DR. IGGY & MR. POP

"So let us start with one average, stupid, representative case: Johnny Yen the Other Half, errand boy from the death trauma— Now look I'm going to say it once and going to say it slow—Death in orgasm is their unsanitary Venusian gimmick is the whole birth/death cycle of action—You got it— Now do you understand who Johnny Yen is? The Boy-Girl Other Half Striptease God of Frustration—Errand boy from the death trauma—His immortality depends on the mortality of others...

"All right back to the case of Johnny Yen. Write back to the streets, Johnny... Write out of the sewers of Venus to neon streets of Saturn—Alternatively Johnny Yen can be written back to a greenfish boy—There are always alternative solutions. Nothing is true —Everything is permitted.

"No hassan—sabbah — we want flesh — we want power—we want junk—we want power."

Chapter—"operation rewrite"—a segment from The Ticket That Exploded. William Burroughs, 1962.

'Tm heavy as a horse,

Ah, but everything is spinnin'

An' if I use a gun,

Then 1 sure to go to prison,

I'm stubborn as a mule,

And nobody breaks my rules,

'Cepting nothing comes my way,

I've got a hard-assed pair of shoulders. I've got a love you can't imagine,

Yeah and what I've got I double,

I swear I'm keeping out of trouble,

I'm looking for one new value, Lookin' for just one new value,

Ah but nothing comes my way."

("New Value"—composed by Iggy Pop— James Osterberg Music)

Johnny Yen, one of William Burroughs' many errand boys of the Death Trauma, ate hot justice in '62 and remained a museum piece for the literati to guzzle on until 1976, when Iggy Pop, a young artist who during his dissolute past had pretty much emulated poor Johnny's wretched vocation/malaise, chose to smash down the glass-case that held Johnny Yen's average, stupid, tortured being, drain the embalming fluid and allow Johnny his second shot at immortality.

Iggy didn't change a thing about Johnny's previous predicament—he just used him for a walk-on part in an autobiographical work he created entitled "Lust For Life."

"I am totally Into corruption.

Burroughs' imagery was reverently left unsullied as Johnny Yen returned, brandishing his usual shoulder bag pack full of liquor and drugs, the snuff movies he'd stolen from that hard-nosed bunch of Mexicans last seen peddling every sleazy vice imaginable in Orson Welles' classic Touch Of Evil, and who were last believed to have set up a borderline motel where they were selling some placebo linctus disguised as the much-touted undercover legit cure for cancer.

Anyway, Johnny, fresh out of the mausoleum, still knows all his old tricks— the striptease weaze, you name it. But his resurrector has been busy with those alternative solutions, and even though he still wants flesh and power, he's conquered the desire for junk to a point where one minute thread of lint would be just as preferable to a gram of Thailand Sweetheart Grade A in his book.

In fact Johnny Yen could just as easily have been Johnny Thunders back in '75 when he ran into his old buddy Iggy Pop CBGB's and spent three damned, sweaty, hellish days trying to get his old shooting partner to break his spirit and join him round the back at the Mainliners Club.

But Iggy stood firm—this time out there were going to be no pin-point eyes on this boy's features, no more smacked-back rituals, no return to the bogus camaraderie of the elite of users.

Three days he stood his ground until Thunders finally collapsed, relented, tears swelling in his eyes. Iggy Pop had proved he was not Johnny Yen, that he was nobody's errand boy, that he'd dug and dug until he'd located the very roots of his addiction, yanked them out, and set out to discover the most brutal positivism, the ferocious strength that only real ex-junkies who want to take their metabolic/spiritual/artistic renaissance to the blinding limits of human endurance, to strip away skin like snakes, can achieve.

The Idiot: Lust For Life: New Values— a triumvirate of works that at least in the first two cases, have yet to be fully appreciated by the critical masses. If they were to be placed in a box set, the title would have to be Triumph of Will.

