Iggy Pop Page 42

  Iggy and his various backing bands, particularly the Trolls, had always been a superior rock act, but the Stooges seemed to represent something far more unconventional: experimental, on the edge, like an art happening, but one propelled by a barrage of guitars. Iggy, too, seemed less a rock singer, more a dancer: lithe, balletic, fluid. As Iggy conducted the sturm und drang, commanding his comrades - ‘Wait a minute!’ ‘Take it down!’ - or imperiously ordering another violent surge of noise, it was like watching a magician conducting a thunderstorm or parting the seas. After playing Fun House in its entirety, they hit the stage again for a run of songs from The Stooges: ‘1969’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, ‘Real Cool Time’, and then carnage ensued, as a planned stage invasion got out of control with fractured limbs and broken teeth, Ron Asheton standing to the rear and quizzically observing the madness surrounding his singer, who eventually sat down calmly in the middle of the chaos, like a king surrounded by his motley retinue. For the encore, they hit the brakes for a mid-paced, menacing ‘Little Doll’, Ron coaxing the bendy, minimal riff out of his Reverend guitar, Mackay shaking maracas, and up on the balcony boys were kissing girls romantically, joyously, in a way that never could have happened thirty-five years ago. As they walked off the stage, Don Gallucci shouted at me, ‘I think they nailed it.’

  After Iggy had limped, painfully, backstage into the dressing room, as was his habit he interrogated those around him: ‘How was it? What did people think?’ Detroit photographer Robert Matheu was there, as for so many of the Stooges’ performances first time around, and told him: ‘This is the Stooges in their prime.’ Today, he cites that performance as superior to the Ford Auditorium shows, ‘where they were awesome in their power’. This time around, in an unbearably hot auditorium, the music ‘physically drove into the crowd’s bodies’; this was the place and the audience that the music was made for. Don Gallucci, too, was as astonished by the performance as he had been by the Stooges’ show at Ungano’s in February 1970: ‘Amazingly, it didn’t feel like a nostalgia event. It felt like it did at the time - fresh. And I looked around and there were these kids, two generations younger, experiencing it as if for the first time too.’

  After the show, Gallucci was reunited with Ron Asheton. It was a surreal sight, Ron more portly than in his prime but still with a certain presence, chatting with his ex-producer about their last encounter, when the Stooges were being dropped by Elektra. ‘So, Ron . . .’ says Gallucci, ‘do you remember our going in your room? With all those German uniforms?’ Jim has disappeared for a quiet glass of wine with Nina, as he does most nights. Instead, Gallucci has to content himself with a warm hug from Steve Mackay and a quick photo with Rock Action, who as ever seems the most unpredictable Stooge. He’s the only one who thanks Gallucci for his work on Fun House, the album they were showcasing this evening - ‘Without you, Don, this wouldn’t have happened’ - but when Don asks him how the tour’s going, Rock starts thanking his sponsors, as if he’s being interviewed on the red carpet for MTV. One senses why there was always this widespread perception of the Ashetons as loveable but unworldly - for that’s exactly what they are: innocents.

  It’s not hard to imagine the surreal, earnest atmosphere as they reconvene over the end of 2006, huddled over toy drum kits, or in a Chicago rehearsal studio. Over the coming months, along with Iggy, they are labouring towards making their most crucial recordings so far. Rick Rubin, the man who helmed so many hit productions, has withdrawn from the fray, unable to make the Stooges’ schedule. Instead, Steve Albini, whose own stellar CV includes the Pixies and Nirvana, is overseeing The Weirdness, which Iggy, Ron, Scott, Mike Watt and Steve Mackay are recording at Albini’s studio, Electrical Audio. All those involved are enthused with the results, but even for a band who’d always confounded expectations, a heavy responsibility lies at their feet. Nick Kent, the man who almost singlehandedly proclaimed their importance in Europe back in the 1970s, believes they are equal to the challenges that await them: ‘I think the Asheton brothers will stand up to the plate and really be able to put it out. Because they’ve had long enough to live with their regrets. They understand.’

