Who and What is Dr Glam?

Dr Glam is/was my glam-rock/Ziggy Stardust inspired performative alter ego. An imaginary fantasy escape-figure who bore me through the roughest parts of childhood during the 1970s, I dragged him out of his glittery coffin and brought him back to life decades later in 2008, fleshing him out, and putting him on the stage in front of a kick-ass band. Although I initially did so largely to use him as a teaching tool when working with student performers at Otago University, I found him personally empowering and had (possibly) illegal amounts of fun playing him. So I kept him alive and gigging until early 2014 when I killed him off in a ‘Death Of Dr Glam Spectacular’ concert. My rationale? Glam rockers should never linger too long. Shoot into the sky like a skyrocket, burst into a gazillion stars, and then disappear. Oh, and also don’t wear spandex when you’re in your mid-fifties.

So he’s dead. Well . . . occasionally I can be tempted to bring him back to life for one-off performances. Like earlier this year (April 2016) in ‘Planet Earth Is Blue’, Dunedin’s David Bowie tribute show in honour of the fallen glam rock god.

Dr Glam’s repertoire? Bowie, Sweet, Slade, KISS, T Rex, Alice Cooper, and a handful of sparkly originals.

Also, in my ongoing quest to mess with genres and annoy style snobs, as Dr Glam I recorded an improvisatory jazz album called Glitter Spreader with a bunch of NZ’s top jazz maestros, released on the Ode record label.