Music and producer Geoff MacCormack met David Bowie when they were 8-year-olds at a British elementary school. The two shared a life-long friendship, which is part of MacCormack’s new photo book “Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me.” The book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the glam rock singer’s early tours and albums, quiet moments the two shared, as well as the singer’s 1973 tour through the USSR. Some of these photos are now on display at the Wende Museum in Culver City. The exhibit runs through October 22.
The photo memoir pulls its name from Bowie’s 1974 song “Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me,” from his album “Diamond Dogs.” MacCormack co-wrote the track under the alias Warren Peace.
MacCormack tells KCRW that Bowie was serious and thoughtful as a child, and the two lived nearby and had a lot in common, such as American idealism.
“This was the end of the war, so our country was a pretty miserable place, black buildings all over the place, and there wasn't much money. So anything that came from America — for example, I had a cousin who used to send me toys and clothes from Philadelphia, where he lived. And everything was brighter, better. … The whole idea of America … impressed us a lot.”
MacCormack says he became a modernist who was heavily into fashion, like Bowie.
“Our dress sense was considered to be quite effeminate because he was flamboyant. We were the first generation to be free, and have extra money to spend on ourselves, and to buy clothes, and have foreign holidays and have suits made and stuff like this. So it was quite a liberating situation. But then we were the first generation who weren't bossed around by society.”
David Bowie and Geoff MacCormack met as young boys and stayed life-long friends. Credit: ACC Art Books / Courtesy of Geoff MacCormack.
When MacCormack was working at a vintage clothing shop, he found a dress that Bowie ended up wearing on the British cover of his album “The Man Who Sold the World.”
Bowie also wore the dress when he came to North America in 1971. MacCormack followed suit in 1973. They traveled by boat and visited LA, San Francisco, Vancouver, Hawaii, and Japan.
The maritime method of transportation was purposeful too — MacCormack says Bowie didn’t like flying and his management believed it would give him more appeal. “His management thought it was a good idea to make him glamorous and appear everywhere — on boats and limousines and whatever.”
Geoff MacCormack photographs David Bowie as he adjusts his collar. Credit: ACC Art Books / Courtesy of Geoff MacCormack.
Bowie and MacCormack made it to Russia during the Ziggy Stardust days — replete with his alabaster skin and bright red hair. At that point, Bowie wasn’t well-known in the region and they traveled along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
“They had never heard his music and he did an impromptu little show on the boat going to Siberia from Japan, which went down very well. And we had one night where I think he got the guitar out, and we sang to some tourists and a few young Russian soldiers, and drank too much.”
David Bowie sleeps in the morning after a night performing a show on a boat going from Japan to Siberia. Credit: ACC Art Books / Courtesy of Geoff MacCormack.
During the quiet moments of the tour and Bowie wasn’t busy being a public figure, MacCormack says the two found respite in one another, laughing away at everything.
By the end of those three years, MacCormack says he was forced to grow up: “If I would have stayed longer and longer, I may never have grown up.”
He adds, “I appreciated what happened because David told you to do something or asked you to do something, and if anybody else had said it, you'd have said, ‘That was stupid. I can't do that. I'm not a dancer. I'm not a mime artist. I'm not this or that or whatever percussionist.’ But because he said, ‘Okay, could you just go and do that?’ You kind of just did it. And it was a great life lesson.”
Back in England, MacCormack became a successful music producer and still maintained contact with Bowie. They were “friends for life.”
The musician ended up dying in 2016 at age 69 after a battle with liver cancer.
“I think the last time we communicated was a month before he died. So we were sending each other pictures back and forth of people that we had met during our travels and whatever. And it's my feeling he felt nostalgic for the people he had met along the way. And I just thought it was a really lovely thing — to remember the people that you liked and who were in your life.”
David Bowie dons sunglasses as he rests. Credit: ACC Art Books / Courtesy of Geoff MacCormack.