  In truth, it’s probably impossible for any one single album to make sense of the crazed, picaresque events of the forty years since Iggy and his Stooges first huddled together on their return from Chicago and decided to make music. Even a great album could not represent a new beginning - most likely it will represent an end, a peaceful retirement for all concerned, most likely punctuated by the odd speaking engagement at which Jim Osterberg can demonstrate his talent for rollicking yarns. And for all the adoration the Stooges receive from a new generation of fans, it seems they will always be outsiders. In 2007, the Stooges were shortlisted for the sixth time, without success, for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an institution that has already embraced the likes of Bill Haley, the Four Seasons and Lynyrd Skynyrd: perfectly acceptable acts all, but none of whose music resounds to the present day. Instead, Iggy and his Stooges must simply look on as disciples such as the Ramones and the Sex Pistols gain the accolades that continue to elude them. Yet, as many have observed, the sheer genius of Iggy and his Stooges lies in how they were always compelled to make their music, whether or not anybody cared.

  And in the end, for all the blood, drugs and pain, a simple miracle makes it all seem worthwhile: the moment when a pleasant, well-spoken, elderly-looking gentleman with a noticeable limp taps into something primal and primitive that emanates from a drum kit and a stack of Marshall amplifiers. Then this gentleman skips onto the stage with the carefree joy of a child, borne on the incessant waves of the music.

  Suddenly this devotion to the music, which so often looked like stupidity, looks like greatness. Then we all take a ride on the pretty music, the past is another place, and there is only the glorious now.

  NOTES AND SOURCES

  PROLOGUE

  This material is based on author interviews with Jim Osterberg, James Williamson, Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, Scottie Thurston, Michael Tipton, Don Was, Peter Hook, Brian James, Nick Kent and other sources also listed against Chapter 9, Beating a Dead Horse. The description of Jim Osterberg’s demeanour refers to my 1990 interview with him.

  CHAPTER 1: MOST LIKELY TO

  The sources are author interviews with Jim Osterberg (JO) plus the following. The opening car-crash scene is as told to me by Lynn Klavitter. Early days (trailer park, elementary school) sources: Duane Brown, Sharon Ralph, Brad Jones, Patricia Carson Celusta, Mary Booth, Mrs Rachel Schreiber, Michael Bartus, Irvin Wisniewski and Mike Royston. Background sources for James Osterberg Senior as a teacher: Randy Poole, Robert Stotts, Sherry and Bob Johnson, and Joan Raphael. Tappan Junior High sources: Jim McLaughlin (JMcL), Mim Streiff, Denny Olmsted, Arjay Miller, John Mann, Sally Larcom, Cindy Payne, Don Collier, Dana Whipple and Ted Fosdick. Ann Arbor High sources: Mike Wall, Ricky Hodges, Ron Ideson, Jannie Densmore, Clarence Eldridge, John Baird, Scott Morgan and Jimmy Wade. Unquoted sources for background information include Joan Raphael, Connie Miller, Mike Andrews, Glenn Ziegler, Dennis Dieckmann, Janie Allen, Francie King, Pat Huetter, Nancy McArtor, Bobbie Goddard Lam, Bill Kurtz, Joan Campbell, Jim Carpenter, Ron Ideson, Dan Kett, Ted Fosdick, Pete Fink, Bob Carow and Carol Martin. Background Ann Arbor and University of Michigan information is taken from www.umich.edu. Some details (the Atomic Brain, the Bishops) are taken from Iggy Pop’s I Need More.

  James Newell Osterberg Senior. The account of James’s adoption was told by James Senior to Esther Friedmann. Background information on James Senior was obtained by historical researcher Alfred Hahn.

  Committed, capable and fair. Joan Raphael was one of Mr Osterberg’s English students, and managed to talk him into allowing her performance of English madrigals on clarinet to count towards her credits. Osterberg complied, but only after she’d submitted to the class a rigorous, detailed verbal justification, researched at Wayne State University library, of the cultural background of her project. ‘He was a very creative indivi
dual, and one of my favourite teachers also,’ says Joan today.

  Louella Osterberg, née Kristensen. According to an interview conducted for Per Nilsen’s book The Wild One, Louella’s father was Danish and her mother was half-Swedish, half-Norwegian. Strangely, Louella Osterberg insisted that James Senior’s adoptive parents were not Jewish, but James Senior informed Esther Friedmann that the two sisters who adopted him were Jewish, of Swedish ancestry.

  Parents could leave their children to play around the [trailer] park. Sharon Ralph Gingras: ‘My feeling one reason the Osterbergs stayed in the trailer was because it was a secure place. Other people were always looking out for all the children.’

