Coordinates: 40°43′11.62″N 73°59′38.86″W / 40.7198944°N 73.9941278°W / 40.7198944; -73.9941278

Looking north from Houston Street up Bowery, with the Empire State Building in the background

The Bowery, looking north from Grand Street, circa 1910

Bowery ( /ˈbaʊ.əri/ or local /ˈbaʊ.ri/), commonly called "the Bowery," is a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood's boundaries are East 4th Street and the East Village to the north, Canal Street and Chinatown to the South, Allen Street and the Lower East Side to the east and Little Italy to the west.^[1]

Bowery is an anglicisation of the Dutch bouwerij, derived from an antiquated Dutch word for "farm." In the 17th century the road branched off Broadway north of Fort Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan to the homestead of Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of New Netherland. As a street, the Bowery was known as Bowery Lane prior to 1807.^[2] Today it runs from Chatham Square in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north. After Cooper Square, the street runs north as Third Avenue and to the northwest as Fourth Avenue.

Major streets that intersect the Bowery include Canal Street, Delancey Street, Houston Street, and Bleecker Street. A New York City Subway station named Bowery on the BMT Nassau Street Line (J and Z services) is located at the Bowery's intersection with Delancey Street.

Colonial and federal period[link]

The Bowery is the oldest thoroughfare on Manhattan Island, preceding European intervention as a Lenape footpath, which spanned roughly the entire length of the island, from north to south.^[3] When the Dutch settled Manhattan island, they named the path Bouwerij road—"bouwerij" being an old Dutch word for "farm"—^[4]because it connected farmlands and estates on the outskirts to the heart of the city in today's Wall Street/Battery Park area.

In 1654, the Bowery’s first residents settled in the area of Chatham Square; ten freed slaves and their wives set up cabins and a cattle farm.

Petrus Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam before the English took control, retired to his Bowery farm in 1667. After his death in 1672, he was buried in his private chapel. His mansion burned down in 1778 and his great-grandson sold the remaining chapel and graveyard, now the site of the Episcopal church of St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.^[5]

The Bowery (unmarked), leading to the "Road to Kings Bridge, where the Rebels mean to make a Stand" in a British map of 1776

Cigarette trading card featuring the Bowery Theatre; a few 3½-storey structures of the 1830s (like the building at right) remain on the Bowery today

In her Journal of 1704–1705, Sarah Kemble Knight describes the Bowery as a leisure destination for residents of New York City in December:

Their Diversions in the Winter is Riding Sleys about three or four Miles out of Town, where they have Houses of entertainment at a place called the Bowery, and some go to friends Houses who handsomely treat them. [...] I believe we mett 50 or 60 slays that day—they fly with great swiftness and some are so furious that they'le turn out of the path for none except a Loaden Cart. Nor do they spare for any diversion the place affords, and sociable to a degree, they'r Tables being as free to their Naybours as to themselves.

By 1766, when John Montresor made his detailed plan of New York,^[6] "Bowry Lane", which took a more north-tending track at the rope walk, was lined for the first few streets with buildings that formed a solid frontage, with market gardens behind them; when Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for Mozart's Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Cosi Fan Tutte, emigrated to New York City in 1806, he briefly ran one of the shops along the Bowery, a fruit and vegetable store. In 1766, straight lanes led away at right angles to gentlemen's seats, mostly well back from the dusty "Road to Albany and Boston", as it was labeled on Montresor's map; Nicholas Bayard's was planted as an avenue of trees. James Delancey's grand house, flanked by matching outbuildings, stood behind a forecourt facing Bowery Lane; behind it was his parterre garden, ending in an exedra, clearly delineated on the map.

The Bull's Head Tavern was noted for George Washington having stopped there for refreshment before riding down to the waterfront to witness the departure of British troops in 1783. Leading to the Post Road, The Bowery rivalled Broadway as a thoroughfare; as late as 1869, when it had gained the "reputation of cheap trade, without being disreputable" it was still "the second principal street of the city".^[7]

When Lafayette Street was opened parallel to The Bowery in the 1820s, the Bowery Theatre was founded by rich families on the site of the Red Bull Tavern, which had been purchased by John Jacob Astor; it opened in 1826. Across the way the Bowery Amphitheatre was erected in 1833, specializing in the more populist entertainments of equestrian shows and circuses. From stylish beginnings, the tone of the Bowery Theatre's offerings matched the slide in the social scale of the Bowery itself.

