 Good evening and welcome to the Brooklyn Museum. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for tonight's Brooklyn talk in honor of our special exhibition David Bowie is. My name is Margo Conestrucci, and I'm the coordinator of public programs here at the museum. Organized with unprecedented access to David Bowie's personal archive, David Bowie is explores the creative process of an artist whose innovative collaborations and Characterizations have revolutionized the way we see music David Bowie is has toured internationally. I'm sure some of you have seen it in multiple occasions Yeah, let's hear it for the true fans And it's taking its final bow here in Brooklyn providing one last opportunity to experience this one-of-a-kind material It is my distinct pleasure to introduce the exhibition's curator Matthew Jakobowski who will be bringing our special guest onto the stage. Please help me in welcoming Matthew Thank you very much How many people have seen the exhibition so far? Thank you very very much for coming So tonight our conversation is with Jeff Slate and Tony Visconti I'm gonna introduce Jeff first So Jeff is a recording artist and writer He plays Gibson an epiphone electric and acoustic guitars uses Hoffner basses and Vox amplifiers He founded and co-founded several groups including the mindless thinkers the badge The Jeff Slate band and he has an ongoing project with Earl Slick Who has been who is also a frequent Bowie collaborator? He has also worked with Pete Townsend and Cheryl Crowe among others Jeff is also a writer and he writes music for Esquire magazine And is an author of the biography the authorized Roy Orbison which he collaborated with with Orbison's sons I personally would also like to add that like me Jeff was a member of David Bowie's fan club Bowie net Tony Visconti Tony was born in Brooklyn and Tony Visconti's name is a name that I've been reading since I was a teenager on record labels and album sleeves Tony is an extraordinary record producer in the late 1960s Tony moved from Brooklyn to London and Among Tony's greatest and most well-known productions Includes seven albums that he produced for T-Rex and with Mark Boland Which included the 1971 album electric warrior featuring Featuring the song get it on which I'm sure we all know And you know Tony's made Dozens of albums and I just thought I'd list a few of the ones that I'm partial to Thin Lizzie's bad reputation Hazel O'Connor's breaking glass The boomtown rats Mondo bongo altered images bite Adam ants Viva la rock La Rita Mitsuko's the no comprendo, it's a very good album Morrissey's ringleader of the tormentors Angelique Kijos Jin Jin Esperanza Spalding's de-evolution And many many more Which I think Jeff might cover a bit tonight But tonight we're here to discuss Tony's work with David Bowie Tony worked on over 14 albums with David and I thought I would list them all for you 1969's David Bowie the man who sold the world David live, which was David's first live album young Americans Which which was recorded in Philadelphia low heroes stage Which is also a great live album Listen to stage Lodger scary monsters and super creeps heathen reality the next day And black star I'd like to introduce you to Tony Visconti Shout out to the Sigma kids Originally, they told us we only had about 40 minutes, so we've only got about 20 let no no Tony and I were joking yesterday that we could cover black star for 40 minutes, so But we're gonna try to get through everything As best we can They wanted us to both talk about how you know our connection to David and You know, I could go on about David like any of you For the whole 40 minutes. He was Loomed huge in my life from a very early age But you know, I was a fan. I I saw him from the outside. I crossed paths with him a few times but nothing like Tony so Rather than me talk about how much David Bowie means to me Let's get Tony to talk about David and his work with him I think what was We'll just start at the beginning and and kind of you know, how does a kid from Brooklyn? find himself in London and in a circle where You're making space oddity essentially well, I When I heard the Beatles that was the clarion call I said these people are making better records than we are in Brooklyn and New York and all that and I Had to find out, you know, I knew all about George Martin. I saw a hard day's night about 25 times and I said I've got to get over there somehow and I a psychic told me I was going to meet an Englishman who was going to offer me a job And that's exactly what happened I'm not making that up And was that David though No, it was it took a little while to a few months But I met my mentor Denny Cordell who was a great record producer in his own right by the by the water cooler in my publisher's office and He's as soon as he spoke to me. I said, oh my god, you're English, you know, so I you were in England Yeah, I had I Had even a worse Brooklyn accent than I have now and I said you're in England you're English and he says yes He goes, well, what do you do and I said I'm the house record producer I do demos for this company and he goes, ah, you're my American cousin so he did he said he was the record producer for Essex music in London and Only he was a little bit. He wasn't making demos He was making a wider shade of pale by Prokel Haram and the move Denny Lane And those were his early early productions, which when I eventually went over to work with him I worked on those very same people with those very same people So how did you first come across David and how did you end up working on that first record? Well, I met I met David By working with Mark Bowlin first My Denny said to me he says you've got to find the group of your own now You've helped me enough and and I want you to bring somebody into the company. I was essentially an A&R man, too So John Peele was playing this band called Tyrannosaurus Rex every Sunday on his cool Underground show, you know, and I thought they were really good and different and I Noticed that in the the timeout newspaper, which in those days was just too. It was just a folded sheet You know as four sides that Tyrannosaurus Rex were playing right up the road Tottenham Court Road at a UFO night in this club That had a UFO night So I said well, I'm gonna check this band out. Maybe I'll sign this band and that's exactly what happened My very first foray into A&R and I had a pint and a pork pie at a pub Revolting Pork pie, which is cockney's for I of course, and then I went up the road and I walked down this dark stairwell and I heard Tyrannosaurus Rex music, you know loom up and I had a great chat with Mark that night. He was full of himself And this is the 12-string acoustic No, no, well, he didn't have a 12-string. He actually had five and a half strings Because the G string lost the peg he had to tighten it with a pair of pliers We were all poor as anything in those days. So anyway, I did I I brought him into the company and Danny Cordell liked him. He said I like them. I don't understand what they're doing But we'll take the monosaur token underground group. So we did, you know I was working with Mark for about a month and now this is this will answer your question But it had to I had to tell you the back story. So yeah, he said Called me into his office his partner called me into his office a man called David Platt's who was who was the head of the whole operation the CEO so to speak And he said I'd like to play something for you And he played me a few cuts off David Bowie's first DRAM album when he wrote I could live my dreams something like that and the laughing gnome. We all know about the laughing And I said his voice is fantastic I said but he's all over the place and he goes well You seem to be and I was referring to Mark Bowling because you seem to do well with weird people I don't know if that was a compliment for anyone But he said would you like to meet him and I said of course, I would yeah, he sounds great And I think there's a picture of David on the on the sleeve and I thought very young nice-looking guy and all that He said well, he's in the next room and it was kind of a setup And so we went through this little two other door which went into the piano room with Publishers used to play that you know, they put up the sheet music and they play music for a potential recording You know David was sitting in that room and he was all smiles. He knew this was gonna happen I didn't and