  Jim was regarded with some indulgence and fondness by the [elementary school] teaching staff. ‘He was bright-eyed and alert. Responsive, with a quick sense of humour,’ says Mrs Rachel Schreiber, who retains a good recollection of Jim and his father.

  Jim absorbed stories of frontier culture. The ‘Daniel Boone and Jim Bowie’ quote is from David Fricke’s 1984 interview with JO.

  Arjay Miller . . . shouldered the burden of . . . [Ford’s] severe financial straits. According to Wheels for the World, Douglas Brinkey’s excellent history of the Ford company, when Arjay arrived at Ford, company lore had it that the automobile giant assessed its debts by weighing the piles of invoices.

  Kenny Miller’s ‘schoolboy crush’. Most of Miller ’s fellow pupils remember the Ford boss’s son particularly fondly, pointing out that, unlike some of the middle class kids, he was not a snob. He seemed even more charmed by Jim than any of his contemporaries, says Denny Olmsted: ‘Kenny went off to boarding school from tenth grade on, but in junior high he had almost a crush on Osterberg.’ Perhaps it’s necessary to point out that ‘schoolboy crush’, in the 50s, merely meant admiration.

  Teacher’s pet. ‘I remember Mrs Powrie’s English class, where she expressed enthusiasm for Jim’s use of idiom,’ recalls Mike Andrews. ‘He had written a short story, mentioned “the men of the cloth”, and he had used the phrase correctly. She expressed her pleasure very publicly . . . I think he might have been her pet.’

  Jim seemed excessively ashamed of his background. ‘Jim had a real inferiority complex,’ says Bob Hallock. ‘He did make comments that he was embarrassed that he lived in a trailer. He never talked favourably about his parents and he never invited us to his home.’ Many classmates, like John Baird, knew other people who lived in trailer parks: ‘Artsy crafty people, some were professors, educators, it didn’t seem too odd.’

  ‘I had a couple of friends lived in another trailer park on Packard [Street],’ says John Mann, ‘so I don’t remember being shocked.’

  Even fairly casual acquaintances would hear Jim griping about his trailer home. ‘It was an issue he had more than we had,’ says Denny Olmsted, whose dad, an engineer, earned the same or less than Jim’s high-school-teacher father.

  An impressive figure who was undeniably part of the classy set. Bill Kurtz, like many, considered Jim ‘a notch above me on the economic scale. He was certainly with the in-crowd, a clean-cut kid in a seersucker sports coat.’

  ‘I particularly remember his sweater with baby alligators!’ laughs Francie King.

  No longer seemed so painfully reliant on the approval of his peers. The dividing line between childhood confidence and arrogance is a tough one to define, but Jim teetered very close to it. Nancy McArtor sat next to Jim in Humanities, and spent much time chatting with him, enjoying his funny, quirky take on life. Nancy was on the student council, a homecoming queen, one of the most popular girls in the class. Sometimes they would have long, lively phone conversations in the evenings. And then ‘abruptly, with absolutely no niceties or wind-down, he would say, “Okay, goodbye.” Either he didn’t like where the conversation was headed or he’d gotten bored - probably the latter. And he was gone.’

  CHAPTER 2: NIGHT OF THE IGUANA

  The main sources are author interviews with JO, JMcL, Don Swickerath, Nick Kolokithas, Brad Jones, Lynn Klavitter, Michael Erlewine, Dan Erlewine, Bob Sheff (‘Blue’ Gene Tyranny), Ron Asheton (RA), Kathy Asheton (KA), Pete Andrews, Cub Koda (CK), Jeep Holland, Lynn Goldsmith, Scott Richardson, John Sinclair (JS), Vivian Shevitz, Barbara Kramer, Charlotte Wolter, Joan Boyle, Lauri Ingber, Bill Kirchen (BK), Dale Withers, Janet Withers, Dave Leone, Sam Lay, Al Blixt.

  The opening Bob Koester story is based on accounts by Koester, Ron and Scott Asheton, and Scott Richardson, all of which are consistent. Jim Osterberg today says, ‘I wasn’t [horrible to Koester] but they were, particularly Scott Richardson. They weren’t nice to Bob and I didn’t stop them . . . there is an element of gang-ism to all rock bands . . . and, er, sometimes I dropped my hands and laissez-faired . . .’

