David Bowie Iggy Pop Drug Arrest Mugshot (video with original "China Girl" - Chi Soo)
David Bowie mugshot, Rochester, NY 1976
Four decades after David Bowie’s 1976 arrest with Iggy Pop following a concert in Rochester, NY a never-before-heard account has emerged from the ORIGINALCHINA GIRL.
Chi Wah Soo, 20-years-old at the
time, arrested with Bowie, and blamed for being the NARC
who tipped the cops off about the drugs.
Now 61-years-old, Mrs. Soo spoke for the first time about the night that the mugshot went down.
Filmmaker Matt Ehlers got to know Soo before she
trusted him to tell her story for his forthcoming documentary Bowie Goes To Jail, about the infamous 1976 arrest of David Bowie in Rochester, in the corner suite at the Americana Rochester.
Chi Wah Soo,the 61-year-old Brighton salon owner, was 20 when arrested and jailed for possession of marijuana with the musician after his concert.
At first, people accused her of being the “narc” that blew Bowie to the cops.
“Everyone has the wrong idea of what happened,” Soo told a Rochester reporter days after the arrest. “They can think what they wish, but I know I’m innocent.”
The Times in London also contacted Soo, but she declined comment per her lawyer’s advice.
Silence FOR 40 years.
She regularly shrugged-off shock-jocks, pestering her for lurid details on the anniversaries of the arrest.
Soo’s effervescent personality sparkles in the rough cut Ehlers screened at the Little Theatre last year. Her vivid memories make it feel as though Bowie’s first—and last — Rochester concert happened last night.
“She’s a rock star,”said Ehlers, whose short films have appeared at Sundance.“The interview lasted more than two hours.”
Born in China, Soo moved from Hong Kong to Rochester with her parents and sister when she was 11.
She worked at her father’s restaurant every day after school until 11 p.m.
Soo used lyrics from her favorite music to help learn English. After attending Monroe Community College, she was a Kodak employee when Bowie came to town.
“I was not going to miss it,” Soo said.
She and her friends made sure to get near the stage. Toward the end of the concert, her long black hair tangled among other fans.
Perhaps this drew Bowie’s attention, because he leaned over and handed Soo a bracelet that landed on stage.
“I felt bad,” Soo said about the woman who lost it. “But I wasn’t going to give it back.”
Before she left the show a man gave her a note saying,
“Meet me at my party - David”
When Bowie entered the party, Soo said he seemed to have a “halo around his head.”
“Hello, love,” were his first words to her.
Later, they retreated to his corner suiteat the Americana on State Street(now the Holiday Inn Rochester Downtown) with rocker Iggy Pop and Bowie’s bodyguard.
Two other women joined them — undercover police.
Ehlers’ documentary says police acted on a tip that Bowie had cocaine, and secured the adjacent hotel room.
Using stethoscopes to eavesdrop through the wall(yes, stethoscopes), police heard something unexpected.
Bowie received a phone call saying his young son was very sick and his wife, Angela, could not be found.
“I slowly watched a gentle meltdown of David Bowie,” Soo said.
David Bowie Iggy Pop Coke Bust news footage @BowieGoesToJail @bowiebookpod @bowieww @DavidBowieGlam@davidbowie_news@DBGlamFanzine https://youtu.be/ckVRgW3N9_c and Chi Wah Soo interview (she was there) https://youtu.be/Abft1i6nXS4
Undercover police officer Deborah Kilborn said they only asked her where they could score some.
Nevertheless, police had enough evidence to raid. Soo saw three faces peer into the room when Bowie cracked open the door. It slammed him in the face and knocked him backward.
Since
her first day on the job in October 1976, Keith Richards' housekeeper
Rosemary Velasquez, 64, has mentally and emotionally prepared herself
every single day to find the hard-living Rolling Stones guitarist lying
dead somewhere in his home.
The rock guitarist's longtime housekeeper says she is truly shocked she has not yet checked for a pulse and failed to find one.
WESTON, CT—Since her first day on the job in October 1976, Keith Richards' housekeeper Rosemary Velasquez, 64, has mentally and emotionally prepared herself every single day to find the hard-living Rolling Stones guitarist lying dead somewhere in his home.
"Each morning before I leave for work, I look in the mirror, take a deep breath, and think to myself, 'Rosemary, you could very well find Keith Richards' dead body today," Velasquez told reporters Thursday, adding that from the moment she was first hired by a "nearly comatose" Richards, she began steeling herself for the inevitable discovery of the guitarist's wiry corpse in his bedroom or kitchen. "It's never been a question of if I would find him dead, but where and how soon."
Velasquez said her workday begins as she pulls into Richards' driveway and braces herself for the potential sight of his stark-naked cadaver sprawled out on his front lawn. From there, after gathering her supplies, she takes a quick peek into the backyard, where she fears she will find Richards floating lifelessly face down in his swimming pool.
The housekeeper said that as she goes about her work, she takes a moment to collect herself before opening every door and pulling back each shower curtain. If a door is locked, she noted, she leaves it be and prays it's not locked the next day.
According to Velasquez, anytime she smells an odor other than alcohol or stale cigarette smoke, she immediately imagines a scenario in which the odor gets stronger and stronger, leading her to a closet with a week-old dead body inside.
"In the late '70s, especially, there were a few close calls where I would find little droplets of Mr. Richards' blood leading to his bedroom, and I would tell myself, 'Today is the day,'" Velasquez said. "He'd usually be lying there with a needle sticking out of his arm, but somehow he would always still be breathing. So I would call an ambulance."
"I've had to call 911 at least 30 times since I started working here," she added. "I have to admit, over the years there's been a lot more gunplay around this place than I'd care for."
Besides resigning herself to one day discovering Richards' corpse, the housekeeper of 36 years said she has also remained alert to the possibility of stumbling across the dead bodies of his bandmates and friends. She confirmed there have been several mornings on which she's found a heap of naked bodies in the living room, all belonging to people who were unconscious but not dead.
In addition, during the mid-'80s Velasquez reportedly had to check for Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts' heartbeat so many times she memorized every place on the human body where it is possible to check for a pulse.
"It's a lot of anxiety to go through on a daily basis," she said, mentioning times when she was certain shouting matches between Richards and former girlfriend Anita Pallenberg would lead to the housekeeper finding either Richards, Pallenberg, or both murdered or dead as a result of some bizarre suicide pact. "When I leave each evening, I worry that Mr. Richards will forget he turned the oven on, or that he'll drink too much, or that he'll have a relapse, or that his heart will just stop."
Added Velasquez, "There are just so many ways for this man to die."
Even though Richards is no longer the heavy drug user he once was, Velasquez said the likelihood of finding him dead today is probably about the same as it was in the 1970s.
