Iggy Pop Page 40

  The Revelations Of Alternative Rhythms, or ROAR, tour featured a motley line-up of bands which included the Reverend Horton Heat, Bloodhound Gang, Tonic, 60 Ft. Dolls, Sponge and future Pink and Christina Aguilera songwriter Linda Perry, as well as a ‘Lifestyle Entertainment Village’ where kids could challenge their friends to a game of virtual sumo wrestling or bouncy boxing. As soon as the tour was announced in April 1997, anti-tobacco pressure groups started issuing press releases denouncing the conglomerate’s evil efforts. Having initially pumped a huge amount of money into the tour, US Tobacco started to pull back on advertising and before long the bands were playing in huge arenas at which the security personnel outnumbered the crowd; in panic, the organisers switched some venues, thus producing the ludicrous sight of twelve huge tour buses lined up outside a tiny club like the Stone Pony in New Jersey.

  As date followed ill-attended date across the USA, Iggy started to become obsessed with the singer of Sponge, a dreadful Detroit covers band who’d belatedly hopped on the grunge bandwagon and lucked into a gold album. Before long, the venerable Godfather of Punk was engaged in a game of oneupmanship with the grunge-by-numbers upstarts. ‘Whatever Jim did one night, the singer from Sponge would do the next night,’ laughs Hal Cragin. ‘One night he climbs up the PA side-fills, so the next night this kid climbs the PA side-fills. And instead of saying, Fucking kid, it just cranks him up.’ Drummer Larry Mullins started to worry that there was something more serious at work: ‘He was really creeping me out. He was doing this increasingly bizarre behaviour every night . . . it felt like he really wanted to kill himself on stage, to do something really crazy, or really violent.’

  The duel with Sponge’s singer became an obsession, probably in an attempt to blot out the problems with his marriage and with the obviously doomed tour, in which audiences of one or two hundred turned up at 15,000-seater amphitheatres. Despite his band’s attempts to calm down the feud - ‘We’re saying, just relax, they’re only a fuckin’ covers band!’ says Pete Marshall - Iggy was determined to ‘push the envelope’, until one night he was faced with a tiny crowd at the huge Polaris Amphitheatre in Columbus, Ohio. The band launched into ‘Down On The Street’ to a gaggle of bemused kids who were trying to work out who he was. ‘They look as if they’ve come to see Britney Spears or something, but here’s this little guy with that maniacal look on his face and muscles bulging out everywhere, and he scared the hell out of them,’ says Whitey. Both Whitey and Cragin were studying the tiny crowd, who seemed transfixed with confusion and fear by this bizarre apparition, as Iggy ran straight to the edge of the stage, and launched himself out into space. ‘I was watching their shocked faces as he flew towards them,’ says Cragin, ‘and they just scattered. ’

  Iggy hit a bank of chairs, face first, with a sickening impact. ‘It was ugly,’ remembers Whitey. As the musicians kept playing, wondering what had happened, Jos Grain bundled the singer back onto the stage. Blood streamed from his face, and one shoulder hung at a bizarre angle, a few inches below his collarbone. For a few minutes he knelt on the stage, clinging to the mike-stand, ‘His eyes all weird, in some weird place,’ says Whitey. For a while he seemed to be singing some bizarre, unknown song. Hal thought it was maybe Spanish. ‘Whatever it was sounded real cool,’ says Whitey, ‘but it definitely wasn’t “Down On The Street”.’ Finally Jos decided Iggy had sustained serious damage, hoisted him over his shoulder and carted him into the wings. The band played out the song before leaving the stage to a few half-hearted boos.

  Eric Benson had joined the tour as his dad’s assistant, and drove Jim back from the doctor’s as Henry McGroggan explained the situation to the band. Jim had suffered a split head and badly dislocated shoulder - there had apparently been some problem with the anaesthetic required to reset it, such was his still-heroic tolerance to opiates - and he would have to wear a sling for the rest of the tour. For his next performance Iggy skipped on stage wearing the sling, which worked loose within seconds, leaving his arm flapping around. Jos the aspiring paramedic appeared with a roll of electrical tape, securing the injured limb to Iggy’s body so he could finish the set.

