Bowie Scrapbook (April 12, 1975) “ONE STEP FORWARD TWO STEPS BACK” – Shock Split Between David Bowie & Tony Defries

Publication: Bowie Scrapbook

Date: April 12, 1975

A tense, mid-’70s snapshot of Bowie-world turbulence, framed through sharp commentary and the era’s fascination with rupture, reinvention, and the personalities orbiting Bowie’s creative universe. The tone is brittle, dramatic, and unmistakably 1975. This news item captures the shock split between David Bowie and his powerful manager Tony Defries, and the resulting legal action, through the eyes of someone deeply embedded in the scene — Ian “Shades Off” Hunter. The piece is accompanied by a small, satirical cartoon figure in a polka-dot outfit holding a cane, adding a touch of period-appropriate visual wit to the dense serif-type column. Headlined “ONE STEP FORWARD TWO STEPS BACK”, the article reflects the instability of Bowie’s mid-’70s landscape as he navigated profound artistic and personal upheaval — having shed Ziggy Stardust, moved through Diamond Dogs and into the Young Americans soul era, while disentangling himself from the influential and polarising MainMan organisation run by Defries.

Ian Hunter’s candid quotes provide rare personal insight, mixing respect, frustration, and recognition of Defries’ theatrical self-mythologising and “villain” image. This clipping stands as a compelling contemporary reaction to one of the most consequential managerial breaks in Bowie’s career, foreshadowing the stark, introspective direction he would take in the Berlin years that followed.