The first interview is taking place. Iggy is getting very expansive about certain subjects close to his heart. The subject itself concerns amorality and corruption. The blanket statement for all this is made with a measured sense of its own controversy.

"I," declares the indefatigable Pop, "am totally into corruption."

Ironically amidst a barrage of vicarious statements made to break up this claim, an incident with Nico is recalled which ends up paralleling the Johnny Thunders saga.

"It all stems from Nico actually"—Nico and Iggy became "an item" (for want of a better term) in the early, early Stooges days.

"She was the one who took me when I was a skinny, little, naive brat and taught me how to eat pussy and all about the best French wines and German champagnes.

play hard, and Christ almighty, Hove my revenge.

Anyway, one day she said to me [adopted doomy German tone], 'Jimmy you have zee one big problem'—I was just a little lad for chrissakes, but anyway I was game— 'you are not full of zee poison! Zis is not correct, Zis is not right. How can you perform when you are not full of the poison? Me, I will help you just enough to fill you with zee poison but otherwise you have nothing! We do not want to see a person on the stage, no, no, no, we want to see a performance, and zee poison is the essence of the performer.'

"And she'd do things—like, I'd go away for a few days and come back looking healthy and she'd scream, 'Jimmy, what are you doing to yourself? You are ugly. Don't you know you are only good skinny. Skinny as a rail. ' And Danny Fields [Current Ramones manager, but publicist/Manager/nursemaid for Elektra-period Stooges] was always fussing about my hair in his usual faggy way, and it had reached a point where my hair had become so long and curly it pretty much totally hid my face.

"Anyway, Danny said something about me having my hair 'bangs' cut, and Nico freaked completely again and screamed 'But Danny, Jimmy's face is not meant to be seen' [laughs]. And she immediately grabbed this wine glass and smashed it against the table, which made everybody run away except me cos I knew her little games and wasn't afraid anyway, and she turned to me and said, 'Good Jimmy, now we are rid of them' and she proceeded to carve the most incredible sketch of me somewhat in the style of Cocteau, with maybe two cubic inches of my face showing.

Reprint courtesy New Musical Express

"And she summoned everybody back and pointed to this sketch and said—'Now zis is Jimmy's face. And if you could see it, it would be a drag!' And I thought, 'Right on, Nico!' [Laughter]."

Teacher and pupil, however, were to come to a suitably severe volte face when, in the year of The Idiot, Nico, the former ice queen now in her middle 40's, a pale narcotic shadow of her former beauty, desperately tried to contact Iggy (or David Bowie) in order to help her somehow regenerate her then stagnant career as well as commune with a former kindred spirit of sorts.

"It was in Paris and...oh forget the state she was in...she wanted desperately to get in touch with me, maybe with Bowie more, but I'd suffice, and she had me followed, had radio monitors scanning my every move, taxi drivers were bribed—just every? thing.

"Anyway, when she found me I just rejected her immediately. I just said, 'You're not good enough for me to Expend time and energy on anymore.' And the first thing she said"—Iggy's eyes snake into a "Hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned" viciousness in order to enhance the theatrics —"was [words spat out venomously] 'Jimmy you are strong.' And she got that look that Deutsches have when they're about to bite into a pig.

"She got the vampirism in her eyes, but she wasn't going to be defeated outright, or so she thought, because her next number was to slyly offer me a snort of heroin. Anyway, she laid out a line, figuring that heroin would get me into her little web and just as the enticing line came close to my nostril, I blew it off the mirror all over the floor, got up and said, 'So long baby, nyah, nyah, fooled you.' And that's the last I've seen of Nico since.

"I tell you all the bitches—all these women—want me now because they can sense that strength in me, and they want it so-o bad. But they're not gonna get me uh, huh—only on my terms, and my terms are simply phoning 'em up, telling them to be at such and such a place and such and such a time, in good physical condition, to be fucked and then leave, goddamnit.

