Customer Reviews

Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Ya know, you have to take this book with a grain of salt. She is his ex-wife after all. But aside from the occasional "And did I mention this embarrasing sexual problem David has" and the long list of "But look at all the people who wanted to sleep with me!", this was a highly entertaining book. It was well written and witty. Who knows how many of the stories are true, although I have read other Bowie biographies and can confirm from other sources that a good many of them are. Also, it's nice to get the point of view of someone who was so close to it all. Go ahead and read this book. I recommend reading it in conjunction with a very thoroughly researched "Alias David Bowie" or some other such biography in addition. But this really was an enjoyable book. I intend to make several of my friends read it, just for pleasure although they have no particular interest in Bowie. It's just a fun read.

Why do some reviewers care whether Angela Bowie is "bitter?" Does she seem a little bitter? Yes, frequently. Um ... So?

Great stories in this book (my fave involves Led Zeppelin, who come across as average, rather loveable drunks), with an attempt by Bowie to exorcise a demon from a swimming pool running a close second.

A really enjoyable read ... A friend who's met Angela tells me she seemed kind of crazy, but I'd have to say she comes across as a very hurt, somewhat bitter person who also has a few cogent things to say. Take her with a grain of salt.

And all you people working so hard to knock this poor woman ... an average human who probably did indeed have an impact on Bowie's career, in the same way all magical things combine in places and in times to create a special chemistry -- what, are you secretly jealous you didn't marry Bowie or something? Let's hear it for pulling hair. Meow.

Geez

I am a David Bowie fan, and because of that, I became interested in this book. When I read this book, I couldn't put it down. Angela Bowie says it all, from the sweet begining of their relationship to the bitter downfall of their marriage. It's a very funny and twisted tale, but it's very strange. The book is mostly about her rather than David and I thought that was kind of interesting. What is also interesting is the fact that she also mentions other famous names in rock and roll like Mick Jagger, Keith Moon, as well as others. On the other hand, I honestly didn't believe in half of the things she said in this book. So therefore, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves music and gossip. David Bowie fans might also be interested as well. : )

The tell-all autobiographies of disgruntled ex-spouses/paramours are among the most annoying books on the rock world. Angela Bowie's "Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side With David Bowie" aspires to be witty and caustic, but ends up merely sounding bitter, without revealing anything really worth knowing.

Bowie describes how she arrived on the music scene of the 1960s and met the budding singer David Bowie. After a very unconventional relationship, they married (he proposed by asking if she could deal with the fact that "I don't love you"?) into an open, bisexual union. A child, several albums and a drug addiction later, they split.

A gag order was part of the divorce settlement between Angela Bowie and her ex husband; this book was published once the order ran out. Alas, there really isn't anything to justify the order. She is bitter -- nobody could mistake that. But aside from intimate rashes and lack of sexual prowess, she really has nothing too grubby to say about David Bowie. Bowie apparently contents herself with acid-flecked comments whenever she can manage it. There are jilted ladies of the rock world (Marianne Faithfull, Bebe Buell) who handle themselves with decorum, but apparently Bowie doesn't want to.

The problem with Angela Bowie is that, like many paramours of rock stars, she assumes that she's a lot more interesting than she actually is. Her life is detailed, but not terribly interesting. What's worse, there's little contact with the intriguing people in the rock world. There's a spattering of stars like Mick Jagger who make real appearances (okay, we know Mick is a "billy goat" -- next shocking revelation!) and Michael Jackson, and others like Marianne Faithfull and John Lennon are mentioned but never really shown. Even Bowie's own ex-husband (the whole reason people read the book) is a nebulous presence.

Bowie's writing wobbles dangerously, with plenty of rants and flash-forwards, as well as her opinions on the music industry. There's a lot of sex and drugs, but not much rock'n'roll. If you want to hear about the various people who wanted to sleep with both Bowies, Angela will tell you gladly. Same with the gender-bending clothes. Unfortunately, you won't be told nearly so much about his music.

Readers may put down "Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side With David Bowie" wondering why the famed rock star bothered to put a gag order on Angel Bowie. The shock value is ultimately low, and the embittered, self-centered focus gets annoying. Not recommended.

Yes I did love reading this book, and I found it very hard to put it down, but it was not the definitive guide to Mr. Bowie's life that I hoped it would be. I love to read about the musicians that inspire me, and to learn about what was going on in their personal lives when they were making brilliant art, so I thought that by reading a book by someone who was so close to one of my heroes, that she was actually married to him, that it could give me some insights about Mr. Bowie's life, during that time, which other biographies could not. But in the end, I gained more insight into what was going on in Angie's life during their marriage, which was actually quite a separate existence from his life, especially since there were lots of times when they weren't even living in the same place. I guess I shouldn't complain too much because it is a biography about her life as well, but there is often not enough emphasis on what was going on with his life, and the reason for this is because she doesn't seem to know.

