IGGY POP: SOLDIER OF THE DOG CHOW APOCALYPSE

You know of this person. He’s the guy who made heavy metal groups look like the wimps they are with his first three albums, The Stooges, Funhouse and Raw Power. He’s the guy with the big eyes, the lean, muscular body, the wild stage act that no one could follow, or want to. This is the person whose career has been up and down so many times you wondered when it was going to peak or bottom out, knowing whatever the outcome, it would indeed be spectacular. Or something.

This is the guy who is a very close friend of David Bowie. This is the person who ran away from Nico. This is the human being of myth and legend, the guy who inspires otherwise sane people to reduce themselves to slobbering fools. Or worse.

What is it that makes them turn into rabid dogs, baying drunkenly at the moon? What is it that makes them arm themselves with eggs/bottles/cans/whatever to throw at a performer who just wants to show his audience a real cool time? His fans are numerous as his foes. Why?

Well, it might just be his unorthodox live presentation of rock ’n’ roll. He twists, jerks, dances around on stage like a maniac, the epitome of infantilism, which has become his trademark. He did, at times, dive into the audience, take on bike gangs, insult everyone—but who promised you a rose garden? Certainly not Iggy. Like he said, “You paid five bucks and I’m making ten thousand, so screw ya!”

Iggy was pretty obnoxious on the New Values tour, what with exposing himself, once again insulting the audience for no apparent reason. But then again, he was toting around the worst configuration of musicians I have ever heard him play with. Maybe the sound system was poor, maybe it was an off night for the band (which was Brian James, Glen Matlock, Klaus Kruger, Ivan Krai), but no matter which way you cut it, they sucked a duck’s ass. The band played like it was out of sync.

I left that particular show before the end of the set. All it amounted to was a big SO WHAT? Gee whiz, Iggy exposed himself. The band was garbage, the sound was awful, the lighting worse, the audience a sea of Iggy Pop lovers/haters, just the same old shit. Where was the guy who came back from Raw Power with a completely new sound? Where was the guy who had it in the ear before?

I enjoyed the electronic sound of The ' Idiot, and on that tour I was thrilled to see him back again, healthy, with a new attitude. Ah, progression. Here’s a guy who came back after everyone thought he was finished; a survivor. I was impressed.

Lust For Life was released and a tour followed, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket, so I stood outside the stage door at Cobo Hall and listened. The group (Sons of Soupy, Stacy Heydon, Scott Thurston) was tight enough, but it didn’t have enough kick. The films! saw of the concert a month later showed Iggy flipping the bird to the audience and the audience flipping it right back in unison.

I have to admit it was funny, but once again, SO WHAT? Ten years of this? I was bored.

Where would it all end? Here’s an intelligent guy wasting time making a complete bozo of himself. A guy who claims to be a leader yvho doesn’t want to be followed, a guy who claimed that he was exactly the kind of man Friedrich Nietzsche could only write about (see Nick Kelt’s piece, November ’79 CREEM). I was wondering at the time if he was trying to convince Nick, or if he was trying to convince himself.

Soldier is on the stands, and it’s a fine record. Everywhere I went, for weeks, Soldier was playing. “Dogfood” was an immediate nit with my friends and co-workers, and “Knocking ’Em Down In The City” is certainly an anthem if I everheard one. Great cruising music, especially on Woodward.

Anyway, the day had come for Iggy to play Detroit again. I was secretly reluctant to attend the show. I had the job of interviewing him,, so of course I had to be there.

Iggy and his group played the first night at a large suburban hall called the Center Stage, in Canton,Michigan. Accompaning me was the Legendary Dave DiMartino. We found a little table off to the side of the stage near the back of the theatre, and sat down, bellies stuffed from the White Castle burgers we had ingested minutes before. Neither of us had enough money to buy beer, so we sat there like a couple of dopes hoping for someone with a fat wallet to sit down and buy us drinks. Good luck.

The place filled up quickly, Iggy-fever running rampant. Screams of “IGGY!” and “I WANNA BE YOUR DOOOOOGGGG!”

filled the smoky air. It was like a zoo, with the animals escaping for the night, to bawl and howl and run amuck. Fun, fun, fun.

The opening group went on and off, and it was only minutes before the Great Wiggly One would appear. I was ready for about anything, and had managed to quaff a few brew. I was ready.

On comes the Pop - and a new unrecorded tune “Hassles,” and the group he’s assembled sounds tighter and more efficient that I’ve ever heard before.