  The tour limped on for another nine performances, half of them in tiny venues like the House of Blues. On 5 July, the tour was finally cancelled, with Iggy’s dislocated shoulder cited as the reason for why the planned forty dates had been cut back to half that number. Although Henry McGroggan managed to negotiate a substantial pay-off from US Tobacco, it was obvious that Iggy Pop’s attempted sell-out had met its usual fate.

  Some time after the initial injury, Jim had consulted a doctor who told him, ‘Because your arm was all wrapped up, you’ve got a lot of nerve damage and the circulation cut off . . . I don’t know if that arm will ever work again.’ Once the tour was over Jim returned to the Christadora, still without use of the afflicted limb. It was not until several weeks later, when he was reading a newspaper, instinctively reached out and picked up a coffee with the damaged arm, that he could be sure there was no lasting damage.

  However cynical Iggy’s acceptance of US Tobacco’s dollar had appeared to the American media, the fact that his dedication to duty had resulted in serious injury seemed to help him emerge with credibility intact. That credibility was enhanced by his only album release of 1997, a remixed version of Raw Power. The master tapes had apparently surfaced in Europe, where a fan had given them to the Henry Rollins Band - Rollins apparently wanted to collaborate on the new version, but Iggy elected to remix the album solo. This time around, Iggy was polite about Bowie’s mix, with no mentions of sabotage by ‘that fuckin’ carrot-top’; instead, he claimed the new version unleashed the sound of ‘a rip-snortin’ super-heavy nitro-burnin’ fuel-injected rock band that nobody in this world could touch’. The new mix was more coherent, if more one-dimensional, with a cranked-up sound that often bleeds into distortion, its original glammy edge totally excised. Once Columbia released the remixed version, they deleted the original Bowie mix, meaning that the version of Raw Power that had inspired a generation of punk bands was unobtainable, an act of historical revisionism that prompted Ron Asheton to observe, ‘Now, when everyone hears [the remix] they say the same thing - I really love that original David Bowie mix!’

  There was a further flurry of interest in the Raw Power era in the run-up to the launch of Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine movie, which was based loosely on the relationship between Bowie and Iggy; despite a media onslaught, the movie disappeared without making much of an impact and was mocked by most of those who were there, with the exception of Angie Bowie, who pronounced it an accurate portrayal of the era. The movie marked the public return of Ron Asheton, who’d recently occupied most of his time acting in B-movies; joined by Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, he recorded ‘TV Eye’ and other songs for the soundtrack, playing back-up band for Ewan McGregor’s Iggy Pop-Lou Reed composite, Curt Wild. With Ron playing Stooges material once more, there were rumours he and Iggy might finally settle their differences, which became more persistent once it transpired that the über-producer Rick Rubin had discussed producing the reformed band. But when the subject was mentioned, Iggy would make the same old jibes about Ron still living with his mom and tell interviewers he had no interest in playing the old hits: ‘And, furthermore, I don’t have to.’

  Rather than reunite with the Stooges, Iggy’s new musical project was, he told everyone, to cover ‘some standards’. It was nearly thirty years since he’d first sung ‘Shadow Of Your Smile’ to unappreciative live audiences, and he’d introduced Sinatra’s classic Johnny Mercer torch song, ‘One For My Baby’, to his set back in 1978. Furthermore, he was now going steady with a new girlfriend, who had a taste for bossa nova. Jim had first noticed Alejandra when she’d met his son, Eric, during the American Caesar tour in Buenos Aires, and looked her up during a subsequent visit. She taught him Spanish - he was a quick learner - and he’d croon versions of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘How Insensitive’, o
r the Mercer/Kosma classic ‘Autumn Leaves’, to an acoustic backing at Hal Cragin’s home studio. The kind of songs that the broken-hearted Frank Sinatra would intone as he was in the process of splitting from Ava Gardner seemed appropriate for a period in which Jim was negotiating a divorce settlement with Suchi. The split ‘really, really hurt him,’ says Larry Mullins. ‘Although much of it was his own fault, it was very hard on him, one of the most dedicated long-term things he’d ever been involved in. It represented a huge loss.’ Ultimately, it seems, the divorce from Suchi was reasonably amicable, for she visited him on tour later, but Suchi’s well-documented role in Jim’s professional rehabilitation meant that she was entitled to a hefty divorce settlement.

