The day that David Bowie and I talked about spirituality, God and Ziggy Stardust

There’s a whole back story to Nestor panning David Bowie’s “Sound And Vision” tour and then answering the phone when he called on November 8, 1991.

The Thin White Duke was simply brilliant and charming in this interview with the very green Nestor Aparicio, then the music critic for The Evening Sun in Baltimore. This was the era of Tin Machine.

All part of the 30th Anniversary of The King of Baltimore Sports Radio doing some old school celebrating.

In November 1991, Nestor Aparicio, a former music critic for the Baltimore Sun, interviewed David Bowie for an upcoming Tin Machine show at the Citadel Center in Adams Morgan, DC. Bowie discussed the band’s tour, which included venues ranging from 1,000 to 4,000 capacity, and the band’s growth in fan base. He emphasized the experimental nature of Tin Machine, contrasting it with his previous work. Bowie also touched on the band’s camaraderie, the creative process behind their music, and the spiritual themes in his songs. The interview reflected Bowie’s transition from his solo career to the collaborative effort of Tin Machine.

But as you can see below from the headline on the lower left, Nestor had panned Bowie’s show in July 1990 and The Thin White Duke knew this when he phoned. And then agreed with “the journalist.”

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

David Bowie, Tin Machine, Ziggy Stardust, 1991 interview, Citadel Center, Adams Morgan, heavy metal, tour venues, fan base, musical experimentation, spirituality, songwriting process, band camaraderie, live performances, album cover design

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SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, David Bowie, Operator

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome back wnst chasse in Baltimore and W n s t.net we’re gonna have a little departure here from the usual sports conversation. Many of you may or may not know that back in the 1980s I was the music critic for the Baltimore Sun for about seven years and interviewed many, many rock stars couple 100 interviews, and I have all of them on little mini micro cassettes that I’ve digitized when my wife was ill, battling cancer, back in October, November, I took a couple of months and just put it all into digital format. And on Monday morning, I woke up and literally over my cup of coffee, the first thing I saw after all the football was that David Bowie died on Monday morning or into the night on Sunday night. And back in 1991 I interviewed David Bowie. First off, I’m a huge David Bowie fan. I probably saw him perform a dozen times through the years. I actually found the review where I had panned his Sound and Vision tour at Meriwether post pavilion in 1990 and in 1991 he was on the road with a heavy metal band. I mean, not heavy metal, but very, very hard rock, sort of German, you know, not Motorhead, but on the road to Motorhead, a band called Tin machine. You may not remember it. They had a song called under the God. And this was, you know, long after Modern Love and let’s dance and Ziggy Stardust and Suffragette City and rebel, rebel and all that good stuff. And I think it’s good stuff. You go back and listen to Tim machine. Tim machine, they made a couple of albums, but this interview was to promote a show at a really rare event you called the Citadel Center, which was an old roller rink in Adams Morgan in DC. It was kind of a, kind of a shady area, to be really honest with you. I remember being a little bit threatening that neighborhood back in 1991 but in november of 1991 David Bowie called me collect, by the way, and we chatted for 20 minutes. And I got to be honest, I’ve never ever gone back and listened to any of these interviews. I recorded them. I’m almost embarrassed by them. It was before I was on the radio. I was very jumpy, very young. I was 22 years old when this interview happened. I may have just turned 23 so I was 23 years old when this interview happened. And it happened a few months before I left the sun and started my radio career. This story appeared in the Baltimore Sun on November 14 of 1991 my first day on the radio was December 13 of 1991 which was a month after Memorial Stadium was closed down in October of 1991 as well. And then, of course, in 92 they began playing at Camden Yards, and my radio career began. So this is literally 25 years ago. 24 and a half years ago, David Bowie called, and I chatted with him, and I got to be honest, there’s so much in this that was better than I thought it would be. I am a little embarrassed. I’m a little red faced anytime I go back and listen to this stuff. It’s kind of like looking at old pictures yourself, but this was a 23 year old version of me talking to David Bowie, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed finding it and listening to it and rip to David Bowie, who was a beautiful man. I wound up the night that I met him, I wound up being invited out for a drink and we had some appetizers in a little cafe in Adams Morgan, and I actually had a chance to chat with him more. He was such an artist. He liked to talk, as you’ll hear in this, and I, you know, for me, being jumpy and can’t get a word in edgewise, I’m a little embarrassed by my tone in it, but I think you’ll appreciate it for what it was, and I think I certainly appreciate it, and it’s something fun for my son to listen to. So I hope you appreciate this. It’s David Bowie tin machine, November, 1991 and this is what it sounded like in all of my embarrassment.

