By January 1972 RCA already had 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars' on tape. Now all they needed was to write, produce and record the songs, as just someone saying "The rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars" wasn't likely to sell well.
On January 22nd Bowie had admitted Michael Watts of Melody Maker that he was gay. Watts had replied, 'no you're not', to which Bowie said 'Yes I am', Watts retorted, 'no you're not', Bowie came back with, 'I'll roger you right now if you like!', to which Watts said 'Go on! I dare you!'.
Watts asked him where his girls dress was. Bowie came back with the famous reply, "Oh dear, this is not a woman's dress, this is Angie's dress". Angie was understandably mortified.
The fleet street press made an enormous deal out of the whole gayness thing.
London Times - MAN ADMITS HE IS GAY!
So, in a raging torrent of publicity Bowie began his tour. On the road with him where his backers from Hunky Dory. Mick Ronson on guitar, Woody Woodmansey on Drums and Trevor Bolder on bass and trumpet. They were known as The Flies from Uranus, then were advised to change that to The Spiders from Mars.
The show was amazing. A cranked up volume, carrot colored mullet, lights and multi-colored jumpsuits were the go. Many patrons suffered siezures, epileptic fits and insanity.
July 8th 1972 can be said to be the beginning of David's superstardom. David prefers to refer to it as his fantabulatucisticstardom. The occasion was the concert at The Royal Festival Hall at the 'Save The Whales' event.
The Times - To hell with the whales! This Bowie guy is great! and gay!
Evening Herald - Lets kill the whales!
The Sun - Shit! I'm deaf!
With the show a great triumph David spent July producing a single for Mott The Hoople, a Bowie composition called 'All The Young Dudes'. It was a great hit for them, which pissed David off no end. He also started work on Lou Reed's album 'Transformer', an album about robots that change shape.
Bowie mania was growing, and it was registered as an offical psychiatric disorder. RCA couldn't hold back any longer, they were bursting. So they finally released 'Ziggy Stardust' to the masses. De Fries even lured the American press over with the promise of a "high falootin' rootin' tootin' good time" (American jargon)
The press agreed that Ziggy Stardust was a sensation. At press events the faces of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Angie and De Fries were always present. David describes meeting Iggy :
"Someone said to me, this is Iggy Pop"
Ziggy Stardust had advance sales of 150,000 in the UK alone. Everything was going according to plan. De Fries smiled a sneaky grin and muttered "Eeexellllent" while drumming his fingers together.
For his ultimate Ziggy Stardust show he brought in Lindsay Kemp, Mr Mime. Lindsay brought in a dance troupe called the astronettes. The concert was to be held at the Rainbow Theatre and included a light show, dry ice, scaffolding, dancing, simulated sex acts, jet planes, hoses, and as a stunning finale the detonation of an atom bomb.
In August, thanks to amphetamines, he finished producing Lou Reeds Transformer.
On September 1st RCS issued David's new single, 'John I'm Only Dancing'. This after his Hunky Dory Single 'Changes/Andy Warhol' in January and all the other stuff. Then left for a massive US tour by which time we must have been well knackered.
He did a host of US cities, Cleveland, Ohio, Memphis, before his crucial date at Carnegie Hall. He loved dried fruit. He also had a concert to perform there. He played 'Ziggy Stardust', 'Hang On', 'Lady Stardust', 'Moonage Daydream', 'Five Years', 'Starman', 'Changes', 'Life On Mars' before Ronson reminded him to for gods sake take a breath and sit down for a bit.
The bass amp blew out.
Teenage heads exploded.
Panties were flying everywhere.
The tour was so successful that De Fries extended it by another eight weeks, to which David said, "Bloody hell..."
David was writing songs while travelling from venue to venue, because he often found he had a spare 3 seconds here and there. He wrote 'Jean Genie' and recorded it on stops througout the US, it was rushed to England and released on November 24th. RCA sent him a telegram - "You'll pop a vein if you're not careful"