Articles and Reviews 2004 - 2008 below. 
Articles and Reviews 2001 - 2003

updated 6.08.08

 

iggy + the stooges in spain, may, 2008 new
a word's-eye view from mike watt of a gig done by the stooges in spain

 

The Soul of Pop
The Ticket
April 18, 2008

Michigan madman Iggy Pop is probably best known for his unpredictable, human jack-drill onstage performances. Away from the stage, however, another side of the man emerges; he is intelligent, genteel and unpretentious - even if he did once spit at Andrea Corr. He talks to Tony Clayton-Lea ahead of his Dublin gig in June

WHAT A GUY; you ask Iggy Pop a question about the main turning points in his life and he takes pretty much the entire length of the interview time answering it.

In normal circumstances, this would be - in the words of Beavis and Butthead, two badly drawn Iggy boys down with the Popman - "a bummer". In the circs of The Ticket , we don't mind at all, because Mr Pop is cool. So cool, in fact, that a minute into the reply to the first question I leave him talking to the tape recorder to put on leg warmers, a woolly vest and a pair of gloves.

Goddam it, Iggy Pop (one of the few rock stars to have been published in a journal of classical scholarship, for his essay Caesar Lives , in the second volume of, believe it or not, Classics Ireland , wherein he astutely ponders on the applicability of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to everyday contemporary living) is cooler than Alaska in winter, than a Frida Kahlo painting, than an Electric Picnic line-up.

And yet for all his smarts and his cognitive prowess, Pop - who will be 61 in a few days - exudes a genteel, sincere and unpretentious demeanor. On stage, the man is a human jack drill, ugly, sinewy, and quite possibly the final frontier in authentic physical stage dynamics. You see other rock acts, clearly influenced by him, going through the motions of confrontation and provocation, but you know they're spineless pussycats in contrast to Pop's lissom, leonine muscularity.

"The main turning points in my life? There are several, and for the sake of clarity and record - your newspaper is the newspaper of record in Ireland, right? - I'll tell you them all1. There was an afternoon in Algebra 4; I was in 10th grade, I felt shitty, and I didn't feel like grasping what I knew I was supposed to grasp that day. I felt a little ill, my stomach was queasy from the school food, and it was a beautiful day outside. I'd already begun to play music, and I thought that day in Algebra class was a preview to real life - I just couldn't do it. I was about 15 back then.

"Another was about two years later, when I graduated. My high-school band managed to secure a summer gig as a house band in a teen club called The Pony Tale, in a resort area of Michigan. And suddenly there I was - a full time musician; it happened really quick, really young, and I liked it a lot.

"In those days, being a musician was a more obvious road to ruin than it is now. These days, it's often a viable career choice for intelligent young people - or seems to be - but it wasn't back then. Being a full-time musician, I started to turn what intellect I had towards studying and examining the whole thing of rock music - what was quality, what was exciting. That led me to drop out of university very quickly and join a couple of bands, which culminated in the band that most people know of, which is The Stooges."

A pause. The start of my second question is politely interrupted. Pop apologises. Yes, the man who threw a microphone and spat at Andrea Corr in Dublin's Olympia Theatre several years back apologises.

"Another turning point? Meeting David Bowie and his entourage, but that was more of an inevitability; it would have been them or someone else, other entourages at the time. I think I was just fortunate that I picked the best one. Then, post-Stooges - which by this time had gone down in flames - a re-encounter with Bowie and his songs, the circumstances of which meant that we were able to write some songs together."

Yet not even Bowie could work his magic on long-time friend Pop. Following his seminal solo albums The Idiot and Lust for Life (both released in 1977), Pop went on to record and release several mediocre albums (including 1979's New Values , 1980's Soldier , 1981's Party and 1982's Zombie Birdhouse ). In 1982, aged 35, Pop couldn't afford to live in Manhattan any more.

"I was sleeping on the floor in Bensonhurst, which was a like a Mafia neighbourhood in Brooklyn. Basically, I was living hand to mouth, my health was going, and I realised I couldn't take on the world anymore - I was going to lose. So I decided to try to go straight; it was a good decision, although it took three or four years of adjustment, and probably led to a fairly long period of mediocrity in my music. But it also led to my survival as a person."

Body in check, financial stability arrived in 1983, when Bowie's Let's Dance album, which featured Pop's co-write of China Girl , went global. Pop's star was in the ascendant again. With one or two exceptions, it's been up there ever since; yes, he still delivers the occasional clunker (2003's Stooges-assisted Skull Ring being one), but the likes of 1999's Avenue B still shows his creativity in a positive light.

Yet for all that, he remains something of a talismanic touchstone for the burgeoning rock'n'roll star. Does music still carry the same level of intensity for him?

"When it's good stuff. When I was less mature, my radicalism would allow me only to be exposed to that music which I really, really liked. When I was in my early teens, I'd listen to the Top 40 and I would wait for the one Beatles song that the radio station would play; this engendered an incredibly emotional reaction, almost like a drug compulsion - waiting for that Beatles song was something I had to have, it was irresistible.

"And I'd get very angry when the likes of Lesley Gore would get played instead - very upset. Whereas now I've gotten to the point where I say to myself: alright, let's face it, if there wasn't something good about Sting, then he wouldn't be worth all those oysters, you know. My inner feelings are still exactly the same, mind.

"When you listen to music these days the notion of concentrating on it is totally different. I'm guessing, but I have a feeling that smoking a joint as an activity was something I did while I was listening to music back in the day. That type of activity made me inert, but it allowed me to concentrate, whereas now I'm more like other people in that mostly these days they listen to music as they ride a bicycle, go to the gym, or vacuum the house, cook dinner or clean nappies. I find that as I get busier with the administration of my survival, it gets harder. Either that, or perhaps my concentration isn't as good."

Pop knows too well that he's something of an aberration in rock'n'roll terms. There is only so long his body will allow him to continue with the rigours of his performances - performances for which the word "visceral" is all too appropriate; and there is only so long that he can willfully fuse his credentials as a confrontational rock star with his obvious wisdom.

"There are days," he says, "when I want to be impossible to others and myself - and I'm still very capable of doing that. I have to think about things like that. I don't know how it is for everyone, but I certainly reckon experience helps. If experiences are at all quantifiable, and if they vary in quality, then some people at age 60 are going to have more than other people at another age.

"I'm not above applying other people's experiences, either - I've been a fly on the wall around a lot of talented and capable people in my life, so I try to make use of that."

In relation to The Stooges, he talks eloquently of trying to balance the music's white-hot rage with a sense of reflection, harking back to Avenue B 's more ambient, considered moments.

"Ron and Scott [ Asheton] are going hell for leather for the loud stuff. They recently sent me a bunch of stuff that is so fierce, my first thought was the way I'm kinda typecast in some movie parts I get offered; every six months, I'm asked to play either a monster or a criminal. Sometimes I really want to indulge the Proust side of me and be somewhat more morose."

But not just yet; there is the not so small matter of his forthcoming performance in Dublin. After all the years of twisting his body this way and that, of throwing more shapes than the Aurora Borealis, do the gigs still do it for him?

"I feel different on stage," he admits in a no-shit-Sherlock manner. "It's quite cathartic for me, yet it wasn't always because it didn't always go as well. For the last few years, I've hung around long enough to know what kind of preparation you need to do in order to do the shows properly and consistently. A lot goes into it - nerves, effort, concentration. But the musicians are unique, too; personally, I'm glad it's becoming possible for people to value what it is that Ron and Scott do.

"So it's good onstage, yes. And it's good for a couple of hours after. And then it's five in the morning and I can't sleep."

• Iggy & the Stooges play the Royal Hospital Grounds, Kilmainham, Dublin, on Monday June 16th. Special guests are Stiff Little Fingers and The Kills.

Pop: a life in rock

• Iggy Pop is of Irish/English descent on his father's side, and Danish/Norwegian on his mother's. His father was adopted by a Swedish-American family called Osterberg.

• Iggy Pop has made guest appearances on several TV shows, including The Adventures of Pete and Pete , Miami Vice and American Dad . His latest voice talent "appearance" was in the English language

version of Persepolis (opening next Friday).

• In 1996, Nike used The Stooges' track Search and Destroy in its Olympics promotional video clips.

2003's Gimme Danger - the Story of Iggy Pop , by Irishman Joe Ambrose, was Pop's first full-length biography.

• On March 10th, Pop and The Stooges played at Madonna's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame. They sang Madonna's Ray of Light and Burning Up .

• Two Pop-related movies are out this year: his music will feature in an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's book, Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance ; while The Passenger will document Pop's early career with The Stooges. Elijah Wood (Frodo from Lord of the Rings) will play Pop.

A brief history of stagediving

Stage diving didn't exist before Iggy Pop - simply put, no one was mad enough to jump off the stage onto and into the crowd (as he did during his 2004 gig in Dublin Castle, above).

Yet during the early Stooges gigs, Pop was so fuelled up on the excitement of the music and the nervy rush of that he shrugged off self-consciousness and offered himself to the audience (he also mutilated himself with broken bottle glass, but that's another story).

In many ways, stage diving was a confrontational and edgy statement of intent, deliverance and - ultimately - faith in the audience; what Pop was possibly very aware of was how it connected with the audience's potential for proximity to genuine danger.

Stage diving can cause serious injury - pity the stage diver who is given the cold shoulder by an audience; pity the people that the stage diver lands upon. Stage diving and crowd surfing is now a regular part of countless rock stars' acts, but only a few can get away with it.

And only one person can do it with such authority - Iggy Pop.

 

 

Pop Goes Wild

By Patrick Donovan
March 28, 2008
theage.com.au/

The Australian music industry is gearing up for its official 50th anniversary this July, but will the rest of the world care? Possibly, thanks to a canny plan to re-record Johnny O'Keefe's The Wild One with Iggy Pop backed by Melbourne rockers Jet. The recording is due to take place in Pop's hometown of Miami next month, with the single set for a worldwide release.

