Iggy Pop Page 36

  During his stay in Los Angeles, Jim had introduced Suchi to most of his musical circle at a party at the China Club, an upscale restaurant in Hollywood; the couple seemed joyful and optimistic, while Jim looked markedly different from the rather raddled figure he’d cut of late: sparkly-eyed and boyish with short hair and a side parting, dressed with classic elegance in a red cardigan and banded white golf straw hat (some of his friends started calling him Bing behind his back, because his casual attire reminded them of Bing Crosby). Danny Sugerman seemed to be his constant guide around Los Angeles society and displayed a puppydog enthusiasm about being reunited with the singer who seemed like his surrogate elder brother. Sugerman, too, was supposedly drug-free; this was the new ethos in Los Angeles, which had belatedly wised up to the deleterious effects of cocaine - although quite often, as photographer Robert Matheu points out, ‘drugs-free’ simply meant that it was not cool to share your cocaine any more; instead, everyone snorted in private.

  Sugerman had the idea of teaming Iggy for the title song with Chequered Past, the short-lived LA supergroup comprising Blondie’s Clem Burke, Silverhead’s Michael Des Barres, Silverhead and Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison and ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones; Jones had recently kicked heroin with the aid of Sugerman and Harrison. It was an inspired pairing, and singer Michael Des Barres stepped back with good grace, although Chequered Past’s fifth member, Tony Sales, was understandably upset at not being included, given his previous relationship with Jim; the insult was compounded by the fact Jim seemed to be avoiding him.

  With a clean-cut, organised Iggy singing and directing rehearsals, the quartet, all efficient and drugs-free, spent a couple of days working up the song at EMI America’s rehearsal studio on the Sunset Strip; Jim was focused, and showed his familiar, hard-working, creative side, working up perhaps seven or eight sets of lyrics, remembers Nigel Harrison, for the intricate song arrangement.

  Despite his clean-cut, reformed image, it turned out that Iggy was still in love with the idea of chaos and drama and the conflicts that often made music - and life - exciting. There was one last escapade, which started when he sent Robert Matheu and Steve Jones off to borrow a Les Paul guitar from David Bowie. The two were delighted with their errand and the sight of David’s abode just behind Sunset, which was furnished in a tasteful East Indies style; David was in town to play the Los Angeles Forum, and Jones chatted with him for ten or fifteen minutes. But when Matheu brought the guitarist back to the studio, he realised the stunt was at least partly a ruse to keep Jones - who was under heavy orders to stay drug-free - away from Danny and Iggy, who were ‘definitely up to something’.

  Once the session started, says Nigel Harrison, ‘Iggy was buzzing!’ The singer had ‘scabs of cocaine and a cold sweat, and everything we’d rehearsed went right out the window’. They started taping at Cherokee studios at four in the afternoon, and at four in the morning the band had run through perhaps thirty different versions of the song; for the final version, Iggy made Harrison play two bass parts, then came up with yet another set of lyrics and contributed a crazed vocal performance. The recording sounded all the more thrilling for the fact you could hear the musicians tracking Iggy, locked onto him like guided missiles on the trail of a fighter jet. Although, as with all of Iggy’s music, this song had little connection with blues, its very mutability recalls the way John Lee Hooker ’s musicians would swerve to follow their singer. ‘There is an analogy between Iggy’s music and someone like Hooker,’ says Clem Burke, ‘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.’ With its claustrophobic semitonal riffs, vaguely reminiscent of the Batman theme, Jones’s roaring guitars and galloping, muscular bass and drums from Harrison and Burke, ‘Repo Man’ was undeniably the best rock song Iggy had recorded since New Values days - it was also scarily appropriate for a skewed LA movie whose script was inspired by the Liverpool-born Cox’s time spent studying at UCLA, during which he lived next to an auto repossession specialist. The song was the highlight of a raucous, rowdy soundtrack that leant heavily on LA punk bands including Black Flag and the Circle Jerks; it was significant, too, in that it illustrated how Iggy’s music sounded as contemporary against a backdrop of 1980s hardcore as it had against 1970s punk.

