IGGY & THE STOOGES Metallic K.O. (Skydog Records)

By the time this issue of CREEM hits the stands, Iggy Pop will be back on his rock 'n' roll search and destroy mission in the wilds of urban America. There is a new album due any minute, and next month in these pages you can read all about it. Exactly what the Ig has up his sleeve for this, his third shot at stardom, is anybody's guess—hell, there's even Iggy Goes Disco rumors flyin' around and wouldn't that be a kick? And while those of us who have ever cared about Iggy wait in nervous limbo until the facts are in, Metallic K.O. has popped up in the import section of various record stores across the fruited plain. Its timing is a bit darkly shaded, because who knows if the new Ic&y model can come close to the performance of this '74 Stooges live set, recorded in the Motor City itself. If he can, then we'd better get the crown and the throne out of the closet quick, because Metallic K. O. is not only the most intense album I've ever heard, but side two of this record just might be the greatest rock 'n' roll document of all time.

Metallic K. O. is open warfare of the bloodiest and guttiest kind. A confrontation between the Stooges and what sounds like an audience of preppies out at a beer mixer. At first the audience is quiet and mysteriously unresponsive—the Stooges (made up here of the Raw Power band plus one heretofore-unknown Scott Thurston on piano) tear through "Raw Power" wild-eyed and crazed but there's only scattered, minimal applause at the end. In the middle of the next track, "Head On," the opponents take their sides as Iggy begins to get pelted with ice cubes from the increasingly belligerent crowd. The band is taking the Doors' "L.A. Woman" riff to new heights as Iggy rambles in free form with quintessential visions of teen angst, paranoia, frustration and anger: "Buttfuckers, buttfuckers tryin' ta run this world/Moneybags, moneybags, ain't no soul gonna ever be heard...HEAD ON, HEAD ON!" Iggy brings the music down, then spits out a four-line autobiography that nails you to the wall—"I was born in a trailer camp/Days were cold, nights were damp/Iqcubator baby, I was half alive/I been eatin' lotsa shit and jive." Then it's off to a seething murky "Gimme Danger," James Williamson's scatter-fretted guitar answering Iggy's lonely, angel-with-adirty-face vocal, captured beautifully in the simple line, "I wanna be touched and I'm gonna be loved."

But side two, my God!!! Screw this "Last Ever Iggy and the Stooges" statement on the back cover. This was the last rock 'n' roll concert ever. After side two, there is nothing. After side two, you can take all your records and your radio and toss'em right out the window. After side two, you wanna get into a car and plow down the highway at 90 mph and wrap yourself around telephone pole. Because you've heard it and. there is no coming back.

"Rich Bitch"—"Our next selection tonight for all you Hebrew ladies in the audience is entitled 'Rich Bitch'. The crowd is booing and yelling. "You paid five bucks and I'm up here making ten thousand, baby, so screw you." The drum picks up. "Do you feel that beat?" Thurston's immaculate boogie woogie piano like every backroom bar 88-er. Embodied into one dancin' fingered fool bouncing sideways against Williamson's guitar and Ron Asheton's bass. "Now when your momma's too old to buy your pills/and your daddy ain't around to pay your bills/and your cunt's so big* they could drive through a truck/ and every man who meets you, baby, he knows you've sure been fucked...whatcha gonna do about it? Whatcha gonna do?.. .1 think I'm gonna laugh at ya, rich bitch, I think I'm gonna have my fun." Monster solo by Williamson, chaos in the form of eight-bar blues, Iggy dodging ice cubes and eggs—"You can throw your goddamn cocks, you pricks can throw everything in .the goddamn world, and your girlfriend will still love me... you jealous cocksuckers. " And all the while the piano shuffles along, oblivious to the activity in this teen whorehouse/torture chamber disguised as a concert hall. This music is so far ahead of these bozos, so on the money, the songs that all of us want to scream out at the world at various dark nights in our lives. Iggy is laying it down and .ain't no one in the world gonna be able to pick it up after this night is over. The song churns on, the band joining in on the chorus—"Ah hey, ah hey, keep your hands off me/ah hey, keep your filthy hands off me." The last blues song.

More pummeling from the crowd. Iggy goes into mock-respectful tone. "Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your kind indulgence. I will be proud to present a song that was co-written by my mother called 'I Got My Cock In My Pocket'." Short, fast, mind-splattering. "I got my cock in my pocket and I'm rolling down the old highway,/gonna whip it on ya, baby, taste your blood today./I got my cock in my pocket and it's cornin' up in my pants,/just wanna fuck, don't want no romance." More debris thrown at the stage and Iggyr fired up, stares the behemeoth in the eye and calls its bluff. "Come on, what else ya got? Ice cubes? Jelly beans? Grenades? Eggs? Let's have a big hand for Mr. James Williamson on guitar..." Iggy runs through the band, with no other response from the audience other than more booing. "...And let's not forget your favorite well-meaning boy. Let's hear it for the lead, singer. Hey, light bulbs? Fapercups? Whaddaya wanna hear? I think a good song for you would be a 55-minute version of 'Louie, Louie'." Total silence for a hanging second or two. Then Williamson's guitar breaks into those three glorious chords "I never thought it'd come to this," laughs Iggy, who then proceeds to rewrite Richard Berry's double entendre punk anthem on the spot: "A fine little bitch, she waits for me,/just a whore from across the way/every night I take her, we fuck all alone/ she ain't the kind I'd lay at home./Ah, Louie Louie, oh baby, we gotta go." Williamson wreaks havoc on the original solo, playing just enough notes from the original to catch your memory bank while twisting it and demolishing it like an axe to a grand piano in the parlor. Iggy continues rewriting history: "1 feel a rose down in her hair/ her ass is black and her tits are bare/Ah, Louie, Louie, oh baby..."

The song ends. A beer bottle narrowly misses Iggy's head. "You missed me again," he scoffs. The show is over, the amps are unplugged, and the last sound on the album is Iggy stepping on the broken glass. In all his glory, this is the world's forgotten boy, whose new album will be his first in almost four years, but who the hell can forget Iggy? In the middle of the record he boasts, "I am the greatest!" And who would dare argue?