The set was building a momentum I haven’t heard since the March ’73 Raw Power tour. The audience is frothing at the mouth, likewise the author of this article. I’d been ready to dismiss Iggy, but this group (yeah, it sounded like a group. instead of a bunch of hacks paid to play, like the Ig had been dragging around since post-Raw Power. Thank the good Lord, or Ivan Krai, who put this group together for Iggy.) restored my faith. Iggy was more professional than he had ever been before, his stage moves more like a ballet than epileptic convulsions.

Something must be said about Iggy’s stage movements. During a song, he’ll stand perfectly still, only his shoulders and arms gesturing. Suddenly, he seems to become possessed, twitching from one side of the stage td the other, as if someone had just dumped a truckload of fleas down his pants. Maybe it’s a sudden burst of adrenalin, maybe he just gets bored standing still. No big deal, of course, but it’s strange.

The set this wonderful group played consisted of material from The Idiot, Lust For Life, New Values and Soldier. Later, some members of the audience told me they felt cheated. They wanted to hear “I Wanna Be Your .Dog” and other mouldy oldies. Didn’t “Dogfood” suffice? No, they wanted the REAL THING. The show ended with a rousing version of “China Girl,” and I was transfixed. Iggy left the stage, only to appear a few seconds later. Another encore? Nope, he had come back on stage to retrieve his watch, pulled from his wrist by a frenetic fan. Iggy pleaded for his timepiece, and the girl gave it back. His comment after getting the stolen article back: “Hey! Timex keeps, a licking, but keeps on ticking!”

The show was over. It was perhaps the finest rock ’n’ roll performance I’d seen in months. The only comparable concert was the one that followed the night after at the Motor City Roller Rink, when Iggy and group tore through like it was the last show, the end of the earth. I was a fan again, and damn proud of it.

We (Legendary Dave, Susan Whitall, friends) adjourned to the backstage area. I was apprehensive about the interview—the Arista publicist had said the day before that Iggy had absolutely no desire to talk to any form of the press, but he would grant CREEM a short visit with him, the accent being on short. With this in mind, we waited outside the dressing room and waited. The following interview spanned two days, and lasted approximately 40 minutes apiece*

I was asked to join Iggy and his group in the dressing room. I entered to find Iggy sitting cross-legged on the floor, with five black girls surrounding him. He had that Lust for Life grin on his face, and a Heineken in his paw.

☆ ☆ ☆

IGGY: You must be Mark. C’mon in, sit yourself down and relax. Ya need something to drink? My name is Jim, and

"I am the only honest rocker that Detroit's produced...

this is my family, [sweeps an arm around the room; I sit in front of him, and thus proceed.]

CREEM: You played an amazing...

IGGY: Thank you. [hands me a beer] If you weren’t amazed, I’d be disappointed. Your last name is...

CREEM: Norton, like the motorcycle. IGGY: My last name is Osterberg, I think you know Krai. Have you met Ivan? CREEM: Yeah, he was in a movie I made called Face The SO’s. ..

KRAL: Yeah, you did the Super-8, right? Yeah! That’s right!

IGGY: All my other friends in this room are named “Moon” [laughs].

CREEM: You’re looking pretty healthy... IGGY: You’re looking good yourself, Mark, you seem to be all there [grabs the calf of my leg] yourself. I don’t think there’s much percentage in bad health; now that we’re into space shuttles and things, how would I withstand the atmospheric pressure when I wanna leave town for Mars or something?

CREEM: What do you do to keep in shape? IGGY: Absolutely nothing! The key to my, survival is that since I was 18 years old and actually decided to do it full time, I’ve had one discipline that I give everything to, and that s ROCK. I care little or nothing about anything else and I wouldn’t dream of running around the block. Rock does it all for me. [to person guarding the door] What are you keeping out of here? Are there any white girls? Yeah, bring some in...nah, let ’em wait. Ya got a cigarette? Hope it’s not menthol. --

CREEM: No, it’s non-m^ntholated for me.

[I give him a Vantage]

IGGY: Yeeech! Who’s got a Marlboro? CREEM: Look, ah...I don’t intend on dwelling on your past because you just played a phenomenal set, all post-Raw Power material...

