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Spider from Mars: My Life with Bowie
by
Woody Woodmansey
320 pages
Published January 3rd 2017 by St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250117615 (ISBN13: 9781250117618)
Edition Language: English
FROM THE BLURB:
Drummer Woody Woodmansey is the last surviving member of Bowie’s band The Spiders from Mars which helped launch his Ziggy Stardust persona and made David Bowie a sensation. In this first memoir to follow Bowie’s passing, Spider from Mars reveals what it was like to be at the white-hot center of a star’s self-creation. With never-before-told stories and never-before-seen photographs, Woodmansey offers details of the album sessions for The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Aladdin Sane: the four albums that made Bowie a cult figure. And, as fame beckoned by eventually consumed Bowie, Woodmansey recalls the wild tours, eccentric characters, and rock ‘n’ roll excess that eventually drove the band apart.
A vivid and unique evocation of a transformative musical era and the enigmatic, visionary musician at the center of it, with a foreword by legendary music producer Tony Visconti and an afterword from Def Leppard's Joe Elliot, Spider from Mars is for everyone who values David Bowie, by one of the people who knew him best.
My ranking: 3.5 rock stars
If you are looking for a book about Bowie, better find another book. This is about the drummer until 1973.
This are the memoirs of Mick 'Woody' Woodmansey, from childhood to 2016. Is the story about a musician from Yorkshire (Driffield) , who knew and knows all the musical scene of UK - since the 60s and the following times. About his love for R&B, for the rock, and all what happen in those times for a post-war child who wants to rebel and follow the pipe dream.
And , oh yeah, he knew Mick Ronson from their time playing for The Rats (1969), and he recommended him to some fellow named Bowie for his band called The Hype.
Woody did not even like Bowie's music, but he decided to go to London thinking he might regret it after he did not. At the time, Woody took his job with Bowie with a grain of salt, leaving behind a job as a foreman who could leave him insured for life, or thought so at the time, for the possibility of becoming a rock star.
It might be difficult to imagine now, but in early 1970 Bowie seemed like a one-hit wonder. His single ‘Space Oddity’, which got to Number 5 in the charts, had come and gone, and the follow-up, ‘The Prettiest Star’, had flopped.
[...] I’d been listening to bands such as Led Zeppelin and Cream over the previous couple of years; Bowie’s influences were obviously completely different. My friends wouldn’t even know who Bowie was if I asked them about him.
