Added: 5 years ago
From: S1N15T3R
Views: 65,096
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (180)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Klaus Nomi was not a "crossdresser", he was a full-fledged performing artist, and perhaps one of the most revolutionary artists of his time, not to mention the bitch could sing.

  • lol nice skirts

  • I had no idea from the description at right that this song was about that. I've always wondered.

  • I first saw this in a bar in mid-town Manhattan. Saturday night (of course). People were mesmerized. When it was over, everyone burst into applause. Breathtaking!

  • i so remember the original airing of this. I was in 7th grade. One of my classmates was cracking on it the next day...I remember my little 12 year old self really wanting to smack her.

  • i bet she's drowning in her embarrasment right now. even now, this seems very avant-gard (?) and i doubt any artists of this time would ever have the balls to do what bowie did here.

    and yes, i would have smacked her little 7th grade head too. all day.

  • Bowie is a sci-fi character all on his own

  • I LOVE KLAUS

  • my fav bowie song eveeeee

  • Does anyone know who the guitarist was for this SNL performance?

  • I'm inclined to say Earl Slick but I know he was on the 'Glass Spider' tour in the 80's and this is still the mid 70's.

  • The guitarist was Stacey Heydon, who was also the tour guitarist in 1976. His "White 'fro" was tuned down by this point. The SNL band also included Blondie's Jimmy Destri.

    BTW, this was taped on Dec. 15th 1979 but was broadcast on January 5th, 1980. This is how the 1980's started for me. With a bang! Bowie blew my head off with this performance.

  • Nice outfit. I'm glad we turned that corner!

  • Hi! THKS to have explain the song and Iggy Pop's story, I didn't know! In all cases, Bowie had made of this story a wonderfull song; I'm gonna record &quot my version &quot now cause this story made me want it, and as I'm recording Bowie's songs these days, I go on with this one! THKS again!5*****!

  • I remember seeing this when I was too young to understand. Now I see genius! Klaus and Joey are great in the background too!

  • I love this song, great video!

  • I want the dog with the TV in his mouth

  • Ah,,, the good old days!

  • What a fantastic performer!

  • wHaT he iS cLoSEiNGinG ThE WOmEn ClosE? WHAaAY? NuMMmUm?

  • He's is amazing.

  • The TV mouthed poodle fascinates and disturbs me.

  • Sadly, I am old enough to remember seeing this on SNL live.  Brilliant!

  • The other musical number in that SNL rerun is "The man who sold the world". Was on U-tube till recently. Please post it again! Thank You for this!

  • Go to Guba (dot com) YouTube doesn't allow links. Search for The Man Who Sold The World and it's right there!

  • Thank you. Their sync is awesome! One of the best version. David Bowie in his solid suit looks like Gustav Grudgens in "Die Nacht ist nicht allein zum Schlafen da" (search on UTube) in 1938.

  • I also found Boys Keep Swinging, the third song from that night's episode. It's when they made David look like a marionette! Just Go to Myspace videos and search for David Bowie & Klaus Nomi - Boys Keep Swinging on '79 SNL

  • AMAZING!!!

  • Awesome performances from Bowie etc.

  • Looking at this great video, it's easy to tell how far today's rock has fallen in terms of showmanship and music. And let me tell you, it's miles!

  • Thanks for saying this. This is why the music business is in such a mess. Showmanship is gone and the music today is, well, what IS it?

  • love him or hate him i'd like to see who could equal him let alone beat him.

  • ППЦ!!!!!

  • I remember seeing Klaus Naomi down at the Spring Street Bookstore in NYC.

    He was working the local club scene here 4 awhile

    Next thing i know hes on Saturday Night Live

    with David Bowie

    RIP Klaus.....

  • He's quadrophonic!

  • Why dont rockstars that are around now have this much guts? I was born in the wrong era. LOL!

  • dont we all think that? sometimes watching all these videos make me nostalgic and i get the feeling i was born in the wrong time, i was born too late!!!!

  • I remember watching this when it first aired. I was at my aunt's house, and she looked up at the screen and asked "is that Dab=vid Bowie?" I said yes. She then asked "is he wearing a dress?" I answered again, yes. She shook her head and walked away. It didn't occur to me at the time how cool it was that she even knew who Bowie was.

    The peformance of "The Man Who Sold the World" from this same broadcast is one of the greatest moments ever in live TV history.