I knew that the book probably wouldn't shed any light on his life after the '70s, since him and Angie were divorced by then, but I was surprised by the fact that it hardly gave me any info on his life in the latter half of the '70s. If you want to know what was going on in Bowie's personal life while he was making such innovative albums as Station To Station, Low, Heroes, and Lodger, you are not going to learn it here. She breezes through the mid-late '70s rather quickly, and it seems as if during that time she barely even saw him. Their divorce was finalized in 1980, but their marriage was over long before that. But just because there isn't much insight given into David's personal life during the latter half of the '70s, doesn't mean the reader doesn't learn anything at all about what was going on behind closed doors in his life. Angie does give some good info about him during the late '60s and early '70s, but even when she was spending lots of time with him, like she was during that era, she often felt like a detached observer of his life, much like the reader of this book does.

I guess this review is turning out more negative than I intended it to be, but that doesn't mean I don't recommend the book to other Bowie fans, because I do. Like I mentioned earlier, it is a hard book to put down, especially if you like reading about someone who leads a debaucherous lifestyle, and Angie certainly did. It is widely known that Angie and David had an open marriage, and that both of them lived a swinger lifestyle during the '70s. Angie does believe that David was bisexual, at least during that time, despite the fact that since then it has been argued that he never actually was bisexual, and she claims that she was and still is bisexual herself. So because of the open marriage and her bisexuality, explicit sex plays a large part in this book, and it certainly can get steamy. There is all the sex you could want, as well as drugs and Rock 'N Roll, including lots of Rock Star gossip, in general, not just gossip about David Bowie. If you like reading such gossip, then you will definitely enjoy all the namedropping she does, as well as the little tangents that she goes on about experiences she had with famous musicians like: Lou Reed, Keith Moon of The Who, Mick Jagger, Led Zepplin, Elton John, and others. Surprisingly, there wasn't anything to learn about Marc Bolan or Iggy Pop though, and I hoped there would be. One of the drummers of T.Rex is mentioned since Angie had a fling with him, but Bolan isn't mentioned at all, and the Stooges are mentioned, since Angie had flings with two of the members, but hardly anything is said about Iggy, and I found it odd that such important figures in David's life would be ignored. There is also no mention of Roxy Music, except for a brief story about how Bryan Ferry crashed on the Bowies' couch after a party once, and no mention of Brian Eno at all, which I guess makes sense since Eno was a profound influence on David's late '70s career, and Angie was pretty much out of the picture by that time. But yeah, this book is definitely not the place to look if you want to learn about how David's Glam Rock contemporaries affected his life, and I think it has to do with the fact that Angie herself was more so interested in meeting, hanging out and/or having sex with Rock Stars whom had been famous since the '60s and/or weren't involved with Glam at all.

Ok, so now you are probably wondering what kind of stuff you will actually learn about David Bowie's personal life if you read the book, since I've told you all the stuff that you won't learn. Well there are some interesting insights into how Bowie's childhood, as well as his family life, has affected him as an adult, or at least the part of his adult life which Angie was involved in. You also learn quite a bit about two of Bowie's early managers, Ken Pitt and Tony DeFries, and how they shaped his career. There is also an interesting cast of characters that the Bowies were spending time with while David was on his way to becoming famous, and you learn how these people affected their lives, as well as his career. You learn about all the things that Angie did to help him become famous, and she claims to have done a lot for his early career, but whether you decide she's giving herself too much credit, is up to you. Like I mentioned before, there is tons of sex in this book, and you learn from Angie whether she thinks David was good in bed. You also learn alot about who they both were having affairs with, although none of them were really surprising to me, especially where David is concerned. I was hoping of learning about a juicy affair he may have had with Iggy Pop, since the movie Velvet Goldmine has one take place between the characters that are based on Pop and Bowie, but if there ever was one, Angie does not mention it at all. She does mention what may have happened in the sheets between David and Mick Jagger though, but I didn't really care for that part, especially since I find the idea of him being with Iggy Pop far more sexy and intriguing.