the first disturbing thing about this meeting was I didn't know which I to look into Fans will know why and I worked it out eventually So we started talking about who we liked and what music we were into and we were both into kind of underground music We liked Frank Zappa and We liked the fugs. Yeah, the fugs were an early underground group in New York Well, all the members of the group were in their 40s But they were kind of really dark people and they were the first group to use profanity in In their album and their records, you know, you couldn't hear them on the radio. So it was really underground I think they wrote that unforgettable song fuck for peace. Yep. So We had that in common and then we had this strange man called Ken Nordin in common We love this this word play album that Ken Nordin made he was spoken spoken word album And he the album we both love was an album all about colors and he would you know do He would recite a piece with jazz in the background. So we instantly loved each other. We liked the exact same weird stuff and That was how you know, that was our first day and we ended up Talking about this is funny Roman Polanski and he had a new film out and we walked down They closed the offices and we walked down Oxford Street and then I said to him I live in Where did I live near Earl's Court? So I said let's walk down Kings Road together and we walked down Kings Road together And we noticed that one of the art theaters. They were playing a knife in the water The film debuting this film by Roman Polanski. So we said shall we shall we go in? So we went in and watched a knife in the water, which was a great film And we we ended up saying good night at about 10 10 p.m. In the evening So that was like a real like good eight hour day. We spent together So how long from that meeting? before you got to make that first record and let's get right into that and Men who sold the world as well. Well, the first few records I did with singles that got him Drop from his label. So I did a great job. Well done. Good job. Good job. And they were Let me sleep beside you and karma man and all that in the heat of the morning. Yeah, great I love these songs. You know, we got a great John Peel live radio show out of these and You know, it didn't hurt him, but it got him five. It was a crap label anyway so We he got signed to Mercury and We I did do with David Platt said he said David Bowie needs channeling. He's all over the place I said he was all over the place and he agreed and I'm an expert with weird people, you know, so I Said the thing he does best is he writes and sings well play while he's playing his 12 string kind of a folk rock Idiom that he was into at the time So we planned all of the first album David Bowie around his style of 12-string acoustic guitar playing and I got a friend of mine a band I produced called juniors eyes and Who had a guy called McWayne in the group guitars McWayne who eventually played the stunning guitar part on space oddity? I'm gonna song spade out space oddity So everything would like little steps little steps, you know, we were leading up to something But he was really like unlike Mark Bowen David still was undecided what he wanted to do He was always Mercurial he wouldn't spend much time on anything because he just wanted to move to the next thing and It was raining him in was the most difficult part the most enjoyable part was just that that it was always interesting He wanted to do different stuff all the time. You couldn't nail him down. You couldn't tie him down and After that album, but we really Need we saw what we needed like that the the folk rock thing wasn't working for us, you know so we said we We liked cream and all the heavy stuff heavy rock that was coming out So we at the end of making that album. We were introduced by it. I believe Gus Duggin to a guitarist called McRonson and We had a we had a John Peel show a live one to play with John Cambridge on drums Who also knew McRonson from from Hull they both came from So we got Mick for like a one hour rehearsal to play with us And in that one hour rehearsal in Beckett and Kent we all lived in the Hatton Hall We bowie and I looked at each other we went. Oh my god. He's the guy, you know this is we're gonna we're gonna make a heavy rock album and Mick is the guitar player and We asked Mick and he said to me goes Well, if you're gonna place play bass with me, you've got to listen to Jack Bruce. I can't do the accent. Sorry So I listened nobody can do the accent So I said, okay, you know and I Jack Bruce is basically a lead bass player Yeah, I was also a guitar player. So it was a pleasant challenge and we went into when we really got Something going was when we made the album the Man of Solar World then I felt like we were all on the same page Had David written a lot of that before he met Mick or was it written with Mick in his mind? Because they're very guitar driven songs. Well, we rehearsed we worked up the album in the basement of Hatton Hall it was this little disused wine room, you know wine storage room and And We could barely fit in there, but we cranked up the amps and we worked out a width of a circle down there part one we didn't we we wrote part two in the studio and A few other songs, but I think after about four songs We thought we could go in and start work and they came very slowly David was not prolific He didn't write all the time he thought long and hard and then he would sit down and write when he had an idea and This is something that happened throughout his career with me. Anyway, so we went into the studio Confident that will record the four songs and will jam some of some of the other ones And one of the most memorable jams was the part two of a width of a circle Yeah, and that came out spontaneously we did that interlude and all that and I'd love to go back to the master tapes because you could probably have a timing on it didn't take very long and and This is something that David began To work to this thing called pressure and it and it when there he was under pressure He could write, you know, we had an album that we needed to deliver in two weeks So everything else was written and conceived in the studio so Because time is of the essence. I you know that we were you know, we got a lot to cover You went off at that point because you were a working producer by that by that time in the real sense Hooked up with Mark Bowen and made some huge huge records. Yeah, he was easy to produce He just wrote three-minute pop songs even when he was Tyrannosaurus Rex, right? They were essentially he always said I would have had a band with Tyrannosaurus Rex But I couldn't afford an electric guitar right and you know In fact of the first few electric guitar recordings we did with mark He borrowed my Fender strap, which you saw yesterday. Sorry yesterday so Mark was into that three-minute formula he had it down pat and And he was very prolific He literally opened up a schoolbook and he would take any bunch of lyrics He just turned the page to and start singing that I mean he must have had like 60 odd song Ideas which he could finish in a few minutes, you know David was the complete opposite, right? So meanwhile you're making electric warrior in the slider and David's Going off and making Ziggy Stardust and before that hunky Dory But then you know, he finds huge stardom. You're becoming a name brand producer and he Wants to take a left turn as he always liked to do and was making diamond dogs Yeah, and you got a phone call. Well, you just made a quantum leap This is why I'm here Well, you know unless we do have three hours, and then we could I could have been a spider, you know I could have been a spider Well, we should we could talk about the hype Well, we were fired basically we finished the album We thought we were gonna rule the world after that we thought it was a great album And he got a new manager at the very last minute. He dropped his manager Ken and And he got Tony de Fries who said to him you don't need the band get rid of them So we were sacked literally two days after we finished the album and we were all set to go on the road and back him up So Mick Mick and Woody this Woody by now is the drummer in the band They went back to Hull with the tail between their legs It was so depressed and I went on to like luckily I had Mark Bowling, right? I was simultaneously producing but yes, we will do this quantum leap together here So diamond dogs, I