DARA O’Kearney flicked through the DVDs on his bookshelf.
He was looking for an old compilation of comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that had once been recommended to him by his old online pen pal.
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Dara was regularly exchanging emails with a figure who identified himself only as DB. Someone he believes was David Bowie.
"Although it seems a bit weird because why would David Bowie be emailing me twice a day?" asked Dara. Over the course of making this documentary, I tried to find the answer.
Dara is now a professional poker player and was preparing for a trip to Las Vegas when I visited him at his home in Dublin earlier in the year. For many years he was a David Bowie superfan and he told me about a blog he wrote after the singer died in 2016. A blog that went viral and got significant coverage in the UK press. A blog about a pen pal relationship with David Bowie.
"I didn’t actually say it until after David died because I always felt it was a confidence that I shouldn't betray," Dara said.
Last year on a family holiday, I went to see the Ziggy Stardust concert film at an open-air cinema in Milan with our then-11-year-old daughter and it sparked the idea for this Bowie quest…
There were phone calls, Zoom calls, emails, text messages and studio link-ups to New York, Miami, London and beyond, not to mention several trips around Dublin, piecing this story together.
Dublin’s docklands have changed a bit since Bowie made it his second home in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Point redeveloped, the Dockers pub reimagined and The Factory studios hidden by sprawling tech giants. Between 1990 and 2003 the singer was a regular in this part of the city, playing at the Point, rehearsing at The Factory and recording at Windmill Lane.
It was a time when Bowie was leading a digital revolution and a time when he had a strong Irish connection with guitarist Gerry Leonard and lighting designer Tom Kenny in his inner circle.
Gerry was at his home in upstate New York getting ready for a European tour with Suzanne Vega when myself and co-producer Tim Desmond spoke to him.
"Being on stage with him, he was such an incredible performer. He gave so much," recalled Gerry. "So I think I learned how to play rock ’n’ roll by working with David. It was a masterclass."
Tom has lit some of the biggest names on the planet from The Who to Taylor Swift. This year alone he’s worked on events like the NHL draft at the Las Vegas Sphere and a celebration for Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday in Atlanta featuring The B-52s. The Dubliner was at Abbey Road Studios in Miami with his daughter Grace behind the mixing desk when we spoke about Bowie’s love affair with Dublin.
"He was really good at not being recognised. He would disappear in Dublin. He always had fun in Ireland. He loved Irish books. He loved Irish art as well. Always went to Hugh Lane gallery," recalled Tom.
Bowie was an icon and innovator who enjoyed a string of worldwide hits with songs like Starman, Heroes and Let’s Dance in the ’70s and ’80s by always staying one step ahead.
Tracks like Hallo Spaceboy and The Hearts Filthy Lesson showed he hadn’t lost his edge in the '90s, while Telling Lies became the first single released online-first by a major artist in 1996. Hours followed as the first album released online-first by a major artist in 1999 — breaking new ground again.
Producer and musician Mark Plati was at his New York City studio on a boiling hot day when we talked about Bowie’s creative process and his fascination with technology during that time. He worked with Bowie for several years and played with the star at Glastonbury in 2000 — a show my co-producer Tim was at.
Mark was also with Bowie at The Factory in Ringsend in 1997 when the singer road-tested a new drum ’n’ bass sound with a secret gig that caused chaos in the neighbourhood.
"That might’ve been one of the loudest things I’d ever experienced. That was so loud," recalled Mark.
The secret gig was arranged by promoter Brian Spollen, who was preparing for Liam Gallagher’s show in Limerick when I met him at his Dublin home over the summer.
Brian recalled how Bowie hung out in pubs and clubs without any fuss as he soaked up the city’s growing drum ’n’ bass scene in the spring and early summer of 1997.
Over five weeks Bowie reworked songs like Fame (with a little inspiration from a Dr Dre cover), recorded a Mandarin version of Seven Years in Tibet for the handover of Hong Kong to China and updated his 1975 song Stay to fit with his new sound. He also spent time painting in between rehearsals and exploring this new thing called the Internet.
Bowie was becoming more and more interested in tech at the time and the following year, in 1998, he launched BowieNet — a site which quickly became the online home for many of Bowie’s fans worldwide.
This was modern love.
John Brereton took a break from recording Sack’s new album to talk to me about Bowie’s cultural influence and how Dublin has become a new home for the Bowie fan community in the 21st century.
Charlie Brookes is a lifelong member of that community. She was wearing one of her 300 Bowie T-shirts when I spoke to her from her home in Southend-on-Sea in England. Charlie once saw the singer perform 40 times in 11 months and met him on several occasions. She was also one of the first to join BowieNet.
The service was launched in 1998 when there was the same energy, excitement and anxiety about the Internet as there is about Artificial Intelligence (AI) today.
BowieNet was like an early version of social media and streaming platforms. Subscribers got Internet connection and a site with exclusive access to new music, videos and photos. BowieNet also provided a way for his fanbase to communicate with each other and with Bowie himself in chat rooms and 3D worlds.
But fans had to pay to join BowieNet and that didn’t sit well with Enniscorthy fan Dara who started criticising the platform on other fan-run sites. Soon afterwards he says he started to receive emails from DB.
"He initially started by saying, ‘Have I pissed you off in some way? Did I snub you somewhere? And I was like, this is weird. I've literally never met you," said Dara.
Over the next few years, Dara corresponded with DB and started to believe it might be the real David Bowie after watching the singer’s BBC interview with Jeremy Paxman in 1999.
"Because he expressed exactly the same thoughts in that interview as he had in our conversations," Dara recalled.
It all led towards Bowie’s 2003 Reality Tour and his shows at Dublin’s Point Theatre and one memorable night when Bowie shouted, ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá’ to a surprised crowd and one night Dara hoped would solve his pen pal mystery in the heart of Dublin’s docklands.
Hello Spaceboy?
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