Our latest chapter focused on teenage David Bowie as he struggled for fame in the mid '60s. It was a frustrating period for the wannabe rockstar — a time of high hopes and repeated failures as he fronted a string of short-lived bands that followed in the wake of the Beatles and the Stones. David leapfrogged from group to group, hoping he'd find the right one to catapult him to success, but none ever made an impact on the charts. The strongest of Bowie's early bands was a group called the Lower Third. Though they were together for less than a year, they released the best of David's early songs. During his time in the group, David experimented with their setlist, stage presentation, and even makeup. There was also a more important metamorphosis — it was while fronting the Lower Third that David changed his surname from Jones to Bowie. Jordan speaks to Phil Lancaster, David's bandmate and author of the book 'From the Birth of Bowie.' From his vantage point on the Lower Third's drum kit, he watched a legend taking shape.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug, Thanks so much for listening. Our latest chapter focused on teenage David Bowie as he struggled for fame in the mid sixties. It was a frustrating period for the want to be rock star, a time of high hopes and repeated failures. Fans of the film's Spinal Tap could call this his Thamesman era, as he fronted a string of mop top beat bands that followed in the wake of the Beatles and the Stones. Desperate to become the next Mick Jagger, David leap frogged from group to group, hoping he'd find the right one that catapult him to success, but his tenure was always short lived. Something would always go wrong. Auditions were bombed, songs flopped, egos flared. All in all, David quickly realized he wasn't really a group guy. None of his bands in this period ever made an impact on the charts. These days, they're mostly just a footnote in the Bowie story. Names like the Conrads, the King Bees, and the Managed Boys were never destined for the Rock and a Hall of Fame. The strongest of Bowie's early bands was a group called The Lower Third. Though they were together less than a year. They released the best of Bowie's early songs, particularly a thrashy stopper called You've Got a Habit of Leaving Me. It was inspired by the ear splitting proto punk sound of The Who and maybe borrowed a little too liberally one time. The band opened for The Who and Pete Towns that came up to them after and more or less accused David of pinching his sound. Of course, it was all fronting the band that David changed his surname from Jones to Bowie. The first song that ever bore the name Bowie was a Lower Third single called Can't Help Thinking About Me. It was the last release for the Lower Third, but not for both. I was lucky enough to speak with Philip Lancaster, David's band made in the Lower Third. He's written an incredible book called At the Birth of Bowie, which recounts all the backstage fund and drama of being in a band for the future Starman. From his vantage point on the Lower Thirds, drum kid Philip Lancaster watched the legend taking shape. He was gracious enough to share his memories of that exciting time at the Swinging sixties. Well, I guess just to start, tell me how you first linked up with the Lower Third in the first place. Tell me how you got the gig as their drummer. Yeah, okay, So I was already working as a drummer, and I was a musician out in France and Germany working on American basis. You know, a lot of British groups used to tour American bases in Europe in those days, in the sixties, and I needed a job when I came back, and so I applied. Well, either I played posted and aid in the music paper or answered one that's a little bit vague about. And it turned out to be the Lower Third, I said. He said they were looking for a drummer, and I said, what kind of band? I You said, well, we play mostly our own material. Now by that you meant material that was written by David And I said, uh, okay, that sounds good. What then he said, we're very loud. We played very loud, so that also sounds good. Um, kind of raucous, you know, So basically that's how I first got in touch with him. And he said, well, I expected him for me. I expected that I would do an audition. That was the normal thing, and that probably is today, I'm sure. But instead of an audition, she said, you just got to meet our singer. His name's Davy Jones. He was known as Davy Jones then Um and the Gaconda, which is a kind of a hub for all pop rocks musicians in the sixties. It's a little cafe on Denmark Street in London. And so he gave me a time and when I sorry a time and the place, and I went to the cafe and met David there and we just talked. And that's how I got to join the group. And what was your impression of him when you first met him at the at the coffee shop? Mean, what was he like as a guy just to have coffee with? YEA, Well, brilliant because that was really Eric. We we hit it off straight away because um, it's very very personable, very friendly and humorous, lots lots of humor, you know, like likes to laugh, uh and to make to make people laugh and to laugh himself, you know. So we are like that too, So we we got off to a really good start. And you know, he was doing an impersonation. I mean, we ain't just met and he was doing impersonation of Bob Dylan sitting in the cafe with you know, and we were we had this kind of common interesting uh we both loved Jack Tarawact, you know, and everything around that kind of thing, you know, from the kind of forties fifties speach generation. We was totally plugged into that. We found both of us. So, um, the thing went on when I went on from there. We just went on from there. And