Operator  03:36

Can you take a correct call from David Bowie in the United Kingdom? Sure. Go ahead. Hello. Hello. How are you? Hi, Vanessa.

Nestor Aparicio  03:44

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This is Nestor, great. How are you? How is your tour coming along?

David Bowie  03:50

Absolutely, the only one here that speaks the Queen’s English.

Nestor Aparicio  04:00

What do you speak? Indeed,

David Bowie  04:01

I’m speaking English. Ease.

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Nestor Aparicio  04:03

English, ease. What kind of venues are you playing over there?

David Bowie  04:09

Everything ranging between 1000 504,000 so they tend from the large club to the tiny arena.

Nestor Aparicio  04:18

So you’re filling these things up pretty

David Bowie  04:21

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well. Okay, great, great.

Nestor Aparicio  04:23

Now, why didn’t you choose to play larger places there as well as here? Because

David Bowie  04:27

I don’t think that this band is well known enough to do that.

Nestor Aparicio  04:31

So you’re not ready to ride on your reputation at all. Not

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David Bowie  04:34

one bit. No, no. I think, I think we’re almost precious about the band in that way. Great. Everybody wanted to grow at its own speed.

Nestor Aparicio  04:43

Now how many, how many fans do you think are coming out specifically to see you? Or how many well

David Bowie  04:48

we’ve been judging by who knows the songs Right exactly? First couple of dates in Milano in Italy, it was sort of like nodding heads. In the first couple of rows and mouthing the words, but now that’s worked its way backwards, because we’ve developed a knot of fans now have got their own vans and things and sleepers, and have been coming around Europe with us, and now we’re up to about 13 rows. I don’t know if they stop at the water, they come over to America, but it might mean we start all over again as of Philadelphia, great. When

Nestor Aparicio  05:23

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did this whole thing come together? Now, I know, you know, the album was out about two and a half years ago. We got

David Bowie  05:29

initially, that was, that was probably the real start point. Was when reson I were working on that thing for ICA. Thank you, Reeves, Institute of Contemporary Arts. You see what I mean back in 89 and what do I mean? Ruth is asking, I see what I mean this. It doesn’t make any sense.

Nestor Aparicio  06:00

Is there a certain camaraderie that goes along with tea? Gonna rock and roll? We

David Bowie  06:03

can’t stand each other? No camaraderie. Camaraderie. My off what Get out of my room. Basically, I am using his room. I only, like, only make my international phone calls in his room

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Nestor Aparicio  06:22

great, but I’m paying the bill anyway. But that gives me the chance to say David Bowie to the operator,

David Bowie  06:30

yeah, sure you are the queen of England,

Nestor Aparicio  06:32

right, right. Well, I’m sure there’s which I usually reply that makes two of us.

David Bowie  06:42

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What were we talking about? Nestor, I think we

Nestor Aparicio  06:44

were talking about camaraderie inside a rock and roll band. Absolutely

David Bowie  06:46

none of the zilch we try and avoid each other at every possible step of the way, even on stage, especially musically,

Nestor Aparicio  06:56

but putting this whole thing together was the whole impetus to be in a rock or band for you. No,

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David Bowie  07:02

no, it wasn’t, I mean, freeze and I had a particular thing going that we liked very much musically. It was, it was quite exciting with stuff that we did for the, what is it, Institute of Contemporary Art. It was, it was a backing piece of music for the dance troupe, la La, la, human stats, la, la, la. Edward lock is a friend of mine, and we were really wanted to have a chance to work together. So I bought in Reeves to do that. And out of that evolved the idea of getting a couple of other guys and starting to put some more sort of extreme, experimentally kind of things together. And it came about that it ended up being hunt and Tony, who I’d worked with in the past. So it was sort of, there was some rapport between us all. Never met them, but and it just evolved in the studio the first, literally over the first week that it became quite obvious that we were definitely a band, and did we want to stay together, really? So it was really the whole thing was an experiment that unwittingly put ourselves into a bad situation.

