Spider from Mars: My Life With Bowie

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A phone call from David Bowie changed Woody Woodmansey’s life. Turning down a well-paid factory job, the twenty-year-old drummer from Driffield took a huge leap of faith and joined Bowie’s band, embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. There are a lot of funny stories in this memoir too – the way the band felt when Bowie first suggested some of the more outrageous stage outfits is amusing. The ways they would wind each other up in the early days just shows how for a time they were just normal young men in a band trying to make it big. There is a real warmth in the way Woodmansey tells his story. David Bowie aka Ziggy Stardust was that man and this is the biography of one of his band members. The last Spider from Mars still standing. Woody Woodmansey. Woody’s auditions for Dexy’s Midnight Runners amongst others made for fascinating reading as was his experiences of playing for Art Garfunkel, Edgar Winter and other diverse names. It’s a lively, often entertaining read and Woody has some wonderful anecdotes to tell.

Cann, Kevin (2010). Any Day Now – David Bowie: The London Years: 1947–1974. Croydon, Surrey: Adelita. ISBN 978-0-9552017-7-6. Woody Woodmansey is the last living member of the legendary Spiders from Mars who accompanied Ziggy Stardust in his adventures on the planet Earth. The title of the book "Spider from Mars: My Life with Bowie" by Woody Woodmansey for me was a bit misleading. Yes Mr. Woodmansey was a "Spider from Mars" (the bands amazing drummer) and according to this book he did live in the same house as Me. Bowie there are little and few mentions of interactions with the MAN. Wolk, Douglas (4 November 2016). "How David Bowie Realized Theatrical Dreams on 'The Man Who Sold the World' ". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020 . Retrieved 28 March 2023. David Bowie tribute band remove unvaccinated drummer Woody Woodmansey". NME. 31 January 2022 . Retrieved 3 May 2022.

Martian Drummer unravels web of intrigue

So, anyway, it is all very interesting, the story from his unique perspective on the drum stool. Of course, he spends more time talking about the drums and the beats, but that is his wheelhouse, his area of expertise. That is what I want to hear from him mainly. Woody comes across as a lovely man. He was treated shabbily by Bowie and his manager, being unceremoniously booted out of the band, but the two were reconciled in later life and Woody is simply too nice to bear a grudge. First wave U.S. David Bowie fans will immediately recognize the name Woody Woodmansey as the drummer for The Spiders From Mars. For others that didn’t catch on until The Thin White Duke phase or later, this book is an insider account of Bowie’s earliest success and transformation from an English folk singer into Ziggy Stardust – from conception to fame to final bows. 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.

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. 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. Pegg, Nicholas (2016). The Complete David Bowie (Revised and Updateded.). London: Titan Books. ISBN 978-1-78565-365-0. In May 1978, he became the drummer of the band Screen Idols, who had success with two albums in the UK. Often with these kinds of bios (written not by the star but by one of the lesser members) I am left feeling sorry for the person writing as there is that strangely blind loyalty to a person who, while certainly giving him quite an interesting story to tell, also unceremoniously and cruelly dumped him. I'm not looking for Woody to trash Bowie, but he is damn forgiving of the way things went down. The Dennis Dunaway book about his time in the original Alice Cooper is the same. Both of these guys were very important to the bands they were in, but when the leader decided they were not necessary they were deemed disposable. That's business I guess, but they still continued to look at the world in terms of what David or Alice might think of what they are doing, and would likely be on the next plane if a call were to come to have another shot.I enjoyed this book. As a big fan of the Spiders-era Bowie music it was nice to read some of the stories about Ronno and Trevor Bolder and how things went down in those early days. The book is well written, and reads like a documentary concerning the arc of the bands existence and a complete index to the songs performed and concert locations the book revolves for the most part on Mr. Woodmansey's life as a musician, and the history of events from youth through his musical legacy. Woody did not even like Bowie's music, but he decided to go to London thinking he might regret it after he did not.

And then comes the choice – travel to London to be in Bowie’s band or stay in Driffield and have a normal life. We all know the answer to that one. Woodmansey published his autobiography Spider From Mars: My Life With David Bowie [18] in 2016. It was co-written with author Joel McIver and includes a foreword by Visconti. [19] Discography [ edit ] With David Bowie [ edit ] This book is recommended to all Ziggy Stardust fans and it is a good reminder that behind every great man (and David Bowie was one of the greatest), there are many others who have contributed to his success. It is nice to get to know them as well. If anything, in this day and age, Woodmansey’s life story is a good reminder that it’s worth pursuing our dreams for no other reason that we won’t regret later that we haven't tried. After finishing the book I immediately had to listen to the albums from this period out of the Five Years vinyl boxset to really immerse myself, yet again, in the amazing music of David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars

A sad codicil is that, as Woody is writing Chapter 9, he gets the news that Bowie has died from cancer. In hindsight, it was an audacious move. Bowie could have been Ziggy for the rest of his life but he wouldn’t and couldn’t. He was always moving forward, always changing, never predictable. But not so much fun for the Spiders who had to go and find other work.