Ziggy Stardust

Hey there Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew is spinning Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie off The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and this one still hits like a cosmic comet crashing into the rock and roll scene. Bowie cooked up the whole Ziggy character as this ultimate messiah rock star, a plastic alien frontman who comes down to Earth in the final five years before everything collapses from lack of resources. He told William S. Burroughs back in a 1974 Rolling Stone chat that Ziggy collects the news and sings it because there's no real news left, and the kids have quit wanting rock and roll since there's no electricity to play it. Then the infinites, these black-hole jumpers, show up and tear him to pieces onstage during Rock and Roll Suicide so they can make themselves real out of his anti-matter bits. It is pure science-fiction theater, half Kabuki, half Velvet Underground energy, a British take on American street heat.

The name itself came from a couple of wild sources. Ziggy popped up when Bowie passed a tailor's shop on the train one day and liked the Iggy Pop ring to it, figuring the whole thing was going to be about clothes anyway. Stardust came from the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, that novelty psychobilly cat on Mercury Records who sang stuff like I Took A Trip In The Gemini Spacecraft. Vince Taylor, a crazy rocker Bowie met in the sixties who threw six-day parties, fed the antics too. Bowie said he wanted to define the archetype messiah rock star, using mime technique and fringe New York music so the Spiders From Mars felt like a British view of that raw American energy. He left Ziggy open-ended on purpose so fans could pour their own stories into him, and that empty vessel is why the character stuck so hard.

In interviews he admitted Ziggy was created out of a certain arrogance when he was young and full of life, calling the whole album a grand kitsch painting. He packaged a totally credible plastic rock and roll singer, way more plastic than the Monkees could ever fabricate, and that was exactly what the scene needed. The song itself paints Ziggy with screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo, making love with his ego until the band starts bitching about crushing his sweet hands. Bowie later said he became Ziggy, the character wouldn't leave him alone for years, and it got dangerous for his sanity. He even told one interviewer he was gay in the middle of the Ziggy run, which was partly true and partly the persona, but it lit up the headlines either way. One quote that sticks is him saying Ziggy is partially autobiographical and partly someone else, the ultimate parasite, a monster and he is Dr. Frankenstein, his brother and he loves him.

All that wild invention started from a regular London kid named David Robert Jones, born in Brixton in January 1947. His half-brother Terry turned him on to modern jazz, beat literature and the occult, which sparked the songwriting. At thirteen he picked up a plastic saxophone after hearing Little Richard's Tutti Frutti and saying it was like he heard God. He formed his first band the Kon-Rads while still in school, then bounced through the King Bees, the Manish Boys and the Lower Third, putting out flop singles and working as a commercial artist on the side. He changed his name to Bowie so nobody would mix him up with Davy Jones of the Monkees, taking the handle from the knife made famous by the American pioneer Jim Bowie. After a brief stretch studying mime with Lindsay Kemp and even a short stay in a Buddhist monastery, he signed with Mercury and dropped Space Oddity in 1969, the track that finally cracked the charts after he saw Kubrick's 2001 and got freaked out in the best way.

By the early seventies he was ready to invent Ziggy full tilt, teaming with Mick Ronson on guitar and the rest of the Spiders to make that album a fractured concept piece about the last band on Earth. The whole ride shows how a suburban kid with a sax and a head full of sci-fi and theater could turn himself into the biggest rock star on the planet by becoming someone else entirely. You can dig deeper into the official story at the David Bowie official website, catch the latest from the team on Facebook, scroll the photos and clips on Instagram, or follow the news on X. Dedicated fans keep the flame alive at places like BowieWonderworld and the detailed song and album pages over at The Bowie Bible, plus active Facebook groups such as David Bowie Fanatics Forever where Zoo Freaks and Bowie heads swap stories and rare finds. If you want more of this freeform rock and roll vibe with deep cuts and artist backstories, tune in with the Zoo Crew over at THE ZOO and keep the freak flag flying.