  As he had done so often before, Iggy turned his predicament into music, calling in Don Was, who had long wanted to collaborate on a largely acoustic album that showcased Jim’s voice. In the months before the recording started in May 1998, Jim worked hard, rehearsing standards with Cragin, to the stark backing of a string bass and acoustic guitar: ‘It really was cool . . .’ says Cragin, ‘but in the end he got paranoid about it.’

  For those who’d followed Iggy’s career, the idea of a collection of dark torch ballads was an enticing one; there were precedents in his own work, notably his sombre, European-sounding The Idiot. More recently Nick Cave, who’d started out playing Stooges-influenced rock with the Birthday Party, had attained a career summit with The Boatman’s Call, a dark collection of minimalist acoustic ballads; later Johnny Cash would maintain his own career comeback with the stripped-down, spooky Solitary Man. Yet when Iggy started work on Avenue B, the album that would document the emotional ruins of his own life, he seemed simply to lose his nerve, tidying up the wreckage with a muso sheen courtesy of the super-competent Blue Note jazz trio, Martin Medeski and Wood. Behind the sonic air-brushing and the tasteful middle-class bongos, however, was a world of imposing darkness. ‘Nazi Girlfriend’, the album’s most fully realised song, sees the narrator intimidated by a woman with four-inch heels and a desert in her stare, set against crystalline broken chords. ‘I Felt The Luxury’ features diamond-hard lyrics in which the hero coldly speculates about his leopardskin-clad lover’s next suicide attempt: ‘If cold’s what I am, I’m cold to the end.’ (The song seemed both a warning to future lovers, and a threat to Eric lest he run up any more bills at his therapist.) Elsewhere, a workmanlike cover of Johnny Kidd’s ‘Shaking All Over’ exemplifies a crucial predicament: that with old age comes competence, but a certain dumb eloquence is lost.

  By the time Avenue B was released in September 1999, Alejandra - the subject of many of the songs - was gone after another messy split-up, the dust had settled on his divorce and Jim had left New York for Miami - ‘I don’t mind being a millionaire, but I don’t want to live next to millionaires,’ was how he justified it to those around him, typically trumpeting his own wealth and the enduring belief that he was an outcast in one sentence. Predictably, Avenue B was marketed as a ‘divorce album’, and predictably, it was released to mixed reviews. Some proclaimed it an exercise in self-pity, failing to recognise its emotional brutality; and while most people assumed Iggy Pop had constructed a new warm and cosy retreat for himself in Miami’s North Beach, life was not quite as tidy. For the Avenue B tour that autumn - which effectively combined existential acoustic musings with meathead versions of Stooges classics - Jim was stealing women off his musicians like the old days; an ‘unprotected sexual predator,’ says Hal Cragin. There were minor emotional crises, though, such as the time he picked up a girl in Sweden and it turned out her dad was a huge fan of Iggy’s music, a generational juxtaposition that he didn’t appreciate. The encounter illustrated how Jim’s first career revival, back in the mid-1970s, was already a quarter-century away. But in a sense, the fact he was well into his fifties changed little about him: that childlike innocence had always been combined with a kooky eccentricity, the way he’d talk to odd-looking strangers in the street, or call people ‘sir’.

  In the early days at the Christadora, Jim appreciated the eccentric mix of boutiques on one side, with crack dealers a couple of blocks in the other direction; once the whole area was cleaned up, the East Side lost its attraction for him. Miami offered a more exotic version of that eccentric mix, where he would spend afternoons on the more far-flung, seedier beaches, or drive around in his 1969 Cadillac convertible, checking out the little old WASP ladies, three decades retired, rubbing shoulders with heavy types who’d made their money from intriguingly vague, doubtless illegal pursuits. And, of course, the Miami chicks. It was on one such cruise around the city that he noticed two striking, Latina-looking women in a pizza parlour. He stopped, got out, walked towards them to say hello, thought better of it, then got back in his Cadillac - and finally offered them a lift. Nina Alu was half Irish, half Nigerian, a statuesque airline stewardess half a head taller than Jim. She was, as one friend puts it, ‘very va va voom’ and soon became his regular companion. They made a sweet couple, often talking quietly or sharing an expensive bottle of red wine together in the evenings.

