Instant glam pornography

En vista de que continúo leyendo Starman: David Bowie The Dinitive Biography (más de mil páginas que se interrumpen por el trabajo y otras cosas que leo al mismo tiempo), un extracto que conjuga tres historias: la creación de Ziggy Stardust, una de las primeras imágenes memorables de Mick Rock y el surgimiento del glam como una fuerza andrógina.


There was one wobble, after the Oxford Town Hall show on 17 June. This was an amazing performance, where Mick Rock – the brilliant photographer who’d joined the MainMan cavalcade at the Birmingham show on 17 March – captured David knelt in front of Mick, his arms grasping Mick’s thighs as he bites at Ronson’s guitar strings with Ronson and the audience transfixed with laughter; instant glam pornography, the ‘guitar fellatio’ shot would be printed as a full-page ad, purchased by Defries, in the next week’s Melody Maker.

There was a flurry of concern from Ronson – not a fear of the reaction of homophobic gangs in Hull, as has been speculated, ‘but because the musicians, Mick and his muso mates, thought bands like Sweet were unbearably naff, manufactured. He was caught in a divide,’ says Dai Davies, who spent hours reassuring the guitarist that the music would be taken seriously, despite such gimmickry. Bowie would later explain that he and Marc Bolan were high glam: conceptual. Brickies in satin, like Sweet, were low glam.