IGGY: What was it, Mark, that you liked best, hey! Mark thought it was an amazing show! What was it you liked best and oh! not to forget, / come here, Michael. You gotta meet the joy of my. life, Mark. [Michael sits down] This is Michael Page, and this is Mark, boy journalist. I met Michael when he was mowing lawns in LaJolla, California seven years ago and he said, “Jim, I’m going to be in the music business,” and I said, “Ahhhhhhh.” But he was a workaholic and I just hired him.Unbeknownst to me, the other guys do these things for me, I’m not much of a musician. They hired him, and you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Michael’s just done an African tour with Chubby Checker. Michael’s one of the most unusual men I’ve ever met. I call Michael and the drummer Rocky and Bullwinkle, (changes voice to an old ladies voice) cuz the drummer’s so little and so young, (changes voice to sonorous boom) and the bass player’s sooo big. Michael as you can see, is just...show him your shoes! [pointed, pony skin shoes] Michael is a love figure. I mean we had sex symbols in the 70’s. In the 80’s, if there is to be a love figure in my life, it’s Michael Page.

MICHAEL: I am replacing Ben Orr of the Cars.

CREEM: You weren’t negative at all tonight, yet people persist in throwing things at you. How do you feel about that? IGGY: Yeah, I did have one problem, I got hit in the face with a quart of something when the lights were off hahahahaha. But no, you’re right, I didn’t have a negative— HELLO! [shouts to someone entering the room]

CREEM: Right. You didn’t have a negative attitude, and people throw things. Does this bother you at all?

IGGY: No, it can’t anymore because I’m working with an American band, and these guys are so fucking great they keep me laughing 24 hours a day, out of my mind. I haven’t been so happy since the original edition of the Stooges before I included the creeps. The original—Ron, Scott, Dave and myself.

CREEM: The creeps were...

IGGY: The rest of them after that, most of them died. But even the Stooges didn’t measure up to these guys and that’s why I was able to overcome that tonight because I’ve got the strength of my band. I grew tired of having a Chinese drummer with a German bass player with a Transylvanian something. We're All-American. Ivan’s as American as they come.

QREEM: [singing] God bless America... EVERYONE PRESENT: GODDAMN RIGHT!!!!!

CREEM: You’ve used a lot of movie titles for song titles like “China Girl” and “Lust For Life”...

IGGY: NO, NO, NO, hold on a second. Is “China Girl” a movie?

CREEM: Yes...

IGGY: I didn’t know that. I had an experience with a young Vietnamese woman who was the first girl in a couple of years that would screw me. I was unemployed and I wasn’t looking so good, you see. [half singing] They always want you when you’re up and they always hate you when you’re down. And that’s why I V wrote that. I didn’t know that was a movie, and “Lust For Life” I took from the book, I didn’t know there was a movie by the same title either. “Winter Of Discontent” [an unrecorded song by Iggy] is from Shakespeare. Youx some kind of movie buff?

CREEM: Yeah, my favorite movie is 101 Dalmatians.

IGGY: [regains composure] The reasons I make that distinction is because I use literature, I use literary titles more than movies. I’m not a big movie fan. Paramount called me last week, I guess they want me to do a movie. Aaron Russo called me... SCOTT! [Scott Asheton enters the room] CREEM: I understand you are looking for a place to live in the South...

IGGY: Yeah, New Orleans.

CREEM: Are you going to keep a place in Berlin?

IGGY: No, I’m giving it up now. There’s too fucking many artists. No, it’s infested now with youth culture and artists. The modern world has arrived in Berlin and that’s why I left. I left America in the first place to get away from the 70’s.

CREEM: What did you see in New Orleans that impressed you so much?

IGGY: There are parts of New Orleans that are as cut off from reality as anywhere you can imagine. That’s where I prefer to be for my writing. I like to be sbmewhere where nothing’s happening.

I don’t have any preferences. I prefer five dollaris to three dollars.

(By this time, the dressing room is filled to capacity, everyone swilling beer, wine and Chivas Regal, a good time is being had by all. The cast of this movieincluded local radio station people, Legendary Dave, Susan Whitall, Ron and Scott Asheton, the five black girls, Jean MacDonald (promo girl), Iggy’s band, a few others. I was getting nervous, Iggy’s eyes were darting around, and he was getting more and more restless by the moment. Just keep the questions flying, I thought.)

CREEM: Seeing as you titled your new album Soldier, and it contains a line “I’m too damn old to join the military service,” I was just wondering, how did you avoid getting drafted in the 60’s?