"Because I've got more important things to do, and I cannot, and will not have my time wasted. It is not a case of my work suffering, it is a case of me wanting to go my own way. I want to go all the way. I can't think of one goddamned reason why I shouldn't achieve just that and go all the way to number one. All I have to do is corrupt others, instead of them corrupting me!"

Ah ha I can see all you young moralists out there right now squirming at the bit, sizing up these testy little monologues and sharpening the quill to pen that barbed missive accusing this neo-fascist egomaniac of male chauvinism and every other amoral vice in the book.

And this character eulogizing the virtue of corruption and amorality is probably gleefully awaiting your salvoes.

But wait one moment here because what you've been reading right back there are the words of just one persona of a self-confessed Jekyll and Hyde.

Both characters—one the Mighty Pop, hard-assed, loud-mouthed megalomaniac who openly claims, albeit in an intoxicated frame of mind, that were Satan himself to come down and confront him with the old Faustus line of (and I quote) "killing some anonymous, innocent bystander, and of course getting away with it, in return for gaining control of all the power in the world, then yes, I would do it without a moment's hesitation," and the other, charming, compassionate Jimmy Osterberg, selfconfessed "dork" of the Western Worldare two very different people.

Jam exactly the man who Friedrich Nietzsche could only write about.

This is not a case of schizophrenia we have here, nor is there any confusion as to how and when each role takes over. Our subject is totally in command of his personae and is deeply proud of both of them—if for nothing other than the fact that they complement each other in the furtherance of his vocation with perfect balance.

In fact it would be as downright facile to refer to Iggy/Jim in psychoanalytical terms as it would be to consider either one an act (although our sly little friend is not adverse to theatrics when they could come in useful).

If any one statement perfectly exemplifies this supposed and not unusually, somewhat bogus duality it is Iggy's summation of himself as—"a leader who does not want to be followed. And goddamit I am just that. I am exactly the man who Friedrich Nietzsche could only write about. I believe that statement is incredibly healthy and that every human being has the capacity to achieve it."

But let's return to Iggy Pop, subject of the first.interview, replete with bare torso, vinyl pants and a little too much eye makeup.

This is the Iggy Pop who talks of vengeance, who wallows in his own undeniable tenacity and indomitable will. The man who idly boasts of encounters with world-renowned beauties whose pristine, awe-inspiring looks and physiques have tried to play Delilah to his Samson with no success.

The word "corruption" keeps spurting forth in this little tete a the and I suggest it could be time to define the term as Iggy conceives it.

"You wanna know about corruption? Okay, well let's say I want to corrupt you. Corruption would be you working for me for reasons that you'd think you were going to get something out of it, but I'd know you wouldn't so screw you. It's like W.C. Fields says—'You can't cheat an honest man.' Right, he's got it! There you go, that's corruption! You find a dishonest person and you use them. You use their corruption!"

Did you, I remark, work on that principle when you were sequestered at RCA during the three years spanning Idiot, Lust For Life and TV Eye Live? The question was prompted by the recollection of a photo of Iggy in a suit and tie with hair groomed "just so" to perfect the emulation of the young executive look, yukking it up with some American big-wigs from the record company around the time of Idiot's release.

"Damn right I did, " the reply shoots back. "Every goddamn executive in the place I had researched, found out their weaknesses—everything. I play like a harp. I don't miss a trick, baby. I had a whole planeload of 'em flown over—at my expense—to preview Idiot at Winston Churchill's old club. And even though I knew damn well Idiot was going to be a million seller I wanted the word put out on the Iggy Pop fella right from the top.

"Also I wanted it made known in the most stringent terms possible that it would be very, very foolhardy to mess with Iggy Pop. Because it might take a month, it might take a year, but you do the wrong thing by him and you're gonna regret it very, very sorely.

"See, I started reading in the papers about me being the 'Godfather of Punk' and figured well, if I'm going to be the Godfather then I'm going to be a real Godfather, Mafia style. Taking no shit from anybody and screwing anyone who tried to screw me."