 

 

Jeff Tweedy, Colin Meloy, Iggy Pop on "Lil' Bush" DVD
Kevin Federline set to join their illustrious ranks


Remember "Lil' Bush", the Comedy Central cartoon show starring a tiny, boxy, juvenile version of our President? You might recall that said show featured a cavalcade of rock star voices during its first season: Jeff Tweedy (as God), Colin Meloy (as the smart version of Lil' Bush's brother Lil' Jeb), Iggy Pop (as Lil' Donald Rumsfeld), Frank Black (as Satan), Henry Rollins (as a veteran), and Dave Grohl and the Red Hot Chili Peppers as themselves.

Well, now you can enjoy these vocal performances accompanied by funny drawings in the comfort of your own home. Today, Comedy Central releases the DVD Lil Bush: Resident of the United States: Uncensored: Season One: The Invasion Begins. (If there were any more colons in that, it would be a Coheed and Cambria album title.) The DVD extras include deleted scenes, interviews, a "tour of the White House", and segments from "The Colbert Report", "South Park", and "The Sarah Silverman Program".

The second season of "Lil' Bush" starts on Thursday, March 13. Iggy returns as Lil' Rummy, and OMIGOD Kevin Federline cameos as Karl Rove, as well as his dreaded rap alias, MC Rove.

Here's a picture of Iggy on set, getting into character. Fun fact: Donald Rumsfeld is known to only wear shirts when cameras are around.

iggy voiceover

 

Video: Lil' Bush: Various Season One Highlights
Video of Iggy talking about his role as Lil Rummy here.

Pitchfork 03-11-08

 

:
Rock n Roll is[n't] Dead

Nothing was more heartbreaking to punk fans than losing CBGBs in October 2006. The venerable East Village club that launched acts like The Ramones, Television, Blondie, Patti Smith, Talking Heads and countless other underground bands shuttered its doors after 33 years. If it had been replaced by a CVS pharmacy, Starbucks or a Citibank, that would have been the corporate nail in the coffin of cool.

But, John Varvatos bought the space.

I know what you may be thinking: John Varvatos is a designer of high-priced (as well as some moderately priced) clothes. A business. I agree. But the Detroit-born designer also a huge rock 'n' roll fan. This is the guy who features Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper in his ads, and who hosts classic rock performances at his Soho space. He's probably thrilled to own "the birth place of punk" and will probably treat it with reverence.

And, Varvatos is not planning on lining the place with marble or lining the walls with gold (not really his style anyway) but plans to keep it gritty with the original cracked paint, poster art and stickers. I'm actually excited to see the space. If it won't be used as a music venue, I can't think of a better guy to own CBGBs.

Congrats, John!

SANDRA, Mens Health
April 02, 2008

 

 

Gallery: ‘In the Public Eye’ at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The art and technology of photography have evolved since a Frenchman named Niépce produced his first pewter-plate image in the 1820s. But one thing soon became clear as the camera art developed: Photographs could make ordinary people famous and famous people even more so.

That’s the operating idea behind “In the Public Eye: Photographs and Fame,” a new exhibit drawn from the vast holdings of the Hallmark Photographic Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

The show ranges from a sheet, made in the mid-1860s, containing 64 tiny images of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant — an early exercise, say, in Warholian multiplicity — to a straight-on, mercilessly craggy portrait of punk hero Iggy Pop.

 

 

Channel 4, MTV2 bring Rockfeedback back

UK terrestrial Channel 4 has commissioned Rockfeedback.tv Productions to deliver a third season of alternative music show Rockfeedback (6x30'), with cabsat MTV2 in talks with the prodco about licensing a second run.

C4 began airing the show's second season, which runs at 01.25 on Saturday mornings, on March 29, and will air the show's third season after a one-off special in August.

The second and third seasons will feature live performances and interviews with artists such as Iggy Pop, Mystery Jets, The Young Knives and Justice, with specials at live events that Rockfeedback is partnered with, such as the Underage festival and the Field Day festival. Complete article here.

 

The Morrison Hotel presents Bob Gruen's 'Rockers'

What's this? Well. Bob Gruen is a man who likes to take pictures of rock 'n' roll stars. Now, we're not talking some snap happy chappy hanging around with Snow Patrol here. We're talking John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Blondie, Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, The Ramones, The Clash, The New York Dolls... y'see? He's probably taken loads of your favourite rock 'n' roll pictures and you never even knew it! Well, Mr Gruen is to exhibit 280 of his fave and most iconic photographs in an exhibition at The Morrison Hotel

Sadly, you'll have to make your way to New York to see the goods. When? April 24th onwards. Where is that again? Morrison Hotel Gallery, 313 Bowery, NYC. Yeah, but how much is this baby gonna set me back? Well, it's free... so if you're in town, it ain't gonna cost you a dime son. The Morrison Hotel Gallery is, apparently, 'the world's leading purveyor of fine art music photography'. If you need more info, visit the Morrison Hotel Gallery website by clicking here. (This site is not to be missed! -- cb)

 

Persopolis returns to theaters

Persepolis, the Oscar-nominated animated feature, will return to 100 theaters in an English-language version on April 11. Co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, it’s based on Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel.

The English version of Persepolis features the voices of Chiara Mastroianni and her mother, Catherine Deneuve, as Marjane and Marjane’s mother. Sean Penn provides the voice of Marjane’s father; Gena Rowlands plays Marjane’s grandmother; Iggy Pop is Uncle Anouche; and Amethyste Frezignac plays young Marjane.

 

It's Pop music with a twist as Madonna enters Hall of Fame
Jon Pareles, New York
March 12, 2008

LEAVE it to Madonna to make the right gesture. For her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she didn't worry about whether her career as a pop hit-maker, image-maker, sex symbol and provocateuse qualified her as an important figure in any narrowly defined genre of rock'n'roll.

She just brought on an unquestioned rocker — Iggy Pop, the blunt, anarchic and durable songwriter and performer — to sing punk-chorded versions of her hits Burnin' Up and Ray of Light. He was shirtless, hyperactive and backed by the Stooges, who along with him have been nominated but snubbed by the Hall of Fame. Full theage.com.au article here.

 

Madonna Shocks, Justin Timberlake Pays Tribute At Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Ceremony
By Chris Harris
mtv.com
Mar 11 2008 9:07 AM EDT

...Those words served as a fitting preamble for the punk-paced covers of Madonna songs from a leathery and topless Iggy Pop, who, along with the Stooges, paid tribute to the singer with covers of "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light," during which Pop tossed out an F-bomb. At one point during that performance, the cameras panned to a horrified-looking Clive Davis...
Full article here.

 

Fatboy Slim Teams Up With Iggy Pop

"There is one track on there I've done with Iggy Pop called He's Frank. It appears on the soundtrack for Heroes in the episode Four Months Ago - it is the background music in a club scene.

"The album has collaborations with people like Iggy, so it's about me working with different people in a way you might not expect.

"Dance music really has become a little bit lost - it needs someone to come along and reinvent it like The Prodigy or Daft Punk did. I'm trying to find a different way of doing it and I think I have done that.

"It was a challenge and a thrill working with people like Iggy. I have been doing this for nearly 25 years and I don't want to get complacent about it - it has to be an adventure. " Full article here

 

Iggy Pop new

by A.D. Amorosi, magnetmagazine, 2007

The Stooges’ first album in 33 years sounds like everything and nothing the band has done before. The Weirdness (Virgin) reunites Iggy Pop with the Asheton brothers and adds Funhouse-era saxophonist Steve Mackay, guest bassist Mike Watt and engineer Steve Albini. After finishing the album’s final mix, Pop espoused just how weird it all got from the Grand Cayman Islands.

I hear the Stooges are big in Macedonia. And that its prime minister loves you.
Macedonia is like the world center for the gypsy-music industry. It was interesting—and at times moving—because the country is seriously poverty-stricken. I enjoy such places anyway. I’ve been going to Yugoslavia when it was still … Yugoslavia! Like 1990. There is usually a better quality of person available to you there. But they’ve had a hard hard time there due to their wars. They couldn’t believe we came (to perform in December 2006). Their prime minister e-mailed us before we got there and said he wanted to have dinner with us. I turned them down. I had an 18-hour flight and a lot of work the next night. And I don’t really go out much, so I declined. Then they came back with the prime minister and the head of police requesting my attendance. Well, it sounded more like, “Either see us in the palace or the police station.” But the prime minister is young and forward-looking—he’s 35—and looking for a photo op and thought I might have something to do with the youth demographic [Laughs] so there we are on Macedonian television with me looking like I’m lecturing him on something far more erudite than it was. He didn’t know about the Stooges, but he was a sweet guy. And a lot of Macedonians live in Detroit, where I came from. He looked like a guy who ran a liquor store there. “Hey, I know you. I tried to buy a bottle of Jack from you.”

Let’s get out of Macedonia and back to Michigan. How did you first meet the rest of the Stooges?
There was one high school in Ann Arbor with three junior high schools around that. In terms of geographical spread, their junior high was on the extreme north side. Mine was on the extreme south. I never met those guys until high school. Dave (Alexander, bassist) didn’t bother with school. Scott (Asheton, drummer) made it for just a few weeks. And Ron (Asheton, guitarist) showed up sporadically to walk in the front door and out the back. Barely there, right. But I knew they played. After high school, Ron was playing around musical circles concentric to mine. I was a drummer around. He was a bass player around. And we both went to the same cafes where no-good people hung out. Scott and Dave used to stand outside a drug store with a guy named Roy across the street from the record store I worked at. They were delinquent kids with tight stretch jeans—kinda dirty, kinda greasy, kinda pimply—standing like crows. Just watching. Not doing anything. Dave looked particularly strange because he wore a lot of Clearasil. Scott introduced himself to me one day because he wanted me to teach him how to play drums. I taught him a few beats and he was away with it. Dave was there because he had a car and would kick in money for the rent on a house we wanted to grow the band in. Dave was just there to party. When we needed Ron to be the instrumentalist and me to be the vocalist, Dave just became the bassist.

You sound different on The Weirdness: younger, blunter. Is that something of a persona you’ve set up? You’re not up to your usual heady, scatological lyrics. And the record does and doesn’t sound like the Stooges. Was that on purpose or was that just a natural occurrence?
Isn’t that weird? You want to reflect growth and discovery, but you want to show off what’s happened to you within 30 years. You want to be recognizable as the same group. But you want to sneak up on people. And you don’t want it to sound conscious. So when all those things happened at once, those were the songs or moments we chose. And I was in charge of choosing those things. I changed some of what I do a little bit. But there’s also the self-consciousness of age to consider. As for persona, I don’t know if I get what you mean. But if you’re trying to ask me if I know who I am, fuck yeah. [Laughs] I know who I am.