  • urbanshock1927 is right - "The Man Who Sold The World" from this show is definitely one of the greatest-ever Rock TV moments. Sends chills down my spine every time I see it. I saw this show "live" the first time it aired and it blew my mind. It was like David put a lid on the 1970's - the decade where no one could touch him with a ten-foot pole.

  • where can we find "the man who sold the world" performance from this show? it would be great if someone could post that. I have only seen parts of it, but what I saw looked and sounded amazing.

  • if you type in klaus nomi it usualy cmes up there . thts where ive seen it anyway

  • is is on youtube? i'd love to see it.

    please... tell!!!!

  • PassionStone/motellife: It's not on YouTube, as the NBC/Universal douchebags regularly scrub this site and demand all SNL videos be removed. Read all the comments in this thread and you'll find it (hint: Guba dot COM).

  • ah, that explains two mysteries at once!:

    1)no David Bowie snl performances on youtube

    2)almost no acutal SNL videos on youtube, period! all we get are horrible spoofs of thins SNL makes. ah!! no wonder i could never find that skit where this talking dog wants some ham and manages to lie to a guy he loves him.

    thank you so much!

  • I agree - Nomi makes the song haunting and powerful with his backup. It's the perfect fusion of rock and the operatic. You can see some of it in the documentary "the Nomi Song". Bowie only disappointed me when he never used Nomi again.

  • OMG! There's a Teletubbiescreen in the poodle..!!!

    :-)

    I so very much love Klaus Nomi.

  • That was SO cool!

  • My TVC 15 with the Great Klaus Nomi !! Wonderful !!

  • Wonder what Martin Sheen thought of Bowie's skirt?

  • lol.. bowie°!°° nuff said man! this is as rock n roll as it gets

  • love bowie, mi cancion favorita.station to sation

  • TVC15 is a motercycle, I think. Could be wrong.

  • I thought it was an electrical gadge?

  • about a tv that someone jumped into.. haha! Can ya believe him!

  • Klaus fuckin' Klaus Nomi. That's all I can say. That guy was magic.

  • good keyboard in this song

  • The story of this song is hillarious.

  • It is the storry goes that one night bowie had channel 15 on ,some time in L A,there was a weather woman on forecasting the werather,Bowie aws coked up an saw an immage of her benn eaten up,drugs dont work? did for him lol

  • I heard the whole 'girlfriend eaten by the tv' story was told to him by his buddy Iggy Pop. But yeah, drugs work...sometimes.

  • yea iggy had something to do with it somewhere along the way,lol,

  • YAH! SKIRT, SKIRT, SKIRT! Bowie is fabulous!!

  • no offense to davdi,

    i love him so freaking much,

    but he has the body for wearing a skirt

    ^-^

  • Its art its BOWIE The dame can get away with it,everyone else was weraring polyester siuts and kipper ties,suddenly a skirt seems disturbingly appealing

  • this looks like it was from the SNL Dec 14, 1979.

  • very groovy and very awsome..............tata

  • this is so wtf-able...

    but amazing. really amazing.

  • God, Bowie was so hot.

  • Was?

  • Is that klaus nomi acting like a robot with a dog?! That is bizarre and hilarious!

  • Yes it is,arty eh? lol

  • This is no more cross-dressing than a woman in slacks would be cross-dressing.

  • no way! really? this song just got even better! woooo hedonism!

  • hey, i am from germany and i want to know what "TVC 15" means? Is it a channel on TV? Can somebody tell me this please? Thank you!!! Greetz, Jessy

  • I think TVC15 is possibly a brand of television, not sure. This song is about a girl being swallowed by the television and he is pleading for the TVC 15 to return her.

  • It's a car.

  • yeh OK very droll:D

  • can't stop watching this to laugh at that dog!!Sorry but it's hillarious!!.... gotta love the Bowie!!

  • WOW! what an amazing performance! and yes, David Bowie looks totally hot in that teacher outfit.

  • Good god! Bowie can even manage to look fabulous dressed like a school teacher LOL and whats with the dog ???

  • I first saw this on a rerun in 1982 and it blew my mind completely away.

  • Wow. Martin Sheen vs Klaus Nomi vs David Bowie!

  • If I am ever getting a pet, I'd buy a poodle like that one.

  • I wonder why he decided to play a song from StationToStation in '79? That was like at the height of his amazing Berlin-era. Still fucking awesome though.

  • I think he was just revisiting and reinterpreting his back catalogue at that time. He also re-recorded versions of "Space Oddity" and "Panic In Detroit" then (They were included as bonus tracks on the Ryko issue of "Scary Monsters..."