Another person who I thought I'd learn more about would be Mick Ronson, and you do learn a bit about him early on in the book when David is putting together the Spiders From Mars, and when he first starts playing with them, but after Angie mentions David's sudden breaking up of that band, at that famous Hammersmith Odeon show in 1973, no more is to be heard. The breaking up of the Spiders is not just a turning point for David's career, but it was also a turning point for their marriage, because after that event, Angie's knowledge of what was going on in David's personal life starts to get more and more vague. It is during the time before 1973, that she gives the most insight into David's creative process, and I did find that to be fascinating. You do learn quite a bit about what was going on behind the scenes when The Man Who Sold The World was recorded, and I really enjoyed that part, but she doesn't tell you as much about what circumstances surrounded the recordings of the albums after that. So, if you are looking to find out what inspired Bowie to write every song on an album like The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, don't look here, because she will not tell you. Instead, she gives glimpses of what may have inspired him to do certain creative things during the early '70s, and you do get a peak into how he actually went about writing some of his songs, but the only person who really could tell you what he was thinking when he wrote Suffragette City, for example, would be David himself. And unfortunately he hasn't written an extremely personal biography like this about his own life yet, but I really wish he would hurry up and do that. Then I could have the answers to many of the questions which Angie's book left with me, and get his side of the story on their marriage, which is something I definitely wanted to know about after I finished the book, but until then I will just have to settle with hers. It is a pretty good read to settle with though, and despite the fact that it left me with more questions than it did answers, I still recommend it to other Bowie fans. If you are the kind of fan that wants to know what was going on in his personal life before and during the Ziggy era, then Angie will give you an idea. It may not be the complete picture, but since that cannot be known until David writes his own tell all book, this might just be good enough to tide you over for awhile.

Honestly, after reading this I'm surprised the poor woman didn't permently wrench her shoulder patting herself on the back like this. According to this book, just about every idea that advanced David's career was thanks to Angie. She did all the work, from cooking and sewing, drawing his bath, hiring and firing his managers, booking clubs, etc. Really, whatever did David do? I'm surprised she doesn't take credit for writing the songs and music too. I kept waiting for it, since she takes credit for just about everything else. Okay, I admit I'm not a big fan of Angela Bowie. I'll be up front about that. Her brief appearance backstage in the Ziggy Stardust movie, with her fake British accent and little girl voice irritated me from the start. But I've read other Bowie biographies and wanted to know more about what was happaning in his personal life at the time, and I figured his at-the-time wife would know best, so I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Nope. If that's what you're looking for, find another book. All this one does is tell you what Angie was doing, and frankly, according to the book, it was just about everything. Oh, and did you know that just about every major rock star of the era seems to have wanted to sleep with Angie too? My goodness, when did the poor woman have time to sleep? Frankly, the book is hilarious, but not in the way the author intended. If you want to crack yourself up reading a plethora of self-aggrandization, catty remarks and gossip without any proof besides Angie's opinion, than this is the book for you. I encourage you to read it aloud to your friends and family. I did and we all had a great laugh. But if you are really interested in David Bowie's life, you might want to pick another biography. David just doesn't seem to be in this one much.

Of the many David Bowie biographies out there, this has got to be one of the worst [though there are others that are competing for the title--ie. Alias David Bowie by the Gillmans]. In it his ex-wife--a horror through most of his life--simply bitterly airs all his dirty laundry while inserting many lies inside the mix to produce a very trashy, vulgar product. This work slanders without having any redemptive value. If you read other biographies, you will not only get info into this dark period of his life, but also on his coming out of it and moving on. I cannot stress how low this book has fallen, and have to recommend that it stays on the shelf.

Angela Bowie may be a little bit bitter, as most ex-wives are. Still, I liked her book better than many others written about David Bowie. She is sometimes vulgar, but also very witty and funny. It was a trip just to read about England and America during their days as a young, married couple. Angie was there, so she ought to know. Some of us were too young to see this time period. The song " Golden Years " really does describe her. Angela and Tony Defries did help get David where he is today, since both pushed him when he needed to be. No, I don't think she was some evil bitch. Many times, in this book, she says she will always love him. Yes, I am still a Bowie fan after this book. Diamond Dogs is still my favorite Bowie lp. Until David writes his version, this will serve nicely. Again, 4 stars for her sence of humor.By no means is this book boring.

If you never paid much attention to David Bowie - and I confess I did not - then this kiss and tell by his ex-wife may make trashy reading. She certainly takes you back to the late 60s-early 70s London music scene when creativity seemed to be bursting out all over. Theirs was a sort of marriage of convenience, in this version, with Angie a glorified go-fer, doing anything to promote Bowie's career. She makes him out a cold fish, which is certainly how he looks. Their 'open marriage' meant both were free to dally with whomever they wanted, and she says Bowie dallied with Mick Jagger at least once, gossip that made headlines years back. It seems plausible. This may be the "Angie" in the Stones song, she contends. Bowie's music always left me cold, though a few of his bigger hits have held up. This book is a trippy look back at a time now long gone, though you'll wish you could have at least observed it in full flower.

Made sure Angela couldn't talk for years about their relationship? I've read quite a few books about Bowie, and read this one. If you read interviews from Bowie in the earlier years, you'd see the truth echoed here. He worked pretty hard to be in the spot he is and he is the king of rock- but he had help along the way. Angela offers a candid view of the rock and rol lifestyle of the seventies and the Glam scene then. I've seen the VH1 legends on Bowie and they called her a waitress looking for a green card. How supportive would David had been of it if they told the truth about the woman who was there with him in the beginning and had his child only to be left when David had gotten so strung out on coke? Yes he did come roaring back in the eighties, but David has also said that's the music of his that he hates the most.