built my own home studio I had a good year and my account says if you don't use that money, you're gonna have to give it to Her Majesty so I said okay, I'll build a home studio and I did and Just as I was finishing it and it was all installed. It was all working I had no furniture yet. I was sitting on a carpenter's horse, you know, because we were still sewing wood And he phones me up and he says I've Produced my own album and I've been looking all over town to get a good mix I've been going to Olympic Studios and drop all the big studio names He says could you recommend any studio because I've been through them all I said well, I'm building one right now It's virtually finished you Want to come over and see it and he goes now and I go if you want to so he was there in about two hours And with his tape, you know, and I think We I can't remember what we mix that out I think we started from the beginning from the opening track diamond dogs and Because I had just bought new equipment. I had the latest stuff I had all the new digital stuff that you can do Mara miraculous things with like the end of Big Brother, for instance, we Seize the word we try to get the whole word brother into the sampler But you know, we didn't have enough bram in those days. So we got the bruh bruh So at the end of the year bruh bruh bruh bruh, but we were thrilled that we could do that So that's how we we would just like we just dove in like to for this experimental It was an experimental album diamond dogs and we went into experimental mixing and Every day we go home with a copy tape and come back the next day and you did some tracking as well, too It wasn't just he did vocals and some more guitar playing something like that. Yeah Yeah, we we got back together again after like the Ziggy days and all that which I wasn't a part of Well, then we get to a really major period which is he's Really trying to break big in America if he's wants him to break big in America They're spending like they want to break him big in America except on the band, but they're And You know, he wants to again take another turn in the road. Yeah and make a soul record. Yes Where else would you make a soul record in 1974, but Philadelphia? Yeah, I would make it at Atlantic Records personally, but He said let's go to Philadelphia and he wanted to work with Gamble and Huff Originally and they took an issue with that because he was from England and they didn't want to give their secrets away to Some skinny little white boy from England, you know, that's what they actually said, you know And but we so we got to this he got to the studio and eventually got his own musicians And he got my my garson in who I believe is with us tonight. Hello, Mike Hey, I didn't say you could stand up But I'm glad you did And we got Willie Weeks on bass who was one of my we played with Donnie Hathaway one of my favorite bass players in the world and Andy Newmark on drums. So these were nobody was from Philadelphia in that band, you know, we ended up really, you know We got the cold We got the shade from Philadelphia So so we had this fantastic band and I think I arrived three days after they arrived And I do believe I'm not sure maybe Carlos Alomar arrived the day before or the day I arrived because I remember Carlos walking in with this little amplifier and his guitar and his wife Robin, right? And this this tall dude who was a friend of theirs from the Bronx a singer called Luther Vandross Just a little who's about 18 And So that's how that's how the album started and we and the first track I recorded with the band that day was young Americans. That was the first cut Did it surprise you? I mean at that point you'd known David for a while and you'd worked on Pretty varying projects even at that early stage You clearly knew he had a love for this music, but it was very different than anything he had done before Did that surprise you? Did you just kind of go with the flow? No inside every young British boy in those days They wanted to make a soul record or they you know, it was the records that were the ones that they Imported most and you know by and the black market, you know was soul music and When I was a kid it was the same kind of music I listened to I I didn't realize that I all my records came from Philadelphia or Atlantic Records or from especially New Orleans because I was big fan of Fats Domino and Of the New Orleans artists, but I had no idea where they made these records, you know, but that was my favorite music, too So for me, it was like wow, we better do this, right? We've got it in our DNA somehow, you know And we'll get it out. We'll get it on to tape Was there any trepidation in that it would be you didn't have the Philly sound that it would be in authentic or that it wouldn't carry The kind of weight that the the RM because RMB was at a real heyday in that moment Did you talk about that? Did you think about that? There was a strong possibility that could happen and I don't know we our radar was good. We had Who's our sex player? David Sanborn, David Sanborn Just a little guy named David Sanborn Terrific, you know, he came from St. Louis and that's one of the most musical cities in the United States Everybody was on the right page My gossip was as funky as anything on that. Yeah, very you grew up in Brooklyn. You hear this music, too Yeah, yeah, so I don't know we were like three songs in and we knew we were on to something and Lutha kept Lutha was a godsend and Carlos they came from the Bronx and They kept us very honest when it came to like the credibility Sure Lutha wrote all the backing vocals and one of the songs he wrote a song called which became Fascination, but he he that's how Lutha got the gig. He's his manager sent the tape of funky music to David's manager and David liked the cassette and he asked for like Carlos was on that and Robin was on it Lutha was on it. That's how we got that crew down with us and So but Lutha was the arbitrary. He said no, you got to do this. That's not right and He was always referring to Aretha records, too. Yeah, like I mean he was so good for us to be there At the same time. He's out on the Diamond Dogs tour, which came the Philly dog soul dogs tour Yeah, you recorded some of those shows and you went to a bunch of those shows Yeah, talk talk a little bit that tour is so legendary and it isn't really properly filmed Talk a little bit about what what it was like and what you saw what you witness Yeah, well Diamond Dogs had already been released So the tour was meant to be a Diamond Dogs tour and yet there was Carlos and Lutha and Robin on the stage and Those they they did I forget they did a few of the the Philadelphia songs live Can you hear me? Yeah, can you hear me and all that and you could see that the crowd didn't know these songs yet You know, they're cheering all the other ones the classic ones of course, but they were quiet You know for a song like can you hear me? I really it recently mixed this album and I could hear all the dynamics going on in the audience. I could turn up the audience like to get people Haven't heard this this is not Bowie music, you know, right, right, but afterwards the songs went down very very well and Is it transition you're actually seeing The brand-new album that's released and the album that's about to be released in the same shows. It was incredible Right. The production was it is amazing. Are we talking about the one with the bridge? Yeah Yeah Yes, so you have this set built, you know, it was hunger city hunger city it was cold Yeah, and so many times the bridge stalled the bridge, you know, there was a draw What you close kind of bridges, but it went up and it went down or all that and sometimes he was stuck in the middle and sometimes it wouldn't work at all and Was this the cherry picker one? Yeah space oddity space I did space oddity in a big hand that was in a hydraulic arm and it came over about maybe five rows and Occasionally that arm got stuck and he had to like climb down the pole to get back on this day But his his imagination was fantastic who else did this I know and else put on a show like that He was years ahead ahead with with a such a theatrical Presentation and also he had his choreography worked out by Tony Basil, right? Okay, and She taught him things like you never walk from here to there Without doing something and she taught him all little moves like if say slick was gonna go into a solo and David walked to