The subject of L. A. sends him reeling off into a near-hysterical rap about his current status.

"See Nick, I'm so damn happy. Fm rich. I'm a big rich man, richer beyond my wildest dreams. Rich is life, goddamnit! I have a job, I have my self-esteem, I have discipline."

And financially?

"Yeah, that too in the sense that I'm becoming a very good entrepreneur. I've just made an album financed on good will and responsibility, on Iggy Pop's name. Iggy Pop who three years ago was a name synonymous with "shit." Iggy Pop the guy who'd been tied up in a bag and thrown out of the window at a Deep Purple party two floors up in some hotel. Iggy Pop whose girlfriend would run off with Robert Plant. Iggy Pop the guy Ian Hunter said would never make it because he never had any talent. Well where is Ian Hunter now? Nowhere is where Ian Hunter is. And the only chance he could ever have of making anything of his tawdy life would be to listen to one of my albums.

"See, I play hard, and Christ almighty, I love my revenge."

It's only when I tactfully mention that a number of quotes he's allowed to be swallowed onto tape during this encounter could all too easily be construed as being fascistic and male chauvinist that he becomes pensive.

"Hmmm," he pauses, mulling over certain quotes, some of which I have to remind him of. "Well, I can only see any notes of fascism in my attitude coming from the fact that it would only be in the sense that I know that what I'm dealing with is in essence a military industrial complex, albeit on a small scale, which is what rock 'n' roll is right now.

"Asfor sexism," here he lights up, "well, I hate women. I mean, why do I even have to have a reason for that? It's like, why are people reviled by insects? I use 'em because they are lying, dirty, treacherous and their ambitions all too often involve using me. And however close they come, I'll always pull the rug from under them. That's where my music is made."

Maybe you haven't encountered the "Ms. Right," I counter, aware of the dopiness of the remark.

"Oh come on, I've been around. I've met all the women, and I'll tell you one thing, I'm more woman than any of 'em. Just check my tits! [He points to his pectorals] I'm a real woman, because I have love, dependability, I'm good, kind, gentle, and I've the power to give real love. Why else would you think that such a strong man as David Bowie would be close to me? He's a real man, and I'm a real woman. Just like Catherine Deneuve."

Only the latter simile causes him to chuckle.

I'm more woman than any of'em.

"What produces a 'dork'? Usually a kind and loving household. Plus the fact that he's usually a decent, bright guy with a distinct lack of aggression."

This is the second interview convened after a week of meeting Iggy every day. For this session he is wearing a casual suit and thick-lens, wire-rimmed glasses. There is none of the manic persona of the first official performance. Indeed this character couldn't be more opposed. Relaxed, affable, almost a model of temperance. I am in fact interviewing James Osterberg, who chooses to disguise his performer's visual by dressing nondescriptly to the point where he resembles a pro golfer in his mid-thirties. Four years ago he would go to great pains to present a constant pretty blonde Adonis look. Osterberg is also prone to lie about his age. He likes to add a couple onto his 31 years, where other? like to detract.

The questions in this session revolve around the theory that in order to kick his drug habit, and come to terms with himself, Osterberg reverted back to the "dork" persona of his school days, a fact strongly backed up by both the concept of The Idiot itself and Alfred E. Neuman lookalike bedecking the cover of Lust For Life.

"The basic theme of the 'Dork' and where the word comes from is that I experienced the incredible cruelty that children have at their disposal. Nobody can be crueller than a child and there's nobody more equipped or inclined towards cruelty than uppermiddle class children whose folks have lots of spare money and cars and glib speech. I was burdened by the fact that whenever I tried to express myself I would be laughed at. I was considered weird, a weird kid. I was also very shy, very unhip, very unglib, and never wore the right clothes. I also had very weird looks, because my father, being a military man, forced a military haircut on me."

