I recently found an old Rolling Stone interview from 1974 between William S. Burroughs and David Bowie and some befuddled rock journalist who comes off as a total third wheel. At the time that this rock journalist set up the meeting, the two weren’t all too familiar with each other’s work. Bowie had never read Burroughs before the meeting got planned; and he’d only read Nova Express by the time of the encounter. Burroughs, for his part, read Bowie’s lyrics, but had not listened to much of his music.
Nevertheless, as the totally-getting-in-the-way rock-journalist guy tells us, each party was very keen on meeting the other. I’d hazard to guess that the reason may have been, aside from their roles as artists, that both men knew they shared magickal affinities. Burroughs experimented with and utilized magick quite frequently (see the cut-up method, for instance). And according to Peter-R. Koenig’s research, the same goes for Bowie, who was apparently quite heavily into Crowleyan practices as far back as the sixties. But alas, that’s just a guess and it’s your hazard if you choose to entertain it. So do with my hunch what you will.
Anywhats, the interview is quite the read, for what it does and doesn’t say about the two men. The rock star and the writer chat about Bowie’s work, about a civilization crash (nothing new under the sun, eh, Daniel Pinchbeck?), make some pretty ridiculous and possibly racist conjecture about the “soul” of Chinese people, banter about sexual liberation and predict an impending backlash, which has since come to pass if “abstinence education,” virginity vows and the Christian Coalition mean anything, and then–?
The two men talk about Andy Warhol.
And for its brevity, this is the most rabbit-holesque aspect of the conversation because both men seem to say that Warhol wasn’t human. And with years of wacky David Icke cribbings from V behind (and within some of) us, it’s hard for rabbit hole burrowers not to read certain meanings and jump to certain conclusions based on what Bowie and Burroughs say.
Sans drum roll, here it is(emphasis added):
Burroughs: Have you ever met Warhol?
Bowie: Yes, about two years ago I was invited up to The Factory. We got in the lift and went up and when it opened there was a brick wall in front of us. We rapped on the wall and they didn’t believe who we were. So we went back down and back up again till finally they opened the wall and everybody was peering around at each other. That was shortly after the gun incident. I met this man who was the living dead. Yellow in complexion, a wig on that was the wrong colour, little glasses. I extended my hand and the guy retired, so I thought, ‘The guy doesn’t like flesh, obviously he’s reptilian.’ He produced a camera and took a picture of me. And I tried to make small talk with him, and it wasn’t getting anywhere.
But then he saw my shoes. I was wearing a pair of gold-and-yellow shoes, and he says, ‘I adore those shoes, tell me where you got those shoes.’ He then started a whole rap about shoe design and that broke the ice. My yellow shoes broke the ice with Andy Warhol.
I adore what he was doing. I think his importance was very heavy, it’s becoming a big thing to like him now. But Warhol wanted to be cliche, he wanted to be available in Woolworth’s, and be talked about in that glib type of manner. I hear he wants to make real films now, which is very sad because the films he was making were the things that should be happening. I left knowing as little about him as a person as when I went in.
Burroughs: I don’t think that there is any person there. It’s a very alien thing, completely and totally unemotional. He’s really a science fiction character. He’s got a strange green colour.
Bowie: That’s what struck me. He’s the wrong colour, this man is the wrong colour to be a human being. Especially under the stark neon lighting in The Factory. Apparently it is a real experience to behold him in the daylight.
Burroughs: I’ve seen him in all light and still have no idea as to what is going on, except that it is something quite purposeful. It’s not energetic, but quite insidious, completely asexual. His films will be the late-night movies of the future.
Now cue spooky, oogy, 1950’s horror movie music.
Before you take what Bowie and Burroughs say too literally–or too reductionist–keep in mind these are artists and adepts of the mighty metaphor. And as they both say earlier in the interview, they’re both fond of a good lie. Plus, let’s not forget their speculations about the Chinese (once you read the interview, anyway).
Take in all that information and do with it what you will.
To read the full interview, go here.
***
I’m not a prophet or a partisan. I’m just a poet of realities.
Bowie: “…and besides…I’m half Jewish.”
Aloha…
Perhaps it is because I am a child of the 80s, but when ever I see/hear/think of David Bowie, fragments of his smile in _Labyrinth_ dance through my head… Even as that of the Cheshire Cat did for Alice? Thank you for this other window into three very strange individuals.
Great blog–I do look forward to reading more…
Hey, Bono’s Vaporized Ghost. Not sure of the intent of your comment. Please clarify. Don’t wanna make an Ass out of U and Me.
For what it’s worth, I don’t buy into David Icke-brand cosmic scape-goating of lizard people, whether or not he’s using it as code for anti-semitic stupidity.
Here is a little more about Bowie from a 1976 profile that sheds light–or shadow–on the consummate rock magickian:
“Bowie’s contradictions are like Houdini’s underwater cages, self-set traps from which he executes miraculous escapes that work as well as the illusions they create. In fact, Bowie itself is a stage name, adopted 11 years ago by David Jones because it was “the ultimate American knife.” Bowie, he says, “is the medium for a conglomerate of statements and illusions. I have no confidence in David Jones as a public figure.” “The thin white duke” - as depicted in his latest LP - “that’s as close to David Jones as Bowie is ever likely to be onstage,” says Bowie. “Jones has become a real shell. He’s given it all to Bowie.”"
