| Birth Place: | New York |
| Occupation: | Musician, composer, producer |
| Years Active: | 1979 - present |
| Known For: | Iggy Pop, The Lounge Lizards, Laurie Anderson, Cassandra Wilson, John Cale, Marianne Faithfull, Cibo Matto, Chris Whitley |
Dougie Bowne is an American musician, producer and composer.
Bowne was born in New York, grew up in The Bronx and attended high school and college in South Jersey. He has worked in a variety of musical settings, with a number of artists, notably Iggy Pop, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, Jack Bruce, Cassandra Wilson, Marianne Faithfull, Marc Anthony Thompson, Cibo Matto, and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
A self-taught drummer, Bowne has worked as both a session musician and band member. His earliest recorded work is with John Cale on Sabotage Live, recorded at CBGB's in 1979. Seeking other musical settings, he left Cale's group and began rehearsing with ex-Television singer/guitarist Tom Verlaine, and guitarist Chris Spedding, when he received a call from Iggy Pop inviting him to join a tour already in progress. Bowne toured extensively with Pop and played the drums on the Party album. During his time in Iggy's band, Bowne continued to meet and play with other artists, including No wave, experimental, the free improvisation and jazz scenes[1] He performed with Richard Hell as a Voidoid and with James Chance. He was the drummer and percussionist on Lydia Lunch's influential Queen of Siam, co-writing the record's single "Atomic Bongos,"and was a member of the group Melon (recording with members of Plastics), and Talking Heads' touring band. He concurrently began to create his own projects; one group featuring guitarist Vernon Reid performed at the legendary Mudd Club. He left Iggy's band in 1981, and soon connected with John Lurie, who was reforming his band, The Lounge Lizards. Bowne joined and remained in the band for over a decade, touring extensively, and recording the albums Live from the Drunken Boat, No Pain for Cakes, Big Heart, and Voice of Chunk. He appeared on the soundtracks composed by Lurie for the Jim Jarmusch films Down by Law and Mystery Train and for the Bette Gordon film Variety. Bowne was a soloist on Teo Macero's recording of his orchestral piece Fusion with The London Philharmonic. He continued to explore other musical outlets, performing with artists such as John Zorn, Paul Bley, Annette Peacock, Percy Jones' Stone Tiger trio with Bill Frisell.
After leaving The Lounge Lizards, Bowne recorded A Question of Time with Jack Bruce and Blazing Away with Marianne Faithfull, the latter also a concert film (Blazing Away) with a band featuring Dr. John, Garth Hudson, Cassandra Wilson (Grammy-winning for New Moon Daughter), Bernie Worrell (Funk of Ages), John S. Hall, Jeremy Tobak, Jeb Loy Nichols, Kazutoki Umezu, and others. Bowne was the drummer for Ryuichi Sakamoto's Beauty world tour, as well for Laurie Anderson on many tours in various group settings. During this time, Bowne performed regularly in Europe and America as a trio with Arto Lindsay and Melvin Gibbs and was a member of Brandon Ross's ensemble, The Overflow, with Melvin Gibbs and Don Byron. He recorded with Cibo Matto, Marc Ribot, Dave Douglas, and Hopi Kamiyama and joined Chris Whitley's band playing drums and co-producing the Din of Ecstasy and Terra Incognita albums. His piano trio, with pianist John Medeski and bassist Fred Hopkins, recorded One Way Elevator, an album of Bowne's compositions that was co-produced by Craig Street and released by DIW Records in late 1996.
Bowne suffered a traumatic brain injury in late 1996, affecting his coordination and limiting his ability to play the drums.[2] After extensive rehabilitation, he concentrated on production and composition, producing and co-writing much of Benny Ibarra's platinum record Todo o Nada. Bowne produced Fayray's Covers and Hikari to Kage, along with records by Trixie Whitley, Doveman, and others, and returned to the drum set the week of 9/11 to play with Chocolate Genius, Marc Ribot, and Yuka Honda, also performing at a benefit for the venue with Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, and Vincent Gallo. On Floored by Four's debut album, Bowne played drums along with bandmates Mike Watt, Yuka Honda, and Nels Cline. The group performed in 2010 at SummerStage in Central Park, New York City.
Bowne has written film scores, notably for Edet Belzberg's Watchers of the Sky and for La Habitacion Azul, and has composed music for dance. Currently, he performs using highly processed electric guitar and percussive objects that combine with electronics to create often dense and layered sonic worlds, which can be heard on I Never Met a Guitar 6 (released September 2022), QUADRILATERE Volume 6,[3] and Never Metaguitar Volume 6, produced by Elliot Sharp. In 2023 he collaborated on the music for the play by Marc Anthony Thompson, The Ni¿¿er Lovers, which opened at The Magic Theater in San Francisco.