Slide from respectability[link]

By the time of the Civil War, the mansions and shops had given way to low-brow concert halls, brothels, German beer gardens, pawn shops, and flophouses, like the one at No.15 in which the composer Stephen Foster lived in 1864^[8] Theodore Dreiser closed his tragedy Sister Carrie, set in the 1890s, with the suicide of one of the main characters in a Bowery flophouse. The Bowery, which marked the eastern border of the slum of "Five Points", had also become the turf of one of America's earliest street gangs, the nativist Bowery Boys. In the spirit of social reform, the first YMCA opened on the Bowery in 1873;^[9] another notable religious and social welfare institution established during this period was Bowery Mission, which was founded in 1880 at 36 Bowery by Reverend Albert Gleason Ruliffson. The mission has relocated along the Bowery throughout its lifetime. From 1909 to the present, the mission has remained at 227–229 Bowery.

By the 1890s, The Bowery was a center for prostitution that rivaled the Tenderloin, and for bars catering to gay men and some lesbians at various social levels, from The Slide at 157 Bleecker Street, New York's "worst dive",^[10] to Columbia Hall at 5th Street, called Paresis Hall. One investigator in 1899 found six saloons and dance halls, the resorts of "degenerates" and "fairies", on The Bowery alone.^[11] Gay subculture was more highly visible there and more integrated into working-class male culture than it was to become in the following generations, according to the historian of gay New York, George Chauncey.

Berenice Abbott photograph of a Bowery restaurant in 1935, when the street was lined with flophouses.

From 1878 to 1955 the Third Avenue El ran above the Bowery, further darkening its streets, populated largely by men. "It is filled with employment agencies, cheap clothing and knickknack stores, cheap moving-picture shows, cheap lodging-houses, cheap eating-houses, cheap saloons", writers in The Century Magazine found it in 1919. "Here, too, by the thousands come sailors on shore leave,—notice the 'studios' of the tattoo artists,—and here most in evidence are the 'down and outs'".^[12] Prohibition eliminated The Bowery's numerous saloons: One Mile House, the "stately old tavern... replaced by a cheap saloon"^[13] at the southeast corner of Rivington Street, named for the battered milestone across the way,^[14] where the politicians of the East Side had made informal arrangements for the city's governance, ^[15][16] was renovated for retail space in 1921, "obliterating all vestiges of its former appearance", The New York Times reported. Restaurant supply stores were among the businesses that had come to the Bowery,^[17] and many remain to this day.

Luxury lofts and soup kitchens jockey for space as the neighborhood's rapid gentrification continues.

Pressure for a new name after World War I came to naught^[17] and in the 1920s and 1930s, it was as an impoverished area. In the 1940s through the 1970s, the Bowery was New York City's "Skid Row," notable for "Bowery Bums" (disaffiliated alcoholics and homeless persons).^[18]

Revival[link]

Since the 1990s the entire Lower East Side has been reviving. As of July 2005, gentrification is contributing to ongoing change along the Bowery. In particular, the number of high-rise condominiums is growing. In 2006, AvalonBay Communities opened its first luxury apartment complex on the Bowery, which included an upscale Whole Foods Market. Avalon Bowery Place was quickly followed with the development of Avalon Bowery Place II in 2007. That same year, the SANAA-designed facility for the New Museum of Contemporary Art opened at the corner of Prince Street.

The new development has not come without a social cost. Michael Dominic's documentary Sunshine Hotel followed the lives of residents of one of the few remaining flophouses.

The Bowery from Houston to Delancey Streets serves as New York's principal market for restaurant equipment, and from Delancey to Grand for lamps.

Bowery historic district[link]

In October 2011, a Bowery Historic District was registered with the New York State Register of Historic Places and, because of that, automatically nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. A grassroots community organization named the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors (BAN) in association with the community-based housing organization called the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council led the effort for creation of the historic district. The designation means that property owners will have financial incentives to restore rather than demolish old buildings on the Bowery. ^[19]

The historic district runs from Chatham Square to Astor Place on both sides of the Bowery.

Notable establishments[link]

Peanut Gallery[link]

An avant garde art movement and the underground gallery that fronts its activities off the Bowery.