instead of like saying, okay, well we'll have an audition, he just said, okay, we'll pick you up Saturday for for the next gig. You got the gig right on the spot. Yeah, they never heard me play at all, and picking you up. I guess this leads into my next question. A lot of bands have vans. You had something way better than a van in the lower third. You had an ambulance. Tell me about that. Yeah, I know that's pretty weird. Right, So basically on the Saturday, they can't to pick me up at my parents house where because we're all still young enough to be living at home for the other two guys. The other two guys were too far away from home that to live in gigs, you know. But they picked up and they had this ambulance which they'd only just collected, and the old van they'd had which I never did see it broken down. And Graham, the guy who spoke and expokes me on the phone, the bass player, his father had lent the band about three hundred pounds I think to buy a vehicle. And I don't know who found this ambulance and how it happened, but they just bought this, this old London ambulance with the bell still working and the sign and ambulance on the on the front of it, which was completely illegal. If you ever lead to gigs, did you ever turn this iron on and just zoom a couple of times? A couple of times you put it on? But we actually we were got We did get stopped by the cops quite a lot, not for putting the bell on, but because we just still had the bell visible and the sign and we were once stopped. But motorcycle cop who made us find something to put I don't know what we had sticky paid for or something over the ambulance time before he would let us drive off. The other thing that didn't help either is that Graham, the guy keeps talking about the bass player. He did our driving as well before we ever the road manager, and he used to wear a peaked cap which was very similar to an ambulance man. You know, was that unpurposed to complete the facade? No, I don't think. I don't think it was that. That's the thing. I think it just it just was a coincidence. But we did used to drive through that that I'll jump on a bit now to something you may ask me later, but so all I think of it connected to the ambulance. H When we drove through London. Uh. We used to Dave and I. There's some sort of windows you could slide back high up in it and there's like big windows at the side, all smoked out, smoked glass, and David and I we always rode in the back of the ambulance and the other two guys in the cab in the front, which was a divided area, so even I were always alone in the back. So we got we trying to use ourselves and one of the things we did we used to hang our arms out of the windows as if we were like it was full of wounded. It's pretty sick people. We drive past bus cues, you know, bus lineups and watch people's spaces because we could see out for them and they couldn't see us apart from these arms hanging out, you know, and all the moaning and all the moaning. Yeah, exactly. So that's like a little bit of thing to do with it in an ambulance. I mean, I think for a lot of people in bands, just hanging out in the van or in your case, the ambulance is just sort of the best part that camaraderie, Like how would you amuse yourself aside from you know, pranks on the public, Like what kind of stuff would you talk about when you were driving around to and from? Yeah, well it could be anything and everything, you know. I mean, uh, they said it was that. The other two guys they they were in the original band, because David had only joined that band just before I did. Uh. So there's two other guys. They were badished from way back and lived in the same town in Devon, sorry into big It, pardon intent. So they always rode together in the front um. I mean, we're all we're all baddies, But I mean that just happened that way. And David I sat in the in the big cavernus area at the back. So that we have to amuse ourselves on these long, long, long drives because this thing didn't go that fast, and we took forever up and down the country. So we would amuse ourselves by, uh, well, talking about common interest. But the other thing we do we made used. We did have a period where we made up our own language of complete gobbledy good you know nothing. It just really strange words that we be inspired to use to each other. And we would talk with the inner intonation whether it be make it sound like a question or a statement, and we'd answer each other just the same way. So he'd say something completely incomprehensible, but he was saying in a way that I'd know whether it was a question or statement or he was angry, and I come back in the same way with the same tone, the tone that was appropriate, but with no words that made any sense at all. It was some plea gobbledygook. So that was one thing we used to do. The other thing we do is we tend we were little kids talking to each other and what we'd what we've done and that, and he he used to start it, used to say, I've just been down and down, I'll fell over and praised my knee and then I saw ill just to have a look, and that it would go on like that for a little while. And then the other things we talked about is that what the material we were doing, and that's in the vat It was in the van that he came up with the idea that we would about UM. He said to me, how about we try playing Mars from the Planet Suite hosts Planet Suite. Uh so that started. That idea started in back of the van. So because we used to play our version, you know, Mars from the Planet Suite. Yeah, that's that's not exactly like Daddy roland Stone. That's a that's a that's a unique choice for for you know, a mad R and B group to play in the mid sixties. And how