the side of stage he would go Right just that you know, she she told him like you just don't go plonk plonk plonk plonk And so everything about that was just oh, you know, you were gobsmacked Interesting you went off and made some records. He went off to LA and Dabbled in the occult and made the station a station Yeah and then he wanted to get away from the sort of rat race in Los Angeles and You got a phone call from he and Brian to come and make what became low. Let's talk about the Berlin trilogy a little bit Yeah, well, that was great. I hadn't heard from him for a while and I knew he was at the time he was living in Berlin but He booked the Hunky Chateau Chateau yeah in Chateau d'Iroville in France and He and Brian phoned me on a you know, they were on extensions in Switzerland. Oh, was it Switzerland? No, it was Berlin No, it was Switzerland. They were calling from Switzerland. That's it No, they were calling from No, I Don't know. Yeah, something like that. So they said we have this idea based on Brian's ambient music and we're gonna do They had already had the concept. Were you familiar with Brian's work? Yes, of course, you know, I was a rock music fan as well and so it said we're gonna do like We're gonna do rock songs and an ambient side to this is wonderful We had vinyl and you can actually have a side one and then side two is another vibe, you know Well, they took full advantage of this concept So they said well, what could you bring to the table? And that's first time I ever heard that expression, you know, what roast beef You know, I don't know what that meant. What do I thought it was quick? You know, I caught on Brooklyn and I said well David knew that I had this home studio It was still in my home and I said well, I got this new thing from even tide It's I've got the only one in the country and it's called a harmonizer and They said what does it do? And I started giving them the the technical information. Well, you could change the speed but Said it fucks with the fabric of time You won't see they don't laugh anymore They know this and they're waiting for they go to tell the punchline. I should come up with a different phrase But it's it is what happened, you know, so anyway, it fucks with the fabric of time and They both whooped in the background like In the background and so I said you're gonna love it and we'll use it and all that So that's what that's what I brought to the chateau and and at that point you you've said this a few times But was it at that point that you knew this might never see the light of day was or did that come later in the process when you Were physically with David and kind of working on the record. Oh, this is I mean He most records he started out saying we're doing just demos. I'm not sure this is gonna be an album But oh, that's how he prefaced this particular album because would you mind spending a month with Brian and myself and maybe nothing coming of it? All right, I'd love to spend a month with you and Brian. I don't give a shit. What happens. Yeah, really really in France Oh, it's so great. What a great vacation, you know, it was September the chateau. It was beautiful And that there's such a beautiful area of France, North France. So yeah, that's and when you got there and you heard The songs and what they were working on Again, it was completely different and a real change and and dramatic for somebody Who at hit he was at a pretty high statue just at a number one hit in America with fame. Yeah Did did that ring true to you that maybe this won't see the light of day or did he's kind of he just cast it aside He wasn't interested in the fame style anymore He would not be tied down and this was evidence that you know, he's not gonna be tied down to a style He often said that out outright. I'm not gonna do oh RCA wanted him to do Young Americans to that was exactly what they said. Let's call it Young Americans to so No, we started doing making radical sounds right off Altered the drum sound immediately with the harmonizer which Dennis Davis went crazy over he loved it because he realized It was the the first like for a into changing pitch But not time and changing time but not pitch, you know And he realized that with all the glitches in the machine. He could play it with Dynamics, so if you played to the harmonizer, he played it the harmonizer very hard You know you play this it would suck kind of splutter and go burp like like that But if you hit it a little softer go Like that and he's having a ball in the headphones. No one else heard this in the headphones Well, we're recording because they did initially and they said oh turn that off. That's terrible. Oh That's what they said. Oh turn it off So we did and it was only on playbacks when I would go Let me just put the harmonizer in a little bit And everyone after a few days got used to it and It was such a radical sound I had one Little bit of pleasure. I had was for months after that album was released I had all my record producer friends phoned me up and saying come on, Tony How did you do it because I still had the only The the sessions were I mean Iggy was around it you had the core band around You moved really quickly from low into heroes. It was a really brief pause into making heroes and yet They're very different albums They have the same template maybe but the sound of heroes is very different Is it is it in your mind? Do you see it as part one in part two? Low is almost sort of the the germ of the idea and heroes is the fruition I mean, how do you how do you see it? Well, it was like a travelogue You know, we actually got a French kind of sound in France and for Berlin that just turned David into some Kind of passive. I won't say the word No, he got he got like wow because you were with the Reichstag is there and the Berlin and the bombs and like the city Is blown out, you know really bad and and and the the studio was where a lot of the propaganda music for Hitler's rallies Was recorded right and the whole place made you feel like very strange It was very strange to be there and you could summon the that manic Kind of energy that man that manic aggression, which is all over heroes. It's all over that album Yeah, there's no deep love songs on that album, you know It's it's all about being a hero just for one day the song about an angry loser Alcoholic couple, you know, everyone thinks it's about heroes. It's not about heroes vote So like and the themes were pretty who pretty aggressive Joe the lion is a very aggressive song And but we had the nice thing we had was the that studio Because Denny Cordell taught me if well, he taught me two things get a great bass and drum sound and the other Thing he says if you're in a good room take it home with you Record the room always record the room you're in if it's a good room And you couldn't find a better place than the grand the grand hall in Hansa studios because it could house 100 pieces and a choir right it had a riser you could put about 50 people on the rise of singing, you know And But we had a like a you know six musicians using up that whole room and using all the ambience and I put I put mics everywhere even even Brian Eno played his little Briefcase synthesizer live, but I didn't take a DI I put a mic on it And you could hear the piano coming down that mic some of the drums coming down that mic the whole album is charged with this Chewtonic ambience right the so so low does have a more Sort of Chateau French countryside sound and and heroes has that Hansa sound But he was he was in a different place too low. He was in a low place. He was dealing with a lot of stuff By the time he got to heroes Did he have an edge? Did he had he picked up? He was a sponge Do you pick up on that kind of Berlin vibe? No in Berlin? He was very happy and he was really he had a lot of confidence He and Jimmy were really great friends. They got Iggy pop to you And me they go they go all go all of a town go to the clubs I used to go with them to all the night clubs, which were really radical There was one phone there was one club that had every table had a phone and this is from the 40s You see these in old black and white films. We could phone another table and And all that and you know if you saw somebody you like you just it's a table for and you go like that. Hello Can I buy some champagne? And things like that so we went to all the we saw all the local bands That's it That was the difference between David and