Why did you choose Steve Albini to record the album?
At first I didn’t like the idea of him having (recorded) so many records that I don’t like. Don’t ask which ones—that’s my business. But I will say it’s not that those records didn’t sound great. They did. But with Steve, I knew it would come down to the Stooges producing themselves. Steve gives you a little production when he feels like it. [Laughs] He’s a very unique character. He comes in strong and gives you respect and a solid work ethic. He never puts his feet up on the desk. When he had to change the mic, he’d run into the studio. He doesn’t bring a cell phone into your room. And if every once in a while you want a comment, he’ll give you a very incisive one with a bitter wit. Still, at first I thought, “But I don’t like the Jesus Lizard.” Because there’s this thing within alternative culture where they pat each other on the back and say, “Who are you going to be this week—the audience or the performer? Friday, I’ll be the performer, then Saturday I’ll be the audience.”

You’ve been Stooges again for four years now. Are there any lingering resentments from the Ashetons over the band’s break-up in 1974?
We all have lingering resentments and disappointments. Some of us less than others. But we’ve all had a long time to think of this. One of our goals was to overlook all those to make a record we all like. Look, they’re the only people left that I’ve known that long. And we got along well enough to do this. Basically, from here on out, it’s Stooges to death until one of us dies. Then again, if things go wrong or things aren’t tended to properly, then bands can break up. So I expect this to last. And I expect this band’s members will have their own ambitions and this band will act as a portal so that everyone can realize all their things. Though I’m not gonna call Ron about the bossa nova record I’ve been threatening to make, if I want to rock, I’d say look no further.

I know Rick Rubin wanted a crack at the Stooges. What happened?
Rubin’s great, and if we could’ve gone with him we would’ve. He was the first choice of the Asheton brothers. The brothers are simpler souls than I am and really always just wanted to be rock stars. And I mean that in the most positive, nicest way that I can. I mean, I was the guy bringing them the weird John Coltrane album or the Harry Partch stuff to listen to. They were always amenable to it. But they would love a big, established professional guy with a track record. Someone who would’ve done well for them. They have somewhat of an attitude and the hunger of someone who’s been around 30 years watching other people becoming rock stars when it should’ve been them. My feeling was little more subtle than theirs. If a dog that big wants to take you for a walk, you say, “OK.” But he turned it down in the most courteous way. He even made an inquiry as to whether or not the group was available to sign. I was not.

Back in the day, there were some of us who thought you guys were a really great band. Did you?
Yeah, I did. But I never devalued or discounted that there were other bands who were as equally good or better than us at doing other things and that those things were the kinds of other things that would get more visible and immediate rewards: hit records, large paydays. But to use a simple colloquialism, they were hokey. Our qualities were more valid. I mean, I could remember one of our contemporaries was Brownsville Station, and they had a cute song called “Smokin’ In The Boys’ Room” that Mötley Crüe would make a hit the second time around. Brownsville’s dad owned a music store and bought them equipment. Or Alice Cooper, who came to Detroit from Phoenix singing songs about spiders and co-opted themes that we were singing about. They were more organized, had a great manager and had a great commercial voice for a couple years until he lost his adenoids. They did great work. But it wasn’t as forward-looking as what we had to offer. The other 89 percent of the bands then I thought were hokum and should be eliminated.

 

 

The Fabulous Iggy Pop new

Iggy PopWatching Anthony Kiedis sleepwalk through the motions while the rest of the Red Hot Chili Peppers delivered a technically brilliant and emotionally spirited set last week in Tampa, the mind of this 44-year-old rock fan turned to an elder of the genre. There were times when the lead Chili (also 44) acted like Iggy Pop, but man, he didn’t deliver like Iggy. He didn’t sell it. He didn’t leave it up there. He didn’t bleed.

Of course, the irony was rich - there were Kiedis and Flea doing their best Iggy impressions and raking in millions, filling arenas, and putting up hits all over the chart for a couple of decades.

Iggy Pop, aka James Osterberg from suburban Michigan, never put up the chart-toppers, never filled arenas, never toured in an armada of tractor trailers, elaborate staging, and handlers. Yet, four decades into his long and often strange career, Iggy Pop remains as influential as ever. Iggy turns 60 this year, the reunited Stooges have an album in the wings, and Iggy is the subject for the first full-blown, fully-researched biography of his long life. Paul Trynka, former editor of Mojo, has crafted a superb reader that captures the manic energy of “Iggy Pop,” and the restless, intellectual wanderings of Jim Osterberg. Iggy: Open Up and Bleed (due on April 17 from Broadway) explores the depths of madness and energy that have always keyed the Iggy Pop personal, melding the hypersexual wide-eyed rock-and-roll man-child with a fascinating cast of characters that tells the story of rock from the mid-60s to the latest playlists on iTunes.

My first exposure to Iggy and the Stooges came long after they’d died an ignominious death on a Detroit stage, an event so central to the Iggy story that Trynka leads with it. My discovery came in the late 70s, when Jim Osterberg was well into his Berlin period at the side of one David Bowie, and only occasionally made the scene at the New York clubs and dives where I hung out. Even the, I was told by my instructors, Iggy Pop had well-earned the sobriquet Godfather of Punk, and his Stooges sides were amonst the most popular on that grand old jukebox just inside the entrance of Max’s Kansas City.

Lust for LifeThe world’s forgotten boy was an image stamped on my bridge-and-tunnel forehead, and his act could be seen in imitation most nights at CBGB. I heard and bought the myth: no Iggy, no Clash, no Sex Pistols, no Voidoids, no Senders, no Voodoo Shoes etc. (In succeeding decades, other skinny kids would hear and buy the same myth, about Guns n’ Roses, Nirvana, the Chili Peppers, Buckcherry, and Green Day).

By then, the original punk had moved on to explore new horizons in stream-of-consciousness lyrics and studio performance; like Chuck Berry, he’d throw together a backing band for live tours and play the old hits, but he was working on something different on the records. As Iggy recounts, the life of this pop idol is best seen in dualist fashion: Jim Osterberg vs. Iggy Pop, occasional success vs. frequent failure, periods of lucidity vs. the descent into self-destructive madness. But the reporting here is thorough, and much of the wild-boy myth is exposed. So often, it was the stage that created “Iggy,” the crowd that bore the path to madness, the applause that fed Jim Osterberg like Tokyo’s powerlines gave the rage to Godzilla. At most times, out of the public eye, Jim Osterberg came across as a friendly, curious fellow, almost laid-back, sometimes clever, occasionally conniving, and rarely serious. Despite a scary public demeanor, most people who met him liked Jim Osterberg - and he was the kind of young fellow that women always thought they could save.

Self-awareness came later, after his eighty-seventh fall from grace - the myriad record label droppings, band break-ups, arrests, broken relationships, and disastrous finances. Osterberg shows up in moments of super-fine self-examination that you’d never expect to find in the out-of-control Iggy Pop: “…there was a line I was crossing into picaresque behavior. I was becoming Don Quixote. There’s a fine line between entertaining flamboyance and being a prat.”

By the mid-80s, Iggy’s reputation was at an ebb. Punk was over, new wave a flat, dance-club drone, “alternative” was over the horizon, and a few old school rockers still sold records. Ian Hunter said at the time: “Iggy’s the all-time should have but didn’t - and it’s because he’s not quite good enough.” And Iggy himself admitted: “I had a terrible rep in the USA; terrible. Somewhere between Andy Kaufman and a serial killer.”

Iggy PopIt just seems that Jim Osterberg didn’t care for the expedient, that at times, he deliberately took the self-destructive path to non-success. That he didn’t really give a damn whether people laughed at him. Trynka remains struck by Iggy’s “lack of self-pity and his obvious sense that there was always some historical destiny at work.”

On the musical side, Iggy Pop followed his instincts, even the bad ones (Trynka is rightfully careful not to deify Iggy’s recording career, which remains spotty at best) and saw himself as a leader in the musical sense: someone whose raw power directed the soundtrack, not the musical form or the marketplace. Says collaborator Clem Burke, drummer for Blondie:

“There is an analogy between Iggy’s music and someone like Hooker in the way it doesn’t have to be completely in time and meter - he leads the band with his movement and expression and being primitive. It’s a jazz ethic. And to work with the energy he exudes was amazing.”

Iggy and David JohansenLike a VH1 special on crack, the book traces the rise-fall-comeback-fall-rise-fall-fall-fall-comeback trail until it basically does a quick skim-job on the 90s. Enough is enough, and besides, the spectre of age is far more interesting now. The idea of Iggy Pop making the big-time festival scene along with the likes of the reconstituted New York Dolls and releasing a record at a time when the Stones, the Who, Tom Petty, and Bruce Springsteen are the only rockers making any serious dough on tour holds some delicious karmic payback.

And today’s cool kids are enthralled. Jack White to Iggy: “I have always felt that the blood that runs in your veins is so much thicker than normal people that nothing can pollute it. That’s the vibe I’ve gotten from you.”

Or as Iggy might well sum it all up:

Well, I’m just a modern guy
Of course, I’ve had it in my ear before
Well, I’ve a lust for life
Cause I’ve got a lust for life.

Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed
by Paul Trynka
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Broadway (April 10, 2007)

 

 

Interview: Iggy Pop new
Interview by Bret Gladstone, Pitchfork
8.13.07

 

Rationally speaking, James Osterburg probably shouldn't have survived this long. Twenty-five years ago, he was on his knees trying to snort the white lines out of a marble-patterned floor in the Redondo Beach Motel. On stage, he would mangle himself with glass, beat his chest black and blue with his microphone, rake drumsticks across his body until he bled, and hurl himself head first into his audiences. In the late 1970s, David Bowie, of all people, helped drag him out of a heroin habit which probably would have ended his life.