Jim's "dork" days were slowly but surely left behind "when I became increasingly aggressive toward others. I learnt a unique and indispensable skill, which is to make rock 'n' ‡>11.1 stopped my parents dressing me and started becoming a conniving cold-hearted son of a bitch, which I've always been since the beginning of the Stooges."

First there was the Iguanas, Jim on drums and singing the hit numbers—mostly old Stones songs—from when the name Iggy came and stuck. Then there was a series of one off gigs drumming for black bands, for folk as diverse as Junior Wells and Buddy Guy and the Shangri-Las. And then there was the Stooges, whose mondo-bizarro act was inspired after Osterberg attended a Doors concert in Ann Arbor, and watched Jim Morrison completely out of his skull roll around the stage, do gorilla impersonations, stop one of his poems half way through some dramatic climax by bawling into the audience—"Has anybody got a cigarette?"—and generally proving you can get away with anything if you've got style. Stooges drummer Scott Asheton wai also the epitome of the meanest, most halfbaked, super negative, physically imposing hulking monster that Detroit, more than anywhere else, is hype-adept at cultivating.

These two factors plus Iggy's speedily attained ability to bend and curve his limbs into shapes that involved the most gravitydefying calisthenics provided the meat of the show. The fuel was, in Iggy's words, "two grams of biker speed, 5 trips of LSD and as much grass as could be inhaled before the gig. I found this concoction effective enough to completely lose my senses, and then before a gig we'd gather like a football team and hype ourselves up to a point where we'd scream 'okay guys, whadda 'we gonna do? KILL1KILL1KILL!' Then we'd take the stage."

The first Stooges gig was at the Grande Ballroom, where they performed two numbers—"Goodbye Bozos" (later to become "Little Doll") and "Asthma Attack" —as support to Blood, Sweat and Tears. The rest, as they say, is history.

Once signed by Elektra, the Stooges set, coinciding with the first album, was pretty much a note for note recitation of what would end up on Funhouse, with every note, riff and line composed by Iggy himself.

By the time Funhouse was released Iggy had honed his musical vision into a free form yowl, involving a brand new set of songs—"Way Down In Egypt" and "Big Score" premier among the bunch—that achieved, in his mind, exactly what the Stooges were. "I always considered the Stooges a jazz band more than a rock band," he states now.

The now legendary tales of heavy narcotics addiction that had netted all the Stooges (barring Ron Asheton) at this point, were just seen as more fuel for the grand slam of hyper-negativity the Stooges proudly projected. Ultimately too, Jim Osterberg as Iggy Pop had destroyed his old, dark persona. He was hip, he was a bad-boy junkie, surrounded by god-forsaken young hoodlums and bona fide juvenile delinquents.

Now, in retrospect, Osterberg views the pre-flaw Power Stooges as the more successful context for his performing talents.

Pop's involvement with Tony DeFries and the whole Mainman set up—instigated by David Bowie, an early Stooges aficianado —he now regards as the big mistake. DeFries seemed to want Iagy as a puppet for stray projects—a film role as "Peter Pan" here, a bogus Rocky Horror archetype flanked by session musicians there, a Jobriath with minor league credibility— while the main task at hand—the Bowie mega-star schism—was taken care of.

When Iggy, fresh off a methadone cure, curtly informed Defries that he was the artist, was bringing over James Williamson (then referred to as "my alter ego") with him to London in order to start a band, the manager was not exactly pleased. Finally, bringing over the Asheton brothers as well, DeFries, amid promises of a tour, allowed the band into the studio to record what would become the precursor to Raw Power, featuring numbers like "Fresh Rag", "Gimme Some Skin", "Scene Of The Crime", "I'm Sick Of You", "Penetration" (a totally different version lyrically and riff-wise to its antecedent), "Tight Pants" and "Search And Destroy." Defries however found the music too extreme and gave thumbs up only to "Search And Destroy" and the riff "Tight Pants" (later re-named "Shake Appeal") and sent them back to record Raw Power.

