RCA released 'Young Americans' on February 21st as they had been trapped in Carnegie hall after someone locked the door after a concert. The single shot up the charts and was arrested for reckless use of a firearm.
Just weeks later 'Young Americans' the album was brought out as David had no other flat surface handy to sniff cocaine off.
It was the second single off the album, 'Fame', which finally tipped the scale, at 3 and a half ounces. Co-written, co-performed and co-snorted with John Lennon, it was the single which gave David Bowie his first number 1 in America, as he had been suffering from terrible constipation.
As the album and singles climbed the charts David and De Fries began the delicate procedure of sueing each others asses off. Bowie wanted to set up his own company "Bewlay Brothers" and De Fries wanted to set up his company called "The Bowie Gravy Train".
David moved to New York and started thinking about film and indecent exposure. Director Nick Roeg had seen Bowie in a documentary ('Cracked Actor') on a show called Omnibus aired by the BBC. He told Peter O'Toole, 'I don't like you anymore' and offered Bowie the script. Bowie relates his feelings apon being offered the part:
'I read the script and thought, "Woah! I can show everyone my doodle and not get arrested for it. I've been wanting to flop this thing out for years."'
So he dragged Angie and Zowie off to New Mexico to start filming. In addition to acting in the movie David was supposed to write the soundtrack music, but De Fries had Bowie's testes in a vice-like grip and it's hard to do anything when they are being gripped in such a way. Some of the music apparently written for the movie appeared later on 'Station to Station', released after his testes were freed.
Wouldn't you know it, Deram were at it again. They released the 'Love You Till Tuesday' Album for the 398th time, all of them having different names. This one was given two names, 'Images' or 'Rock Reflections' depending on where you come from. They threw everything they had in there causing David to grind his teeth and murmer obscenities.
Back in New York David got together with his 'Young American' cronies and herded them into the studio. Dennis Davis, Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick were the cronies. He also nabbed Bruce Springsteen's pianist Roy Battin and bass player George Murray. Replacing Tony Visconti in the co-producers chair was Harry Masslin. They spent two and a half months in the studio after which time it truly smelled bad.
With 'Fame' still at number one it was finally time to appear on Cher's TV show. The show was taped in mid October for November 9th transmission, with David singing duets with Cher, snorting come coke with Cher, and generally doing whatever he liked with Cher because he was a bigger star than her now. On the set was David's lawyer Michael Lippman who announced to David that his testes were now free, Cher was delighted.
Bowie announced for the ten thousandth time that he would never ever do a tour again. Then the next day he announced his new big tour. 'It will make me an obscene amount of cocaine', he announced and proceeded to do a little dance and sing 'Who wants to be a millionaire'.
Back in the UK, RCA's re-issue of 'Space Oddity' hit number 1 in the charts, six years after it's original release. Perhaps Kenneth Pitt had been right all along.
Bowie finished off 1975 by smearing black shoe polish over himself and appearing on 'Soul Train' in the States. He sang 'Golden Years' while wearing a t-shirt that said "Don't trust whitey". As a result the single, released on November 17th climbed the R&B charts as well as the top 100.
Black Panther Magazine - The black Bowie is a vast improvement over the white one
Ghetto Soul - I aint be jivin' Ya, dat David be! wassup? shiit man...
The very last thing he did that year was to announce a European tour in an interview with Russell Harty on LWTV. 'Don't forget to wear all your Ziggy makeup and gear', he advised all the kids, sniggering and guffawing. He sent Angie and Zowie to Switzerland because he was getting pretty sick of them.