Nestor Aparicio  08:12

But you never consciously went into this thing thinking, I want a band.

David Bowie  08:17

No, I’ve never done that with anything I’ve done. I mean, most of the best things I’ve ever done was sort of, you know, happy accidents, as ruse would say, it’s sort of stumbled into situations and they turn out to be quite glorious.

Nestor Aparicio  08:30

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Is it kind of nice to be in your position that you’re in where you’re very well known, and you can just not have to think too much about the future. You can sort of go day to day and everything with

David Bowie  08:39

this lot. You kidding me. I’ve got more pressure on me now than I ever had as this other artist.

Nestor Aparicio  08:46

Why do you think that

David Bowie  08:50

is doing Mr. Maker’s language? Can I call you? What are you going to say? He said, There you are. I

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Nestor Aparicio  09:00

don’t even have to interview him now that might come up, and

David Bowie  09:05

we haven’t played yet tonight. Do

Nestor Aparicio  09:12

you really feel pressure? Though?

David Bowie  09:14

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No, the only pressures that we have, it’s a pressure of night tonight. What the actual playing itself? But it’s the most pleasant kind of pressure, you know? You just want to just want to do the best that you possibly can. It’s been done in such a simplistic fashion that we’re not putting the usual kinds of, you know, mega, mega pressures that usually get in touring or rough situations, you know. I mean, there’s no show to think about the same. But I

Nestor Aparicio  09:43

mean, you’ve had success at every level now. I mean, how much, how much pressure is there to make this thing work on a certain way for us, that’s our

David Bowie  09:53

whole premise has been, and it’s what we sort of live for within the band, that we are a success. I mean, the fact that we’ve got the. Albums done and we’re playing our music. That’s the success we were looking for

Nestor Aparicio  10:03

the British crowd, different from the United States crowd,

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David Bowie  10:07

no yet. I mean, we’ve never done this. We just did two gigs in the States. That’s all we’ve ever done. What gigs were they? They were a couple of years ago now, on a promotional thing that we did. We did the Roxy in Los Angeles, we did the world Avenue. I think it is in New York.

Nestor Aparicio  10:27

Why didn’t this thing get going a lot quicker? Why did you go and do the sound and vision? Or do you feel certain need to do that? Yeah, I

David Bowie  10:33

needed to do it. One, because I wanted the money, and two, to stop doing these songs. It seemed a good way of really, sort of tidying up that part of my life. You know, I really, I had no intention of carrying on parroting my own songs, but which is what it ends up being. When you sort of, you know, been doing a song for 20 years, you can’t imbue it with any more enthusiasm. I mean, I don’t care who you are, it’s very hard to really get a committed feel to a song when you’ve done it so many times that you just don’t like you get to a point we don’t like singing the song anymore, right? Is that why you I don’t think you can give people for very long that you are enjoying yourself. So what you end up doing is doing that the shows get bigger and bigger and bigger because you don’t all you are keen on doing is sort of making as much revenue as possible, instead of having musically an interesting life, and I wasn’t going to get into that position. So

Nestor Aparicio  11:26

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you’ve sold those songs for the last time, though. Yes, is that kind of why you rework them in several ways that you were kind of bored with them before? Yeah, I

David Bowie  11:35

think one inevitably does that. And also, I had great trust in Adrian and his perception of my music. And I said, Well, look, Adrian, it’s your band. How would you play them? And I’ll sing them. You call it, and I’ll sing it. You know,

Nestor Aparicio  11:47

I didn’t realize it worked that way. I interviewed Adrian, but he didn’t tell me had as much artistic control

David Bowie  11:53

Blanche on how intended, how he wanted to do it, and the majority of the time, I must say, he wanted to stick with the original arrangements. But obviously he made things different if they suited his band style of playing. I

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Nestor Aparicio  12:04

was just interested in why there was no saxophone and Blue Gene in young Americans waiting to come and see this a lot.

David Bowie  12:11

You’ll get so much saxophone you wish you’d never asked.

Nestor Aparicio  12:15

How many instruments are you playing here?

