“Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo”

Ziggy had me from the first chord.

I was 12 years old when, I first saw David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. It was on the 4th September 1972 that Ziggy lit up Liverpool’s dreary working class venue the Top Rank. That night changed me forever, what a relief from the brutality and leaden skies of Northern England.

Glam, light, sexual ambiguity and optimism, a whole new vocabulary had entered my life, and it was a wonderful escape from the daily violence of my youth. I now knew there was a place that was better than this and Ziggy took me there.

“There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds”

The early 70’s unleashed a rich tapestry of new and exciting music, including Lou Reed’s “Transformer” and Iggy Pop’s “Raw Power”, and one man seemed to be there to record it all. That man was Mick Rock and his photographs in the form of posters and record sleeves adorned every square inch of my bedroom walls and ceiling.

The series “Rebel Rebel” has been 18 months in the making and it has been a pleasure to work with Mick and to delve into his extensive archives.

Mick, thank you for your trust and friendship.

Thank you, to The Art of Elysium for hosting the first ever showing of “Rebel Rebel”, and much love to Luther Davis master printer extraordinaire.


Russell Young