Bank buildings[link]

The Bowery Savings Bank was chartered in May 1834, when the Bowery was an upscale residential street, and grew with the rising prosperity of the city. Its 1893 headquarters building remains a Bowery landmark, as does the 1920s domed Citizens Savings Bank.^[20]

New Museum[link]

In December 2007, the New Museum opened the doors to its new location on 235 Bowery, at Prince Street, continuing its focus of exhibiting emerging international artists. This new facility, designed by the Tokyo-based firm Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA and the New York-based firm Gensler, has greatly expanded the Museum’s exhibitions and space. In March 2008, the museum's new building was named one of the architectural seven wonders by Conde Nast Traveler.^[21] The museum has an ongoing Bowery Project honoring artists who lived on the Bowery with taped interviews and archived records. ^[22]

Amato Opera[link]

This company, which was founded in 1948 by Tony Amato and his wife, Sally, found a permanent home at 319 Bowery next to the former CBGB, and it afforded many young singers the opportunity to hone their craft in full-length productions with a cut-down orchestration. The curtain fell on this well-established opera forum in NYC on May 31, 2009, when Tony Amato retired.

CBGB[link]

CBGB, a club initially opened to play country, bluegrass & blues (as the name CBGB stands for), began to book Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones as house bands in the mid-1970s. This spawned a full-blown scene of new bands (Talking Heads, Blondie, edgy R&B-influenced Mink DeVille, rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon, and others) performing mostly original material in a mostly raw and often loud and fast attack. The label of punk rock was applied to the scene even if not all the bands that made their early reputations at the club were punk rockers, strictly speaking, but CBGB became known as the American cradle of punk rock. CBGB closed on October 31, 2006, after a long battle by club owner Hilly Kristal to extend its lease.

Bowery Ballroom[link]

The Bowery Ballroom is a music venue. The structure, at 6 Delancey Street, was built just before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. It stood vacant until the end of World War II, when it became a high-end retail store. The neighborhood subsequently went into decline again, and so did the caliber of businesses occupying the space.^{[citation needed]} In 1997 it was converted into a music venue.

Right in front of the venue's entrance is the Bowery Station (J Z trains) of the New York City Subway.

The club serves as the namesake of at least one recording: Joan Baez's Bowery Songs album, recorded live at a concert at the Bowery Ballroom in November 2004.

Bowery Poetry Club[link]

Bowery Poetry Club

The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space. Located at Bowery and Bleecker Street in Lower Manhattan, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists. It was founded by Bob Holman, owner of the building and former Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Slam MC (1988–1996). The BPC features regular shows by Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Taylor Mead, Taylor Mali, along with open mic, gay poets, a weekly poetry slam, and an Emily Dickinson Marathon, amongst other events.

Famous residents[link]

Among other famous residents, Quentin Crisp lived on Third Street near Second Avenue, and near the Bowery, for the last two decades of his life. Béla Bartók lived in 350 Bowery at the corner of Great Jones Street during the 1940s.

The writer William S. Burroughs kept an apartment at the former YMCA building at 222 Bowery, known as the Bunker, from 1974 until his death in 1997.^[23] Mark Rothko, the Abstract Expressionist painter, had a studio on the Bowery. Pop artist Tom Wesselman had a studio on the Bowery in the building now adjacent to the New Museum.

The artist Cy Twombly lived on the 3rd floor of 356 Bowery during the 1960s.

The founder of the Hare Krishna Movement, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada lived in the Bowery when the movement began in America in 1966.

Punk singer Joey Ramone resided in the area, and in 2003 a part of Second Street at the intersection Bowery and Second Street was renamed Joey Ramone Place.^[24][25]

In popular culture[link]

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Literature[link]

• The Bowery is the setting for Stephen Crane's first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (published in 1893), about a poor family living in the neighborhood
• New York School poet Ted Berrigan mentions the Bowery several times in his seminal work "The Sonnets".
• The Wild Cards series of books sets the Bowery as Jokertown, the place where the malformed go to live after the Wild Card Virus is released over New York.
• Brenda Coultas's book A Handmade Museum (poetry, published in 2003 by Coffee House Press) contains a section called "The Bowery Project" which documents the pre-gentrification process.

Film, stage and TV[link]

Steve Brodie's bar at 114 Bowery

Sheet Music to The Bowery, 1892

• On the Bowery, an 1894 play starring Steve Brodie, supposed Brooklyn Bridge jumper and Bowery saloonkeeper.
• The Bowery, a 1933 film about Brodie.
• A popular B-movie series made between 1946 and 1958 featured "The Bowery Boys."
• On the Bowery, Lionel Rogosin's 1956 film, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
• In the 2002 film Gangs of New York, the Bowery is a mentioned territory of the Bowery Boys, a street gang of the late 19th century during the New York Draft Riots.

Art[link]

• The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, a collection of photographs and poems by Martha Rosler. ^[26]

Music[link]

The 1891 musical comedy A Trip to Chinatown featured The Bowery, a song that became highly popular in that era.

