ANGIE BOWIE IS IN TOWN... an interview from 2008

So it’s like the early 70’s and there’s this ‘Glam Rock’ thing going on in London. Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars have arrived with an avant-garde entourage. Angie Bowie and their son Zowie have become the alternative family unit. Biba is instated in Kensington High Street and theatrical rock star ‘looks’ have become all the rage. Hard to imagine what it must have been like…

ANGIE BOWIE… I’m hungry that’s what’s the matter with me, lets have some sandwiches, I don’t know about you…

PRINCESS JULIA…Yea, I’ll probably have a nibble… Going back to then, I remember you being integral to, you know, the whole ‘Ziggy’ image and everything, you might not want to go on about it too much but it was such a pivotal moment for me and my comtempories, you were like always in the loop…

ANGIE BOWIE… Yea, thank you… yea I guess I was, I hadn’t really thought about it like that, I guess it was bizarre and it’s pretty true… like with David, David was used to theatre and costumes, where I just didn’t think his choices were accentuated enough… Where as with the boys, in the band, who had never dealt with theatre… What I did was very naughty…

Meeting Angie Bowie is an intense experience, her multi-tasking mind darts from one subject to another, connecting experience and revolutionary thinking with something like an abstract common sense. Her dedication to the subversive/ underground is where circumstance has led her. Angie’s tough inner resolve leads her to question the fringes of society and her place in it.

ANGIE BOWIE… but I’m a naughty person and I’m a Greek Cypriot, I like to get a result without anyone knowing they’ve been maneuvered into doing it. So I just concentrated on the boys until David got pissed, I just made those boys so fabulous, that finally he (David) said ‘What about me?’. So I said, ‘Oh, I thought you were gonna’ handle it all yourself, Oh, you want me to do it, little ole me…! Ok, I don’t know about that! Ok, sit still, watch this.’… You know how it is, you can’t get people to do stuff if they don’t wanna do it.

PRINCESS JULIA… That ‘look’ stands up today.

ANGIE BOWIE… I just couldn’t say anymore, I was like, ‘com on guys, you can’t just go up there in a pair of jeans’

The Bowie’s seemed like the most unconventional couple ever, both bisexual and experimental with image and attitude. In ‘pop’ terms they appealed to a young avant-garde generation willing to take risks. Coming ‘out’ became the norm in the 70’s playground…

PRINCESS JULIA… What was it like? Did you feel like you were in on an amazing movement, which you helped create?

ANGIE BOWIE… I’ll tell you what, I don’t know how to answer the question… What did it feel like, er, hard work that was the most important thing, cause all I did was work. See, I get up really early, so while everyone was sleeping and being musicians, erm, I’m not like that, I’m not interested in that, I’m get up and go… come on!

PRINCESS JULIA… What’s your star sign…?

ANGIE BOWIE… Libra, you want it done, lets do it! Don’t think about it, lets go… So I was always up and on the phone, so by 10 o clock …. Then my day was pretty much done, do you know what I mean? From about 6 to 10 I’m really hot. I’m gonna die soon, we’re all gonna die soon, I got 20 or 30 years left, that’s it babe, I got so much shit to do, I haven’t even begun… I mean, I’ve begun, I think I’ve made a pretty good start. So what it was like? really busy, to answer your question. The shows were very exciting, very glamorous, fulfilling, satisfying, all that good stuff, that moment of watching something come to fruition, seeing them up there looking great, with lights on them unlike bar bands, which was how it was at that time, pretty much … they didn’t use theatrical lighting, that was something I couldn’t tolerate, I couldn’t tolerate anyone talking between songs, there’ll be no one talking between songs, no ones interested in the title of the next song, no one gives a shit! Just do the song…

PRINCESS JULIA… Yes.

ANGIE BOWIE… An’ I got the lights right, an’ it started to look good, an’ I made sure that they looked brilliant, how they were dressed… and as soon as they heard that applause, that different applause, not that polite applause, that hurrrggghhh!!! applause, they shut up an’ did what I told them. So then my life became faster… an’ I could deal with them faster, I didn’t have to trick them into doing stuff, I didn’t have to trick them into putting make-up on.

The end of Angie and Dave’s relationship didn’t end to well. Angie’s role somehow became blurred and she became almost written the Glam Rock legacy. Her first book ‘Back Stage Passes’ was a slightly edited version of events due to a gagging order, her second book ‘Free Spirit’ a little more ‘tell all’ and her notes in ‘Bisexuality’ have become strong reference points. Her latest book ‘Pop Sex’ is soon to be with us and along with a body of music entitled ‘Moon Goddess’ that proves this ‘gal’ hasn’t been idle over the years, she is looking forward to hosting the ‘Outsider Film Festival’ this month. As Angie put it herself ‘The bitch won’t die!’

And here is Angie doing a gig at the 100 Club April 2010!!!!

PRINCESS JULIA… You had the attitude, the look, it was obvious from your pictures… So what are you doing now…have you got a boyfriend?

ANGIE BOWIE… I gotta’ boyfriend, yea he is young, I had to order a young boyfriend, because, oh fuck, old hippies become middle-aged desperados, they’re no use, you know, it doesn’t help because they were hippies. Yea, I have a boyfriend who I met Atlanta. I thought about my two most favorite men, Lee Black Childers who is from Louisville.

PRINCESS JULIA… I know him…

ANGIE BOWIE… I thought you would, I thought about Lee and then I thought about Jayne County. This will make you giggle, I remember Jayne telling me that in the country side all they would do is think about going to Atlanta where they would do what she called ‘wrecking’. They would drive through town screaming out of the window at all the cute boys, ‘wrecking’, causing a ruckus, I think that’s cool...