Check it out:
http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/press/70/760906people.htm
One other thought on Burroughs and Bowie’s comments on Andy Warhol: given that it seems they both admire his work, perhaps they were simply doing a bit of unsolicited guerilla marketing on his behalf, adding a little more mystery and magic to Warhol’s image thereby helping increase his art-world influence and art-world sales.
Just a thought. We’ll probably never know.
I remember reading this interview when it first appeared. I’m not sure what the point of the current context is or what contention is being made. At the time, Burroughs was being deified by the RS generation for his place in Beat history and Bowie was in his ascendancy, still very fresh yet not as worldly as he was to become (naturally). Rolling Stone thought it would be “interesting” to have two such iconoclasts in conversation but it turned out to be less than so.
Warhol was always known for his insularity, his pallor, his distance. His work is all about distance. Despite his gayness, he always seemed rather asexual and his Polish Catholic upbringing likely didn’t help. “Reptilian” was a rather accurate descriptive adjective of his persona, especially once he started wearing his horrible platinum wigs.
After he was shot, he became extremely paranoid, who wouldn’t? He started his career and had his initial success as an illustrator of shoe advertising, why wouldn’t he find Bowie’s shoes interesting given how sartorially sharp Bowie has always been? At this point in time, Bowie seems unaware of this historical fact even though he’d already recorded the song “Andy Warhol”.
As highly intelligent artists of that era, both Bowie and Warhol, among many others, were acutely aware of image and extremely deft in their manipulation and the shifting of costumes, roles and approaches to their work
I don’t know what this gobbledegook about magic is in reference to; all three of this artists were highly pragmatic and in full control of their art. There’s nothing “magical” about Burroughs “cut-up” technique, it’s simply a process to help the artist from falling back onto technique and cliche. Brian Eno used it extensively in his own work (see the lyrics to “Baby’s On Fire”) in direct emulation of Burroughs, to whom he was glad to credit. They also experimented with so-called stream-of-consciousness and “automatic” writing too, a different technique entirely.
Again, I don’t know what the speculation here is about, if any. But I get really tired of reading stuff that has no knowledge of historical context or of the rich and varied (and sick, twisted and drug-addled) lives some of these folks led. Bowie and Warhol especially were constant shape-shifters and to try and fix them is to misunderstand what they were about.
What we’ve got here…is…failure to communicate!
Rance, you don’t really know or appreciate the historical context within which the word “magick” is being utilized. But that will teach me to be a bit more specific and explicit and not just assume people get what I’m saying. So thanks for pointing that out.
When you mention that these artists were “extremely deft in their manipulation and shifting of costumes, roles and approaches to their work” and that they were “in full control of their art,” you are basically providing support for what I was saying in my one bit of speculation re: Burroughs and Bowie at the beginning of the piece. They engaged in magick; i.e. manipulation of perceptions, about themselves and about others, as well as perceptions about their work; they also used their work as “tools” of magick in this sense. Magick is about “conscious brain change”, in the terminology of the late Robert Anton Wilson; it’s about learning how to induce, change and control perceptions of the self and the world, for starters. It’s certainly about other things, too, but most folks can grok this much, anyway.
You might wanna read this interview for some background:
http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1815
Alan Moore, the artist and writer interviewed above, is very knowledgeable about the history of magic as it relates to the arts. He is, by the way, completely pragmatic and in control of his art. He’s also into gobbledegook.
Warhol was very much engaged in magick in the sense I’m discussing–given his use of persona and manipulation of perceptions via the media. A lot of what in earlier times was understood and recognized as magic (in a much more sophisticated way than modern-day reductionists give credit for) is now just referred to as p.r. and marketing.
You might check out the book Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, particularly the introduction, by the late Ioan P. Couliano to get a better appreciation of these things. Many artists and scientists for that matter, were practicing “brain change” via trance induction and various techniques for perception manipulation a long side whatever painting, sculpture, writing or scientific experiments they engaged in. Newton was one of these in the scientific sphere.
Really, if you wanna understand what the “gobbledeegook” I’m saying about Bowie’s relationship to magick is, all you needed to do was click the link within the essay and read Koenig’s extensive writing. If you’re not interested in exploring that or have already made up your mind about the matter, then that’s another thing altogether.
I do appreciate the historical context that you present and am thankful that you brought it up. It adds to the conversation. It just wasn’t my focus. See, I simply wanted to highlight a synchronous bit of the conversation that dovetails with some of the more “out there” beliefs/theories that have made the rounds with different rabbit hole tunnelers ‘ (i.e. conspiracy theorists/researchers; analysts of metapolitics). I’m not saying anything about what that bit of “lizard” conversation means, simply pointing it out.
You can do with that what you will.
We are our own best and worst magicians.
Peace.
[...] 16th, 2007 by cadeveo I recently posted regarding an old Rolling Stone interview between David Bowie and William S. Burroughs. In the their dialogue, the two men proclaim Andy Warhol to be “a reptilian,” the kind [...]