It's worth watching the early SNL episodes for the musical guests alone. They have amazing performances from many artists and their musical programming from that era feels a bit less "safe" than it does now so you get to see some relatively obscure acts perform.

The Klaus Nomi biography is a great watch; a very interesting and tragic character.

I read back in the day (probably in Creem or Crawdaddy) that Bowie's dress for TVC15 was a China Airlines stewardess' dress. Hot, even if not.

GOD, I MISS THE LATE 1970'S AND EARLY 1980'S.

That is all.

Interesting censorship in "Boys Keep Swinging".

I discovered this clip when I saw the Klaus Nomi biopic. Pure excellence, and I agree - SNL used to be downright edgy, and it's a shame that's been all but lost in favor of launching the next NBC talk show host or whatever.

I remember being a little bewildered by this when it first aired when I was 11.

That is odd censorship. I wonder if there was much discussion about whether to go full concept or just have him up there? That second outfit does look great on him. Just timeless.

The last year of the good cast. SNL sucked in the 80s.

oh my dog the stuffed dog with the TV inside of it. this is nuts!

Quality Bowie era post Berlin and moving right into Scary Monsters...fantastic. Yes, old me recalls this very well and echoing other folks views - SNL killed it with the musical guests back then (Devo, B52s and Patti to name a few). I was 16 when this aired and I loved it then and I love it now. Perfection.

@4 GODAMMIT, I did get the song title wrong, it's been a while since I dug out Lodger! IT SHOULD BE FIXED NOW, thanks for the heads up.

@1, @7, It's too bad that Lorne Michaels lost his b*lls after the punks went ballistic during Fear's set in 1981 and pretty much put a kibosh on any edgy rock and roll/punk rock music.

Nirvana and Green Day don't count for they were the punk equivalents of Kenny G.

@2, the Klaus Nomi biopic was instructive in that you could see that Madonna stole much of his stage act---the dancers.

Bowie, our favorite alien, and the most beautiful alien ever.

His post-Berlin period was so far ahead of anything in the mainstream, no one had seen anything like this. The songs were just as strong as the staging and dramatics - he wrote incredible tunes and had top musicians flesh them out, and they still stand the test of time, having set a standard any rock/art-rock musician still strives for.

The choice of Arias and Nomi to sing backup was pure genius, pure Bowie.

TVC 1-5. Inspired by Iggy Pop’s dream of a TV devouring his girlfriend..

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/12/…

According to the Nomi documentary, this is where the idea for his iconic costume came from.

It still doesn't erase the memories of "Dancing in the Streets ".

Who is the guitarist? He looks so familiar!

The handsome fella on lead guitar is Stacey Hayden, a sessions musician who toured with Bowie and frequently filled in for Earl Slick. Also, check out Blondie's Jimmy Destri on keyboards - nice cheekbones for the camera. Buddy Williams, I believe, is on drums, who was the SNL band drummer. Paul Shaffer helped with some of the arrangements as well.

If I'm wrong about Stacey Hayden, someone let me know. I spent some time trying to confirm it but finding data on the SNL backup band in 1979 isn't as easy as one might think. IMDB says that Georg Jojje was on guitar, but a quick Google image search of Jojje shows that it was clearly not him playing lead on TVC15.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0694956/full…

Yes, I know this is a total music triva nerd geek out.

so great!

thanks for posting

Hi IndicaDogwalk and others! I was inspired to grab this SNL episode DVD off the shelf for viewing, after just having seen the "David Bowie Is" exhibition at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Those costumes we see in the episode are on display, among a multitude of aural and visual delights.

Joey A. & Klaus N. are always credited as performers, for obvious reasons - I was surprised to see Jimmy Destri.

But I had to do a triple-take upon watching the SNL performances: that's Nile Rogers, Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson - the geniuses of CHIC - as the backing band. I'm still stumped by the guitarist - G.E. Smith? Or the guitarist you've mentioned? But I'm positive the other three are Chic. What mystifies me further is that, upon initial web search, no one else has IDd those guys. Maybe not enough disco-lovin' Bowie fans posting on these sites???