  • The other song he sang that night was The Man Who Sold the World, which is an even stranger choice, considering it wasn't a popular song when it was released, and this is obviously before all the stupid Nirvana hype. You'd expect "Heroes" or something, not these two songs. Oh well, that's Bowie.

  • I remembered when this first aired live on SNL Bowie was way ahead of his time this performance really shocked the world. People were traumatized by drag and that evil poodle. I had nightmares for weeks.

  • I've been looking for this FOREVER!!!!!! thanks

  • Oh my JANET-Reno...OH-HO...Ja-NET-Re­-No...OH-HO!!!

  • I thought ziggy wuz haught!

  • is this tom s.?

  • insane!

  • That was awesome ✰✰✰✰✰

  • December 15, 1979 Saturday Night Live. Martin Sheen was the host.

  • I have the same question EdZep123 too! I'm assuming that since he had the strawberry blond hair color during the Station to Station era in 1976 and brought his hair back to a natural brown color during the Berlin Trilogy (also in addition to some of the "punkish" and "new wavish" background vocalists) I think that this performance took place in 1979.

  • What year is it?

  • Is that Iggy Pop with Klaus Nomi in the background or am I mistaken?

  • It's Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi.

  • the headmistress-on-coke-look is brilliant. who else could pull it off?

  • Real men wear skirts! GO BOWIE!

  • This man is tops!!! I love this tune!!! Thank you for posting!!!

  • I remember when this aired and it was a little embarrassing being a kid in the midwest trying to explain why I loved Bowie & defend the 'queer' insults.

  • LOL

    im only 13 and im so freaking in love with him.

    :]

    heehee

  • I like this song, but David Bowie, his clothes =O

    O my god!

  • Thought the same, looks like my grandmother, but the song is gorgeous!

  • super video, jamais vu !! excellent

  • You'd think Bowie would have chosen a frock that was a little less matronly...  Klaus Nomi looks fabulous as usual!

  • To KR4Prez-This aired in 1978 and the song is from his classic"Station to Station".Also he performs "The Man Who Ruled the World" as his second song.The show,of course,was "Saturday Night Live."

  • Their WAC skirts were daring at the time and added a creative flair to this funky number.

  • Great song. At one point I confused this song with D.J from his Lodger album towards the D.J music video.

  • Janet Reno?I don't know where you were doing at the time of "Low","Heroes",Or "Station to Station",but I believe he had scientists discover a pheromental scent to affect women like catnip affects cats.I doubt if YOU look good with a dress on.

  • It's Miss Jane Hathaway!

  • lol good call

  • They all owe something to Saint David. Genius, rock god, ac/dc fox.

  • The Janet Reno thing is funny as hell! Hey, it takes balls to put on a dress! AWESOME stuff!

  • Where is this from and what year was it?

  • Saturday Night Live 1979. He also did Man Who Sold the World and Boys Keep Swinging. I remember thinking this guy was from outer space - Awesome!

  • Saturday Night Live.I saw it....late '80s I beleive.

    Jeff

  • Yes Jeff/repelghosts that is correct. SNL.

  • bowie is a ledgend

  • Klaus Nomi 4 EVA!

  • still remember the night this aired. name one performer today with the style, the balls, the influence and the vision.

  • David looks like Janet Reno with that dress on.

  • Bowie fucking rocks!!!!

  • These gems are available on a bootled dvd: Bowie-Rare,precious and beautiful....

  • Why don't we have any performers of this calibre any more? Classic Bowie with his weird sidekick Klaus Nomi..

  • What the hell is Janet Reno doing singing 'bout TVC-15 with that costume?

  • When was this? '77? I vividly remembering seeing this live (on tv) and being completely taken with it, although I think I was only about 10 at the time. Thanks so much for posting :)

  • spacial

  • Klaus Nomi was a fantastic performer whose time on this planet was way too short. I recommend THE NOMI SONG on DVD

  • bowie looks like janet reno. lol!

  • Bowie always brings the most messed up videos to the table, live or not... Klaus Nomi always slightly terrifies me, but Bowie in purple makes up for it. Awesome performance too. Thanks for posting such a classic!

  • I love this video... thanks for posting it,

    I can watch it over and over again...

    any chance you might be able to find

    "boys keep swinging" or "the man who sold the world"

    from the same night...

    Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias really clicked into place along side Mr. db...

    anyway, thanks again for posting it

  • It used to beup,but NBC found it and made youtube take it down

  • echk...

    well thanks for letting me know...

    thats pretty lame I must say...

    oh well...

