Bowie bio is bizarre

Rock journalist fan-boy's random tales entertain if nothing else

‘Five Years.” That’s the title of one of the most iconic songs by pop music avatar David Bowie, and by coincidence, it also indicates the interval since the man known alternately as Ziggy Stardust/Major Tom/Aladdin Sane/The Thin White Duke, et al., slipped off the world’s stage after a health crisis.

With Bowie largely quiet since he underwent bypass surgery in 2004, it’s curious why rock journalist Marc Spitz seized this moment to write Bowie: A Biography. As Spitz himself admits in his introduction: “The idea of beginning a Bowie book during the largest period of silence in his career seemed strange.”

Still, Spitz forged ahead — because he happened to spot Bowie trying to hail a cab in Manhattan one day in 2006. That chance encounter convinced him to take on an assignment that has confounded others, as the many previously published Bowie bios attest.

The event also could serve as a metaphor for this uneven yet entertaining book, which, despite its extensive research, ultimately seems fairly random. Spitz takes a mostly chronological approach, revisiting the way stations of Bowie’s life: his humble beginnings in Brixton, his early days as a folkie/poet/mime, his rise and fall as Ziggy, the ultimate glam rocker, his rebirth in Berlin, his commercial cash-in with “Let’s Dance,” and on to the present day, where the rest is ... silence.

The book purports to be the first bio that “puts David Bowie in perspective.” To that end, Spitz interviewed more than 100 friends, foes, colleagues and commentators (including ubiquitous pop-culture “expert” Camille Paglia). The best assessments come mainly from unlikely suspects, such as ’80s backup singer Joey Arias: “I think [Bowie’s] genius [is that] he works with people and then he gets touched, and all of a sudden, it triggers something in him and he moves on.”

In between the perceptive quotes, there’s not much analysis, unfortunately. Instead, Spitz offers up lots of gossipy details and interesting anecdotes (who knew the Chairman of the Board reportedly befriended Bowie during the recording of “Station to Station”?) After about the 300-page mark, you’ll feel like the protagonist of “Five Years” when he cries out: “My brain felt like a warehouse/It had no room to spare.”

Of course, with his subject being an International Man of Mystery, Spitz secured no new interviews with the artist himself. His Bowie quotes are recycled and lifted from other sources.

Perhaps to help compensate for that absence, Spitz sprinkles in first-person interludes, which he calls “a device to help maintain a workable harmony between the disciplined journalist” and ultimate fan boy. But these passages mostly reveal too much information: “They actually make Bowie coke mirrors. I bought one on eBay UK. But since I don’t do coke anymore, I gave it to a girlfriend as a gift, and she uses it as a compact.”

Wow, as “Starman” Bowie once sang, that’s some crazy cosmic jive.

In between the confessionals and recollections, the book leaves questions unanswered. Will he ever release another album? Is he finished creatively? And in this age of grand illusion, does Bowie still matter?

To the rocker’s devout fans, the answer is of course yes. Spitz’s enthusiasm can’t be denied. His loving the alien — with bold Ziggy-style verve — makes you want to go back and revisit the Main Man’s catalog. The author’s signature line, borrowed from the “Spiders From Mars” album, says it all: To be read at maximum volume.

Laura Emerick is the arts editor for the Sun-Times.