History Lessons: Iggy & The Stooges
What would you do if you had the opportunity to take a feeling and force it into a shape, a noise, something tangible? Would you do it? Would you be prepared for what that could do to you, or would you rather play it safe and not mess about with the theoretical principles of the universe?
If your name is Iggy Pop, you dive head first into destruction, and vocalise a sound that has been resonating for over three decades. For many people, music could be broken up into two distinct periods: pre-Stooges and post-Stooges. For those of us prepared to make that distinction, the pre-Stooges period doesn’t actually have a sound, and all the images are in black and white, whilst post-Stooges is the sound of fire and creation, the smell of napalm in the morning, and every image is in three dimensions, with the hands coming out of the TV screen to strangle you…
It’s tempting to think that Iggy & The Stooges fell, fully formed, from the sky, and sowed their seeds of wrath, because that’s what they’d been bred to do, by some kind of alien mastermind. But, they are merely mortals, born of woman, who will someday die – as unrealistic as that seems.
When The Stooges was released in 1969, America was in turmoil. The war in Vietnam was spiralling out of control, with many beginning to think it was unwinnable, and the youth of the country was becoming more and more polarised, as the division gap between the generations began to get wider. Young men were being sent to fight in a war they wanted nothing to do with, a war that was tearing America apart. Out of the sound and the fury, a new ethos was born, anger and resentment reaching boiling point at a Rolling Stones concert where the local chapter of Hell’s Angels - acting as security at the concert - stabbed and killed Meredith Hunter. The Sixties were over, and their progeny were about to inherit the ashes.
“It’s 1969, ok. /
There’s a war across the USA.”
With these words, The Stooges announced their arrival upon an unsuspecting world, and dragged the future kicking and screaming into the present. Metallic guitar washes, pounding bass and thundering drums assault the listener, with Iggy playing the role of the prophet of doom. Punk exploded into existence, a full eight years before the Sex Pistols released their first single, created by a bunch of miscreants from Michigan. Produced by the Velvet Underground’s John Cale, anthems such as ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and ‘No Fun’ raged with an intensity previously unheard of, charging straight into the establishment with a hand grenade in one hand and a guitar in the other.
Elevated by critics such as Lester Bangs as the most important music being made, the album was largely ignored upon its release. But a new generation of kids – alienated by the messages of peace and love preached by The Beatles – were listening, and waiting for their moment. Live shows proved to be provocative and incendiary, alienating them from the music industry, but winning the attention of anyone in search of new thrills.
Funhouse (1970) was even harsher than the debut, a nihilistic, screaming look straight into the abyss. Unrest in the band was already threatening to tear them apart, but this tension was channelled directly into the music. Drugs had entered the scene, and the darkness permeated the songs, creating an edgy and uncomfortable statement of intent.
But somehow, rather than self-destructing, the band rallied together, under the guidance of David Bowie, to record what could be their masterpiece Raw Power (1973). Adding a glam sheen and a heightened sense of theatricality to the mix, the attack might have been diluted, but the songs were solid gold missives from the blank generation. ‘Search and Destroy’ heralded its arrival with a guitar riff that shreds the speakers in its hurry to burst out of your stereo, and then proceeds to get louder and louder and LOUDER. Nasty solos tear through the air and the end of the world seems nigh. ‘Gimme Danger’ highlights the brooding side of the band, a two note piano motif nagging in the ear of the listener, like the touch of death upon one’s soul.
After avoiding destruction through drugs, violence, and in-fighting, The Stooges rail-roaded their way through conventional logic to implode in the most spectacular way possible. After an unpleasant incident with a local chapter of the Hell’s Angels, Iggy & The Stooges found themselves performing in front of an openly hostile audience consisting of aggressive, drug-fuelled bikers who were out for one thing – revenge.
Iggy rose to the occasion, taunting the bikers and matching them pound for pound. The band churned out an apocalyptic set while the audience attempted to kill them, each party compelling the other to sink to new depths. The results were captured on the Metallic K.O. live album, and haven’t lost any of their potency over the years.
After the concert, the band dissolved, and Iggy checked himself into a psychiatric institution. But once again, David Bowie entered the picture. Rescuing Iggy from his private hell, the two became unlikely best friends, eventually recording The Idiot together in 1976. The importance of this album cannot be underestimated – without this, rock music might never have evolved, forever being rooted in the rhythm and blues tradition that had been dominant since its inception. A chilly, European sensibility permeated the dark grooves of the album, the notes glowing like streetlights on the highway to the future. Synths throbbed and groaned, whilst Iggy opened up his subconscious and watched all manner of psychosexual creatures crawl forth.
The album served as a dry run for Bowie’s ground-breaking Low, which took The Idiot’s raw template and gave it more sheen, taking his music to a creative plateau that he would have trouble matching. The Bowie connection continued when the pair reunited to record Lust For Life (1977), which brought Iggy crashing back into the public consciousness. Whilst The Idiot had been inward-looking and introspective, Lust For Life captured Iggy’s party sensibility, all writhing contortions and sexual provocation. The title track and ‘The Passenger’ remain his most well known work, and three decades of use in advertising, film and television have done nothing to dilute their power.
After that, there wasn’t really anywhere for Iggy to go. After all, if you’ve invented and re-invented the future, what else can you do? Subsequent albums marketed Iggy as a cartoon rock and roll wildman, a roll he seemed all too happy to play, reaching an absolute nadir with his 1986 hit single, ‘Real Wild Child’. Fun? Yes. Relevant? No.
In the modern age, Iggy is viewed as the great-grandfather of all that is great and good, his work with The Stooges and his first two solo albums representing an achievement so great that his audience will forgive him almost any musical crime. An unlikely re-union with the Stooges produced a solid, if inessential comeback album [The Weirdness]and a return to the live stage.
When watching Iggy and the Stooges, one is compelled to get involved, invade the stage, or dance with the great man, and this is all part of his appeal. But this clouds the issue: Without The Stooges’ three original albums and his first two solo records, the shape of contemporary music would be completely different. The real lasting legacy of The Stooges is not rock and roll behaviour, or an ageing punk cavorting with his shirt off, it’s the notion that anger and nihilism can be a force that can change the world.
The music of Iggy & The Stooges was dangerous, and we should never, ever forget that
Words by Steven Rainey
Iggy & The Stooges play the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin on June 16.
I Heart AU | Design by goodonpaper.org | AU is supported by Lottery funding