    I'm glad TVC15 is still up

  • Ace performance from the Thin White Duke. Been looking for "Man who Sold the World" performance, from the same SNL episode- just as wonderfully unique.

  • Bowie had originally planned more collaborations with the great Klaus Nomi after this, but unfortunately they never materialised, which is a shame.

  • my god...this takes the biscuit for strangeness. that pink dog...

  • Matadorlov nailed it: Fuck OFF, you greedy fucking Steiners at NBC Universal & Viacom, trying to remove low-res, cheesy quality videos from YouTube. I hope you all choke. Leave this shit here; it's going right back up after it gets taken down, anyway.

  • he effing rocks! hahahaha my dad's taking me to see him next time he tours here in england!

  • for your information Klaus Nomi wasn't a crossdresser. i don't know what about hsi costume in this, or any of his costumes period, would give you that stupid idea. it's more fair to call Bowie a crossdresser. he's the one wearing a fucking skirt. Nomi and Arias are imitating space men, not crossdressers. get it straight.

  • I finally seen this Klaus Nomi ,and the wonderful Joey Arias with David Bowie , This One is For The Record Books

  • just want to say: fuck NBC Universal mother fuckers...whores from hell pieces of shit...let people enjoy art, art is for everyone to see an to enjoy stop asking youtube to remove certain footage...hope you burn fuckers stop doing that::

  • Klaus Nomi!!!

  • This song is one of the songs I've search the video, already having"Station to station" but not the video!I'm a big Bowie's fan and having, in vinyl,16 discsand on C.D. all of what he had put in the net(18 C.D.).Really a BIG & GREAT artist!

  • HOT. I bought this album in 1974 or 1975, when I was 15 or 16. Really liked it a lot.. still have it but no turntable to play it on. Bowie looks so great in a dress.. he was wearing them before others were (except Wayne/Jayne County, of course). I'd like to see some other performances of this song.

  • David Bowie and Klaus Nomi in one great video! Man, music was so great back then.

  • Oh yeah!!! Day after this aired, all the morons in the podunk town I grew up in were goin on about "that guy in the dress"... but man, he was singing to me! Like eilanah1, it got me up and out of there! love on ya, lord bowie!

  • Great story. So where did you end up after leaving Podunk?

  • hollyweird, california. :)

  • my tv ate me too

  • About a year ago I discovered the 'Station To Station' album and it has since become one of my all-time favourite albums due largely in part to the fantastic drumming of Dennis Davis who is also playing on this rockin' SNL performance(taped on December 15, 1979). More drummers should become familiar with Dennis' drumming because you can really learn things from it. Shortly after this, he went on to play with Stevie Wonder's band.

  • fucking great

    great song and performance

    bowie just amazing

  • This performance really openned my eyes when I first saw it as a small town adolescent. So I moved to New York City right out of high school!

    So good to see these wonderful performances by Klaus Nomi.

  • its called TVC15,its on STATION TO STATION(1976),wanted to see this clip for years,god bless youtube

  • what is the name of this song?

  • Yes, the great StS album is from '76, but this looks to me like the Lodger '79 period...

  • What year was this...?

  • Hmmmm. I recall using the original (but cracked) album as a FRISBEE in 1978...so 1977 for then album, but the SNL video i caouldn't say...

  • Well, I burned your comment and profile on to a dvd, and used it as a COASTER in 2007. Idiot.

  • wanker! get a life... or start taking the prozac again...

  • I take it you thought I was dissing him??? Never in life - I'm a raging fan since 1969...

  • It was definitely 79; both album and SNL.

    Low- 77

    "Heroes"- 77

    Lodger- 79.

  • oh my god another wonerful david bowie clip

    beatiful

  • Thank you so much for posting this performance. Only Bowie can get away with wearing a dress.

  • Thanks for the ripping of this clip i am a fan of klaus nomi and it is great to see this.

  • Yeah, this was back in the day when SNL was the shit. And Bowie wearing a stewardess uniforn singing about Iggy's girl getting eaten by a television! WTF!!! Bowie was, is, and always will be light years ahead of everyone else. Plus he's soooo fuckin' hot!!!

  • when snl was great...and bowie even greater...brilliant

  • Genius! Nomi & Arias kick! tho I'd love to hear Klaus. The Poodle Cam is my fave! So before it's time!

  • Klaus - showman. Still, it would balance wrong if he were louder. His presence is enough. I miss him so.

  • Fucking priceless. Bowie at his best.

  • Thank you. I was hoping this clip would turn up on You tube. :-D

  • I have