David Bowie  12:17

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I’m playing saxophone, guitar, keyboard, tuba, violin, cello, third trumpet, right, not to mention the cello, yeah, just just saxophone and alto, baritone sax and guitar.

Nestor Aparicio  12:41

Does that stimulate you to play those instruments? Because you’ve never really had a chance

David Bowie  12:45

to the only band situation that I’ve been in where I’m really sort of, you know, just to kind of screw about with the saxophone. I don’t think anybody’s even seen you pick a guitar up lately. No, right? I mean, I’m thrilled with that side of it. You know, it’s a lot of and on stage. I mean, the whole thing gets very experimental and spontaneous, and it’s not the most comfortable band in the world to watch, because it really sort of takes some chances musically, right? And I guess if you know, if you look at the dance band, we ain’t it,

Nestor Aparicio  13:17

right? Well, I mean, with all the talented people you’ve worked with Alomar and blue and these people. Why not them? Why? Why this group that you put together now? Well, the first Reeves around, you can’t

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David Bowie  13:30

answer that after the end of this show. We’re never, ever going to work together again, because, frankly, I think his claim is a lot to be designed. But on the other hand, I couldn’t, I mean, the reason that we’ve got reason in this band is that both Carlos Anoma wasn’t available from the bathroom.

Nestor Aparicio  13:56

You’re nasty. Thing is you

David Bowie  14:01

want one wants to move on, you know? I mean, I It’s nice to work with guys once or twice, you know. And I’ve worked with Adrian, and I do go back and work with people, you know. I mean, Alamar, I didn’t I work with sometime. Then around the early 80s, we stopped working together, and then I worked with him again during the Middle Ages, and Adrian, I worked with him the first time in 78 and 79 through that period. And then I worked with him again, you know, for the last year or so. And Ronson generally, on all the tours that we do. He always plays Canada with us, because He lives out he was up until short while ago living up in Canada, some would always come and join the last couple of gigs and play and jam on those things. So one, you know you do, it’s kind of, you go back to people again for different kinds of musics and different kinds of fields

Nestor Aparicio  14:53

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and things. Sorry about how you and reason that again, that now, Sarah was a publicist at that crowd. What. Was she your publicist? Because I’ve talked to her before. I know that name actually

David Bowie  15:03

is a hard news journalist. She worked as the Science Monitor, you know, for many years, okay, but

Nestor Aparicio  15:12

what’s your publicist? And

David Bowie  15:14

then she worked for another Boston paper. I’ll have to wait until Reese has finished talking, but I’ll find out he’s talking to somebody. And what happened is that my PR fell ill on one of my tours, on the last tour, and Sarah stepped in. She said, Well, you know, because she knew a mutual friend of mine, both both in Christian scientists. And Sarah came on onto the tour and acted as PR for about three or four weeks to help us out, because she kind of knew the ropes, you know. And she said, and she would read, will come along on occasionally, you know, come to the gigs, and we’d sit around. And frankly, the last thing we ever talked about was music for the painters. And that was glass spider, right? Yes, that’s right, okay? And both reason I went through art school and all that, you know, so we had, we sort of, you know, chatted a lot about art and, you know, a concept, kind of, kind

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Nestor Aparicio  16:10

of, what we’re doing,

David Bowie  16:12

yeah, well, we could throw a few names in, you know, Rauschenberg and Julian Schnapp. How much we both detested Julian Schnabel. And isn’t necessarily saying nobody can paint anymore today, actually,

Nestor Aparicio  16:23

when you’re in DC that doesn’t learn exhibit here in Baltimore. Oh,

David Bowie  16:27

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I know, I know, I’d be reading my books to find out what’s actually happening at the moment, there’s some quite exciting

Nestor Aparicio  16:33

things, yeah. But when you’re when you’re in you ought to take a look at that. But anyway,

David Bowie  16:37

Philadelphia is the Duchamp, of course, in the when

Nestor Aparicio  16:41

you live in Baltimore, you’re on your own little island, you don’t find out what’s what’s happening in the rest of the world. So is it kind of strange for you not to be viewed in the light of the hard rock thing, because you’ve never really done anything this to the right?