how did he even land on that? Well, because there was a history for him. He loved There was a TV show on UM in the early sixties called the Quate called quator Mass, and it was a science fiction TV show and the theme tune to that that show was Mars from the Planet Suite, and he particularly liked that piece of music from that show. So that's how come it was in his mind. Um, never mind the fact that it takes a thing two full orchestras to play it. There was only like us four and you know, David n harmonica lead guitar, based guitar and drums and we it used to play our version of it though at the Marquee Club and it always went down all right, So I think we we got somewhere, We got some of the tune of it, you know. Uh. That was one thing that came up in the amblets. And the other thing that came up was David suggesting to me, He said, here, listen, why don't we why don't we wear makeup? How was that received? Well? Not well. I was okay with it because I thought he meant, you probably read this in the book, But I thought you meant clown makeup. That was our night, that's our naive I was. I thought you meant clown makeup with a with a ping pong ball on the nose, types in a red nose and a big half moon mouth. And I just slid the little glass window that divided the driving cat from us, and I put my head to and I said, listen, guys, um, Dave's just come up with the idea of what about we wear makeup? And they and ground the bass player was driving. He was much more switched on than me with regard to knowing what David meant. And he knew he meant he you know, when that women's makeup, you know, so he figured that out and I didn't realized that at all, and he, I said, out about we were makeup? So he he just turned around and said, fuck that idea. Vetoed that keeps that killed that straightaway. But the other thing that things like that. And when we were talking about doing Mars, David said, well, look we can get we can get bombs, fireworks and set fireworks off on the side of a straight stage when we to make it really theatrical, you know. So it was already getting on the theatrical kick, you know too, uh to make a show of it. We never did that because you know, you'd never be allowed to do that, uh, you know, on amateur level anyways, start putting fireworks on the stage. I was gonna say, I think I read that your guitarist Dennis Taylor called you the second loudest band in London, and I assume the first B and the Who I bet to the fireworks contributed to that. Well, yeah, it would have been. We might have just beat the Who if we'd have got those guys as well. But we know we were very loud, Yeah, and the Who were the loudest year. Who were some of your influences besides the Who in terms of your music that you were playing, Like, take me through your set list. The music we do other than David's own would be funny enough. We didn't play any Who tunes, That's an odd thing in retrospect to think of. But we played the Kinks stuff written by Ray Davis, The Kinks, a band called the Yardbirds. I think we did one, and by the Pretty Things So band do were successful around us at the time, we did other people's music. In terms of influence, I suppose, really it's hard to think. I suppose you could say we weren't purposely following The Who, but I suppose we would have been subconsciously influenced by them. Is it true that when Pete Townson heard You've got to Have It or leaving me. He thought, wait a minute, that one of my songs. Well yeah, he felt, yeah, he The funny thing is Jordan's. I found Pete Townsend by chance yesterday on YouTube and it just came out about the first time I met David Bass. I thought, well, I know the first time you met David Bowie because I was there. But in fact the story he tail was quite different, like it often is, you know, people's memories very but basically they were we were doing a gig, a regular gig that they were going to be like the Star Attraction, and we were the supporting band. And the afternoon of the gig, we were rehearsing at the ball room where we were going to be appearing, and the whom Us have arrived and Pete Townsend walked into the the hall that we were rehearsing in and we immediately recognized who he was, and when we stopped prinish the number he started stood down by the front of the stage where we were and looked up at David said, who's whose music? Whose tune is that? You know? His stuff? Is that you? He said mine? He said, well, that's the Bloody Shanks. It's just like the stuff I write, and that's the first time as I know, as the first time they met as far as I know, I mean, I sat down and chatted with Pete Townsend after that, but as far as I know, that's the first time you met Dave. But anyway, that's yeah, he did. He saw a similarity in David's writing. Did you notice David improving as a as a writer throughout the time that you were with him, Yeah, I think so. I think just just listening to I mean, there's some demos of stuff that, um, there's never they've never come out there. They should be coming out like sort of you can get them. They're all out there, but not officially, but they will be coming out officially sooner or later. But you can hear, like the difference between some of those demos of the tunes all right, apart from the recording quality, you can hear the level is at with his songwriting in those compared to say You've got to Habit and Baby Loves that way. And then again moving on to the final record we made together, the first one he ever made with the name Bowie, which is kind of thinking about me that again is a bit of a leap in the in in his started writing and there and I don't know if you'd called it the better quality, but anyway, I think he'd moved on a bit when he got to