This year, though, Iggy Pop turned 60. Today he calls 15 minutes early for our 9 a.m. interview-- he's already been up for two hours, and we're speaking early so that he can "go do something healthy later." Upon waking, Pop went through his daily regiment of Tai Chi, and after that he listened to most of The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power to "stimulate his mind". Thirty years ago, those albums virtually invented the punk movement, weaving blues forms with suburban alienation and the fear, anger, loneliness, and mistrust which defined Nixon's America. The Stooges were never a band of their time, but they were a band of their moment. Neither the group nor its leader seemed built for the ages, yet here they are nonetheless, with a new album, The Weirdness, and a worldwide tour.

And yet, Iggy Pop, once "the world's forgotten boy", is now a rock icon, whose music appears regularly in movies and luxury cruise commercials. "Yeah, there's this idea that now that we all get it, now that we're all punks and nothing is shocking, do we need them?", Pop says. Pop spoke at length with Pitchfork about his past, the state of rock and roll, and the future of one of its most legendary bands.

Pitchfork: Hey Iggy, how are you?

Iggy Pop: I'm doing alright, for 9 in the morning.

Pitchfork: Is this a milestone event? During the first three albums the Stooges put out, did you ever do an interview at 9 a.m.?

Iggy Pop: Fuck no. No. I was never coherent. Honestly, no one really wanted to fucking talk to me. I did one interview in 1969 with Dave Marsh-- I made him come to the Stooges house and we kind of held him captive for eight hours. He still dines out on it. "I was brainwashed" [laughs]. I'm doing this now so I can get it out of the way and do something more human later [laughs].

Pitchfork: In a recent Rolling Stone interview said you noticed that your songs are more relevant, or that they're getting their due, now than when you recorded them. Outside of the fact that the internet makes music more obtainable these days, do you have any theories about why that is?

Iggy Pop: Well, I haven't adopted one. There are some that occur to me. I have a suspicion that the design of some of the songs was ahead a few years. I've always hated that phrase "it was ahead of its time", but it was. Some of the albums, like Funhouse, but certain parts of each of the three. Put on "Loose", "TV Eye", and "1970" and look at a Lamborghini Gallardo from this year and the two fit. They do. So that's part of it. Another thing I believe or notice is that when there is a clear-cut, simply understood basis to the lyric, those songs tend to hold up over time better than mush, which is generally what you get: mush. Some of the lyrics have allowed the songs to stick around, but then again some of the terms and phrases were a little out there when we were coming up with them. But right now, it fits. The music itself in all its aspects may have become...it may have found a utility for younger musicians that it didn't have when we started. In other words, I know when I was first starting John Lee Hooker was incredibly useful to me. The people who were learning from me tended to be more commercial performers who were gonna rip off the salient idea to do it in a way that will sell, but they weren't going for the music.

Pitchfork: There is this sense of simplicity about that music that's proven impossible to emulate. With all the information that's out there right now, is it harder for young writers to write with that kind of primitivism?

Iggy Pop: It's harder to have the will because it's so much easier to plug in a computer and find a old hook from surf music or something. That was the last one to blow my mind, was a hook from an old guitar instrumental called "Apache" or "Pipeline" and it used in this horrible quasi-rap song by the Black Eyed Peas. I'm hearing this horrible rapping over this a beautiful piece of music. It's kind of like those little juice drinks that you get in the 7-Eleven that say, "contains 10% real juice." Their music is a mountain of crap. Or a Frankenstein's monster, you know? He gets up, but he's jerky when he walks and his feet thud and he has all these sutures. That's really easier to do, and it's easier to collect on.

But then that's not really what's going on with [rock]. You tend to get a lot of over production. They're going for the bucks. It's a different world now. In 1965, when great young white artists in the English-speaking world were successfully re-channeling hillbilly and black music-- you know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards-- they didn't get any money at first. They were all broke. All those giant people had to stay around quite a while to cash in because the industry ripped them off more efficiently. The information wasn't as widely available as it is now. Now, like I'm sure the Killers have a great record deal, and a lawyer to track their publishing and a guy to renegotiate their European cash flow streams and all that. It's just different. I don't know why.

Pitchfork: Okay, but give me some exceptions to the rule.

Iggy Pop: The Fiery Furnaces sound great. Peaches first record is an example of...[laughs]. If I tell the guys in the Stooges-- especially Ron Asheton-- that I want to pitch a duet, he just says "that bitch needs a shave". But her first record has, you can tell it's her sitting in some sort of weird apartment with a little drum machine and a toy synthesizer and a mixer, and it's great. The first four songs are very, very strong, and the beats are good, as well as the use of space. She has a good ear-- the way that the drums are used, how they leave space for her voice, how her lyrics are incisive. She's very, very good. The White Stripes get away with some stuff that is not as good as it appears. Some of it's really good. They have real accomplishments, that group. I love Jack, I see him all the time, friend of the Stooges, but for all his retro philosophy, the mastering on those records is wacked out of the ballpark. They couldn't get away with sounding the way the do if they didn't have ultra modern mastering. But I think they're good. I don't know, a lot of shit is over produced.

Pitchfork: With all that information and money floating around, do you think its getting harder to shock people these days?

Iggy Pop: Yeah, definitely, but I never tried in the first place. A dude from The New York Times followed us around for a while and I understand that he's under pressure to come up with the big question and the whole idea of judgment, but his stance was: "Now that we all get it, now that we're all punks and nothing is shocking, do we need them"? I never really thought that was what was decent about us. I thought we held the bird a little looser. My general take on American music since 1969 is that it's just getting stiffer and people are getting more uptight-- audience, performance, and palace guard. It's all what does it all mean? Do we do this or that? I'll get emails or proposals from a charity that wants help, and they now have professional people pitch it to you. "I'm sure you're aware of the cause marketing potential. CMP is huge in today's world, as I'm sure you're aware of". That's sad. The west is not gonna save itself through cause marketing potential any more than the east did through collective farming. These are sad things. They upset me. I'm going off on a tangent.

Pitchfork: What's it like to be the Stooges in 2007? Bob Dylan once wrote that it's difficult to be an observer when you're being observed.

Iggy Pop: Yeah. I read that in Chronicles. That's one of the reasons I'm talking to you here in Miami. That's one of the reasons I came here in the first place.

Pitchfork: How difficult is it to write and perform when you're constantly being made aware of your "symbolic importance"?

Iggy Pop: It's harder. Two problems: A conversation like this is a huge distraction that I have to deal with. I try and get it done and keep it away from the actual tour. That's one thing. Another is to keep it away from writing or recording time. You try not to let it all meld. In this case, I want to get it done early enough that I can wash it away.

Then there's the other kind wherein you become more known in the world and you're walking around and people just know who you are. You can't get away with shit and you never know when they're gonna know who you are. But on the plus side of that is that people know you. And in this world, especially with the urbanization of America, if people don't know you they won't even smile at you when they walk down the street anymore. Cause everybody is scared and crazy.

Pitchfork: A lot of the tunes, like "ATM", "Greedy Little People", and "You Can't Have Friends", seem to be about what you lose by being famous.

Iggy Pop: Yeah, I pointed it out. On the other hand, look, we're trying to make a buck, too. I said this to someone the other day. I finally said look, I think we're far less corrupted than the average. Unfortunately, we also have the bird flu, but not as bad as blankety blank blank.

Pitchfork: Like how some people say you can't be that crazy if you're conscious of being crazy.

Iggy Pop: Yeah, you lose certain things, and you want some money. I mentioned in "ATM", the older you get, the more you want. It may just be in my life. When I was very young I never thought about it except in the most basic way, like, "Will I have fifty bucks Sunday night after playing the weekends so I can get a gin fizz and buy a bag of weed, pay the rent"? That was all I really wanted. It's a little different now. I try to keep my feet on the ground. That's tricky.

Pitchfork: Did you find yourself revisiting any of the old albums in the process of re-examining this formula. If so, did anything in particular strike you?

Iggy Pop: Well, in the process of doing the record I actually studiously avoided that. But I'm gonna go play tomorrow, so I just listened to [The Weirdness], Funhouse, and half of The Stooges because I was going to talk to you and I don't get up that early. I've always used my records as stimulants, all my life, I've always done that.

Pitchfork: Me too, actually.

Iggy Pop: Right? [laughs] I've always enjoyed that relationship. It can make me get out of bed and wanna do something and get all huffy and puffy. I notice that Funhouse sounds the slimmest, probably cause we were skinniest then [laughs]. The music on the new one sounds more bellicose, and I think that has to do with what Ron wanted me to say on this record. Ron is the kind of guy who-- he's a red-stater, he's got a big gun collection. He's one of those people on one hand, and on another hand he's not really, but he thinks so. That was some of it.

Pitchfork: Now that you mention Ron, were you conscious of him going for some weirder or larger guitar parts on this record?

Iggy Pop: I was conscious-- hold on, I have to pee [long pause].

He was definitely ready to overdub when we got in the studio, and I tried to keep him honest by saying look, mostly one overdub and make it great. The second thing was to always shoot for the overdub immediately after doing the live track, while the vibe is fresh, and he was good with that. That's pretty much what we did. There's hardly anything , maybe two songs, where there is more than one guitar OD, and that was justified on each of those-- "My Idea of Fun" and "The Weirdness". For the rest of them it all carries on one track, and all for a reason that makes sense. Ron wanted to play a lot of lead and I tend to like to edit everything, so there was probably another 25% of lead that came off that he was fine with.

Pitchfork: "The Weirdness" is an interesting song.

Iggy Pop: One guy spotted it actually, one guy spotted the roots of the thing.

Pitchfork: Is there a Sinatra thing happening? He was actually an early influence, right?

Iggy Pop: Yeah, but this guy actually mentioned doo-wop. Ron was goofing around. Some of my better numbers are a guy goofing around. Ron was in between trying to come up a gun-worthy rock song, and I went ah ha, and we had a beginning. The chords were very strange, and the progression reminded me of somewhere between Chet Baker's Italian period and a song called "Harlem Nocturne" by Earl Bostick, which is for my money one of the most beautiful sax instrumentals ever recorded. Absolutely stunning. So that was where we were coming from.

