David Johansen and David Bowie at Max’s Kansas City, New York City, 1974
Natasha SMOLIANOFF
recalls her encounter with
David Bowie 1976 Spécial
(French 11mins)
David
Bowie
-
1976
Spécial
11min18s
- To mark the passing of "Thin White Duke", David Bowie's last concert tour in Paris on 18 May 1976, , an unusual news story was dedicated to the singer and his androgynous encounter with one of his fans--a certain Natasha SMOLIANOFF, sexagenarian mélomane.
- Natacha recalls her encounter with David Bowie when younger; speaks to the sensitivity of the artist, and the creation of a fan club in her care.
- Natasha and Bowie's Crossed interviews are interspersed with footage of a concert which includes Natacha and many songs, such as "Life on Mars"
- A l'occasion du passage de David BOWIE à Paris ce 18 mai pour le dernier concert de sa tournée "Thin White Duke", le journal télévisé consacré au chanteur un reportage atypique, rencontre entre l'artiste androgyne et l'une de ses fans, une certaine Natacha SMOLIANOFF, sexagénaire mélomane.
- Natacha, interviewée chez elle, évoque sa rencontre avec David BOWIE lorsque celui ci était plus jeune, parle de la sensibilité de l'artiste et de la création du fan club dont elle s'occupe. Les Interviews croisées de Natacha et de David BOWIE alternent avec des images d'un concert du chanteur auquel assiste Natacha (tournage TF1) - Extrait du clip "Life on Mars"- Photos de David BOWIE
They All Hung Out at Max’s
James Wolcott spotlights Max’s Kansas City, the über-hip 60s and 70s nightspot, now recaptured in a book and exhibition.
Like the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent swallowing its own tail in an eternal circle of self-consumption, the cultural imagination of New York continues to feed on its chattier, noisier, messier, more creatively jostling past, the present being too priced out and tamped down. The Algonquin Round Table, the Stork Club, Cedar Tavern, Studio 54—each has been given its permanent wing in the memory museum, and now it’s Max’s Kansas City’s retrospective moment. A restaurant and nightclub on Park Avenue South whose name had little to do with Max and even less to do with Kansas City, this magnet for artists, actors, musicians, poets, and fame moochers was opened in 1965 by Mickey Ruskin, one of those beneficent fairy god-fathers with a light, guiding hand, who seeded a “scene” and then let it flower until a downtown hangout became a star-strewn house party. The mottled glory that was Max’s is a two-part saga. From the mid-60s to the early 70s, it was thronged with painters, sculptors, and Zeus-browed critics, its in-crowd back room becoming the banquet spot for Andy Warhol and his apostles from the Factory. (Warhol’s flagship band, the Velvet Underground, recorded a live album there.) This gave way to the thundering hooves of glitter-rockers such as the New York Dolls in their platform wedges and lipstick pouts, bringing down the curtain on Act I. Max’s closed in 1974 and reopened in 1975 under new management and became the North Pole of the punk/New Wave movement to CBGB’s southern pole on the Bowery. Complementing Max’s two-part story (the club closed in 1981) is a two-pronged commemorative celebration this fall of its legacy: a lavishly illustrated coffee-table keepsake published by Abrams Image (with words by, among others, Lou Reed and Danny Fields) and a corresponding art exhibition at New York’s Steven Kasher Gallery featuring vintage photos, paintings, and big-ass sculptures. Prepare to get Max-ed out!David Bowie Spécial 1976 (11 mins. French)