that that song. You mentioned the new name. You were there to borrow the title of your book at the birth of Bowie. Tell me how he came to change his name. Yeah, when it was his own idea. He may have typed with the idea of changing name at some time in his past. I don't know. I've read since, but not that we ever discussed. It came from our manager. The manager decided that there were too many other people in the entertainment business with the name David Jones. Um, there was a there was a black singer we had over, a very very nice singer, an English Johnny Mathis. If you ever remember Johnny Mathis, American, the American singer Johnny Mathis. He was like a version of him. Um, so his name was David Jones. There was also the guy who eventually became the singer in the Monkeys, David Jones. He was, but that at that time wasn't in the Monkeys. He was a Broadway star English guy. So he said, look, there's too many other David Jones, You're going to need to change your name. And he said, also, I don't the name the lower Third. I think it sounds too juvenile. So he said, go away and come, you know, come up with a different name for you, For Dave, David, you come up with a different name, and you know, the rest of you, come up with a different name for the band. So and the next time we all got together, probably for a rehearsal, I would say, the manager was there again and he said, right, what what have you come up with? So David said, I'm going to call myself Bowie. So that just came out like that. It's just like you and I are talking now, really, and I thought, oh, Bowie, that's right, the Bowie Knife and the Alamo, you know, Jim Bowie. That's what I figured. And I came up with a name for the band instead of being the last third. I said, what about we call ourselves the Toys. And the manager said, well, there's already a black American vocal group girl group called the Toys. You can't use that. So that kind of died of death, and that name. We never did change the name from the last third, So mind you, I mean in terms of it being juven I hadn't moved very far from I've gone back. I'd actually gone backwards. So basically we stayed the last Thurson and David became Bowie overnight. So the next record we made was the first one with the name Bowie and the manager of the time was Ralph Horton. How did things change when Ralph Horton took over as your manager? Yeah, well they got a lot more organized. I will give him that. He for one thing, he smartened us up because we were just we're in our regular street clothes before that. For when we were on stage. Um, we would still try and be a little bit different in that way we dressed. But basically he shipped us all off the Carneby Street. If you heard you've heard of Carnaby Street, Oh yeah, Mary Kuant and Lord John and yeah you've got it. Yeah, you've got it. So we all drove down the Carneval Street in the ambulance and he took us into I couldn't name the shops now, but it was probably one of those you mentioned, and he kitted us out in these slacks, these trousers, sort of blue trousers and blue her and bone shirts, and he bought David a jacket tweet jacket, and we had these really strange shoes. You can see them in some of the E M I publicity photos. They're like rope souls with cool dry tops. Are really strange shoes but different, you know, which was the whole idea. And basically we were smartened up by him. And he also started to get us some work because we were working but very sparse, you know. And David and I were always out looking dying around the agencies in Oxford Street and charing Cross Row trying to get work. But this guy at you banished work and he got us signed up to the Marquee Club because they they became our agents. The Marquee Agency became our agents, and so we worked at the Marquee Club every week. It sounds like, at least from what I've read, that that he also sold the seeds of some descent in the group by sort of pushing David further to the front and giving him top billing and even sort of doating on him. I mean, was that did that add some tensions in the group? Yeah? I did. I mean that that That's exactly you've waded it up perfectly basically, we could. It gradually started to change. It didn't happen all at once, but started to change where Um, David would be awful lot of the time with Ralph, you know, um, and in the end it was like he would be traveling separate from us. He would be traveling because Ralph would particularly when we did our gigs down in the South Coast in the summer each weekend m the region, we'd all travel everywhere in the ambulance together. But suddenly because we had Ralph with this Ralph he would drive down there and David would go with him and his jaguar, trading the ambulance for the jaguar. Yeah, not much competition. It's been said that Ralph had strong feelings for David that some would even called romantic. Was that something that the rest of the band picked up on? Yeah, yeah we did. Um, yeah we did. And because it eventually came out that there was something going on between them, you know, which was completely unheard of for us at the time, and so it kind of showed why there was this division guying on gradually. It didn't happened overnight, but gradually there was a division guying on and it was David was off with Ralph quite a lot of the time. It was also, from what I understand, fairly aggressive in his pursuit of women as well as that fair to say, Oh sure, I mean he was you know, I mean, for all intents and purposes, he was heterosexual and was completely and always was forever after from what I now learned, the same as he was when he was with us. Uh. You know, no woman was safe. Really. I don't mean that he would. He would have been