Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell IGGY POP and the STOOGES |
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Of all the Detroit music royalty the one who most changed the rock scene is IGGY POP. Sure ALICE COOPER brought in theater, Berry Gordy soul and Ted Nugent, venison but IGGY and THE STOOGES brought outrage and bucketloads of it. No one would think to use glass and peanut butter in such a creative way until IGGY did it. So here now are a few bits and pieces of that outrage gathered for one time only on compact disc. The question is: Is it worth the dough? I usually caution against compilation albums that boast studio outtakes and radio show versions but this is a glowing exception to the rule. Not only do I recommend this to the throng of IGGY fans out there but to the casual fan as well. The version of "Cock in My Pocket" is worth the purchase price on its own. The radio versions of "Hard to Beat", "Raw Power", "Tight Pants" and "Scene of the Crime" prove to me that once, a long time ago, there really was a radio station worth listening to in Detroit. You can't beat this with a stick or shards of peanut butter coated glass for that matter. Released by Snapper Music. Review supplied by David Lee |
Live in LA '73 IGGY POP and THE STOOGES |
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Sixty-five minutes of pure adrenalized mayhem at the hands of the godfather of sick. Raw power recorded in the raw. This would be an incredible record if it weren't recorded so poorly. The sound is comparable with a good bootleg but the lack of recording cleanliness is far overshadowed by IGGY'' pre punk prance. This is nothing pretty but still worthy of a listen. Nine tunes (one bonus track from a different date) recorded late in 1973 at The Whiskey A Go Go. This was IGGY and THE STOOGES in their pre-implosion best. A bit different from the earlier incarnation of THE STOOGES but no less shocking visually or musically. "Raw Power", Head On", "Search and Destroy", "I Need Somebody", "New Orleans", "She Creature of Hollywood Hills", "Open Up and Bleed" and "Gimme Danger" all made the cut to get into the highly experimental and extemporized set. This was in the days before the elaborately choreographed rock concerts of today. Just a stage, some microphones and a room full of the drunkest fans in Los Angeles. The bonus track is another hybrid of "Heavy Liquid/New Orleans" which is about as whacked out as IGGY ever got. Great bonus material and rare photos make this worthy of collecting but the music is a must have for those into proto-punk POP. Released by Snapper Music Review by David Lee |
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Live in NYC IGGY POP |
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Iggy has resurfaced more times than a body in the Detroit river and each time with something a little different than the time before. Here we have Iggy in his “BLAH BLAH BLAH” phase, circa 1986, a period where he is arguably at his height at least in terms of commercial identifiability. Everyone had heard something of the legend but it was here where they actually got to see it via MTV, the concert stage and all the other little technical progressions that took hold of music media in the mid-eighties. This is Iggy in the middle of a new Pop/Punk collision where he needn’t roll around on broken glass to get a rise out of an audience, all he had to do was show up and, get this, sing. Yep, this is where Iggy became a genuine singer as opposed to the grunts and snarls that carried him through the early years of THE STOOGES. Iggy was also drug free, he says, and in the best physical shape of his life so there is a noticeable strength behind this musical attack that you can’t find on any of Iggy’s studio records. Recorded in New York City at the Ritz for broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show the set was 16 songs and an hour long with as much fire as could be managed by the David Bowie protégé. In fact, the set contained no less than eight tracks co-written with Bowie including what was still a fairly recent hit for Bowie, “China Girl.” Also of particular merit was the “backing band” chosen for this tour, Andy McCoy of HANOI ROCKS, Alvin Gibbs of the UK SUBS, Paul Garristo of the PSYCHEDELIC FURS and Seamus Beaghen of MADNESS combined with Pop to make what is arguably the tightest and most driving group to perform these songs, a modern punk super group with astounding commercial appeal. Most of the “hits” are included here with the notable exception of “Seek and Destroy” still, with “Lust For Life,” “Real Wild Child,” “Blah, Blah, Blah,” “Gimme Danger,” “I Got a Right” and the bonus track of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” you pretty much have an Iggy Pop greatest hits-live disc anyway. So, thanks to King Biscuit we all can now ditch the crappy sounding bootlegs that we have been listening to for better than a decade in favor of this hiss-less, snap-less, and pop-less version with liner notes and pictures, hell, it is almost like you are there! Released by King Biscuit Review by David Lee |
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"Wild Love: The Detroit Rehearsals & More" Iggy & The Stooges |
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In the last few years we've been seeing more and more of the Iggy & The Stooges influence on countless newcomers to the Rock scene so it's only fitting that the band, under appreciated, even underachievers in their time, would be prominent enough some twenty plus years later to scrape off the last remaining resin and throw it on disc. So here, a band becoming known
today as much for sound recording deficiencies nearly as And backpedaling for a moment, I use the suggestion of "recording deficiencies" in only the most endearing of terms. What made Iggy and his band so great all those years ago that they should come up time and again today when modern day Garage Rockers and Punks basically channel them at will when they lay forth their own rusty riffs and screams? Lotsa things actually but none
more prevalent than the attitude which this band possessed-and having
a front man willing to risk life and limb for every live and presumably
in-studio First of all kudos go out to Greg Shaw who displayed an unprecedented fortitude in compiling the collection and liner notes, nearly as painful to read as some of these songs are to… listen to. Okay so there's beauty in imperfection and let's face it anyone expecting flawless production with no seams and complete end-to-end action, well, no, David Bowie's three albums down to your left. Similiar to other recent Stooges revivals, "Wild Love" is an amalgamated mess of outtakes, rehearsals, demos and just about anything else that could've been thrown on tape and labeled "music." There is an endearing quality to be sure that a song like "Wild Love," or "I Come >From Nowhere," unmistakably Stooges, yet akin to shaving with a dulled blade… it can be painful, to say nothing of the poor soul who drowned himself in hours worth of tape spools, yet we'll come up on an "I'm So Glad" cover or the "Ballad Of Hollis Brown" seven minute jam and we're suddenly caught in an unexpected groove-and thanking God for the editing process. But I'll tell ya I kinda like their "I was born in a trailer" line that goes with the latter and that rambling guitar riff beneath Iggy's psychotic scream gives you that up a little too close and personal vibe! The tunes, thirteen in all, an hour plus of pure Stooges, raw and unrefined and never before released, their promise not mine, is aimed specifically to those hard-core fans that can't get enough from the old Columbia days-those, an absolute must for a first listen for the modern day Punk rocker archivist. And then may we slowly embark on this musty journey through the catacombs and come across much of what might've been had the band not self-destructed. "Wild Love" does, in a way, give us a cool behind the scenes listen to the making of a Stooges record-one that initially never was, from a band that'll never die. Released by Bomp Records Review by Vinnie Apicella
[va85@columbia.edu] |