  ‘Repo Man’ provided a fitting coda to Jim’s Los Angeles experiences, which had inspired both the wired optimism of Fun House and the washed-up rootlessness of Kill City. But where both of those albums had embodied a current or imminent crisis, ‘Repo Man’ commemorated one; in the following years Iggy Pop would generally only get loaded, he says, at ‘weekends and special occasions’. There were several strands to this profound turnaround in Jim’s life: as well as the crucial new element of financial security, the encouragement of Murray Zucker and other professionals and the influence of Suchi, Jim’s own intelligence and even his narcissism all unmistakeably told him, ‘It never looks good to be forty and failed.’

  As much as he had deluded himself, says Jim, there was a point at which he was forced to realise that ‘there was a line I was crossing into picaresque behaviour. I was becoming Don Quixote. There’s a fine line between entertaining flamboyance and being a prat - I had known I was becoming one [earlier], but that realisation would last for about thirty seconds.’

  Tellingly, Jim describes how in life, little by little, ‘you change as much as you have to’. By the autumn of 1983 he finally had no choice. The example of ‘Repo Man’ notwithstanding, he had been forced to recognise that the habits that had once powered his music were now handicapping it. In place of drugs, success and normality would be the experiences Jim would now experiment with, and savour. Without the aid of conventional therapy, or rehab, he simply decided to give up drink and cocaine relying solely on his willpower. While there were occasional relapses, and even a couple of frenzied spending sprees, this was pretty much how it would stay.

  After three months in Los Angeles, it was time for a more traditional therapy in the form of a vacation at the invitation of David Bowie, whose Serious Moonlight tour had concluded in Bangkok on 12 December. Jim and Suchi flew over to meet with David and Coco for their trip to Bali and Java after the tour finished. The quartet spent New Year’s Eve together, and over the vacation David and Jim came up with a new song, ‘Tumble And Twirl’, their first real collaboration in seven years and the beginning of a renewed songwriting partnership that would underpin both of their next albums, albeit one that was radically different in mood from the manic creative energy of Lust For Life and “Heroes”.

  For Jim and Suchi, there was a quick trip to Manhattan in February 1984 looking for a new apartment; like many, they found the rounds of real-estate agents and overpriced property a drag, so they flew down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where James Sr and Louella had retired in the autumn of 1982, to relax; Jim spent much of his time playing golf with his dad. Back in New York a couple of weeks later, they found a rental in the Gramercy Park area, and Suchi and Jim spent much of the time exploring the neighbourhood together, like wide-eyed tourists, before heading for Canada in May, where David Bowie was recording what would become Tonight, the follow-up to his multi-million-selling Let’s Dance.

  For perhaps the first time, David Bowie was about to deliver a train-wreck of an album. Again, for the first time, David Bowie - a personality who, like Jim, was so often animated with an infectious, boyish enthusiasm - seemed bored. And according to Hugh Padgham, who would be credited as producer on this problematic, but ironically bestselling album, the one change that would have made the work better would have been more input from Jim Osterberg: ‘I think Jim was there for around five days, he was an inspirational influence. If he had been around for longer, we might actually have had a great album.’

  Tonight, it turns out, was rather like Iggy’s own Soldier, meandering through two producers, with no guiding ethos and generally indifferent mat
erial. Bowie had recruited a new producer, Derek Bramble, who soon proved inadequate for the task. Padgham, who’d already produced huge hits for the Police, had taken the gig as engineer because he was eager to work with David, so was the perfect person to step in when Bramble left the session after a couple of weeks. Yet Padgham ultimately found the experience frustrating. David was energetic, chain-smoking with that slightly jittery intensity, but most of his energies seemed focused on outside distractions, rather than the songs. They were recording in a residential studio, Le Studio, in the rather boring provincial ski resort of Morin Heights, Quebec, and David seemed more preoccupied with picking up a local girl, who invariably had a friend in tow. Jim, in comparison, was a calming influence. ‘He was laid-back . . . very laid-back, I did wonder if he might be on tranquillisers,’ says Padgham, and the two had experimented on more inventive, left-field material that, if included, would have hugely improved the final results, Padgham believes.