charmed itself, you know. So it wasn't you know, he wasn't he wasn't a predator or anything like that. But I mean just girls went for him, you know, So he took advantage, you know what I mean. He was a women girls found him attractive, so he took advantage of it. And in fact, there was a guy, uh who managed another band we used to work with now and again, and he was kind of be mused by David and he said, and I know the gigs we were at with this this guy, this this band, this guy managed. He come out to me said, you know other girls like him, don't you said no, he said, they want to take him home and feed him There's a a very sort of famous audition that the lower third had with the BBC, which is kind kind of gone down into Bowie legend where because you were rejected and the selection panel was really rather vicious to David. They said, you know, an out of tune singer, devoid of personality. Did that rejection sting at all for him? And we? Did he ever seem discouraged around you? Or was he always really supremely confident? Um? I would say it must have, not just a bit, But I don't remember any kind of as we of him being down or of being really down about it. I think he was. Yeah. I think you're right about him being supremely confident. Yeah he was. He was on a mission, if you know what I mean. So that didn't you know, you're by reading that you think, oh, that would have knocked anybody for six But now I don't remember that that it really Claudis at all. We just got on with it. Really. Now, how did the group come to an end? I know there was a great showdown at the Brahmmel Club in David's hometown. He wanted to be the hometown hero, but it didn't quite work out like that. Yeah, well, um, and well, you know he was already you've already gotten onto the way Ralph was kind of he was, I believe he was. You know, he was seeing David as a solo artist really, which is of course absolutely spot on him, right. But of course we didn't see it that way at the time because we were a four piece band who were going to make it as a four piece, So you know, it didn't didn't didn't feel right to us that he was being singled out. But anyway, in retrospect, it was the obvious thing to happen, but not when you're part of it, you know. So basically he started to divide us up. Be devices. Devices is the word I'm looking for. And one of the ways he did that was one Saturday afternoon. We were doing our Saturday gig at the Marquee and we were due to play at the Brummel Club that night, and Ralph said to us, by the way, boys, you won't be getting paid tonight. I mean, we got very little money as it was, to be honest, we was very very low. We had very little money from the market here anywhere else. So anyway, we said, well, what do you mean He said, well, I need the money to play, pay for publicity. So I really felt bad for the two guys I've mentioned from tent because they were um, basically living in the ambulance for that time because they couldn't afford to pay rent anywhere, because well, I mean, we always just sleep in the ambulance a lot, but these guys ended up living in the ambulance, and so I thought that's not good because how are they going to eat, you know, and in mind about paying rent. Whereas David and I went home to our parents. Uh, so we were okay from that point of view. As it turned out, by a complete chance, my father had come to see us that day, um, because it met David. David had been to my house and so on with the other guys, and so he'd come to the to the gig that day. So we told him we've just been told we're not going to get paced. You well, don't put up with that. Tell him if it's no pay, it's no play. So that gave us, that emboldened us, and we kind of decided so that's what would happened. So we we um, we turned up for the gig that night. But again, as I mentioned, David was with Ralph. Hed turned up with Off in his Jaguar and we were in the ambulance. And when we got there and we kind of all got out of our vehicles and could see each other to speak to we said, so, what's happening tonight, Ralpha? You know we we you said if we weren't going to get paid, but we obviously do want to get paid. So said, well, no, you're not going to get paid. So we said, well, if you're not paying, if you're not going to give you get us to give us the money that we're getting paid, we're not going to play. So he just said, okay, that's it then, or no, I'm not going to pay us. So we stid, well, that's it then. So it kind of just completely broke down straight away. That was There was no more negotiation or pleading on either side. So that was it. So we immediately started loading our gearback up, and he wanted some of the equipment that he paid for. Um, we divided that up and that was the end of the band. What what was David doing all of this? Was he trying to to bargain with you or talk to Ralph? Or was he just kind of off to the side, trying to make sense of it. Yeah, yeah, he was off to the side. He was there was there was this is all in a car park, and there was at the edge of the car park there's a little tiny low wall, brick wall. David was walking up and down that, you know, like a child wild walk on the wall with their arms out like a typewrote walker. Yeah. So if you can get that image in your mind, that was David up and down that wall without saying anything. Um, Dennis teacup Reckncy. David was crying, but I didn't see that. Um, he did have a reputation of crying when things went wrong in bands. I've heard since with other bands. If he was leaving one he would get upset, but he always still went and left it. You know. That's that's any what I've heard since in terms of our experience. And I didn't see him cry, but Dennis said he thought he saw him