Iggy is adamant that this phase of his new career was responsible for him returning to heroin. "I had no recourse but to return to smack just to blank out the misery of living in limbo."

Nick, Vm so damn happy. I'm rich.

With Williamson, Pop made the best music the Stooges produced, but the whole pattern of negativity and destruction was etching itself ominously. A break with DeFries caused the band, at that time touring the States in a ridiculous zig-zag fashion, to fall even lower than before. The signs were obvious and Iggy chose to dynamite his career yet again. Metallic K. O. documents the final fireworks more vividly than any stream of mondo-strafed imagery could hope to.

The two years following were the pits, with Iggy and the band's reputation branding them eternal losers. New depths were plummeted and Iggy adrqits now to having lost every shred of self-respect in his months in the snake pit. Finally thrown out of Williamson's house, he went to a doctor— an archtypal L. A. croaker up for dispensing bent scripts—and picked up a sizeable quantity of quaaludes, valium and reds. Having downed a suitably gargantuan dose, he sat down at some bar stool in a local L. A. diner only to find himself surrounded by policemen pulling him up from the prone position attained from having passed out, falling backwards off the stool and smashing the back of his head into someone's meal.

He was given a choice: jail or a white van. He chose the latter, but after 20 hours, left the mental hospital taking with him what remained of the legally prescribed pills. Hitching a ride, he continued downing the pills with his new-found damaged partner and ended up at some unknown precinct puking vivid green vile uncontrollably. He was frightened enough by this occurence to return to the psychiatric clinic and volunteered to be taken in as a patient. Slowly he was rehabilitated, stripping away the layers and layers of self-deluding psyche until he grasped onto the roots of his psychological addiction and yanked them out. Upon leaving, he admits to returning occasionally to his old tricks, but the urge tor stimulants grew less and less and finally termination was achieved when Osterberg passed a successful psychiatric programme situated in L.A.

TURN TO PAGE 59

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31

Enter David Bowie. At this point Bowie was living in L.A., a somewhat excitable and unnerving character continually dreaming up new schemes, new projects with which to kill time. Iggy was still a force to be reckoned with, Bowie considered, whether it was an actor in a pipe-dream concept of a movie entitled Dogs for which Bowie also had Terence Stamp in mind, or as a singer and performer.

Before the mental hospital episode a quaaluded Iggy had worked with Bowie in the studio where the archetype for "Turn Blue" was first conceived and executed gratis Geoff McCormick (aka Warren Peace) and Bowie, with Iggy remembering the high class bordello on Sunset Boulevard directly across from James Williamson's apartment.

After a stab at a retread of "Sell Your Love," the session ended, as Iggy's stupor and Bowie's restlessness coincided. But when, some months later, Iggy was in a mental hospital, Bowie visited him and again vague plans were made. The upshot of all this was Bowie paying Iggy's mealticket throughout the entire Station To Station tour with vague ideas of a one-off single to be recorded. Bowie had a song, "Sister Midnight," recently composed with Carlos Alomar's chilling riff and Bowie having worked out lyrics for a first verse, and the first installment of what was to become The Idiot was conceived.

Finally the project turned into an album, with time booked at the French Chateau d'Heureville.

The album completed, and Bowie's clout with RCA providing a lucrative contract, the next move was a tour. Bowie, true to his then current penchant for low-profile, played musical director, seated austerely in the background playing keyboards, but Iggy's credibility was well and truly on the line. He first had to prove that he was not Bowie's puppet, and second, h$d to come to terms with the mythology that had him cast as some wild-eyed superman—the all purpose breath-taking phenomenon.

"I knew exactly what was on the line and so I gave them an Iggy Pop who was safe, professional, fast, dependable. A responsible entertainer who was going to give all the paying customers a good disciplined rock show, with a little extra something that is uniquely mine, an'd something they can't get anywhere else."