Pitchfork: In your autobiography you said that you put this band together out of friendship. What was the impulse to put it together again? Did you always know you were coming back, or was it a surprise to you?

Iggy Pop: No, I never knew we were going to, and I think what has held it together is the same idea: We do have a friendship, and like all friendships they all fall short of perfection. But there is enough that it gives you a type of boost that you just don't get anywhere else when things are getting empty or crummy.

Pitchfork: How has the dynamic changed?

Iggy Pop: I think the big change in the dynamic would be I've learned to delegate more. I'm not micromanaging as much as i did. The drummer has learned he has the ultimate authority in this group. He sails the ship. Neither Ron or myself will sound like much without that guy backing it up and the same would be true in a street brawl. He has that authority, and he is one of these soft spoken people who people do listen to when he opens his mouth. He's kept the group sensible, and he's been a little more active in the group.

Pitchfork: Obviously there are differences between Iggy and Jim [Osterbeg]. You've spoken in the past about the distance between the two. Where does that relationship stand now?

Iggy Pop: If I knew what that relationship was I'd probably have to cash in and move to Taiwan. I don't know any more about that than you do, or anyone else. A lot of people change their names or doctor them when they do this job. Nobody gets asked questions like that. I get it all. There is something about that name that is just extra-fucking-ordinary, and it used to be like throwing a fucking firebomb into the party. I could walk into a room, and if it was the wrong room, and someone said my name loud enough, you would see sneers of revolution on the faces of the fraternity men of America. It was just really intense. Real interesting.

Pitchfork: I know it's a strange question, but…

Iggy Pop: Yeah, you're not gonna get a straight answer.

Pitchfork: From my perspective, after punk, conversations about authenticity and cool became popular in rock'n'roll--- this is one of the things I like about Jack White, since you mentioned him-- and it seemed that musicians forgot how to concede to the fantasy aspect of rock, the aspect of playing a character on-stage or in a song.

Iggy Pop: That's a good point. Yeah, if you mean that these guys are boring: These guys are fucking boring!

Pitchfork: People seem very concerned with what's "authentic," but nobody seems to know what that actually means.

Iggy Pop: Yeah, I know. When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial. These were highly artificial groups. The Sex Pistols, these guys took pains to tell people that it was all a con: "Don't listen to us".

Pitchfork: Dylan was a bit like that too…

Iggy Pop: Same deal. One thing I noticed when I was starting out was that it was so weird and crazy to have a strange name. It happened to me, I didn't exactly pick it-- it was 50/50. I didn't want to hear that name or be called that ever except for very small, particular pieces of time when I was working. It took years till I was comfortable with it. At this point I like it. That may be bad, but I'm fine with it.

Pitchfork: I was at the show at South by Southwest, and one thing that we kept hearing during that show was "I Am You", from the end of "L.A. Blues". Has that been a mantra in your career, disrupting that audience/rock star dynamic? Do you feel you give people permission to act out as well?

Iggy Pop: That's probably somewhere you took it, but I'm not gonna disagree. But listen, that came up a few times. We used to call that song "Freak Out", and when we recorded Funhouse, because we were in L.A., I gave it the title "L.A. Blues". On the very end of that record, you'll hear me repeat that lyric a little different. I think I say the phrase "I am", and then the last sound on that record is the word "you" and for some reason I enjoy doing it live. The one thing it means to me, maybe, is that I'm still that person in the audience. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say there, because for some reason I'm still…I get outraged when I see some fat bottom creep…I can't explain it. It's as near to a religion as I ever got, this thing, and I really don't like getting any more than casual about it, but I do have certain deep feeling about it that do come out time to time.

Pitchfork: What's gotten easier or harder over the years with songwriting? What was the process of writing this album like for you?

Iggy Pop: The way I feel today, I don't want to write any more fucking songs. Fuck it, my brain hurts, and I'm sick of hearing that's good, or I get it, or I don't get it. It's too dumb. It's not dumb enough. Oh, shut the fuck up. Leave me alone. I'm not gonna write anymore, boo hoo. I probably can't live out the depths of psychic travel that I once could to animate my contribution to a song. I can't do that, so I try and pick my shots and work as hard as I can at it, and usually in a very short time, cause it's not gonna be any good if it took more than five minutes to happen. If it did, there's something wrong. But you have to lead up to that fifth minute with a lot, and after that fifth minute you have to spend a lot of time pruning and watering it.

Here's the one big thing for me: What I work within, it's not a folk song, it's a rock'n'roll song. But rock is a branch of folk music. It should be an ultra-simple folk song. It's so simple that half of it is the title. So going after a good title is a big deal. These days I'll actually save up if I know the Stooges are gonna come play. I have a little composition book that you'd use in Junior High, and if I have a little phrase that I think is hot, that has a good button on it, I'll have that at the top of a blank page. If the guitar player gets somewhere that sends me to space, which has to happen for me to write-- someone has to transport me somewhere-- then hopefully I'll open my mouth that day and I'll have something to say that wasn't written down on the paper. That happened on this one-- "She Took My Money", "The Weirdness", and "Trollin' " were all done that way. Others maybe happen if something occurs to you one day or you steal it from some guy's novel. I've got something to say when the guy plays the guitar. Most of the people you hear open their mouths they don't have anything to say with it, and unless they have three octaves, they can get away with that. Whitney Houston didn't need anything to say-- she can have that done for her and you just listen to her trill. So I kind of do it like that, except the difference is that to get some of the early ones I would just go on very long walks stoned until the phrase came to me. Now I have to be a little more efficient.

Pitchfork: You once said a driving force behind the Stooges music was anger. But it sounds like you're in a relatively healthy place right now. Is it harder to manufacture that feeling, or have you found different motives?

Iggy Pop: No, I've got a lot of that [laughs]. I'm rich in that department. I'm fucking loaded. I'm George Soros. I can give it away.

Pitchfork: Where did "My Idea of Fun" come from?

Iggy Pop: I stole it from Will Self, an under-praised novelist in England. He was a bad boy at one point, a celebrated drug taker, and a general fuck-up in the London literary community. He wrote a book called My Idea of Fun. I bought it, and the first three pages feature a disemboweling and cannibalism that takes place on the A Train. I didn't really like it, but I liked the title. So I just saved it and then the rest just popped out of my mouth, probably cause I was hanging out with Ron. There is some representation that goes on in our group, sort of like there is in hip-hop. You're repping your group.

Pitchfork: There also seems to be a theme of no-one liking you for you. What's the biggest misconception about you?

Iggy Pop: Well, there would be no point in me complaining about that. I'm in the biz, dude. It's a branch of show business, that's what always annoyed me most about the American alternative/do-it yourself scene when I came up. It was simple. If you were the artist you were supposed to be cool, and the agent was supposed to be a crook, and the manager was supposed to be a creep, and everyone administrating was un-cool and the publicist was cheesy. You know, we all have our roles. But then the DIY guy says I am the guitar player, I'm the publicist, I'm the agent, and I'm the lawyer, too. So I look at the guy, and I'm like, okay, you've convinced me. You're a greedy, cheesy crooked creep with a guitar. Fuck you. I want nothing to do with you. That's kind of how I feel. And you're a politician, too. Or a computer turd. Why don't you just drop it and work for Microsoft or invent a new surf engine.

Pitchfork: How do you think the legacy of the blues is being handled in today's rock'n'roll? "She Took My Money" is just about the oldest blues archetype in the book.

Iggy Pop: Once we decided that we were gonna make money dominating the world, first thing we did was throw away the good American music, the blues and hillbilly music. We gave it away. We pitched it to the Europeans and they came back and totally destroyed our music industry with it. Even Elvis tried to make a last stand for it, and they laughed at him. That was the big reaction in the urban community, urban in the old sense-- Madison Avenue, 5th avenue-- they laughed him off and basically since then it's been trivialized and codified. It's supposed to be a guy singing about his troubles in a nice suit in a bar with $15 drinks, somewhere for oldies acts. But as a form and attitude it's still the only one with any real balls to it. We got to the point, I noticed Ron and Scott had picked up over the years a tremendous authority in their playing, and I spotted it right off, when we first picked back up playing together in 2003. I said jeez, some of these grooves you're getting, you sound like a couple of old black guys. I mean it in a complimentary way. They'd say, "Yeah, we're living like a couple of old black guys too". That suggested some possibilities along those lines, and with that particular number I try and be good humored about it. I'm not gonna get all boo-hoo, ya know. Yeah, it's archetypal-- it happens. It happens with relationships between men and their women, unless the guy is a better pimp than I am.

Pitchfork: One of the things that still speaks to me about the Stooges early music, and what connects it to the blues in a sense, is it that seemed to address this very intimate youth experience. Have you seen that experience change over the years and become more homogenized?

Iggy Pop: That's true, I think. I'll say this: When we started out playing, it was the kids in the high schools and junior highs that liked us. And we definitely weren't singing. Our first time we opened for a national act, it was our second show was for Blood, Sweat & Tears and they were singing that terrible lyric for "Spinning Wheel", and it was so typical: What goes up, must come down. Spinning wheel, turning round. Talk about your troubles, it's a crying shame. Ride the painted pony, let the spinning wheel spin. Did you find a reflecting sigh on the straight and narrow highway? Just let it shine! Within your mind, and let it show you the colors that are real!

Isn't it amazing? I can still recite it, every word. This is what I've lived through in this goddamn fucking music business. I have loaded my potentially excellent mind with the crap that these pigs are pouring on it, and, no, our stuff didn't sell like that. There was this whole self-conscious, get-with-the-program, we-are-finding-ourselves thing happening. I liked the whole psychedelia thing best when it was really cheesy and badly done by all these old Tin Pan Alley songwriters and bar musicians who got together, listened for about a year, and then went: Hey wait! I can do that, and you got songs like "Pictures of Matchstick Men". Those are good cause they're so fucked up you can laugh at them. In the middle you had all these people growing walrus mustaches and putting on these buckskin coats and no, we never copped to that.

Pitchfork: How did you survive this career? What's driving you at this point?

Iggy Pop: I'm here because I'm still into it and I probably got a thing or two to prove.

 

Glasto Day 2 new

Iggy exclusive... and The Killers to headline
23 June 07 - Iggy Pop has given 6 Music an exclusive interview as he prepares to play a headline set at Glastonbury - his first time at the festival.

