David Bowie: Living on the Brink [Paperback]

George Tremlett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 1997

How has pop icon David Bowie kept creating new music and fascinating his fans? What does he believe and where did he come from? Are the mercurial changes in his public image an accurate reflection of the inner man, or is he cleverly concealing his real self? Veteran rock journalist George Tremlett knew David Bowie well in his early days and grew close to many of his contemporaries (including Mott the Hoople, Brian Eno, and Peter Frampton). Tremlett delves beneath the images of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Thin White Duke for the intriguing story of media manipulation and financial management, shrewd deals and groundbreaking music.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Despite his long-term access to Bowie and others close to him, British rock journalist Tremlett (Dylan Thomas, 1992, etc.) is stronger in its portrayal of the finances of the rock biz than in profiling one of pop music's most enigmatic figures. Born David Jones in 1947, David Bowie flitted about the mod and hippie fringes of 1960s London until he hit it big in the early '70s as Ziggy Stardust, one of the first of a series of adopted stage personas. By 1973, by dint of canny songwriting and even cannier self-promotion, Bowie was an international sensation who traveled with a huge entourage and embodied the decadent, high-living rock-'n'-roll lifestyle. While Bowie's concert tours and records were raking in huge amounts of money, he was seeing relatively little of it, and his musicians even less. This was perhaps as much the due to his enormous cash outlays for cocaine and limousines as to greedy management. Nevertheless, following the advice of John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and others, Bowie eventually wrested control of the company that ran his career (but as he belatedly learned, was not owned by him) and again reinvented himself, this time as a successful rock burgher, living in Swiss tax exile. Since then, Bowie's new albums have, by turns, been greeted by critics as crassly commercial or myopically self- indulgent. Fans and fellow musicians have been kinder, as evidenced by accolades at his recent 50th-birthday concert. Certainly, Bowie fans will learn a lot in this book: that despite his flamboyant gender-bending reputation, he was, for the most part, a voracious heterosexual; that he was a devoted and intensely private father; that his ability to get into and out of character might have stemmed from a family history of schizophrenia. This sober look at one of pop's most mercurial icons will no doubt send fans scurrying to dust off their Bowie platters and listen to them anew. (photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (June 24, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786704659
• ISBN-13: 978-0786704651
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,335,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best on Bowie, August 11, 2005

By 

Mackinnon "on the move" (Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: David Bowie: Living on the Brink (Paperback)

There are a number of Bowie bios, or "me-and-David-Bowie" volumes around, but few really good. The Brixton-born star has always been careful not to expose his past, and not to turn down rumours; many books about him get stuck in the sensational. Tremlett's book is one of the best, perhaps *the* best Bowie biography I've read, and for a number of reasons.
The writer knew Bowie long before he became a star and did hours of interviews with him around 1970. Years later, at the point when Bowie broke with MainMan, Tremlett became an insider again in a crucial phase. He makes good use of this material to interpret Bowie's winding road from half-esoteric post-hippie and "artist without a niche" to a million-selling teen idol (some of the best pages are about Bowie and his friend/rival Marc Bolan, who in some sense cleared the way for Bowie to become Ziggy Stardust).
While he's clearly an admirer of Bowie's artistic genius and sometimes good sense, he doesn't lose sight of his occcasional ruthlessness and manipulation of the media. He's also enough of a literary man to do some useful interpretation of Bowie's lyrics.

The book is very good on the business side of rock'n'roll. Tremlett goes through the phases of Bowie's career, explains settlements, discusses the incomes, royalties, credits and the sometime lack of a steering hand on the budget. He's also got an excellent sense of the absurdity of rock life, as when Bowie makes the first Ziggy tour of the USA, playing to half-filled venues but living it up like a star - at the command of his manager Tony DeFries, of course. The financial straps were all with the record company, so Bowie and the band had almost no money in their own pockets. By the time they reached L.A. and checked into a top-notch hotel, everyone had learnt the trick: you could get whatever you wnated just as long as you could say "pass it to the RCA". Bowie and trhe guys made limo trips around L.A. rather than going anywhere by bus or cab, because when you're in a limo, you never have to pay in cash.
Some of the material on the MainMan business side is of course from Tony Zanetta's "Stardust" but Tremlett buttresses it with his own analysis. His account of the economy of Bowie's 1980s tours is a bit guesswork but very useful and also shows that he's under no obligations to Bowie.

It should be said that we don't learn much about Bowie in private after the mid-seventies, but this is because the star has wanted it that way. About four fifths of this book deal with the decade 1966-76, and after Bowie has returned to Europe and began his "Berlin" phase - in reality, he made his home in Switzerland already before recording "Low" - he's almost impossible to follow on a private plan; there's no one to ask, and the guy himself gives no in-depth interviews anymore (and in most people's books, the sventies were his classic years). The book takes a nuanced, amused, and sharp look at Bowie's career.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Observations from the "Brink", March 12, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: David Bowie: Living on the Brink (Paperback)

He's a rock chameleon, a musical star who has acquired and shed all sorts of onstage personas -- Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and the Thin White Duke among them. George Tremlett's biography "David Bowie: Living on the Brink" doesn't reveal much that's new, but he does manage to give a new spin to Bowie's story.

Author George Tremlett first encountered David Bowie (born David Jones) in the 1970s, as the talented young musician was blossoming into what would be a long and fruitful career. He chronicles Bowie's troubled family (including a family history of schizophrenia), Bowie being taken under the wing of Kenneth Pitt, his marriage to wild child Angela Bowie, and a colorful career that never failed to fascinate.

Most biographers either trash or glorify the people they are writing about. George Tremlett really does neither. Not for long, anyway. On one hand, he analyzes song lyrics, quibbles on Bowie's sexuality and sometimes makes excuses for dumb stunts. On the other, he is quite willing to chronicle Bowie's flaws -- his sometime insensitivity, coldness and weirdness. Bowie's complexity seems to fascinate Tremlett.

His writing is a hodgepodge of the conversational, the distant and professional, and his own experiences. It's a bit uneven, but it works. Most of the information is gleaned from other books; Tremlett gives it a slightly new outlook, refuting some rumors and questioning others. Thankfully, he does not try to spin up his conversations with Bowie into a friendship, as many rock journalists do.

Those looking for a trashy read will be sated by anecdotes like Bowie's two lovers (one male, one female) arguing over him, and the glitz, seediness and glamour of 1970s London. But Tremlett also covers a side of Bowie that you don't see often: the businessman. He tackles the complicated world of agents, music deals, bestselling records and everything that fills in the gaps. And he makes it clear that Bowie is not just an excellent musician, but a capable businessman as well.

Sometimes conversational, sometimes distant and professional, "David Bowie: Living on the Brink" is a nice solid read about the Man Who Fell To Earth. Recommended for fans of classic rock'n'roll, and Bowie himself.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for Bowie fans, October 6, 2002

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: David Bowie: Living on the Brink (Paperback)

Tremlett recycles the best bits from older, trashier bios, and adds his own, substantial pre-Ziggy interview material. His presentation is clear, concise, and buttressed by a detailed chronology and annotated bibliography, and his record critiques are fair if overly focused on lyrics. There's enough name-dropping and 70's hedonism for smut grazers, and plenty of financial analysis for those interested in rock's corporate machine. But there are weak points: Tremlett runs through the last two decades with no enthusiasm or insider knowledge, there's no index or discography, and the photo section isn't anything special.