David Bowie heard about Klaus Nomi’s performances in New York and soon met him and Joey Arias at the Mudd Club. Bowie hired them as performers and backup singers for his appearance on Saturday Night Live which aired on December 15, 1979. The band performed “TVC 15″, “The Man Who Sold the World”, and “Boys Keep Swinging”. During the performance of “TVC 15″, Nomi and Arias dragged around a large prop pink poodle with a television screen in its mouth. Nomi was so impressed with the plastic quasi-tuxedo suit that Bowie wore during “The Man Who Sold the World” that he commissioned one to be made for himself. Nomi can be seen wearing the suit on the cover of his self-titled album, as well as during a number of his music videos. Nomi wore his variant of the outfit, in monochromatic black-and-white with spandex and makeup to match, until the last few months of his life. Then, mostly focusing on operatic pieces and increasingly ill with AIDS-related illnesses, including Kaposi’s sarcoma, he wore a Baroque era operatic outfit complete with full collar.
