exploremusic

By the end 1976, both David Bowie and Iggy Pop were a mess.  Bowie’s LA-based coke-and-heroin habit had literally turned him into a near-insane 98-pound weakling, thinner than any Thin White Duke should be.  Iggy meanwhile had already crossed into insanity a couple of years earlier and had in fact been committed to a mental health facility.  His only visitor was Bowie—and he only came to deliver drugs.

Eventually, though, both realized that they need to leave their enabling LA dealer-friends behind if there was any hope of them living to see 1980.  They chose a flat at 155 Hauptsrasse in a shithole area of Berlin.  They’d sleep by day, pre-drink at Anderes Ufer (now Neues Ufer) downstairs, club by night at places like S036 and Luzia and occasionally make some legendary music in Tonstudio 2 at Hansa.  Low, Heroes and The Idiot were all made this way—all in 1977.

It was in the Hauptstrasse flat where they first heard American Armed Forces News with its distinctive “dum-dum-dum dum-dum-de-dum” theme.  Transposed to drums, that became on the opening of “Lust for Life.”  It was from a window at Hansa that Bowie came up with a chunk of the lyrics for “Heroes.”

If you ever find yourself in Berlin, please, PLEASE take the Fritz Music Tour

You will not forget it.

Click here for part 1. And check back for part 3 and part 4.