On that day, the 28th, he announced his new 'electric band', Hype. Hype consisted of producer Tony Visconti on bass, John Cambridge, Mick Ronson on guitar and Doug the delivery man on some pretty heavy weed. Doug was soon dropped, no-one knew how he got there in the first place.
Mick Ronson got along with David like a house on fire, prompting him to move into his Beckenham home and use up all the milk.
On March 6th Phillips released 'The Prettiest Star', despite prettiness being a fairly subjective phenomenon. Heated arguments flared over whether it should have been called 'The Star Who is Considered by Many to Be Pretty'. Marc Bolan took lead guitar in this version, Vistonti produced and played bass, while Mick Ronson simply twiddled his thumbs and read a book.
Also in March Decca re-issued 'Love You Till Tuesday', calling it 'The World of David Bowie'. This was to be the first in a yearly re-issuing of this album under a different title each time, catching many Bowie fans in a web of carefully planned deceit. From the album they dropped 'Please Mr Gravedigger' and 'Join the Gang' accidentally breaking them. Replacing them were 'Let Me Sleep Beside You', 'London Boys', 'Karma Man' and 'In The Heat of The Morning'. The album did not go Gold as expected, instead hitting a disappointing Boron.
March 1970 was a really happening time for Bowie. On the 20th he married Angie at the prestigious Bromley Register Office. Angies visa was running out, so they all raced outside to catch it *rimshot*. David - 'I remember the vows we took, "I David Bowie, do hereby take Angie, and any groupie that takes my fancy, and I may wear her dresses. Amen"'
David kept the marriage as quiet as possible, because there were sleeping toddlers in the next room.
David was working on his new album tentatively called 'The Man Who Sold One of My Records', he was also starting to wear dresses and was doing a lot of knitting. His days of mime abuse obviously doing a bit of damage.
On June 26th a tradition of sorts was continued with the release of songs David had already done before. 'Memory of a Free Festival Parts 1 and 2' was a reworking of the 'David Bowie' piece and featured Mick Ronson on guitar, Tony Visconti on bass and Mick Woodmansey on drums.
Happy Music Today - A lovely song, somewhat nostalgic for the 60's
Cranky Music Today - Should have called it, 'Memory of a Free Festering'
David was poor. All the money from 'Space Oddity' had been used to plug holes in his leaky ceiling. Angie and David ate cardboard, and his band Hype were eyeing each other up cannibalistically. His Arts Lab had closed, most probably due to the great mime crackdown on '70.
'Things were pretty desperate. We started to eat our instruments, the curtains, the floorboards and finally the bricks. I was writing songs and giving them to other people to record in return for salt'
One such salt deal resulted in Peter Noone recording 'Oh, You Pretty Things' on April 30th. 'We ate so much salt that night our navels were burning' recalls David.
David originally approached Tony De Fries because his name sounded tasty. Tony then became his new manager, declaring that Ken Pitt was a "Boob". 'I'll get you out of this financial position. I'll make you a star my lad' De Fries declared.
Changes were in the air. The future lay ahead. De Fries had an enormous ambition which impressed David very much. 'When he showed me his ambition I was very impressed. I'd never seen one so big. I'm sure it must have frightened a lot of girls when they saw it'.