February came and David had locked himself away deep inside Olympic studios. His 1984 theatrical show had been given the "poo-poo", his Ziggy Stardust theatrical show had been abandoned, his Hammersmith Ziggy Stardust motion picture had been neutered, his live Ziggy Stardust album had been hobbled and his 'Pin Ups 2' idea sniggered at.
Nevertheless on February 15th 'Rebel Rebel' was brought out in England. The precursor to an album tentatively titled "A Bunch of Songs I Was Going To Use In My Super Diamond 1984 Show But Now I Can't Do It So I'll Shove Them All On This Album And You Can All Just Stick It You Lousy Dogs". This was later shortened to 'Diamond Dogs'.
The song Diamond Dogs itself starts out with David shouting "THIS AINT ROCK'N'ROLL!!" {audience screaming with joy and rushing the stage} "THIS IS GENOCIDE!!!!" {audience screaming in terror and running for their lives}.
'Diamond Dogs', with its grim prediction of despair and hopelessness, was recieved with despair and hopelessness. Still, when released in May it proved popular along with the 'Rebel Rebel' single. De Fries wasn't happy though, he ordered David to do another massive tour of the United States, as he obviously wanted David dead.
First David needed a new line up, The Spiders From Mars were long gone, Mick Ronson starting a solo career with 'Love Me Tender' and the others just wandering off someplace.
Mike Garson was on piano again, so an intervention was set up to wean him off. Herbie Flowers was on bass. David had also found a guy called Carlos who could really play a funky guitar. 'He's really really black', said Bowie, 'way blacker than me or Mike'.
The Diamond Dogs tour opened on June 14th in Montreal. It ran a total of 90 minutes and comprised 20 songs. The sets were imaginative and bold, a disintegrating metropolis, "Hunger City", complete with winos, shopping trolleys and urine stench.
The show was tightly choreographed and in it David actually flew, turned water into wine and shot sparks out of his ass. There were the usual thermonuclear explosions, lights and confetti. It started with '1984', 'Rebel Rebel' and 'Moonage Daydream' ended with 'Jean Genie' and 'Rock 'N' Roll Suicide' and had some stuff in the middle also. David used many props such as boxing gloves, mirrors, lamps, a skull and a stapler.
The July 14th and 15th dates at Tower Theatre in Philadelphia were recorded from the back of the venue on a second-hand cassette recorder for a live album.
While RCA were releasing the double album of the live performance, 'David Live', Bowie slipped out the back door but ended up trapped in Sigma Sound Studios. The front door being trickily labelled with a "This Way Out!" sign.
Trapped in there with him were Carlos Alomar, David Sanborne, Andy Newmark and Willie Weeks. After a few moments of awkward smiles, nods and "howdy"s they decided they may as well start working on another album.
David describes the making of the album - 'We were recording all day and all night, by the time we were done we were astonished, we had created the greatest album that had ever been made in all of history. There were these bunch of kids hanging outside the studio day-in day-out, so we invited them in to listen to what we did. They loved it. Then they stole all the tapes. Pricks.'
The album was tentatively titled 'Bloody Kids', but of course it was to go on to be called 'Young Americans', a real departure for David. Then RCA let him out to do some more touring.
New York Times - The Diamond Dogs tour killed my grandchildren! But I still loved it!
Washington Post - Is this guy still gay?
LA Times - I never knew a totalitarian fascist future could be so much fun!
September found David hiding under the coffee table in his Los Angeles apartment. He was then forced to plan another tour, or else 'The Laughing Gnome' would be re-released again.
'David Live' was released in October, tagged to observe it's migratory patterns.
David Bowie's last step in world domination was to have a bona fide US hit record. Though how that would match up to the millitary power of the free world was something of a mystery.