  There was still plenty of David’s craftsmanship on view - the album’s major hit, ‘Blue Jean’, was neatly constructed, with a luxurious sheen that concealed the absence of an inspiring chorus - but for once, he seemed to have run out of creative ideas. In Berlin, in Jim’s company, he had fused a kind of European expressionism and intensity with jagged electronic instrumentation and R&B rhythms, making music that was uniquely emotive and original. This time around, the guiding principle seemed to be that of recording an assortment of cover versions in a bland, airbrushed reggae style. Yet there must surely have been another motive at play when one considers that five of the nine songs included on the album feature Iggy Pop’s name on the credits: the newly written ‘Tumble And Twirl’ and ‘Dancing With The Big Boys’, plus ‘Tonight’ (in a dreadful reggaefied version, with Tina Turner duet-ting on over-emotive, strangulated vocals) and ‘Neighborhood Threat’ from Lust For Life, and finally ‘Don’t Look Down’, one of Iggy and James Williamson’s last collaborations, from New Values.

  David Bowie had been commendably just in his dealings with Jim back in the Berlin era, careful to point out that they were equals and avoid any patronising implications that he had rescued his friend. And although David’s recording of ‘China Girl’ brought huge financial benefits for Jim, the song was undoubtedly included on Let’s Dance because of its obvious commercial potential. Yet it’s hard to see the recording of ‘Neighborhood Threat’ and ‘Don’t Look Down’, both fine but hardly commercial songs, as anything other than an act of charity, an impression deepened by Padgham’s memories of David, during the quieter moments in Morin Heights, proudly telling him, ‘You know, I rescued Iggy.’ Padgham was treated to a long yarn depicting Iggy’s craziness, as David described how Iggy’s tour of Australia and New Zealand was cancelled because of legal threats from a woman in the audience whom Iggy had accidentally injured, kicking her in the chin and in the process making her bite off a chunk of her tongue. (The story, says then road manager Henry McGroggan, was apocryphal.) The implication seemed to be that Iggy was every bit as unreliable as his public image suggested, although it’s possible that this was behaviour as much to be admired as sniggered over. Certainly, if Bowie thought of this period as one characterised by his own largesse, rather than a partnership of equals, there was some truth in it: despite its generally insipid quality, Tonight became Bowie’s fastest-selling album to date, reaching platinum status in just six weeks and promising Jim a substantial income over the following year. In the mid-1980s, mechanical royalties on a full-price album were approximately 5 cents per track, per copy sold, which would mean earnings of over $100,000 from those six weeks alone; that sum would probably have been equalled by air-play royalties over the same period.

  That autumn, Iggy’s new-found celebrity as collaborator with Bowie on the latter’s glossiest, blandest album to date led to him being featured in People magazine, with colour photos that depicted the Godfather of Punk shopping for fabrics with Suchi in Manhattan, or vacuuming in his new, top-floor Greenwich Village apartment. There was something touching about seeing Iggy and Suchi as a celebrity couple, as well as the notion of this alien, who’d fallen to earth from Planet Rock, becoming gradually familiar with everyday traditions. ‘My hand still shakes when I make out a cheque,’ he told writer David Fricke, ‘or my eyes get fussy and I can’t see. It’s because a cheque always was something that was used by people I didn’t like.’

  In most respects, the image of Jim and Suchi at home in Manhattan was one of an innocent domesticity. Jim would get up 5 or 6am and potter around, enjoying his thoughts in the stillness of the early morning. As had become his habit since moving to Brooklyn, he’d type perhaps a couple of pages of poetry, prose or odd ideas; often he’d read through the papers and clip out stories, underlining resonant or quirky phrases which he’d work up into random collages. Usually he’d tidy up some of the debris from the previous night and clear up the papers and magazines; then he’d fetch a take-out breakfast for the two of them when Suchi woke up, vacuum the apartment and sometimes make hamburgers for lunch. ‘I’m basically garbage, vacuuming and bits and pieces patrol and she’s got the washing, cooking’s half and half and I help with shopping,’ was how he described the allocation of domestic chores. In the afternoons he might take long walks on the way home with his shopping; Suchi might get to work on either of the two sewing machines she’d set up in the apartment, using fabric chosen on their jaunts around the city. The days of jumping in a cab to see friends, as he’d done in Brooklyn, were over; instead he and Suchi would take the subway around Manhattan, careful lest their out-goings exceed their income.