  [The Iguanas] booked into United sound recorders in Detroit. The Iguanas’ recordings have now been released by Norton Records as Jumpin’ With The Iguanas, and feature demos of most of their set, recorded at Jim McLaughlin’s house, plus the ‘Mona’ single.

  The spectre of military service in the Vietnam war. Jeep Holland’s account of Iggy’s appearance at the draft board differs from that in I Need More, where Iggy claims he paraded with a hard-on. I’ve used Jeep’s account because it’s less well known and more convincing. Iggy’s version, like many stories in I Need More, is at odds with the facts in that it contains a fictitious account of the death of the Rationals’ drummer, Bill Figg, in Vietnam. To add insult to injury, Iggy blames Bill for his ‘death’ by claiming he was too afraid of the disapproval of others to evade the draft.

  Iggy and Big Walter Horton. The ‘Look old man, give me a break’ quote is from a Weasel interview with Iggy Pop: WHFS, Bethesda, MD, 1980.

  ‘It was like a horrible nightmare.’ Today, Koester says he was not gay and had no sexual designs on Iggy. ‘But even if I had been gay, why would that be an excuse for those guys behaving like they did?’

  CHAPTER 3: THE DUM DUM BOYS

  Sources: author interviews with JO, JMcL, RA, KA, Scott Asheton (SA), Bill Cheatham (BC), Jeep Holland, Ron Richardson, Jimmy Silver (JS), Wayne Kramer (WK), BK, JS and Russ Gibb. The Jeep Holland interview was conducted in 1996. The 20 January 1968 date for the Stooges’ professional debut comes from a newspaper cutting kindly supplied by Ben Edmonds; other useful Grande dates were listed at www.motorci-tymusicarchives.com. Ben also uncovered the genesis of the Byrds’ inspiration of the Stooges’ ‘1969’, via a MOJO interview with Ron Asheton about his first acid trip. Scott Morgan first pointed out to me the resemblance between ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and Yusuf Lateef’s ‘Eastern Market’. The opening description of the Stooges in July 1969 is based on an account by Cub Koda.

  The [Stooges’] professional debut was on 20 January 1968. The Stooges invariably cite Blood Sweat & Tears (3 March 1968) as their first show. However, they played with SRC and Apple Pie Motherhood Band on Saturday 20 January, and were reviewed by Steve Silverman in an article called ‘The Grande: Fun, Phantasmagoria’ the following week.

  The band were supporting the James Gang, on a bill that had originally featured Cream [21 April 1968]. Jim Osterberg distinctly remembers his disastrous birthday performance as the Stooges’ support slot to Cream. In fact, Cream didn’t play that evening - their gig was postponed to mid-June and the event was instead headlined by the James Gang. The fact Jim didn’t notice Cream hadn’t played is perhaps explained by the two hits of Owsley Orange Sunshine.

  ‘The Pharaohs never wore a shirt’. Jim’s Osterberg’s description of how his stage garb was inspired by the Ancient Egyptians comes from his interview with Terry Gross, ‘All Things Considered’, NPR, July 2004.

  Iggy’s arrest in Romeo, Michigan. The story of this infamous performance is based mainly on the detailed account sent to me by Luke Engel - for whom the show represented the end of a promising career as a promoter.

  White Panther Party’s claimed exploits. The White Panther Party claimed to have blown up a CIA building. However, research has shown the damage was limited to
one broken window.

  CHAPTER 4: OH MY, BOO HOO

  Sources are as for previous chapter plus Danny Fields (DF), Jac Holzman (JH), John Cale, Richard Bosworth, Lewis Merenstein, Joel Brodsky, Ben Edmonds (BE), Steve Harris (SH), Natalie Schlossman (NS) and Hiawatha Bailey (HB). In addition, I should note that Per Nilsen’s research on the dates of Stooges’ gigs was invaluable for the following Stooges chapters, particularly in 1971. Together with other paperwork, including the Popped newsletter and items from Jeff Gold’s collection, I believe this has allowed me to present all the Stooges’ triumphs and disasters in the correct sequence for the first time.

  22 September 1968. Fields says he saw the band at the University of Michigan’s union ballroom in Ann Arbor on the afternoon of Sunday 22 September - the band also played at the Grande that evening. This is consistent with dates at motorcity.com. Per Nilsen and Loren Dobson believe Fields actually saw the Stooges at a show on Monday 23rd; the Stooges did play the Union on that date.