Over the years, the Bowery has been mentioned in the lyrics of a number of songs, including the Bob Dylan song "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", from the album Bringing It All Back Home (1965): "I walked by a Guernsey cow/Who directed me down/To the Bowery slums/Where people carried signs around/Saying, 'Ban the bums.'"

The street has also been mentioned in songs by Willie Nile, Jim Croce, Regina Spektor, Dire Straits, Bill Callahan, Saint Etienne the Vancouver Twee pop band cub, Sonic Youth, Two Gallants, Steve Earle, Beastie Boys, Paul McDermott, Billy Joel, Tom Waits, Ryan Adams, The Clash, the Ramones, Jesse Malin and The Foetus All-Nude Revue, Deerhunter among others.

The Bowery is mentioned as a place where love and gin can be found in the lyrics of Stephin Merritt's song "Love is Like a Bottle of Gin" from the album 69 Love Songs.

See also[link]

• Bowery Mission
• Bowery Theatre
• The Bowery (song)

References[link]

Sources

• Fodor's flashmaps New York, 1991
• Fodor's See It New York City, 2004, [ISBN 1-4000-1387-9]
• Valentine's Manual of Old New York / No. 7, Ed. Henry Collins Brown, Pub. Valentine's Manual Inc. 1922

Notes

External links[link]

• Bowery documentary
• East Village History Project Bowery research — in-depth, lot by lot research
• boweryalliance.org — grassroots organization
• New York Songlines: 4th Avenue
• The Bowery, from the Little Italy Neighbors Association — stories, photos, etc.
• The Bowery by Forgotten-NY — images, descriptions, and history
• Bowery Storefronts — photographs of Bowery stores and buildings.
• Lyrics of popular 1890s song, The Bowery
• Bowery Historic District nomination, National Register of Historic Places
• Map of Bowery Historic District
• Bowery Artist Tribute
• Lower East Side Preservation Initiative

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Leigh Bowery (26 March 1961 – 31 December 1994) was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and designers. His influence reached through the fashion, club and art worlds to impact, amongst others, Meadham Kirchhoff, Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud, Vivienne Westwood, Boy George, Antony and the Johnsons, John Galliano, the Scissor Sisters, David LaChapelle, Lady Bunny plus numerous Nu-Rave bands and nightclubs in London and New York which arguably perpetuated his avant garde ideas.

Early life[link]

Leigh Bowery was born in 1961 in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, Victoria. He often compared his early life there to a cultural wasteland in which he did not fit well. He was a sensitive and multi-gifted child in "macho" surroundings and as a teenager discovered a whole new world by reading about the London new romantic scene from British fashion magazines such as i-D. This inspired him to reinvent himself at the centre of the avant-garde art world in London. His family was conservative and he often reflected on his parents who were actively involved in the local Salvation Army. He was the older of two children, his sister Bronwyn being several years younger. He described his father as kind but macho and had a particularly close relationship with his mother from whom he inherited a love of dressmaking.

London[link]

After attending Melbourne High School, and one year of a fashion course there, he abandoned Australia and moved to London for good in 1980, initially to make his career as a fashion designer. Although this was a financial failure, it did garner him a small cult following and media interest. Eventually he was making a name for himself by dramatic performances of dance, music, and extreme exhibitionism, while wearing bizarre and very original outfits of his own design.

Early career[link]

He befriended two leading clubbers: Trojan (Guy Barnes), later a painter, and David Walls – later of the design team Gallagher Walls. Bowery moved in with them to a houseshare in Ladbroke Grove, and the two men became the first people in London to wear Bowery's creative designs. Collectively they were nicknamed the Three Kings. They were unemployed for several years and living on benefit, which was common in those days, and were eventually rehoused on the Commercial Road in the East End in a three-bedroom flat high on the 11th floor of a council tower block in one of the poorest and bleakest areas of London. All three would experiment with drugs (mainly downers), but within the year and after a huge fallout, David Walls moved out, leaving Bowery and Trojan to live together. At this time Bowery and Trojan briefly became lovers, but split on Trojan's insistence.

At this time, Margaret Thatcher was in power and, although they were making a reasonable living, times were hard for them. The only escape for them was in the secret underworld of often polysexual or gay nightclubs.

Up until 1986 Bowery would describe himself as a fashion designer and club promoter. Although his early fashion career is often ignored, he had considerable artistic success and it included several collections in London Fashion week, shows at the ICA, The Camden Palace, New York, and Tokyo (see below for Fashion Collections and early Leigh Bowery models).

