-Minehead.
(images : John as himself, a promo poster for Jean Genie, in a Ziggy Stardust costume, with Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey of The Spiders From Mars, with Buzz Aldrin (the second man on the moon))
:))
spaceface