Iggy and the Stooges headline the Other Stage at 2300, and they'll be competing with The Killers who are topping the bill on the Pyramid Stage, while The Twang will be playing the John Peel Stage at the end of the day.

After a storming set at Meltdown and an astonishing bare-chested performance of I Wanna Be Your Dog on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Iggy spoke with 6 Music at his London hotel before travelling down to Glastonbury. And he admitted to being a Glastonbury virgin.

"It's our first," he said. "I was surprised to be invited actually and I was rather pleased - I guess we're okay. I get the feeling that it (Glastonbury) is its own beast and that the music is, perhaps, even more secondary than in other festivals."
With this year's new Stooges album, The Weirdness, following their reunion in 2003, the band have old classics and new material to play at Glastonbury. And even though it's his first, Iggy told 6 Music he's not too anxious.

"There's really nothing to get up and nervous about," he said. "The sheer number and magnitude of the acts they get is such that there's really no point in trying to go there to slaughter the competition, because you're not going to - you'll be overwhelmed."

He added: "Were it something draggier, I'd be more nervous. I'll be getting nervous by the time we work, you know."

But even though Iggy is a hero to loads of other bands playing Glastonbury this year, he won't be hanging out at the festival. "No, I'm going to catch a small plane at two in the morning to Poland - I have a gig the next day," he told 6 Music.

The Stooges' set will be broadcast on BBC4 tonight.

At 60, Iggy still managed to stage-dive at the Royal Festival Hall this week when the band played Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown festival. And he described the audience's reaction: "I'd say about half a second of shock, immediately followed by subdued glee. It was not expected - and it was dangerous in that particular set-up. The seats were sharp!"

And Iggy told us about hanging out with another music legend recently - Morrissey.

"He showed up at the Stooges' gig the other day in Los Angeles," said Iggy. "Nicely dressed, suit and tie, brought his photographer with him - it was very pleasant. We took a picture, I got one for my shelf, and it was nice to meet him, because he's rather good."

Iggy and The Stooges will return to the UK on 31 August, with a charity gig for the Children's Society. Rock The House Live is being staged at Harewood House in Leeds and will also feature The Horrors.

Saturday's Glastonbury bill also includes Editors, Maximo Park, Babyshambles, The Killers, The Kooks, Paul Weller, Lily Allen, Klaxons, Bat For Lashes and the Pigeon Detectives.

Lilly Allen was joined on stage by Lynval Golding, former guitarist with The Specials, to perform Specials classic Blank Expression, and then Terry Hall arrived to perform Gangsters with her, our 6 music reporter has said it's the best moment of the day so far.

Another highlight of the afternoon included The Bees performing an appropriate song of theirs called Wash In The Rain.

By Saturday afternoon, there had been 163 criminal offences recorded, compared to 154 at the last festival in 2005. Of these, 111 offences were drug-related.

There have also been 28 thefts from tents, and so far there have been 121 arrests compared with 112 in 2005.

And while there have been no major incidents on site, organisers have recorded 1,268 casualties, with 32 people needing to leave the festival for treatment. 

Andre Paine

 

Iggy Pop on Lil' Bush and The Stooges new


CraveOnline talks to the Street walking Cheetah, Iggy Pop.
Fred Topel, CraveOnline
June 6, 2007

Donald Rumsfeld probably won't be happy to hear that the cartoon version of himself is being voiced by one of those ungodly rock n' roll types. Iggy Pop is providing the voice of a miniature Rummy in Comedy Central's new animated series Lil' Bush. Portraying the current administration as kids in a politically-themed high school, the show calls upon Pop's distinct speaking voice rather than his crooning, even though the tykes have their own band. Pop took a break from touring to call in an interview about the upcoming show.

CraveOnline: How did you get involved with Lil Bush?

Iggy Pop: Basically I’m a musical vocalist but I do voiceover stuff as a sideline like plumbing or something. And when I got the call for the gig I took a look at the pre-existing cartoon that was on the cell phone and I thought it was funny. And what I liked was there was something really human about reducing all these powerful figures to little people. And it was just real entertaining. So there you go. It’s a gig.

CraveOnline: How did you approach playing Donald Rumsfeld?

Iggy Pop: I used to watch Donald’s press conferences. At the beginning I thought he was just terrific at working publicly. Whatever it was he had to say he did things masterfully I thought because I have a similar line. I have to stand up in front of people and open my mouth. But I noticed, you know, he got into trouble as time went on once everybody had a chance to open theirs then life gets trickier.

CraveOnline: This isn’t your first time doing a voiceover either. You did an episode of American Dad, right?

Iggy Pop: Yeah I did. In fact I just did something for Grand Theft Auto 4 last night so I do a bit of stuff yeah.

CraveOnline: So you enjoy this process?

Iggy Pop: Yeah, I always do.

CraveOnline: Having such a distinct voice, how hard is it for you to sort of disguise it or come up with a different one for your voiceover?

Iggy Pop: You know, I haven’t. I don’t know well I’ve done. I hope I blend in and do all right in the show but Donick [Cary, creator and producer] had me pick it up from my natural speaking voice. I think that would be fair to say. So it’s a little more like this, everything’s kind of pitched like this. [Higher and faster] Like 'Okay you guys this is serious and we’ve got to take care of this now and don’t disagree with me,' you know.

CraveOnline: Are you in general a fan of political comedy?

Iggy Pop: I mean, if somebody puts on Bill Maher I’ll generally sit and watch it to the end. But I’m not flipping through the TV Guide to find out when it’s on, either. It’s something, you know, I’m in the middle somewhere. It’s kind of take it or leave it with me.

CraveOnline: Does this give you a chance to express any political view through the voice of Rummy?

Iggy Pop: No, absolutely not. I don’t even think that way. I’m kind of a weird bird so my interest in Rumsfeld is as I said earlier, I thought I noticed just independently I was interested in when he started becoming a visible figure at the news conferences. And I thought he was really good with a crowd. I thought he was good at public presentation. And I used to watch him just to see how he did it. Then at some point maybe what he wasn’t good at was disagreement. And I noticed that. So when all I was really trying to express was hopefully my little bit of the insight as an actor trying to do the guy and that was basically that he should be very insistent and firm about whatever he thinks when he says it. And then he should be the kind of person that’s easily ignited so that if anybody questions him or he should get hyper urgent very quickly. So that was what I was trying to do. That’s about it. No politics in there for me I’m afraid.

CraveOnline: Independently of the show, do you have any political feelings about the administration?

Iggy Pop: Well, you know, I noticed like before the presidential election when Bush was elected the first time there was a photo op down there in Crawford. I think he had Cheney and Powell with him and they were all walking this cowboy walk. I’ve lived a few years and I just said to myself, “Okay we’re going to get into a scrap with some country when this guy gets elected, you know?” And that’s what I kind of like. I’m not condemning the political ramifications or all that but some of this stuff is just plain human, you know? On the other hand look at your [alternatives]. I’m not a fan of Kerry or Clinton, Ms. Clinton or any of the other candidates either so what the hell.

CraveOnline: Do you ever worry that some of the Bush bashing jokes get old?

Iggy Pop: Donna Summers songs still sound good. So does Kool and the Gang and KC and the Sunshine Band. I mean, you know, it’s okay.

CraveOnline: What kind of character is Lil Rummy on the show?

Iggy Pop: He’s the kind of guy that has put a lot of thought and preparation into deciding that he’s going to put over. He’s a put over, sell it to you, this is the way we’re doing it guy. And he’s going to get rattled really easily if anyone disagrees so the can go from definite to urgent to strident to edge of hysterical.

CraveOnline: Can you relate to all of that?

Iggy Pop: Yeah, of course. I think we’ve got a lot in common.

CraveOnline: Will you be providing any music for the show?

Iggy Pop: I doubt it. They probably can’t afford me. I’m cheap for voices, for voiceover.

CraveOnline: But the boys have a band, so what do you think of their music?

Iggy Pop: The band’s good. That little band, that’s a good little song, the little theme song. It’s good.

CraveOnline: What’s going on with you musically right now?

Iggy Pop: I played a gig a couple of weeks ago. I’m playing one in a few days. I just put out a record. There’s an album by The Stooges, you might have heard of them, called The Weirdness. I reunited a few years ago with my high school band The Stooges. We recorded a record and released it this spring called The Weirdness and we just finished touring the US and we’re starting Europe for the summer.

CraveOnline: What do you think of Elijah Wood playing you in your biopic?

Iggy Pop: I have nothing against that idea. I’m sort of neutral. The guy’s actually an intelligent actor, contrary to the blather that the producers are putting out. I haven’t given them any permission to do it yet but I wouldn’t object to Elijah.

 

 

The Plumber
Steve Albini on Touch and Go, the Stooges, and how his analog work ethic is faring in the digital age

By Bob Mehr
September 29, 2006

It's been more than two decades since guitarist and recording engineer Steve Albini emerged as the gadfly of the midwestern rock underground. In his 20s he led the notoriously abrasive, crowd-baiting bands Big Black and Rapeman, but he's since mellowed considerably -- though his current outfit, Shellac, is hardly warm and cuddly, at 44 he no longer goes out of his way to make himself a lightning rod for controversy. His reputation as an iconoclast persists, however, and he remains the sort of public figure folks either love or hate. "There are specific people who have a bee in their bonnet about me," Albini says. "I can't do anything about that. I trust the bands and people I work with every day -- the ones that know me on a personal level and actually know me as opposed to the image of me -- they have the real perspective. If those people thought I was a jerk, then I'd feel bad."

Albini can afford to brush off his critics: It's been nearly a decade since he opened Electrical Audio in its current location, on Belmont near the river, and his studio has weathered both the end of the 90s alt-rock boom and the spread of cheap digital home recording. Despite Albini's notorious refusal to install a digital rig at Electrical, this has been one of his busiest years yet at the studio -- he's scheduled to complete more than 40 projects by the end of December. Shellac has just finished recording a new LP, and this week Albini starts work on a comeback album by proto-punk icons the Stooges.

