Bowie’s London

With the accompanying media frenzy surrounding the return of Bowie and a record-breaking exhibition at the V&A, we thought it was the perfect time to explore Bowie’s London and some of the most important places in Bowie’s history….

40 Stansfield Road, Brixton
Where it all started…. This is the house where Dave Robert Jones was born and where the boy, who would later become Bowie in 1965, spent the first six years of his life.  Just around the corner from the infamous Brixton Academy, the non-descript terraced home would no doubt would cost a fortune to buy today.  Bowie’s cinema usherette mother and Bernardo’s promotions officer father were however wealthy enough to live in the then predominately working class neighbourhood which had yet to go through its recent gentrification.

It was also just around the corner from his school, Stockwell Infants School (Stockwell Road, SW2) where he developed his “reputation for defiance and brawling”. 

As with many families at the time, the Jones’ moved further out of London to Bromley, as the lure of a better life on the fringes of a city proved irresistible to the family.  Bowie, like members of The Who or The Rolling Stones was a product of London’s suburbs and a new generation of families who were slowly unshackling themselves from the austerity of the post-war period.

Denmark Street, central London
Davy Jones would get the train in from Bromley and make his way to the small street behind Tottenham Court Road.  It was here that a range of musicians and hustlers would try and make themselves known to the industry in London’s very own “tin pan alley”.  The teenager would sit for hours sipping coffee at Giaconda Coffee Bar with Marc Bolan and Steve Marriott.In 1964 he was spotted at the coffee shop by a BBC researcher who needed a young person for a TV feature. 

He eventually made it to the Tonight programme for his first TV appearance to discuss the tongue in cheek, ‘Society for the Prevention of Crueltly to Long-haired Men’.

Also on the street was Regent Sound Studios which was where Bowie’s early idol, Brian Jones first recorded as part of the Rolling Stones.  Vintage and Rare Guitars was where many of Bowie’s band members bought guitars.  Number seven Denmark Street housed Bowie’s old agency where he would often bump into fellow artist, Screaming Lord Sutch.

Wardour Street, Soho
The most famous music venue in London, The Marquee gave Bowie the chance to build up his fanbase in 1965.  As a witness at the time suggested, “There’d be six girls at the front, and half a dozen of us queens at the back – hanging on his every move.”  His first band, the Lower Third, played the venue on 8 October 1965.  He also performed on a casual basis with other bands including The High Numbers (who would later become The Who).  In February 1966 Bowie held auditions for his new band The Buzz at the Marquee and in 1967 he played with a band he called The Riot Squad.  David Bowie would play his last regular gig on 3^rd February 1970 to promote his new album Hunky Dory, although he would return in 1973 to film a late night TV special for American channel NBC at the venue.  

“There were a lot of clubs to go to in the Soho scene in the 60’s but the Marquee was top of the list, because musicians did hang out there, pretending to talk business and picking up gigs - but picking up girls mostly. One of my keenest memories of the Marquee in the ‘60’s was having a permanent erection because there were so many fantastic looking girls in there, it was all tourists, especially in summer, all flocking to London to get an R&B star.

My final performance of Ziggy Stardust was at The Marquee. I wanted to go back there because I had so many good memories over the years. We changed the place completely and for 3 days we filmed what became ‘The 1980 Floor Show’. I had The Troggs on with me and then got Marianne Faithfull to duet with me on a version of Sonny & Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’. I dressed Marianne in a nun’s habit with the back cut out and I dressed as the Angel of Death!”  - David Bowie

A few doors away from the Marquee is the Ship pub which is where a young Bowie would meet journalists for interviews between 1967 and 1970.  It was here that he announced to the music media that he was giving up music to become a Buddhist Monk after the commercial flop of his Space Oddity debut.

A few yards further on down the road is St Anne’s Court which is home to Trident Studios.  It was here that Bowie recorded his Space Oddity album, and his mainstream breakthrough, Ziggy Stardust.  

39 Manchester Street
It was at this address that David lived in 1967 and developed his full artistic persona.  From this base he was able to take in influences such as Pollock’s Toy Museum and Manchester Square’s Wallace Collection.  He would return to a flat with Georgian features and bookcases bursting to the seems with books and listen to acetates of the Velvet Underground which had been imported from New York.  In short, it was here he found himself as early Bowie.