say Mark Boland Mark Boland if he was in Berlin He would stay in his hotel room David had to go out and soak up the local stuff There was very little of that to do at the Chateau because we were about 13 miles outside of Paris and He was also going through law problems he was being sued by a former manager and he often had to go to Paris for a Depositions depositions and and he would come back so pissed off and so angry and depressed eventually You know and it's exactly why you call the album low When we were when I was getting ready for this I noticed that heroes didn't even crack the top 100 as a single I mean now we think of it as one of his greatest songs. Were you even aware of that? I mean you talk about the confidence you guys had and well you're talking about the US Yeah, it was a hit in England, but in the UK and Europe, but it didn't make the number one. That's true. Yeah and and yet it was Sort of the temp it was I mean you guys were kind of creating the future I mean the whole new rent new new romantic scene all these things that happened in the 80s that a man Album that you know everybody clapped for was invented in Hansa almost, you know And and let's talk a little bit about lodger because it came, you know pretty quickly again He did a big tour. Yeah, and you recorded stage But we've talked about lodger a lot and I think it's underappreciated It's probably as great an album as scary monsters, which is you know considered it one of his great works Now that it has a new mix we can everybody can hear it in a different way But but talk about what you were trying to do and what was going on because that was made largely in New York Well little switch from Brian and David talked about making a triptych, you know, this album This is gonna be the third and final album in the series and there was a great idea We were we were hindered by I mean we got it. We got some great tracks I mean it Unappreciated how great some of those tracks are and the remix I did brought out more harmonies more little percussion things going in the background and better sounds on everything We were actually we wanted to go more in the direction of scary monsters getting this big a glossier sound or deeper sound a Bigger sound but first it was the only studio this studio in the mountain studios in Switzerland Where the walls were carpeted? It was such a dead sound, you know that the floor was carpeted The walls were carpeted, you know They have the acoustic tiles in the ceiling and the purpose of that studio was to record the concerts at the big Hole underneath us. That's where they had the Montrose Jazz Festival and and all other sorts of concerts and Queen with the only band to successfully Rent the hall so if you had that little cabin of a studio up there And you had the hole then you had the sound we tried to get it, but we couldn't get it So we had to record everything. It was stuffy and hot. I've got like so many pictures of Brian Enotopoulos Well, you took the room home with you, I mean that's what that's what came that's what ended up on the tapes Yeah, right that's great Great, and then you couldn't really find a proper studio here in New York to mix them No, so we came to New York and there are some great studios here in those days power station and Hit factory and all that record plan. I don't know where we ended up the hit factor But we wanted studio a and we got studio f instead It was such a time where every studio was booked in New York. There was so many people making records Yeah Mick Jagger for instance visit visited us in the studio and he like looked around. He says pretty, you know Dank studio and go well so we can get and then he we were David played him a track and and Mick continued to put it down like he was Drum, I don't know if that Phil was any good He kept trying to tear it down and I said will you stop? Stop this. I told her so we like why are you doing this? He goes. Oh Okay, I guess I'll go up the road and sabotage Johnny Mitchell's album He was playing a mind game on us and David's energy was going oh, oh, you know We already we didn't feel good about being in studio as a good friend. It's Mick Jagger trashing our work It's only Mick Jagger Well the new mix is highly recommended for those of you who haven't heard it dial it up It's it's worth hearing I got to hear it Very early in it. Yeah, it was it sounds great. I mean if I say so myself, but David Heard the first five tracks Remixed and I said to him we were making black star at the time and I said I've got a surprise to you Because you know he was working on Lazarus and I had some time on my hands And I said let me just start getting into this because we always said we were gonna remix it And we when do you book time to remix an album? You never do you know you book time to make a new album So I did this in my spare time and I got five tracks up to good shape and as soon as I played the first 15 seconds of fantastic voyage He he just his he broke out into this big grin and he played it and I said you want to hear Africa night flight And he smiled broadly again, and he was he says this is fantastic he goes tell Tell Bill's E. I'm giving it the green light Bill's is flat his right is his lawyer and And I said well, I'm so happy, you know, so I finished it after he passed away But he gave the green light he loved it and he proved of the direction it was going in. Yeah But you were able to book time and he did have great songs when you got back together for scary monsters Not very long maybe six or eight months later. It was very soon Yeah, well, you know people made albums more often in those days nowadays I mean you make an album and people to offer two and a half years on that one record, you know Lady Gaga, for instance, you know She's still selling that Joni album. It's about three years old now She's on the Joni tour, you know, I'm not putting it down. I'm saying that's how it is now. He's putting her down but Did I say that Joni album? But but I mean in those days you could put an album out you can put two albums out in a year Which I often did with T-rex, so it was wonderful You know you get all that feedback and then you could go right back in and do your next album quickly with all the Feedback you got from reviewers and the ultimate feedback is record sales, you know, well and then and then again like low and heroes Lessons were learned on lodger and you took those into the sessions for scary monsters It really was the culmination of everything you were trying to do and didn't achieve maybe at the time with lodger Talk a little bit about those sessions. Well scary monsters. We always used to preface every album Starting with the Manusula world. Let's make our Sergeant Pepper's album, right, right? Because we thought we didn't really like that album very much. We love Revolva, but Sergeant Pepper's represented the most kind of overproduced album ever made like it was really a Big production sometimes to great excess But like it was amazing that somebody got to make an album Take nine months to make an album. So we wanted to have an album that was as classy as that and Scary monsters started out with that, but I think we came very close to making a really great album You know that that just hit all the marks and all the points were made and Again, I would say only half the songs are written. It's no game Was a song he claimed he started when he was 16, right? So that that's how Unprolific he was He finally finished it when he was 30 something, you know, so it's no game probably kicked it off and Scary monsters and super creeps was a backing track, you know Ashes to ashes was a had a working title of people are turning to gold But what we were expecting what we were making was we were working with textures We we we met a New York guy called Oh, he played early. It was the first person at an electric synthesizer guitar a synthesized guitar I was just speaking to his manager the other day But anyway, he said I can make my a string section out of my guitar And he we asked me to come in we had a lot of people coming into that, you know off the street basically And he played this beauty these beautiful string chords on his electric guitar Recorded it in the stairwell of the power station and Those are the strings on ashes to ashes in the on the chorus. You have this big huge string section It's just a Chuck hammer his name is Chuck hammer and this Chuck strummen on the old electric guitar