The forthcoming Shellac record, the band's first since 1000 Hurts in 2000, will be called Excellent Italian Greyhound -- originally what drummer Todd Trainer would say to his dog instead of "good boy," it was quickly adopted by the band to refer to anything praiseworthy. "If you're familiar with our stuff you probably won't be surprised," Albini says. "I guess Todd has a cowbell now, so that's new." Touch and Go has tentative plans to release the album in early 2007, and the band has a couple spring shows planned for the UK, which may turn into the nucleus of a European tour.

Albini has been playing in Shellac with Trainer and bassist Bob Weston for 14 years, and calls it "absolutely my favorite thing in the whole world to do" -- though he's quick to point out that he still considers it a hobby. The studio is his job, and he puts in an average of 300 days a year as an engineer. In 2006 his work has appeared on releases by Canadian roots band the Sadies, Sicilian art punks Uzeda, power-pop legends Cheap Trick, and even the Lovehammers, the group led by Rock Star: INXS runner-up Marty Casey. He's not a fan of every act he records, but he's looking forward to working with the Stooges, who he calls one of his all-time favorite bands. The re-formed lineup includes three original members -- Iggy Pop, Ron Asheton, and his brother Scott -- along with Minutemen bassist Mike Watt and Fun House saxist Steve MacKay.

Albini has never met any of the Stooges -- so far he's just had a couple phone conversations with them -- and only knows Watt casually. "I got a call out of the blue from Ron Asheton," he says. "They basically expressed a desire to set up and play live. We'll see how that goes. I've yet to see the reconstituted Stooges, but by all accounts they're playing like champions." In a recent Spanish-language interview, Iggy says hiring Albini was something Ron pushed for, in part because Albini has said he arrived at a lot of his ideas about recording by listening to Fun House. Iggy also praises Albini's no-nonsense blue-collar approach, comparing it to a plumber's.

One rumor that's been following the project is that Jack White will play on the disc or produce it, but Albini has heard nothing either way. "I really have no idea. . . . There may be a point where an Edwardian carriage pulls up in front of the studio and Jack White and his footmen step out," he says. "By the way, I've never used the word 'footmen' in conversation before."

Electrical Audio, like most full-service studios, has suffered as digital recording has gotten cheaper and more accessible. But because it's still primarily an analog facility, it continues to attract musicians who don't see the two methods as interchangeable. (Albini's rep doesn't hurt either, and even people who don't care what kind of tape they use agree that the rooms sound great.) The studio hosts digital sessions for outside engineers, but Albini has never used Pro Tools himself. "I wouldn't even know how to turn it on," he admits. "It would be like asking me to translate a Chinese poem." He claims he's never encountered a situation where the use of analog tape was the problem, and he's not about to fix what isn't broken. "Many of our peer studios that have slavishly followed the fashions in recording have either gone broke or run themselves into the ground," he says. "So I don't see any indication that we're doing things wrong."

Electrical is far from broke, but over the past few years it's lowered its fees repeatedly to stay competitive as the demand for pro recording declines. Albini says that when he arrived in Chicago in 1980, the average daily rate for a comparable studio was between $1,000 and $2,000; at Electrical the top room rate is currently $600 a day, down from a peak of $850. "To survive under those conditions requires a different mind-set," he says. "You can't treat a studio as a pure business venture. You have to treat it as something you're doing for its own sake. The same is true for indie labels: they're a viable business, but only just. So having a punk-rock mentality -- doing as much as you can yourself and keeping things as cheap as possible so it doesn't have to be expensive for the bands -- is the approach we take."

Every one of Albini's bands has released records on Touch and Go, the indie label run by Corey Rusk, and two of them -- Shellac and Big Black -- played at the label's 25th-anniversary party earlier this month. Albini is generally loath to indulge in nostalgia (during Big Black's mini set he commented, "You can tell it's not something that we had a burning desire to do"), but he's long been a vocal cheerleader for Touch and Go and helped persuade Rusk to move the operation to Chicago in 1986. For Albini the Touch and Go celebration was a reminder of why he'd invested so much of himself in underground music to begin with. "Seeing Scratch Acid again, seeing Killdozer, seeing the Didjits -- all of the reconstituted bands were as good as in their heyday," he says. "And even though those bands were dissimilar to one another, they were still comrades in this cultural movement.

"There's nothing cornier than grandpa music scenester saying, 'Back in my day, things were so much better,'" he continues. "But to see all those bands that really got me super excited about music in the first place, and seeing them in full flight again, made me realize I wasn't a fool back then."

The "punk-rock mentality" that guides both Electrical Audio and Touch and Go has been vindicated by time, and Albini takes great satisfaction in that. "When we started, everyone was rather adamant that you couldn't do things the way we wanted to. That it would be impossible to run a record label without contracts or more professional accoutrements. Everyone said it would be impossible to run a recording studio that catered to a punk-rock client base because they don't have any money and they're not reliable, or whatever," he says. "I like the fact that Touch and Go and Electrical Audio have proven that all those people who thought they knew best were wrong. Not just that they were wrong to offer their opinion, but that they were wrong, period. It's quite gratifying to realize you were smarter than all the people who were telling you you were gonna fail."

 

 

Great Pretenders: Concert for VH1 gets boost from guest Iggy Pop
Monday, August 14, 2006
BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff
POP/ROCK

Steven Van Zandt has spent much of his career working with Bruce Springsteen. But in a 2004 interview with The Star-Ledger he called Iggy Pop "the greatest performer, for me, in rock'n' roll history."

Chrissie Hynde went even further, Friday night at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, calling Pop "the greatest human being in the world."

The occasion was a concert that was taped for VH1 Classic's "Decades Rock Live" series. (The air date has not been determined yet.) Hynde's classic-rock band, the Pretenders, was the main act, and performed both alone and with guests Pop, Shirley Manson (of the band Garbage), Kings of Leon and Incubus.

Pop, a punk-rock pioneer who was a huge influence on Hynde in her artistically formative years, was the last guest to appear. Though he never became as animated as he tends to get at his own shows, he still gave the event a jolt.

Long-haired and wiry at the age of 59, he bounded onto the stage and added booming baritone vocals to two Pretenders songs, "Lie to Me" and "Fools Must Die." Then he dueted with Hynde on his own catchy 1991 hit "Candy" (the original featured Kate Pierson of the B-52's). His loose-limbed, unself-conscious dancing and the wide grin on the face suggested that there was no place he would rather be.

He also sang on the show's grand finale: One of the Pretenders' biggest hits, "Middle of the Road," where he shared lead vocals with Manson, Kings of Leon's Caleb Followill and Incubus' Brandon Boyd. With various members of the guest bands also joining in, there were 11 musicians onstage. Hynde was content to play a supporting role until the song-closing harmonica solo.

The Pretenders, currently featuring original members Hynde and Martin Chambers (drums) along with Adam Seymour (guitar) and Nick Wilkinson (bass), have never been the most adventurous live band, tending to stick close to the original arrangements. So it was a kick to see them presiding over a chaotic scene, for once.

The "Decades Rock Live" series, which has previously built shows around artists like Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Heart and Lynyrd Skynyrd, isn't as confiningly structured as a traditional tribute show, or as loose as a jam session. The idea is, simply, that a veteran act presents a concert with several guest segments.

The material -- almost always rehearsed in advance -- can be associated with the central act, or the guests, or other sources. Some hits are usually included, but the set lists tend to be unpredictable.

I've attended two other "Decades Rock Live" tapings (Raitt and Heart) and can say that this one was the most like a regular concert, with no do-overs or pre-taped segments, and only a few brief breaks for stage alterations. In keeping with the Pretenders' usual no-nonsense approach to their career, there were no long speeches or attempts to pump up the crowd. They played, and Hynde graciously introduced the guests, and that was pretty much it.

As was the case with the other shows, attendees got to see and hear things they aren't likely to see and hear again. Hynde dueted with Boyd on Incubus' "Drive," and with Manson -- sporting lots of mascara, in tribute to Hynde's trademark look -- on Garbage's darkly alluring signature song, "Only Happy When It Rains." The Kings of Leon helped the Pretenders thrash their way through one of the punkiest Pretenders songs, "Up the Neck."

A few of the songs the Pretenders played on their own ("Back on the Chain Gang," "Night In My Veins") sounded a bit rushed and perfunctory. But the band was in fine form on numbers like a crisp "Mystery Achievement" and a beguiling "Brass In Pocket."

In a nod to the casino setting, Hynde performed her ballad "The Losing," saying it explained why she wouldn't be gambling after the show.

"Can't stop when I'm at the top. ... Every time I win I have to start again/Can't rest until I'm losing," she sang.



Hynde and Iggy Pop get together
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff


Chrissie Hynde was about 19 years old when she heard Iggy Pop's pioneering garage-punk band the Stooges for the first time.

"Their first album was in '69, but I didn't really become aware of him until about 1971," says Hynde, 54, who fronts the Pretenders. "They were like a local band: I'm from Ohio, and they were from up in Ann Arbor. When I discovered (the band's 1970 album) 'Fun House,' that changed everything for me.

"I even read a review in an English newspaper of a live show of his. It was such a glowing review. It was one of my incentives to move to England (in 1973), because I felt they appreciated him over there."

The Stooges do not represent the most obvious influence on the Pretenders. Their music was rough-edged, manic, almost primitive. The Pretenders -- whose hits include "Brass In Pocket," "Back on the Chain Gang," "Middle of the Road" and "Don't Get Me Wrong" -- have always been more melodic and less messy.

Hynde declines to dissect the reasons why the Stooges made such a big impact on her.

"I don't know," she says. "Why do you fall in love?"

Thirty-five years after hearing "Fun House" for the first time, Hynde will get to sing with Pop on Friday at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

The concert will be taped for VH1 Classic's "Decades Rock Live" series; previous shows have been built around artists like Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Pretenders will perform both on their own and with Pop, the bands Incubus and Kings of Leon, and Shirley Manson of the band Garbage.

These guests were not forced upon Hynde -- the band's uncontested leader -- by some corporate executive.

Hynde calls Kings of Leon "my favorite band from the last 10 years."

She met Incubus, she says, "when they invited me to do a song with them for a film ("Neither of Us Can See," heard on the soundtrack for last year's "Stealth"). I liked working with them, so we asked them along."