In January 1985 he started the now infamous polysexual Thursday disco club night "Taboo". Originally an underground venture, it quickly became London's Studio 54, only much wilder, extremely more fashionable, and without the masses of celebrities – although these came flocking in later. For everyone stepping through the doors it was a truly unforgettable experience.

Over the coming years he was invited to host numerous club nights in New York, Tokyo, Rome, and elsewhere.

Contrary to popular belief, Bowery was not part of the New Romantic movement that was popular in Britain during the early 1980s. Though perhaps he is more properly placed within the context of early fashion clubs such as Cha Cha's at Heaven and the "Hard Times" movement, he was always at the centre of the pansexual set of young and fashionable Londoners.

From being a plump, studious, and often bullied child, Leigh grew up to often be uncomfortable in his skin, and used his frequently bizarre designs as an armour for his insecurities. As he got larger he used his costumes to exaggerate his size, and the effect was frequently overpowering and unforgettable for those who encountered him, the more so because of his confrontational style. Bowery was not a wallflower.

In the early days Bowery felt comfortable with describing himself as "gay", although he had intense and passionate friendships occasionally of a sexual nature with women, often in the form of a sadomasochistic-type relationship, with Bowery firmly in the role of master puppeteer. With his bizarre looks Leigh often had difficulties attracting the men he was sexually attracted to, and he would often describe having sex in risky underground situations such as "cottaging", with unattractive individuals.

Unlike many of his club contemporaries Bowery was highly intelligent, widely read, and passionate about all forms of artistic expression. While he could be extremely witty and charming, he would often be a malicious fashion bully, intimidating friend and foe alike with his sharp tongue and accusations. These all reflected a sign of the times where "hardness" went hand in hand with the club scene.

Although Taboo was over by early 1987, Bowery was at the very heart of London's alternative fashion movement. But AIDS and hard drugs had influenced the scene, causing the death of his best friend and former lover Trojan, then of Taboo door whore and budding musician Marc Valtier. As a result Bowery experienced severe depression, which manifested itself in abusive unsafe sexual activities, often in cottaging and public cruising grounds. It was probably at this time he contracted HIV, although he kept this a closely guarded secret from most friends until days before his death. Being HIV-positive at this time was seen as a death sentence and there was much fear and discrimination to be faced – Bowery did not want to be described as an artist with AIDS, feeling it would overshadow any of his artistic achievements.

Soon after, he collaborated with the famous 1980s dancer Michael Clark, after having been first his costume-designer before eventually joining the company as a dancer. He also participated in multi-media events like I Am Kurious Oranj and the play Hey, Luciani, with Mark E. Smith and the band, The Fall and on 15 July 1987 flew to Paris with the cult British band You You You to host their concert at Le Palace. In 1989, he hosted a special one-off Ball held in a massive disused West London warehouse starring Big Bang as part of their Arabic Circus Tour that featured Danielle Dax and Jayne County as supporting artists.

In 1988 he had a week-long show in Anthony d'Offay's prestigious Dering Street Gallery in London's West End, in which he lolled on a chaise longue behind a two-way mirror, primping and preening in a variety of outfits while visitors to the gallery looked on. The insouciance and audacity of this overt queer narcissism captivated gallery goers, critics and other artists. Bowery's exquisite appearance, silence and intense self-absorption were further accentuated by his own recordings of random and abrasive traffic noises which were played for the show's duration. The very intimate and private was flung in the face of the public complete with a "street life" sound track, hinting perhaps at something still darker. In some outfits he appears like some strange roadside creature, like a cat that finally got the cream (of art world attention); in others he is the "Satan's Son" that he would whisper, years later, on his deathbed.

For all his art world exposure and contacts it seems peculiar now that no one suggested to Bowery that he might adopt the very viable strategy of Gilbert and George – an earlier generation's living sculpture – and derive an income from selling images of himself rather than rely on occasional commissions, modeling work for Lucian Freud, or design consultancy for Rifat Ozbek. In the later years of his life the advantages of having an independent income started to become more obvious and Bowery looked to music, in the form of art rock/pop group Minty, to possibly provide this independent income stream. "I have a profile," he confided to former flatmate and fellow Australian Anne Holt, "but I have no money." Minty, he hoped, would provide a solution to this crux, although this wish eventually proved to be unfounded.

He later excited the fashion crowd with a performance at SMact, a short-lived SM Night at Bar Industria. Using Nazi costumes with a lesbian friend named Barbara, they turned concentration camp experimentation into SMart. The readers of Capital Gay, the London weekly newspaper, turned on fellow performer Berkley, who had played the victim, and Barbara and Bowery weathered the storm.