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David Bowie  16:57

I mean, the nearest I’ve got to it, I guess that the there were shades of this kind of feel on both scary monsters and heroes. I guess those two albums had some aspects of kind of atmosphere that we produced with this band. But this is truly it has its own place. Definitely, what really very exciting to be,

Nestor Aparicio  17:18

what really made you go in this direction as far as

David Bowie  17:22

I think it’s because it’s music that we all miss hearing on radio, quite rightly pointed out.

Nestor Aparicio  17:36

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And still, are you kind of anger that we found, frankly,

David Bowie  17:39

we kind of expect. Expected it, you know, because, I mean, we knew we were making tough pastries here. It’s not music for getting up and having breakfast too, by any means, right? No, I think, though. But we kind of assumed that as what we like doing best is playing live, because it becomes so improvisational, that what we’re going to be doing really is picking up a word of mouth is indeed what exactly is. What is happening in Europe? Is

Nestor Aparicio  18:07

it a different show every single night? Or, yeah, there is

David Bowie  18:11

no set list at all, and songs will manipulate themselves as usually going then we going, then we jump on. So

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Nestor Aparicio  18:24

where did the writing responsibility for this

David Bowie  18:29

band falls dictate how fast we get there? That’s

Nestor Aparicio  18:34

the job of the rhythm section, isn’t it? Certainly is. Who do the responsibility of the writing fall on in the band?

David Bowie  18:42

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I think pretty much on the first album, it was much between Reeves and I. There was some occasional collaboration from the other two guys, but on this last album, it’s very much a fully collaborative effort. I mean, there’s quite a few tracks in there that all four of us actually wrote, and there’s some whether to spit out between myself and hunt others, where there are three of us or, you know, I mean, it’s various combinations, because we’re feeling so much more at ease with each other. We sort of, you know, really wanting to all put into the park, so to speak.

Nestor Aparicio  19:15

Right, right now the album cover design, let’s go through the songs first up with Betty, wrong, what the world was going on when you first that song?

David Bowie  19:27

I think it was. There was something quirky about the it was a really strange series of chord changes that reads together. And the song that I started, the melody line that my photos writing over the top of it had shades, the kind of Kurt vile kind of thing. Was a Brechtian vile kind of feel to the tune. It was very Germanic in that sort of early late 20s, early 30s kind of style. And I needed a set of images that went with that kind of angst ridden kind of melody. So it. Kind of evolved out of that. Can’t remember where the type, I guess somebody said, Well, not a Betty Wright song. Can you remember why it’s called Betty? Wrong. I wanted to call it Tom Betty, but nobody would find that over the religion or the reason, explaining to me why I wrote it was explaining to hunt the kind of groove it should probably have. Oh yeah, you mean, like a belly, right kind of thing and reason being terminally clever, said no, wrote it down on the Betty wrong. Betty wrong. Remember which piece of music it was? So

Nestor Aparicio  20:54

it’s a piece of irony. That

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David Bowie  20:55

piece of irony suggests kindly the irony lost. The irony. The irony is not lost on him,

Nestor Aparicio  21:08

but, but anyway, are there religious undertones in the in the wording?

David Bowie  21:14

I think so. I think that they couldn’t have that. Couldn’t help that happen. I think spiritual, not religious. I don’t think anybody in the stand is religious, because I think everybody in this band is a certain degree of spirituality. You

Nestor Aparicio  21:28

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don’t touch on that very often in your songs.

David Bowie  21:30

It’s why, no, it occasionally comes up. I think one of the first times I felt very strongly pushed by my search with spirituality was something like word on the wing, on the station to station album, and I’ve touched only occasionally on it, but it’s certainly something that it’s not foreign to me, that particular drive. How often do you think about spiritual life? How often do you think about these kinds of things, very much daily,

Nestor Aparicio  22:01

and does this sort of bother you? In this song sort of shows it or

David Bowie  22:04

No, sanity is quite the reverse. Probably at that time, I think probably the last couple of years I become, I’ve become more committed to my feelings of assuredness, of where I fall spiritually. So today, in fact, I feel quite, quite self assured that I thought, you know, I feel very committed to the idea of God and my place in any plan of his, but not at a Christian level. It’s very hard for me to explain this. I think, Well, I think if I just say that, it’s I’m not a religious person, but I’m a spiritual person, that should probably sum it up. I think

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Nestor Aparicio  22:38

Bono said that. I think Bono said that for us, you stole his quote. I know you did,

David Bowie  22:47

but that’s

Nestor Aparicio  22:50

a European attitude when you sit down the right. Is there a certain mindset that changes from Ziggy Stardust to David Bowie to tin machines.