crying. But anyway, so he was just doing that basically, and um, when it was obvious that no, it wasn't going to go any further, I just went up to him, you know, when he got off the wall, and what did a shaky stand, but he wouldn't. He just kind of shied away from that, which was a shame, you know, And that was it. We all just went out of different ways. Did you get to see him again after that? Yeah? I did. Uh. He he got another band together on a completely different footing to the one with the Last Third, because bearing in mind he actually was auditioned and joined the Lower Third as you know, to mean as a singer, it wasn't it wasn't David Jones and he's backing band. It was a band called Lower Third who needed a singer and they took on a guy called David Jones. David being David, he got his name to the front and so it became David Jones in the Last Third. And but he was just he was I mean, he had a huge amount of influence because he had a lot of contacts and his own songs, so you know, he was quite you know, he was like the number one guy. But he was a part of the band. With the next band he he advertised for. They were advertised the advertised for a backing band. So it was quite a distinct relationship between a singer who was the main man and and and a group of guys who were going to back him, you know, And I went up to the Marquee. I used to go to the Marquis still just a network to find another band, you know. And he was up on the stage setting up, and I went up from the stage and we said and shook hands and that was that kind of felt a lot better then. It was a nice way to leave off you. Yeah. Yeah, when did you first realize he'd evolved into sort of David Bowie's superstar? Was it hearing space ardity? I would say Space obviously was a big leap forward for me in terms of my take on him. Uh. Yeah, that was amazement. I heard that. I thought, my god, how does he come up with that? That was that was the big turning point for the way I listened, you know, kind of appreciated him. Is there an enduring memory that you have that sums up your seven months together, like when you think of him, when you think of your time in the lower third, is there just a snapshot that comes to mind? Yeah? I mean it's a good question that because yeah, there were in dearing moments he was it was a kind of really caring guy. Um, he quite my girlfriend at the time he quite liked, which I suppose it goes without saying um, and he would he would kind of, he would kind of fight a corner. It was really much. Job didn't say much for me. Once when we were at the Marquee Club rehearsing where we used to rehearse on the um one of the days we'd used it to rehearse before we did a gig in the night in the evening Friday afternoon probably, and the guy owned it. There was a lot of people used to what you'd call hangers on. People were coming was kind of listening and it got a bit crowded in. The guy I owned it said, come on, everybody who's not supposed to be eager to leave, you know, So he started holding his arms out and corrawling people out. Well again, my girlfriend was standing there because she was always around with us, and as soon as he started to go over to her, day it's not me, mind you, David said, listen, leave her alone. That's our that's our drama's fiance. The guy listened to him, and he went up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek and in a wink to me and I thought were bloody always got me engaged. Here I'm not engaged. So that was like, so he's what I would call his caring side. You know. He also talked about, um, you know, other realms of reality, like something called a fourth dimension. Don't ask me what it was because I can't remember to explain it now. But he was he was very, very charming, very personal, but very determined, you know, very quite a steely approach to his future, you know, and getting on. Yeah, like you said earlier, it sounds like he had a destination that he knew he was heading towards and he was going to get there exactly. And I mean the thing is where when we were breaking up the band and everything else, it seemed, you know, as if it was all it happened on the on the spur of the moment, almost, But in fact I found out since that the manager was already already advertising for some backing musicians to part David from us, to put him in this new situation he and you probably know that the big famous situation when he played the final Ziggy Gig Ziggy Stardust Gig at the Hammersmith Odeon I think it's called, where he announced on stage that it was the that was the last gig of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars The Spiders. The band had no idea that that was happening. Did you know about that one. I had heard a little bit about that, Yeah, adds, I mean, yeah, he's definitely I guess thinking several steps ahead. I guess there's a way to generously put it. Yeah. Yeah, So I think I think we got off a bit lighter than lady to be on stage and get getting getting fired on stage, because that's basically what was happening. Okay, guys, that's it with you. But you know, you've got a massive audience. And and I was talking to the dramma Woody woodman Z, you know those guys. Oh yeah, yeah, I met him when we when we went to a private viewing of the film we were all in called Finding Fame. Well, we were all in that, as you may or may not remember, and we had the BBC put on a private showing that. So all the people or most of the people who are in it, uh came to that, you know. So I met Woody then and I got talking to him and said about the way Dave operated, And I said, well, you know that happened to ask us it, but I think it was worse for you. Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.