♫Ashes to Ashes, funk to funky....♫ wait. What ARE those ashes, anyway?

[captainsblog]

This coming Sunday night, there's going to be a tribute concert for David Bowie's birthday at Rochester's iconic Bug Jar nightclub. According to the paper, though, it's also close enough to the 35th anniversary of Mr. Jones's most infamous appearance in my former Fair City:

Bowie became unwittingly entangled in Rochester rock lore on March 21, 1976, when two women were asked to join a party in Bowie's room at the old Americana Rochester Hotel after his show at the War Memorial.

The women turned out to be undercover cops with the city vice squad. Through extensive training that likely included hours of viewing FBI film strips and staking out Grateful Dead shows, they naturally noticed the evening's centerpiece: a half-pound of marijuana.

Bowie, who paid his $2,000 bail as well as the bail of his three co-defendants, appeared in Rochester City Court for his arraignment five days later, looking quite demure in his three-piece leisure suit as he entered a plea of "Not guilty, sir,'' to a misdemeanor charge of seventh-degree possession of an illegal drug. About 200 Bowie fans turned out for the event, although the half-dozen prostitutes who cheered him on while awaiting arraignment in the corridor outside the courtroom probably weren't there by choice.

It all came to a happy ending. Initially facing a maximum of 15 years in prison, charges were eventually dismissed against Bowie and the three people arrested with him. Bowie graciously returned to Rochester for several more concerts in years to come, despite the fact that his Lincoln Continental was hit with a $10 parking ticket while waiting outside the court building (and someone stole the hood ornament).

By the way, Iggy Pop — at the time, a nobody — was one of the people also busted that night in the room with Bowie, but he hasn't gotten a tribute.

In other Rochester news, failed former mayor Bill Johnson is considering coming out of retirement and running for re-election now that the incumbent's been kicked upstairs to Albany. That sounds like a ferry ferry bad idea;)