David Bowie  23:01

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Did you say Bono? Yes, Bono.

Nestor Aparicio  23:05

He said he’s not a religious person, but he’s a very spiritual person. Oh, boy. It must have been somewhere between the unforgettable fire and the Joshua Tree. Sure. I heard it about five years ago. That’s interesting. But anyway, when you sit down to write, is there a different mindset that changes from Ziggy Stardust to David Bowie tin machine? I mean, have you been writing? Have you been writing anywhere, very

David Bowie  23:30

strictly for a character for Ziggy Stardust? I mean, that was definitely a sort of an undertaking to create somebody. I mean, there was no doubt about it. Wasn’t that wasn’t sort of, you know, well, this is me expressing myself, which I think probably, well, I know for sure that this is what the work that I’ve been doing machine is, and there’s no angles on it. Everything that you hear is approx, an approximation of what my particular emotional thing was at the time of writing.

Nestor Aparicio  24:00

Now, when you write songs now you’re writing specifically for Tim machine. You haven’t written anything in the last year or two. That is, that’s right,

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David Bowie  24:07

I really don’t feel any need to write on a solar base. So this thing is, but that doesn’t, obviously, doesn’t rule out my wanting to in the future.

Nestor Aparicio  24:17

So this thing is sort of temporary, but permanent? Or, Oh,

David Bowie  24:21

I think, I think so. I mean, I can quite see the day coming when I would be doing solo work and working within the context of Tim machine as well.

Nestor Aparicio  24:31

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So how, how successful these do you expect this band to become?

David Bowie  24:36

I don’t think we have any expectations whatsoever.

Nestor Aparicio  24:40

So that’s the

David Bowie  24:43

beauty. I think you’ve got to thoroughly enjoy the day in hand. Otherwise it’s you’re devoting energies to the false illusion of, you know, past and future.

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Nestor Aparicio  24:53

All right, last question here, shopping for girls. Where did the inspiration? I know it came from Sarah’s story, but yes. Why write a song about it

David Bowie  25:01

that sounds quite cycling, I guess, because we’d all experience the same thing. Because, I don’t know, I think it was, it was a pretty, I mean, it was a tough conversation that we had over a dinner one night, you know, because we all sort of explored that part of the world and seemed very much the same thing happening throughout. And I guess it got to the point where one of us probably said, you know, I mean, maybe somebody should really, kind of, you know, say something about that. Yeah. I

Nestor Aparicio  25:29

remember seeing a segment on 60 minutes about five years ago about that, yeah, but how they advertise in the American magazines? Oh, yes,

David Bowie  25:36

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I know, quite extraordinary. And you get literally plain loads of executive businessmen who go off on their spree for a weekend. You know, that’s unbelievable. Oh, it is quite incredible. Well, Reeves had a very unsavory job of hiring the children so that he could get them out of the brothel so that they could be interviewed by Sarah. So it was all pretty heavy stuff. They all had horror stories to tell. Oh, yeah, but he can tell you himself.

Nestor Aparicio  26:04

Well, he’ll be calling me very soon, so I’ll

David Bowie  26:06

let you know that in that I’m just gonna put him straight onto you. Oh, you are. He’s zipping up a kit bag at the moment. He’s packing. This is called, in our business, packing, packing. This is called leaving this hotel, but we’re not, we haven’t played yet. Oh, he’s ready. You see, this man is ready. Thank you. And I couldn’t, can’t wait to get out of Newcastle.

Nestor Aparicio  26:29

I hope to see you in Washington next week.

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David Bowie  26:33

We’re very, very excited about coming back to America. Theresa

Nestor Aparicio  26:36

says she’s going to get you to say hello to me. Is

David Bowie  26:39

that a problem? No, absolutely not. That’d be great, disillusioned and quite distorted. Who didn’t come,

Nestor Aparicio  26:47

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I’ll come now. All right, turn up if you like. You miss me a little.

David Bowie  26:55

Thanks, David, nice to talk to you. Nice to talk to you.