In 1993 Bowery briefly formed the band Raw Sewage with leading clubbers Sheila Tequila and Stella Stein. They performed nude with their faces blacked up, wearing 18" platforms and merkins (pubic wigs), to the bemusement of audiences in London clubs and at the Love Ball in Amsterdam. But the collaboration ended in personality clashes. Bowery went on to appear as the "Madame Garbo" in "The Homosexual (or the difficulty of sexpressing oneself)" by Copi at Bagleys Warehouse in London's King's Cross.

Minty and Freud[link]

In 1993 Bowery formed the band Minty with friend and former 1980s knitwear designer Richard Torry, Nicola Bateman and Matthew Glammore. Their single "Useless Man" "Boot licking, tit tweaking useless man..." which was remixed by The Grid, "Plastic Bag" Which was preserved by the movie I Woke Up Early The Day I Died along with their twisted onstage scatological performances caused The Sun to describe them as the "sickest band in the world", of which Bowery was very proud. The single became a minor chart hit in The Netherlands, although friends felt that he had lost his true artistic self to cheap and obvious shock horror tactics, none of which were new.

During 1994 Leigh performed the "Fete worse than death" in Hoxton Square. Bowery and Nicola Bateman (later, Nicola Bowery) presented their classic "Birth Show", a homage to John Waters' "Female Trouble", in which Bowery "gave birth" to Bateman, who was held under his costume and upside down using a specially-designed harness. Bowery would appear to enter the stage alone but toward the middle of the song birthed his partner who appeared as a very large baby covered in placenta. The performance was revised for Lady Bunny's Wigstock event and captured in Wigstock: The Movie.

In November 1994 Minty began a two week show at London's Freedom Cafe, including audience member Alexander McQueen, but it was too much for Westminster City Council, who closed the show down after only one night. Minty was a financial loss and represented a low point in his colourful career. A spin-off band called Offest later formed including artist Donald Urquhart.^[2]

Bowery was the nude subject of several of Lucian Freud's later portraits, and travelled internationally to the opening events of his exhibitions. This modeling work provided him with a modest income of sorts for a period and he certainly relished Freud's connections to the British establishment.

Influences[link]

Glimmers of the influences of film maker John Waters and artist Andy Warhol can be seen in his keen appreciation of bad taste, truly outlandish self presentation and a deep desire to shock and confuse. "I want to be the Andy Warhol of London" he once said. "Dressed-up," he was obviously "Modern Art on legs" (as Boy George commented), but in daytime attire the badly-fitting, obvious, disturbing wigs are a nod to Warhol's self-presentation strategies that has thus far seemed invisible to both critics and friends alike.

Other art historical parallels include an early 80s attempt at Vincent van Gogh type ear-cutting with friend Trojan (in an attempt to out do nightclub rivals), and as a result inflicted facial perforations that he was warned would not heal (reminiscent of Warhol's weeping wounds). Bowery made a full auto-couture appearance at the 1986 Warhol show Success is a job in New York at London's Serpentine Gallery with Nicola and an unknown assistant.

He became known to a wider audience by appearing in a Post-Modernist/Surrealist series of television and cinema and commercials for the Pepe jeans company, MTV London and other commissions such as stage work for rock band U2. He also appeared regularly in articles, vox pops and as cover star in London's i-D magazine. Bowery was also Art Director for the famous video for Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy".

As a character he featured in the stage musical Taboo that was based on the New Romantic movement. It also featured actors playing Marilyn, Boy George, Steve Strange and other stars of the early 1980s. The musical, which was written by Mark Davies with music composed partly by Boy George, was a London West End hit. American media star Rosie O'Donnell financed a much- altered version for Broadway, but this was not successful.

Johnny Rozsa's photographs of Bowery have been exhibited in several museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the Kunsthalle in Vienna, and the Kunstverein in Hanover.

Personal life[link]

Although Bowery always described himself as gay he married his longtime friend Nicola Bateman on 13 May 1994, in Tower Hamlets, London, 7 months before his death from AIDS-related illness at the (now closed and redeveloped) Middlesex Hospital, Westminster, London^[3] on New Year's Eve 1994, after a five-week battle that only a handful of friends were informed about.^[2]

Reportedly one death bed pronouncement "Tell them I've gone pig farming in Bolivia", illustrates the gallows humour and dark irony that can be traced in much of his work. Among his last requests was that his middle name be unknown.^{[citation needed]}

Popular References[link]

The character Vulva in the British TV comedy series Spaced is based on Leigh Bowery.^[4]

Boy George recorded a tribute song on his 1995 album, Cheapness and Beauty. The track is called "Satan's Butterfly Ball" and in his Taboo musical, the Leigh Bowery character sings tracks like "Ich Bin Kunst" and "I'll Have You All".