  Iggy and his band had a quiet year in 2000, restricting their shows to the usual huge, lucrative European festival dates. Hal Cragin had left after the Avenue B tour and was replaced by Body Count bassist Lloyd ‘Mooseman’ Roberts, who joined Whitey and Pete Marshall on guitars. Whitey’s brother, Alex, had joined as drummer for the Avenue B tour; Jim enjoyed the vibe of once again having a pair of brothers in the band and decided to name the resultant outfit ‘the Trolls’; that’s when he didn’t call them ‘my little band’, as if they were domestic servants. By now, he had forgone the routine of auditioning players; normally Art Collins would simply ask them to turn up, for Jim was more bothered about attitude than skills. After all, Whitey had been famously bad on his first tour with Iggy (Henry McGroggan said he thought the band was doing all new material, as he couldn’t recognise a single song), but little by little had started making a vital contribution to songs like Avenue B’s ‘Corruption’. By the winter of 2000, Whitey was cranking out most of the key riffs, which Jim would arrange and order, and the small band arranged and recorded a new album in less than two weeks, with Iggy producing. Beat ’Em Up was not remotely groundbreaking, but it was effective lamebrained metal, with Iggy’s maniacal diatribes attacking music-biz weasels, fakers and creeps with the temerity to chat up his girlfriend, and for the most part the stream of riffs and rants obscured the lack of original ideas. The most memorable track, ‘VIP’, was a quintessential example of Iggy mocking the hand that feeds him, a seven-minute attack on celebrity culture inspired by the band’s performance, at the personal invitation of Donatella Versace, at a Versace launch in January 1999.

  By the time Beat ’Em Up was released in July 2001, its bassist had become a victim of the aggression that seemed to pervade it. Mooseman had returned to Los Angeles after the recording, and was apparently working on a car in his South Central driveway when he was killed in a drive-by shooting on 22 February.

  Mooseman’s death filled out a grim roll call: Dave Alexander, Zeke Zettner, Jackie Clark and Craig Pike had all played bass for Iggy and died, while Tony Sales, too, had been found near-dead after a car crash in 1979, a gear stick in his chest, and was in Cedars Sinai Hospital in a coma for ten weeks before recovering (Bowie came to visit him; Jim never called). The number of musicians who had been damaged or drained to a husk by their career with Iggy was almost beyond number; but it was a matter of pride now that he keep going. It was simultaneously impressive and inexplicable - David Bowie used the word ‘obsessive’ about Iggy’s compulsion to tour - but there was an internal logic. Jim knew he’d made his best music in the first ten years of his career, and he also believed he’d blown it. He often blamed the Ashetons - even in 2000 or 2001 he’d still often bring up the subject of Ron’s laziness or predilection for dope - but he knew his own excesses or simple lack of psychic stamina were a key reason why the Stooges had crashed and burned. Now he still had to prove his stamina, to
make up for those weaknesses of three decades ago. In interviews Jim was unfailingly charming, but there was a rare moment of testiness when one interviewer implied he was a flaky rock ’n’ roller: ‘Listen, dude,’ he retorted. ‘I’ve done this for thirty years. The first fifteen years were highly creative and featured a low discipline level. The second half has been a reverse. There was overall less striking creativity but more discipline.’

  It was a classic control-freak situation. Iggy Pop had won the war, but he was still fighting to erase the memory of the battle he’d lost, twenty-five years before. And he continued that fight throughout most of 2001, battling against every band with whom he shared a bill throughout April, May, June, July, October and November. Although the shows were, by all accounts, generally superb, these were not easy months. There were the same old fights between brothers, the same escapades of musicians crazed on drink or drugs - which, in fact, were even worse when confined to a tiny private jet - as well as entirely new hassles, such as a falling-out with his son Eric, newly promoted to road manager for that tour, but who disappeared following an argument after the David Letterman show in New York and subsequently became estranged from his father. By the end of the tour, most of the band were in a state of paranoia that one or all of them would be sacked.

  It wasn’t only Iggy’s band who were worried about their employment prospects. In March 2002, EMI announced it had been underperforming in the US market and that it was planning thousands of redundancies from its worldwide staff, accompanied by a drastic culling of its artist roster. It was inevitable that the company would be looking closely at how much Iggy was contributing to the corporate coffers.