u/FormerlyScarfman

After I read the Marc Spitz biography I figured this would be a nice change of pace, and I am also a percussionist. This is a fun easy read, <300 pages, 11 chapters, and very informal tone like a memoir. It's also very focused in its scope. All but the last two chapters cover Woody's life up to that fateful final Ziggy concert. What's most interesting is that, as far as I know, none of the other books about Bowie are written by a professional musician, let alone one who lived and worked with him. Only someone who was there could write about the atmosphere of Haddon Hall when Bowie's mother would come to visit. The book also contains some exclusive photographs from the author's collection. Woody writes about the stigma of wanting to be a drummer in northern England in the 60's, the rehearsal process for the Spiders, getting acquainted with fame and touring, Bowie's changing behavior in the later tours, and his enduring friendship with Mick and Trevor. As a musician, I found it interesting (though not surprising) reading about how little direction Woody was often given. The instrumental parts to these songs we know so well are the result musical decisions the band had to figure out. If you watched the Beatles docuseries Get Back and enjoyed seeing the song writing process in real time, you will enjoy this book. I'd actually recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story told by someone who was there when it happened.

As I'm very slowly trying to actually read all my Bowie books, I thought I'd share little reviews on them. This one is interesting from the outset because it was published in 2009 during the long hiatus when there were a lot fewer Bowie books out there. Marc Spitz was a music writer for Spin magazine and has written other books on punk music. In this Bowie bio, he often uses the first person and ends several chapters with a brief side story about his own life in relation to Bowie's music. For better or worse, the author's voice is very present throughout the book. This results in a somewhat informal tone, tons of parenthetical statements, and occasionally sentences using up to six commas. I'm no expert, but it seems pretty well researched, owing to many preexisting sources as well as personal interviews by Spitz. While most of the book has a clear and steady narrative tracking his career, in the last few chapters the pacing feels like a sped-up scattershot of things we know Bowie did. This sparseness is probably because it was written without the endpoint of TND and Blackstar. I'm curious to see how other books cover this 21st century period. Overall, it's around 400 pages and an entertaining read by someone who's an unabashed fan.