23 Heddon Street, Regent Street, London
Possibly the most famous of all Bowie landmarks, this short backstreet, just off Regent Street is already one of central London’s most well-known rock and roll landmarks as it was here that the cover of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was shot.  In the last couple of years a plaque commemorating Ziggy has been unveiled on the street. 

All around this area are Bowie landmarks – it was round the corner that he pronounced to the world that he was gay at 252 Regent Street (see below) – and it was at the Edwardian building which houses LA Fitness where Bowie previewed much of Hunky Dory to a small crowd in the tiny Paris Theatre.

252 Regent Street, London
It was at this address that David Bowie told the world that “I’m gay and I always have been” through an interview for Melody Maker.  The statement which shocked the world in the early 1970s was later “retracted” by Bowie in the 1980s, but it did win him a whole new fanbase.

“Soon he was coming out to me. ‘I’m gay,’ he said, ‘and always have been, even when I was David Jones.’ This sounds now like Daffyd in Little Britain , but it wasn’t comical then. In truth, I felt lucky. He’d almost spilled the beans to Jeremy magazine three years before. Did his admission matter? Well, laws on homosexuality had been reformed only five years previously. After Bowie came le deluge. He had shrewdly calculated the consequences, however. Busting taboos stokes the star-maker machinery. He was also just being honest. Sometimes, even in pop, honesty pays.”

Michael Watts - interviewer with Melody Maker writing in the Guardian in 2006.

Whatever the truth, young people flocked back to the record shops to buy Hunky Dory.  Starman released a few months later in April would be a top ten hit and over the Summer, ‘Changes’ would be a hit in America.  Later that year Ziggy Stardust would be released and included ‘John I’m only Dancing’ which with its homoerotic overtones was seen as too risqué for US release. 

Hammersmith Apollo, Hammersmith
It was here that Bowie dramatically retired Ziggy Stardust on stage on 3 July 1973.  However,  at the time the venue was called Hammersmith Odeon.  Bowie had been touring extensively and plans were mooted for further tours in the US, while Bowie had even mooted the idea of playing China and the USSR.  

However, in the end, on a Summer day in 1973 Bowie retired Ziggy Stardust from live performances (he would later make a one-off come back for NBC TV – see the Wardour Street point above).  The persona had allowed Bowie to thrive and retreat  from the growing madness surrounding him, but it had all became far too much for this ultimately shy and introverted young man from the suburbs of London.  He decided to put an end to his character and to stop performing as Ziggy.

The after party became known as the ‘Last Supper’ and was held at the Café Royal in Regent Street.  Guests included Paul and Linda McCartney, Keith Moon, Lulu, Tony Curtis, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the Goodies, Cat Stevens,Ringo and Maureen Starr, Mick and Bianca Jagger, Jeff Beck, Lou Reed, Barbara Streisland, Ryan O’Neil, Sonny Bono, Elliot Gould, DA Pennebacker and Dr John who played live music all evening.

89 Oakley Street, London
It was at this Chelsea location that David lived between 1973 and 1974.  As a show of solidarity for the miners strike, Bowie is said to have turned his house into a “mine” painting everything, including the TV.  It is also said that this was where Bowie’s wife found him in bed with Mick Jagger.  

Victoria Station, central London
Upon Bowie’s return to the UK after a couple of years ‘in exile’ in the US and Europe, Bowie is said to have given a nazi salute whilst on top of an open-top Mercedes convertible to the thousands of fans who waited for him at Victoria.  Bowie soon added to the controversy by later further discussing his views to the NME.  His interest and flirtation with Nazism was partly a result of cocaine addiction and psychosis and his exploration of his new character, the Thin White Duke.  

Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington
Accompanying the release of Bowie’s The Next Day is the V&A retrospective on his life.  This exhibition has had access to his personal archive and it’s hard to think of another artist whose archive might make as compelling an event!  

The media hysteria surrounding Bowie’s number one album has also added to the sense of excitement around Bowie and helped to turn this exhibition into the fastest selling in V&A history.  

Read more about it on the What’s On guide on our website. 

Thanks to the following sources for their inspiration and help in writing this piece…
The Guardian, The Independent, Scout London, NME, The Marquee Club, Open Culture, 5years.com.