They're synthesizer guitar and again that album really soundtracked and Pointed the way forward for many artists for for the 80s, but not for David He went off and had a pop career essentially for the next 10 years and and then tin machine and You hadn't worked together in you know 15 almost 20 years and you reconnected talk a little bit about how you got back together with him for Well toy and then I guess he even and reality and then we'll kind of Yeah, I was in a studio producing a band and a punk band and it's degeneration Oh, yeah, and Joey Ramon was always coming to those sessions. It was I was really nice was in a small studio in New York and My wife phones me and she said David's about to call phone you I gave him the number of the studio I go David Bowie In 14 years because yeah David and degeneration. I'm leaving I said, what what did he say to you? He said where's Tony's head at? Interesting and she said it's in good shape What's she gonna say it works? Well terrible So then he phoned me up and he said I want I'd like to work with you again. I've got a couple of things I'm doing something that I wrote in I think a Nassau. He he wrote a song called no He didn't write it. He did mother the John John Lennon cover other because I want to mix that for Yoko was doing a tribute album something and that was a track we worked on so it was the first thing we worked on again just feeling each other out then he got a call for a having a track in a rug rats film I Know true story and that was because that ended up on heathen as safe in this Skylife the safe in the skies beautiful song absolutely beautiful and Nothing yet except when toy came along because he started working with Mark Plattie Excellent producer and he was all set up with this another crew and yeah, you can clap Mark. Yeah, give give Mark a shout out and And he was already working with that crew, but he and Mark produced toy with David Right and and David just didn't like the mixes and I hate to do this too I don't like to mix another producer's production, you know Unless something like this comes along David told Mark first because I want Tony to mix the album So it was a little delicate there was walking on eggshells and sure and I invited Mark and David and I said you could come every day and Come at the end of the session when I've got a decent mix up and all that So Mark was there to give his input so that that's how I really got back with David You know and what worked out well how had David? I mean a lot had happened to him He was married. He had a kid on the way. Well, maybe not at that point yet, but You know a lot of time had passed. He had had a really epic career in the 80s How had he changed? How is he the same? Was he kind of the same guy you met in 19? You know back in on Tottenham Court Road all those years ago. He he was Pretty much the same like when I first met him like and Beckett him when I was like he was he was wide-eyed again and bushy tail You know he was he was lovely. His energy was beautiful in the this would be the early 90s Yeah early 90s it was and He I Think I didn't know this until later. He had given up drinking already which made an enormous difference You know he was really healthy actually had a little weight on him and he wasn't really like the thin white Duke anymore and He was still recreating himself reinventing himself because eventually he proposed that we I was living in West Nyack at the time and really far out of the city Yeah, but I had a nice to maybe three-story house if you count the loft and I had a little studio up there And he said I'd like to make some demos with you Do you know where we can go and make them and I said I've got a homestead Boy history repeats itself with the saw horse so he came up. Yeah, we know we graduated from the soul horse We had swivel chairs. Oh You know So he came up to West Nyack and he stayed with us my lady and my myself for about three days We worked all day long on songs for that eventually became heathen and we went out night to the same The sushi place he loved sushi every night And we then we went to the the video store and rented things like requiem for a dream And we went back over and then like the third night at the sushi place in Japanese Lee said, I know you're somebody She said to David, you're somebody. I know you are There's a great way to get back together and we did heathen after that we went up to Catskill Mountains found this wonderful studio called a lair. Yeah, and really dug our heels in there We spent about seven weeks up there and made heathen and I think I think For folks who aren't familiar with it and you should all be it's underappreciated And I think people are we were talking about this yesterday People are rediscovering a lot of his catalog and heathen is a really solid album from beginning to beginning to end We're we're running a little short on time and we do want to get to some Q&A Let's talk about, you know, he you made reality It was sort of again part two to to heathen in many ways He toured that incessantly. He had some health problems And then I assume you didn't hear from him for a while until the next day No, actually, I heard from him all through that period when he was silent I mean I had lunch with him one one day and I It was sushi David likes sushi. Yeah And we spoke about normal things like our families our children they're all in school now and you know My younger my younger daughters. We are you this Laura? And then then at the end I said well, are you writing anything he goes no, I haven't written a thing in years and I don't care Okay, cool. Yeah, I was already working with other people too And I I thought okay if I if reality was my last Bowie album I that was my last Bowie album sure he looked really happy and a little more weight Maybe you know, but he was definitely in a good in a good space. He just didn't feel like Writing or recording. So I saw him on and off during that period, you know, we lived very close to each other in Manhattan and Let's see the next day came about with the same, you know the phone call But this time this time it was different because I'm gonna make an album But you have to be sworn to secrecy and this is where I heard about that, you know Now it's ubiquitous the NDA And you can't say a word about this meanwhile, he was the worst he would tell everyone he's making the right, right He'd bring his friends in We wish them, you know, even even outside the studio Earl Slick would be smoking or something like that and People say Earl Slick Tony Visconti. Hey, are you guys making a Bowie album? No Absolutely not. What would make you think that? No, we're not stupid New Yorkers But it's interesting because it was It was a very well kept secret But we talked about this also yesterday and and when we've spoken before that he had regained Some of the enigma that had surrounded him in the early days Not I think we agreed he enjoyed that because at a time when the information age had really taken hold Early, you know, this is like 2012 ish He he was David Bowie again the kind of you know untouchable guy, which is you know Hard to hard to get in this day and age and and I must add that I think he was now getting Autobiographical in his writing because he always said from even earlier days like everything you you if you want to know about me, I've written about it. It's in my lyrics, right and This was more important to him now than ever before He'd stopped communicating to the general public during that album and I was you know One of the few people he'd say like if like if articles came up He'd say Tony you do these things you talk a bit about it. I'll keep it to the music You know, and she was really really hard to do because occasionally I would let go of something like so while we were having lunch we watched a Funny video from England and he blew up when I said that he goes that is private He goes you must I told you don't talk about me talk about the music, but it's you know, you know a journalist alike Yeah What was the show so I mean, I'm not a professional interviewee. What were you eating? I'm not a professional How to do that, you know, I'm a blabbermouth. Yeah And yet there you know Black star just a couple of years later Seemed like such a huge left turn yet again But we we were talking about this he always loved jazz and there were hints of it on the next day Oh, when he was 16 he idolized Jerry Mulligan and he always baritone