Glam Rock Ziggy Stardust to Lady Gaga
My life as a Glam Rock music fan in the 70s Long before Lady Gaga there was David Bowie & T. Rex. I grew up in Dundee, a city on the east coast of Scotland, some 60 miles north of Edinburgh. There are many places in the world where ‘looking different’ an glam rock fashions can attract negative attention and at that time, Dundee was such a place. Street gangs were common and well-organized, each having its own ‘uniform’ consisting of a colored jersey, Sta-Prest trousers and Doc Marten boots (a continuation of the skin-head fashion of the 60s). The Lochee Fleet wore blue and red, the Shams wore black and red, the Kirkton Huns blue and white, and so on. Consequently, street violence was rife, combined with high unemployment and an abundance of hard drugs. I was relatively sheltered from all of this, growing up in a stereotypically middle-class family, living in what would have been considered a ‘posh’ part of town, attending a ‘posh’ school, the Dundee High, a semi-private, Presbyterian establishment who preached unhealthy, elitist attitudes towards the outside world and glam rock fashions.
At a very early age I was influenced by glam rock and at age 16 decided I wanted to look as cool as David Bowie on top of the pops. Glam rock bands like T rex were the rage and all the girls loved guys who where brave enough to wear the glam rock fashions. There were many different styles of music going on in the 70s but glam rock bands like Roxy music, The sweet, Jobriath, New York Dolls and many others were just what the kids needed in gloomy Scotland. I used to listen to T.Rex all day long and think about the lifestyle glam rack stars like David Bowie and Mark Bolan used to lead. Almost like the glamorous film stars of the 1940s they rode in limousines and stayed at the best hotels. The management firms of budding glam rock stars added to mystique by making their life seem like a dream and their habits more like a space alien than a real person. This was only marketing but it all added up to a very fun illusion of the life of a glam rock star.
My glam rock life began as I started to badger my mother for certain clothes: I wanted platform shoes, I wanted flares, shirts with wild, aeroplane collars and, above all, long hair. It took quite some time to get my “glam rock look’ together but finally, at about the age of 14, I was able to look in the mirror with some degree of satisfaction.I rapidly realized that, in a place like Dundee, dressing in this glam rock fashion manner would be asking for abuse and it soon came along. It was mostly verbal combined with being jostled or shoulder-barged in the street. i was soon to learn the danger’s of dressing like a glam rock star in the 70s.
The first act of personal attack upon me did not take place very long afterward. I walked the distance from a bus stop on the way home from a glam rock gig by a new band in town. I was being screamed at by about 20 kids from across the street, soon they came charging after me wanting blood. I was trapped and tried to reason saying it was just a fashion thing and all the girls dug it. Unfortunately this made them even more angry as I suppose they were not so popular with the opposite sex as at the time glam rock guys were getting all the dates and best looking women.
Feeling defeated the next day and nursing a swollen eye, bruises and my lost clothes I was at a loss wondering why someone would go out of their way to harm me just for being a bit different. In reality I was mimicking the glam rock stars on television never knowing that their lives were a parody of the glam rock fantasy. Now looking at footage of say the New York Dolls I see that even them all being around age twenty they were already looking burned out from constant touring, no sleep and all the drugs that keep you going when you cannot go on. That morning my clothes getting ruined were my biggest concern, now I realize the bigger picture the intolerance to me just being dressed up in a glam fashion was the iceberg of intolerance people face everyday for being different. One in a blue moon I get the urge to claim my individuality and wear at least something to stand out a being glam rock.
From Bowie to Lady Gaga glam rock bands clothes rockstarsGlam rock Glam rock star fashions styles music bands news glam fashion T. Rex bowie Lady Gaga
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