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WE REJOIN DAVID BOWIE IN 1974, IN A CITYon the cusp of musical revolutions. Bowie had moved to New York in April, the same month Television played their first gig at a newish club on the Bowery called CBGB. By August the Ramones, an even fresher and more ramshackle phenomenon, had debuted there too (hopefully you read the full story of that one in MOJO 372).

For now, though, Bowie’s voracious taste detectors were focused elsewhere. If his 1970s often seem a relentless and brilliant series of reinventions, 1974 can appear that decade’s most radical year. But as Mark Paytress illustrates in his MOJO cover story this month, Bowie was constantly evolving as much he was completely transforming. R&B had subtly informed Diamond Dogs, and within

days of arriving in New York, Bowie was out seeing The Temptations and The Detroit Spinners – a soul boy reincarnate, an adopted Young American. Disco was also entering the conversation, the emerging soundtrack at New York nightclubs a little less scuzzy than CBGB. Note mention in Mark’s feature of one Broadway hotspot called the Hippopotamus Club, where Bowie met Nina Simone. A basement themed like a safari lodge, apparently, but can anyone confirm one outlandish story on the internet: that the dancefloor was a gigantic fibreglass hippo, suspended from the ceiling?