The critics of the London gig expected something different and contradicted themselves endlessly, one demanding a new show devoid of old songs (although twothirds of the set was new material), another craving the old devil-may-care stones dips and dives.

The Idiot tour however went from strength to strength in the States, climaxing with the L. A. gig drawing Iggymania raves. Following The Idiot, Lust For Life was brusquely recorded using the touring band. This time themes came closer to prospective read-outs in Iggy's old junkie days with narcotics references, filling songs like "Turn Blue," "Tonight," "Some Weird Sun," and the title song itself. "It was the first time I could ever get that whole experience into perspective," Iggy claims now. A powerful, outward-going album that stretched its clout from the classic to the dispensible, the accompanying tour of England however was a disaster.

His recourse to dealing with the dilemma of breaking in a new band member, Scott Thurston, as well as dragging round an inferior band, was to take amphetamines and cocaine to see him through. Gig potential would be measured strictly by the availability of uppers on the given night. One show could be great, one strained, exhausted, depressing to behold.

By the time the tour hit the States, all went well. But it took the two night stand at the Music Machine, with Pop supported by Fred "Sonic" Smith's Rendezvous Band plus Scott Thurston to grant London a good Iggy Pop gig.

More important, Fred Smith noted Iggy's burgeoning ability as a guitarist and eagerly encouraged him to pursue a real mastery of the instrument that would finally allow him freedom from all important collaborators.

"See, with James Williamson I was basically into what David [Bowie] calls 'guitar worship.' It's rampant among singers —I can tell without even knowing for sure, that Keith Richards will always have it over Mick Jagger. But Fred, God bless 'im, breed me from qll that; Fred Smith my former idol who is really a great guy, a great guitarist, and if he's drinking a beer right now you can be sure he'll be a great drinker [laughs]. No, Fred just took me to one side, and said 'Jim, stick to playing that guitar because you've got it, don't believe anyone else because they don't know."

So Jim Osterberg severed ties with RCA via the execrable TV Eye Live, got friend Esther to hock her jewelry and manager Pete Davies to sell his stereo while he lived at subsistence level, playing guitar daily, until 18 songs were written.

Then with Arista's support he flew to L.A. and teamed up with James Williamson. •

With a basic nucleus of German drummer Klaus Kruger, bassist Jackie Clarke and Scott Thurston on guitar and keyboards, twelve tracks were laid down at Paramount Sound.

"I chose not to play guitar myself because I felt I wasn't quite ready for that, so I taught Scott every damn lick, every single note."

The result is an album—at first entitled Don't Look Down, but changed at the last minute to New Values—that both follows in the tradition of previous Iggy works, whilst clearly aiming for a more mainstream appeal than previous works, but without blunting the stab of the muscle of Pop's music. The rockers, like "Five Foot One", "New Value", "Curiosity", "Girls", ana "Billy Is A Runaway" have all the sting of "Shake Appeal," but with a cleaner (and less messy) thrust. Also there is the truly haunting "Don't Look Down" and the inspired chord changes of the "How Do You JFix A Broken Part."

New Values is both prime Iggy fare and a strong commercial proposition, taking the most accessible stringency in all his previous music and shaping it into a forceful manifesto.

In the first interview, I asked Iggy what the dominant themes of New Values were for their creator.

"Okay then dominant themes...[pause] alright, I'll tell ya, I think the time has come for me to put out, right up front, my real, personal James Osterberg feelings. My emotions, all the hideous things I've been through, and the things that have affected me that I should never have let affect me in the first place.

"This record tells you what things James Osterberg does and the fact that James Osterberg is interested only in Iggy Pop.

"It's a blatant attempt on my part to throw out all the trendiness and to be as personal as possible. Hey, and if they don't like it, they'll get it somehow whether I have to bully 'em or trick 'em into control. I've been through it all, I've been a puppet, the arsehole, the dupe, the junkie, and I've come through it all and proved that I'm the equal to anybody yOu'd care to mention."