sex He always wanted to buy a baritone sex She only got like around the time of he then he actually owned a baritone sex. They're expensive And he wanted he loved the guy the trumpet player who was a singer too. There's a check Baker. Yeah He loved Chet Baker and Stan Kenton and you know, we We work with Maria Schneider. Yeah, and And that was like a dream come true because she actually worked on the Gill Evans, you know So all his he was fulfilling all his bucket list for making a jazz album a jazz record, but You know, we got with with Sue the record Sue We got like the Stan Kenton sound, you know, right, which was big never it's never an old-fashioned sound But when we met Donnie McCastlin in his band, that was really really special That was a jazz that he a kind of jazz that even David and I didn't know existed or were dreamed of so We were listening to he told me says go and listen to this band because you have to produce the album But you know, you got you kind of speak their language and I I got every record I could find I saw them live once and I said, wow, this is just gonna be a because he didn't want to make a mainstream jazz record No, it had to be a bowie. Right. Yeah, it had to be a David Bowie album. Yeah, and it was great the way those guys You know what was shocking about them was they were they got the concept of each song so quickly That their take one was usually brilliant and they would just come in the control room and sit down and go Okay, what's the next song because that's the way jazz musicians work. Yeah, you know each each jam is priceless You know, right, so we we got them to Overdub bits and it's like which we were making it, you know with the making a rock album sensibilities with overdubs We got Donnie to play like seven sax parts things like that which turned them on, you know We were bringing off our ethic into their world and they were bringing their ethic into our world So it's a beautiful hybrid album that that actually turned out really really great And by all accounts, he was having the time of his life during those sessions. He was what he was having the time It was life. He was fulfilling that bucket list, but they were happy sessions. He sang every take You know, this is on you know Usually if you say work to a click track David in the old days would sing to the one take and because it's everyone's playing to a click He'd come back in the control room He had to be out in the studio every time the band did a fresh take and he would keep singing and keep singing and what? I realized was he was building up his chops for the the day when we go back to my studio And he would do proper vocals right, but some of his takes were amazing only if only he wrote lyrics You know, he was just going making up words on the spot and he Hadn't written maybe Sue was the only written song finished with finished lyrics Like Black Star came like oh, he spent loads of time writing lyrics for that And and you said he works, you know, you you refer to this a few times early on that he he worked slowly But these were songs. Did they come over the course of the sessions? Did you see him working on them or were they songs he'd bring in and say this is what we're gonna work on today It was like any other David Bowie album. Some of them what he had made home demos by now He was pretty nifty with his little 24 track. He had a 24 track recorder And he he makes some really hot demos and one of them was was released to his epiti. She's a whore Sure. It's a good demo. His demo is fantastic, you know, and and So it was it was like just the old days, but you know new technology and his Demos were pretty advanced lyrics always came later though So it was like any other Bowie album. It was just different in the sense that we were making this hybrid jazz album and You've said this to me before but you you did assume there was gonna be more didn't you oh Yeah, this wasn't our last album He already told me that he started to write the new one, but I never heard the what he wrote Well, look, I we could obviously Keep going we could have gone longer on each of those topics I tried to give you an overview because everybody has a favorite David Bowie period So I wanted to get to as much as possible. There's probably Questions in the audience. There's mics on both sides if you'd like to line up And see Margot and Simon over there We can take a couple of questions before we run out of time Mike is on that side. Oh Simon and Margo, I'm sorry Mike is right there, but Mike you have a question Let's let's start with Margo over here, what do you have? Hi there, my name is Matt Collins. I don't know if you'll be able to comment on this Tony, but Sort of inspired by some of the lyrics from Black Star where he says somebody took his place and Bravely cried etc. And then later he says I can't give everything away Did you guys ever get into conversation about? His feelings about IP and maybe the future of IP relative to those lines the future of what intellectual property Intellectual property. Oh, I see okay. It was international times P P sorry P isn't property property property. Okay About the brand. No, I don't know. We didn't get to those into those conversations. We usually talked about simple things Like where to have sushi apparently Sorry Next question over here Hi, Tony. I'm Steve. I'm from Brooklyn. I was one of my first questions was what part of Brooklyn were you born in? What neighborhood in Brooklyn are you from Diker Heights? Okay, cool. Shout out Dekker and then I lived in Red Hook as a little kid and then I lived in Bay Ridge awesome Like my main question was you worked on a lot of epic Bowie albums in the beginning and then these last few albums and as a life Long Bowie fan And a musician I found these last three albums to be his best work personally and I'm also recording engineer and just the production and the quality What are you what is your take on that? Do you find that you are more? Happy with the beginning albums you did with him or the later albums as an engineer and a producer We always use the technology we had and even if we would you know worked in that studio F We made it work for us and and I'm you know my over the years We both got better at what we do. I mean I've aggressively got to be a better engineer although in later years I thought it would you know, I'm a music fully qualified musician So I would rather work on the music more than the engineering on the sessions So if we have a room full of music Musicians where after we record drums and piano and guitar simultaneously I bring in somebody that I really appreciate and I've recently been using Kevin Killen is my tracking engineer and Because he his sounds are just the best, you know They really for me like everything's clear and everything's full, you know that but after that I take over and I'm I'm a real nerdy mixing engineer. I I love to do tricks I love to make up new sounds that I'm always challenging myself and I'd always like turn around to David and I said what do you think of this and he'd be beaming and be Smiling and he didn't even want to know how I did it, you know He just he just this is what our relationship was like I would interpret his music sonically. I'd often play on on it. So we kind of We were like, you know when I work with David after the track and that was big That was serious, you know, that was big boys game But we were little boys when we were mixing the album and doing the vocals. We're just playing playing around But you know, I was why I was made sure I didn't distort that much Thanks Over here. What do we have? Hi, I heard that you worked While you were working on black star both you and David were really inspired by both death grips and Kendrick Lamar Which I just find really interesting Based on the contrast of both David and Kendrick and death grips And I was just wondering what was it specifically about both death grips and Kendrick Lamar, which you saw was brought into black star And we were listening to Dolly Parton as well Now we used to listen to a lot of records We will also listen to Sun Kill Moon that made a big impression on us He wrote an album Mark Kozellik wrote an album called Kozellik I think his name is wrote an album called Benji, which David's played me a track off that and he says and I Said oh my god, this is the saddest darkest thing I've ever heard in my life and You know, we'd often like talk about like he says he says