A New Career in a New Town: Finding David Bowie's Berlin

David Bowie desperately needed a change of scenery in early 1976. In fact, his life depended on it. Since moving to Los Angeles two years earlier, he’d become mired in the city’s toxic hedonism and shamefully indulgent sycophants. Surviving on a diet of cocaine, red peppers and milk, his body grew frail and his mind slid dangerously close to psychosis as he stayed awake for days on end, ruminating on the occult and watching films repeatedly on loop. He overdosed on at least one occas