Fashion collections and show information[link]

Fashion collections:

• "Hobo": New York Fashion Week. 1982.
• "Pakis from Outer Space": Camden Palace for London Fashion Week. 1982/83.
• "Mincing Queens": Institute of Contemporary Arts 'Performing Clothes' for London Fashion Week and The Hacienda Club, Manchester. 1984.
• "Disease / Spastic": Riverside Studios and Earls Court for London Fashion Week. 1986.

Models: Models for these shows included old friends such as: Trojan (aka Gary Barnes, died 1987), David Walls, Peter Hammond (aka Space Princess, died 1993), Marc Vaultier (Mark Golding, died 1987), George Gallagher, James Payne, David LaChapelle, Jim McGuire, Robert McGuire, Sandra Cosijn, Dezi Campbell and Malcolm Duffy.

Bibliography[link]

• Leigh Bowery Looks, by Leigh Bowery, Fergus Greer, published by Thames & Hudson Ltd; New Ed edition (2005); ISBN 0-500-28566-7
• Leigh Bowery Looks by Leigh Bowery, Fergus Greer, published by: Violette Editions (2006);ISBN 1-900828-27-8

Discography[link]

• Minty's discography

Partial videography[link]

• Hail the New Puritan (1985–6), Charles Atlas
• Generations of Love (1990), Baillie Walsh for Boy George
• Teach (1992), Charles Atlas
• A Smashing Night Out (1994), Matthew Glamorre
• Death in Vegas (1994), Mark Hasler
• Performance at Fort Asperen (1994)
• Flour (single screen version) (1995), Angus Cook
• U2: Popmart - Live from Mexico City (1997), Dancer during 'Lemon Mix'
• Read Only Memory (estratto) (1998), John Maybury

References[link]

• Posthumous New York exhibition prospectus
• Leigh Bowery obituary by Alix Sharkey
• (IMDB) The Legend of Leigh Bowery, directed by Charles Atlas. 2002, USA/France, 88 mins duration
• Leigh Bowery: The Life and Times of an Icon by Sue Tilley. Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1999. ISBN 0-340-69311-8
• Leigh Bowery by Robert Violette, published by: Violette Editions (London, July 1998).
• Clothing Gandhi's Nation. By Lisa Trivedi
• Lucian Freud: Recent Drawings and Etchings

Audio[link]

• An extended extract (72 minutes) of a 1989 audio interview

Video[link]

• Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art movie
• BBC Clothes Show excerpt with Leigh Bowery
• Donut Party hosted by Michael Alig at Twin Donuts with many New York Club regulars including Isaac Mizrahi
• Bowery footage by UK fashion photographer Nick Knight on SHOWstudio.com
• “The Legend of Leigh Bowery – Full Movie”

External links[link]

• The Great Unknown Melburnian
• Goodbye to the Boy from Sunshine
• Online memorial to Leigh Bowery, Derek Jarman and others
• The Legacy of Leigh Bowery by friend Donald Urquhart
• Leigh Bowery: the Life and Times of an Icon
• Taboo in London
• fashion club

John Mayer
Mayer at the Mile High Music Festival on July 20, 2008
Background information
Birth name	John Clayton Mayer
Born	(1977-10-16) October 16, 1977 (age 34) Bridgeport, Connecticut United States
Genres	Pop rock, blues rock, acoustic rock, blue-eyed soul
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, record producer, columnist, graphic designer, photographer, comedian, television host
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, omnichord, piano, vibraphone, harmonica, percussion, clarinet, violin
Years active	1998 (1998)–present
Labels	Arista, Aware, Columbia
Associated acts	John Mayer Trio, Fall Out Boy
Website	johnmayer.com
Notable instruments
Fender Stratocaster Martin Guitars Gibson Guitars

John Clayton Mayer ( /ˈmeɪ.ər/ MAY-ər;^[1] (born October 16, 1977) is an American pop and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer.^[2] Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his skills and gained a following, and he now lives in New York City.^[3][4] His first two studio albums, Room for Squares and Heavier Things, did well commercially, achieving multi-platinum status. In 2003, he won a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Your Body Is a Wonderland."^[5]

Mayer began his career performing mainly acoustic rock, but gradually began a transition towards the blues genre in 2005 by collaborating with renowned blues artists such as B. B. King, Buddy Guy, and Eric Clapton, and by forming the John Mayer Trio. The blues influence can be heard throughout his 2005 live album Try! with the John Mayer Trio and his third studio album Continuum, released in September 2006. At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards in 2007 Mayer won Best Pop Vocal Album for Continuum and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Waiting on the World to Change". He released his fourth studio album, Battle Studies, in November 2009. His fifth album, Born and Raised, was released on May 22, 2012. He has sold over 10 million albums in the U.S. and 20 million albums worldwide.