yeah, I can't get through this album without crying and neither can I But for Kendrick Lamar all I can say is he was inspiring we will put that to pimp a butterfly on and We would just be amazed about not so much the production technique, but about him as a person he was just so He was like multitasking with the lyrics he could change his voice I think maybe this is just me speculating, but David could change his voice too, and I and That's that's what I think he admired a lot in Kendrick Lamar But but that album would we would kick off the day sometimes just play it But it didn't it didn't change the way you say for instance Mark Giuliana played drums on the album It's just something that was inspiring that somebody I know what it was because Blackstar was so Unique and and he didn't what's the word. I'm looking for he didn't bow to any current trends You know, he wanted to do something that was completely different and he wanted to do it his way And that's exactly what Kendrick Lamar did He made the album the way he wanted to make it and it was almost David looking listening to a kindred soul kindred spirit You know, I used to like love those tracks and I listened to that one particular album a lot You know, but we like we couldn't make a Kendrick Lamar album. That's not a million years, you know But it was inspiration. That was the main thing Let's get one more over here Nathan from Las Vegas. I made a black star shirt for tonight Okay, the Sharpie shout out for yourself Good Missed yourself well done Mr. Visconti, when did you become confident as a musician to take on? producing records How did you start as a musician learning instruments and would you be so kind if I left this up front to sign it? I'll sign it. Thank you. I started my first recording session was when I was 11 years old No, I was 12 actually and But by 13 I was doing a lot of local Sessions as a guitarist and I always like had to go in the control room Which was always you know, they had a console maybe about three feet wide in those days and I was Always curious how you got reverb on a record that was got that's got me into wanting to be a record producer But where does this friggin echo come from? Now where does the like the slapback like? What is that that I thought people sang that way, you know, so I Couldn't be satisfied with just playing guitar. I had to know all those tricks and then But I never really got a shot at becoming an engineer or a producer in New York It was when I heard the Beatles they were doing tricks that were Unbelievable, especially if you listen to Revolver and I highly recommend you listen to Revolver on acid As I did 1966 acid And you know, yeah, this is from from Sando's Switzerland this asset you can only get that and you know some serious shit is going on You know in the in the recording studio, so that's when I said I've got to get over to England I've got to find out how those buggers do it and So that's when I blossomed and I learned the tricks pretty quickly And you know everything kind of accelerated then that's when I knew I belonged on that side of you know I didn't stop playing an instrument, but I really love being in that chair. I love being the producer Take away English acid. Do we have time for one more over here? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Hi I'm Brenna Ehrlich My question is we all know that Bowie was really good at impressions in the studio What were some of your favorite impressions in the study studio and did he do impressions in the studio with you? He could impersonate anybody. He is American accent wasn't bad But he would oh when I did a British accent. He said that's not a British accent And I'd say that's not an American accent But he did he did it like Anthony newly he could do that. Yeah, what kind of fool am I? You know, you could do that really really well I Don't know. That's a good question, but I mean he just wouldn't sit down and do impressions for us He could do Mark Bowlin really well Didn't and did he do it Tony Visconti I'm sure he could but I didn't do it in front of you But he like he did like he was quite fond of New York accents because he had a lovely driver called Tony Masio was it Masiya Tony Masiya who was a real Brooklyn guy. Oh, he did a good Mike Garcin impression, too Yeah, he took the piss out of me is basically what he did. Yeah, did Brooklyn really well The clock on the wall says we're only about half an hour over so Should we wrap it up or do we have we can take one more let's have another lady come up Do we have one over there? Oh you want to take this sure. Yeah, go ahead. Sure. Um, my name is Daleith Hall Hi, Mr. Visconti. Um, I actually just finished reading your autobiography Bowie Bowlin and the Brooklyn boy are very entertaining and so I think many of us know that that David had an interest in and did some study of Buddhism And I found out from your book that you did too And I'm curious whether you guys spoke of that or whether you feel that and influenced your creative process the way that you worked together in any way Buddhism. Yeah. Yeah, David was like, you know, this is a big thing in the late 60s. I used to We both read the books by this guy pretending to be a llama love song rampa rampa love song His name was he was actually a German journalist who Who read all these stories about Tibet and he presented it as an autobiography and David and I kind of read these books In our teens and we thought why God we got to meet love sang rampa one day His name was actually Fritz Chrysler But anyway that led us to Buddhism and Well, it was it was authentic except it wasn't a Tibetan llama, you know and again, you know Tibet was always shrouded in mystery and and but finally because of the you know, the revolution the Chairman Mao sent a lot of Tibetans, you know killed a lot of Tibetans and a lot of llamas escaped and by the southern border and went into India and We actually met a Tibetan llama two of them Which is Trumpa Rinpoche and Jimmy Rinpoche in In I think about 69 and both of them came to a show that we put on like David met Jimmy to Rinpoche by accident in the Tibetan bookstore in London and He just wanted to buy a greeting card and the woman said oh deary you're interested in Tibetan Buddhism Are you and he said yeah, he goes we happen to have a llamas downstairs, you know And that was Jimmy Jimmy who is my still my teacher although he lives in London I live here and David and I studied with Jimmy for a while David for a brief period but It was things like, you know Buddhism my I could just know you know, I don't know it's got its Spirituality which you could question did these things really happen? But you can question that about any religion on earth But it's kind of it gives you and it gets you into that Zen mind which he liked he liked the Zen Buddhism where like till till the end like I love that, you know, briny no-card deck Oblique strategies where anything is inspirational literally anything can inspire you to write something or leap into the leap into the dark and And rely that that's always safe to do a thing like that to take a chance So that's what we both kind of got out of Buddhism like, you know anything is possible and and all this even all you people And you're just a figment of my imagination Which is kind of psychosis really But but that's what we you know, we took like a lot of good lessons from Buddhism without being I here's the word I'm looking for without being devotional So but had a big influence on both our lives. Thank you. That's fascinating. Thanks Well, I want to thank everybody for coming. I think Margo is gonna come up and say a few words I hope we got you know, there was a lot to cover Obviously Tony had a long and storied career, especially his work with David I tried to touch on everything and I think Tony you offer some story a lot of stories You haven't I haven't heard before so it was kind of cool and interesting and you know One of the things I was striving for in doing this and it's really hard with somebody who everybody Admires like David is to humanize him a little bit. You know, there's a lot of humanity and a guy like him He was a really funny guy Which a lot of people you know forget or don't really focus on so I think what I what I tried to do with the questions and kind Of guiding the conversation a little her key jerky was to try to get to the humanity of the guy So thanks Tony. Let's give Tony a big round of applause