Manson, she says, "is a great singer, and she's Scottish, and from a place up in Scotland (South Queensferry) where I used to spend a lot of time. So we've got stuff in common, and she's a real laugh."


MUSIC: "ROCK SHOULD BE DANGEROUS"
Chrissie Hynde looks forward to VH1 taping

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/11/06
BY ED CONDRAN
CORRESPONDENT

Just on the basis of the Pretenders first two albums, the Chrissie Hynde-led band deserves a tribute — and that's exactly what VH1 will do tonight at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

The cable network will tip its cap to the Pretenders by taping a "Decades Rock Live" show that will include rock icon Iggy Pop, the incendiary Kings of Leon, sultry Garbage singer Shirley Manson and pop stars Incubus.

PETA supporter Hynde, 55, is stoked about the show, which will feature the aforementioned recording artists rendering Pretenders songs with and without Hynde and her band. The British transplant by way of Ohio recently chatted up the show, offered her thoughts on rock and her lack of an English accent despite living in Ole Blighty for 33 years.

Q: It takes something for you to get excited about, but you seem to be thrilled about your VH1 special.

A: I am excited. I'm very pleased that the Kings of Leon are part of this. I absolutely worship them. They don't do a lot of television. When they accepted I was excited. Iggy will be there, and we all know that Iggy is God.

Q: There is a common denominator that connects you, the Kings of Leon and Iggy. Each of you rock and there is less of that these days.

A: It's true. There is no rock anymore. It's all mainstream. Once in a while, you get a real rock band like the Kings of Leon, and it's a precious thing. It's not for everybody and it shouldn't be for everybody.

Q: Despite members passing away or being fired, the Pretenders have never called it a day.

A: "How can I miss you if you never go away" should be on my tombstone. I never have gone away. I imagine I prefer being in a rock band over waiting tables.

Q: Didn't you once say that this group that you're in is essentially a tribute to the Pretenders, or was that taken out of context?

A: Everything is taken out of context during interviews. Not everyone was there when the interview happened. Right now it's just me and you. This is a tribute to the original band.

Q: Do you ever wonder what the Pretenders would have sounded like if James Honeyman Scott and Pete Farndon didn't succumb to drugs?

A: No. I wish I had Jimmy Scott in my room right now, but I miss my dog, too. Who thinks about the what-ifs of this band?

Q: The fans.

A: (Expletive) the fans.

Q: Aside from your obvious skills, what's most appealing about you is that you don't pretend to be nice. Nice isn't rock or shouldn't be. Rock should feel dangerous.

A: Rock should be dangerous. You don't have to kill yourself to be dangerous. I found that out.



Iggy Pop Gets Too Caught Up in Music While Driving
starpulse.com
08/04/06
13:41:41


Iggy Pop's driving career has been cursed by a series of accidents and arrests. The former Stooges frontman admits a Rolls Royce used to be among his favorite vehicles, but he gave up on the cars after his last one caught fire while he was listening to The Beatles.

The punk legend, 59, says, "I was listening to 'Rubber Soul.' So I didn't notice something I shoulda. When I got to the beach a little black smoke came out and I thought 'Whoa!' And then the fire department came and they had to hack their way through the hood. And I was like, 'OK, that's enough with the Rolls. F**k it, I'm getting some American cars!"

Before getting his current vehicle, an Oldsmobile, Iggy tried a Ferrari with disastrous results.

He explains, "I drove the sh*t outta that car. One day I was driving it listening to voodoo music. And I got a little too caught up and I was doing triple the speed limit. I ran a red light because I thought it was green. A cop pulled me over which is kinda uncool. So I got rid of it. I had about four years with that car, and it was great."


U2 TOP LIVE POLL
contactmusic.com
07/08/2006 20:07


U2 have been named the Greatest Live Band currently performing, in a new US poll. The Irish rockers beat IGGY POP's reformed THE STOOGES, acclaimed ARCADE FIRE and the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS to top the Spin magazine poll. Spin editors gave U2 the edge, claiming, "What's most impressive about U2's huge tours is that the quartet can cut through the precisely-timed techno clutter and deliver moments of true spontaneity." The full top 10 in the 25 Greatest Live Bands poll is: 1. U2 2. THE STOOGES 3. ARCADE FIRE 4. RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS 5. RADIOHEAD 6. WHITE STRIPES 7. GREEN DAY 8. THE HIVES 9. PRINCE 10. THE DIRTBOMBS



MC5 to join Stooges at UK ATP show in December
MTV.com

For the first time in more than 35 years, former MC5 members Michael Davis, Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson will share a bill with fellow Detroit rock pioneers Iggy Pop and the Stooges. The bands are playing this year's All Tomorrow's Parties Festival, curated by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and set for December 8-10 at Butlins Minehead in Somerset, England.



Stars set for Curtis biopic soundtrack
Tuesday, 27th June 2006


ICONIC: Ian CurtisA HOST of big names have are set to join New Order on the soundtrack for the new film about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.

Entitled Control, David Bowie, Roxy Music and Iggy Pop are all said to have confirmed tracks for the record.

The soundtrack will also include original Joy Division and Warsaw (New Order’s initial name) songs.

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According to the New Order fansite, Worldinmotion.net, also joining the quartet on the record will be fellow Manc veterans the Buzzcocks, Lou Reed and the Sex Pistols.

On the LP, bassist Peter Hook told NME: "We were asked to do the soundtrack to the film which I thought was a great idea, for Joy Division to do the music for a Joy Division film because we've never really done a soundtrack before.

Poignant

"Every time we get accolades for Joy Division it makes [Ian's suicide] sadder, especially with the film. Working on the film has made the whole thing seem more poignant."

Directed by Anton Corbijn, who is famed for his work with U2, the film will feature Sam Riley - the frontman of indie band 10,000 Things - in the role of Curtis.

Curtis hung himself at his home in Macclesfield in 1980, the biopic of his life is based on a book by his wife Debbie.

New CD: Lust For Life: Live 1977 - Import CD
Label Ozit
CDU Part# 7040611
7
Catalog# CD0090
Discs 1
Street Date Feb 06, 2006.

Track Listing

Song Title

1. Iggy Speaks (Jim Morrison)
2. Lust For Life (Previously Unreleased Mobile Studio Concert Recording)
3. Iggy Speaks (Passing Interview)
4. Passenger (Previously Unreleased Mobile Studio Concert Recording)
5. Iggy Speaks (Mutual Bowie)
6. Gloria (Live)
7. Iggy Speaks (Mohammed Ali)
8. Modern Guy (Live)
9. Iggy Speaks (Record Company)
10. I've Gotta Right (Live)
11. Iggy Speaks (I've Broke A Bottle)
12. Fall In Love With Me (Live)
13. Neighbourhood Threat (Previously Unreleased Mobile Studio Concert Recording)
14. Iggy Speaks (I Want To Be Something More)
15. Tv Eye (Live)
16. Raw Power (Live)
17. Night Clubbing (Live)

17 tracks of interview and live music from 1977.



New DVD: GGY & THE STOOGES LIVE AT THE LOKERSE FESTIVAL; IGGY & THE STOOGES
Catalogue Number: D0761
MRA Entertainment

Format: DVD
Barcode: 9316797421616
Genre: MUSIC DVD
Label: outre oeuvre records/MRA
Pricecode: DF25
Release Date: 27-MAY-06
Rating: M
Consumer Advice:Moderate coarse language


What the press have said:

"The Stooges always put on a frenetic live show and this has been superbly captured by a ten-camera set-up, with excellent sound quality to match." **** Steve Bell, Time Off

‘The old punk still has it.’, ‘Over an hour he delivers his characteristically powerful and lust-driven vocals on gems such as...’ ***1/2 Robert Burton-Bradley – Rolling Stone

‘Since the recent Iggy and The Stooges reunion, every man and his dog is professing their love for the Godfather of Punk. This is one of the best reunion shows caught on film, with awesome sound, and it’s shot from multiple angles, like porn. If you wondered what all the fuss was about, this is as close as you’ll get to seeing Iggy in full form before his body crumbles. **** Scanner Music – FHM July 2006

‘This is one of the best reunion shows caught on film, with awesome sound,’ **** Scanner Music – FHM July 2006

‘If you saw ’em earlier this year, grab this to relive some damn fin rock action. If you missed ‘em, grab it, watch it and then proceed to give yourself a good kicking for missing them.’ Jez – The Drum Magazine

‘Iggy Pop is still out there on the edge performing with a grit and mania that has to be experienced to be believed.’, ‘Iggy delivers a raw, energized performance as only he can do.’ Bill Holdsworth – Rave Magazine

‘it’s clear from the opening bass riff of loose that the Stooges’ raw power has not waned.’ Kati Britton – Platterlog Bailia

‘The irresistible dance beats will have you busting a move in no time. !Bailia! is definitely for a party or a quiet sexy night for two...’ Luke Balzan – Rip it Up

‘Looking no more than a day over his age, and far from lacking in enthusiasm, Iggy Pop struts out onto the stage at the Lokerse Festival.’ , ‘As the three initial chords of I Wanna be Your Dog ring out, the crowd goes mental, as does the frontman, and the energy level of both heightens.’, ‘it’s a good souvenir for those who caught Iggy and his cronies earlier this year, and a good representation for those who missed it.’ Pia Faletti – Xpress Magazine

‘Iggy and his Stooges let rip with gusto 30 years later.’, ‘having split in 1974, it was a dream come true for Stooges’ fans when Iggy Pop reunited with his old band and then rocked Europe last year with this performance.’, ‘Iggy unleashes those raw vocals and gyrates like he’s a teen all over again.’ Scott Podmore – Sunday Herald Sun

"This DVD is the prototype of what great comeback performances can be." - Peter Ryan - MAG, June 2006

'The sound quality and the band's performance are both stellar,','The visuals,combined with the "reunion factor" and short (12 song) playlist, mark Live At Lokerse out as a purchase for Iggy obsessives' - JH - Blunt Magazine.

“the sound quality and the band’s performance are both stellar” Blunt Magazine

"oozes raw power... a pumped up Iggy is at workman-like b