Early life[link]

John Clayton Mayer was born on October 16, 1977 in Bridgeport, Connecticut to Margaret, an English teacher, and Richard, a high school principal.^[6] He grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, the second of three children.^[7] His father is Jewish, and Mayer has said that he "relat[es] to Judaism".^[8] He attended Fairfield High School in Fairfield^[9] although he was enrolled in the Center for Global Studies at Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk for his junior year (then known as the Center for Japanese Studies Abroad, it is a magnet program for students wanting to learn Japanese).^[10]

After watching Michael J. Fox's guitar performance as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, Mayer became fascinated with the instrument, and when he turned 13, his father rented one for him.^[11][12] A neighbor gave Mayer a Stevie Ray Vaughan cassette, which cultivated Mayer's love of blues music.^[13]a[›] Mayer started taking lessons from a local guitar-shop owner, Al Ferrante, and soon became consumed with playing the instrument.^[3][14] His singular focus concerned his parents, and they took him twice to see a psychiatrist—but Mayer was determined to be fine.^[3][14] Mayer says that the contentious nature of his parents' marriage led him to "disappear and create my own world I could believe in".^[3] After two years of practice, he started playing at blues bars and other venues in the area, while he was still in high school.^[10][12] In addition to performing solo, he was a member of a band called Villanova Junction (named for a Jimi Hendrix song) with Tim Procaccini, Joe Beleznay, and Rich Wolf.^[3][15] Mayer considered skipping college to pursue his music, but the disapproval of his parents dissuaded him from doing so.^[3]

When Mayer was seventeen, he was stricken with cardiac dysrhythmia and was hospitalized for a weekend. Reflecting on the incident, Mayer said, "That was the moment the songwriter in me was born," and he penned his first lyrics the night he got home from the hospital.^[4] Shortly thereafter, he began suffering from panic attacks, and lived with the fear of having to enter a mental institution.^[3] He continues to manage such episodes with Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug.^[4][16] After graduation, he worked for fifteen months at a gas station until he saved enough money to buy a 1996 Stevie Ray Vaughan signature Stratocaster.^[17]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Mayer enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, aged 19.^[7] However, at the urging of his college friend an Atlanta, Georgia native, Clay Cook, he left school after two semesters and moved with Cook to Atlanta.^[18] In Atlanta they formed a two-man band called LoFi Masters and began performing in local coffee houses and club venues such as Eddie's Attic.^[12] According to Cook, they began to experience musical differences due to Mayer’s desire to move more towards pop music.^[19] As a result, the two parted ways, and Mayer embarked on a solo career.^[18]

With the help of local producer and engineer Glenn Matullo, Mayer recorded the independent EP Inside Wants Out. Cook co-wrote many of the songs from the EP including Mayer's first commercial single release, "No Such Thing".^[19] The EP includes eight songs with Mayer on lead vocals and guitars. However, Cook's only contribution was backing vocals on the song "Comfortable". For the opening track, "Back To You", a full band was enlisted, including the EP’s co-producer David "DeLa" LaBruyere on bass guitars.^[20] Mayer and LaBruyere then began to perform throughout Georgia and nearby states.

Major label success[link]

	"City Love" excerpt noicon From the album Room for Squares.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Mayer’s reputation began to build, and a March 2000 appearance at South by Southwest brought him to the attention of "launch" label, Aware Records.^[14][21][22] After including him in the Aware Festival concerts and having his songs included on Aware compilations, in early 2001, Aware released Mayer's internet-only album titled, Room for Squares. During this time, Aware inked a deal with Columbia Records that gave Columbia first pick in signing Aware artists, and so in September of the same year, Columbia remixed and re-released Room for Squares.^[23] As part of the major label "debut", the album's artwork was updated, and the track "3x5" was added. The re-release also included reworked studio versions of the first four songs from his indie album, Inside Wants Out.^[24]