David Bowie invited confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he had popularised. His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched vocals, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut, "David Bowie", an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate. It was his last release for two years. Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp in 1967 and enrolled in his dance class at the London Dance Centre. He commented in 1972 that meeting Kemp was when his interest in image
David Bowie recommending viewing only by those 18 or over. According to "The Times", Bowie ruled out ever giving an interview again. An exhibition of Bowie artefacts, called "David Bowie Is", was organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and shown there in 2013. The London exhibit was visited by 311,956 people, making it one of the most successful exhibitions ever staged at the museum. Later that year the exhibition began a world tour which started in Toronto and included stops in Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Groningen and Brooklyn, New York where the exhibit ended on 15 July at the Brooklyn