  Many hours, in late 1984, were occupied in filling out the interminable immigration forms for Suchi; it was to clarify her residency status, Jim would explain later, that the two would get married the following year - one senses that Midwest embarrassment at expressing personal feelings in the practical, businesslike rationale Jim espoused for his second marriage. They made a sweet, almost childlike couple, those around them thought; charming, not particularly lovey-dovey - but attentive to each other, in a caring, innocent kind of way.

  At other times there would be odd little conversations with other residents in the same block, including photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, or visits to a local health club, followed by TV in the evenings, or perhaps relaxing with a novel by V.S. Naipaul or Paul Theroux. On quiet afternoons or mornings Jim would take his tiny Brother EP20 typewriter to the park and work on more ideas, sometimes for three or four hours a day. Around the end of 1984, he enrolled in an acting class. Such was the routine, typical of perhaps thousands of New Yorkers lucky enough to have a small private income, that defined Jim Osterberg’s peaceful new life, which was punctuated only by the occasional vacation in Mexico.

  Some time in 1984, Jim and David had discussed making an album together; indeed, in September, Bowie told the NME that recording an album with Iggy was his main ambition for the following year, alongside writing something ‘extraordinary and adventurous’ for himself. But apparently he was in no particular hurry: the creative blitz of 1976 and 1977 seemed a thing of the past, and for most of 1985 Bowie busied himself with two movie projects, Absolute Beginners and Labyrinth. Bowie’s musical efforts were mainly confined to recording the B-side of Band Aid’s charity single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, together with a magisterial, grandstanding performance at Live Aid that July.

  By the spring of 1985, however, Jim had pieced together eight or nine songs, and intent on getting things going on his own called up Steve Jones, who was at a loose end now that Chequered Past had splintered in the wake of their poorly received debut album. The last time Jim and Steve worked together, eighteen months before, they’d both been struggling with going straight. This time around, once Jim flew to LA where they rented a house and worked on songs throughout June, they revelled in the new-found experience of being sober, organised and professional. Each time the inspiration faltered, rather than ‘taking some drug or getting drunk’ they would head for the beach
. Within the month they worked up twenty songs, and went on to record nine of them in September and early October at a home studio in Hancock Park owned by fashion and glamour photographer Olivier Ferrand. The songs were simple and strong; Jones’s sparkly, multilayered guitars and the simple drum-machine rhythm tracks left plenty of room for Iggy’s voice, which sounded warm, clear and almost affable. Jim started shopping the tapes around New York and they were already generating interest, he says, when he got a call from David early in November, saying, ‘I want to play you some demos.’ Jim’s reply was, ‘Great, I’ll play you some of mine, too.’

  David loved the songs, which included ‘Cry For Love’, ‘Winners And Losers’ and ‘Fire Girl’, but eminently practical as ever, told Jim, ‘They’re all mid-tempo, so you’ll need some fast ones and some slow ones,’ and volunteered to fill the gaps. In December, David, Jim, Suchi (and, probably, Coco) decamped to Bowie’s holiday home in Mustique, taking along David’s custom-built portable studio, then moved on to another of his houses in Gstaad. In between skiing, enjoying dinner parties and relaxing, David and Jim worked intermittently on writing more songs at a gentle, civilised pace, taking three months to build up enough material for an album. After a short break in March and April, David booked recording time at Mountain Studios in Montreux, an upscale, high-tech studio owned by the rock band Queen, which David had first used to record Lodger early in 1979; it was handy for David’s Lausanne home, and he’d started to use it more often for soundtrack and demo work. The plan was that Steve Jones would play on the album, but according to Jim there was a last-minute glitch: ‘He didn’t understand about visas, and couldn’t get out of America.’ David, he says, ‘wasn’t too upset, as they didn’t have a huge common vocabulary’, and instead called up Kevin Armstrong - who’d been musical director for both Bowie’s Live Aid appearance and his ‘Dancing In The Street’ duet with Mick Jagger - and Erdal Kizilcay, a classically trained multi-instrumentalist who’d worked with Bowie on demos for Let’s Dance and co-written ‘When The Wind Blows’.