IGGY: What I did was, during that call-up in... (shouting) When did you go to the draft | board, Scott? Was it ’68 or ’69? Scott has a 1 great story of how he avoided the draft, way $ better than mirte. His was genius. Anyway,

1 what I did was—of course the government’s | trick is to put you in with guys from your town. The only way to get out was to fag out. They were taking guys with every sort of deformity, so I just forgot to wear any underwear and when 1 had to take off my pants to get in line, I went and I just beat my meat until it was over a foot long, then I walked out. It wasn’t too much of a problem, really. They just sorta said, “What’s wrong with your weiner?” Hahahahaha.

CREEM: What did you thank of Bowie’s j “Red Money”?

4 IGGY: That’s great! It’s a perfect example of * recycling; we are running out of resources.

If we’re gonna share the oil, we might as ° well share the backing tracks. He did ask me « first. . N

JCREEM: Do you prefer “Sister Midnight” to | “Red Money”?

§ IGGY: I don’t have any preferences. I “■ prefer five dollars to three dollars.

(Tired of talking, Iggy asked me if we could reconvene the next day, after the show.)

☆ ☆ ☆

The concert the following evening was, as stated earlier, excellent. After the show, Legendary Dave and I waited for the go ahead signal from Iggy’s tour manager to finish the interview. And we waited. And we waited some more. Finally, we said the hell with it, proceeded up the stairs on our own accord, and found the same smiling Jim/Iggy.

CREEM: Are you going to call in another producer for your next album?

IGGY: I don’t know. What I’m doing for my next album first of all, it will be ridiculously to the conservative side of AOR. It will probably be pretty folkish, commercially oriented. I’m working in America on the tour through April 12th, then I’m taking eight days between here and the European ' tour to go to Haiti with Ivan to plan the album. I’m gonna co-write with Krai a lot, I’m probably going to use Haitian rhythms, I think you can expect to hear a lot of percussion as opposed to just drums. And I think I’ll make a descriptive album as opposed to an I/Me album, I won’t tell you much about myself, I’ll tell you what I think of you. We’ll probably use Thom Panunzio from the Record Plant, the other guys I’ve got in mind are Ric Ocasek from the Cars who I talked to about it; David’s a long-shot, he’d like to do it. The other guy I would consider is a guy named Chris Thomas, who recently produced the Pretenders album.

TURN TO PAGE 61

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 38

CREEM: I heard you were up until five o’clock in the morning in Cleveland singing old soul hits with Chrissie Hynde...

IGGY: (perking up) Yeah, that’s right! We did “Midnight Hour,” “Soul Man,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “Louie Louie”...

CREEM: “Louie Louie” hahahahaha IGGY: I don’t know, some other songs. They’re all the same, aren’t they? What else.. .fuck. We did a real sweet one with a nice melody, uh...We didn’t do “Reunited!” (laughter all arOund)

CREEM: We get a lot of letters in the office pertaining to you pulling down your pants and hanging a rat at...

IGGY: I’d like to make that clear. I dropped my drawers because I met this French chick in Montreal and she was very small and I COULD NOT STOP MYSELF. After repeatedly screwing her, finally I woke up with extremely acute abrasions on my penis.'It was about as red as those socks (points, at girl’s red socks). So I was inspecting it. I thought I’d rubbed it, thought I’d hurt it. 1 had it all bandaged up, and I just had to check it. I’m terribly sorry. I told Dennis (tour manager) on the way here tonight I was praying I would take a shit before I went onstage, because what if I had to take a shit tonight? What would I have done? I got a foot-long off before I went on, so 1 was all right.

CREEM: Uh-huh. How did you feel about TV Eye?

IGGY: Well, th6 best thing about TV Eye was that the budget was $75,000 and I spent $5,000 making it. I lived awhile off the money, and I did it to get off RCA. CREEM: Do you feel that once you get money, and accepted and once you’re part of the “ugly industry” that you’ll sell out, a la James Williamsoqr

IGGY: Well Mark, to be honest with you, I’ve been part of the “ugly industry” for at least the last three years. The money I make is probably roughly on a par with the average band member in a consistent gold j'.ecord band because unlike them, I don’t have fat manager who takes a percentage.

I do run this ship, I am the boss so I do make a very, very high' salary and it hasn’t induced me to sell out at all. If I had sold out, I would have done a steppinfetchit dance for those pricks tonight, wouldn’t I have?-Instead I sing songs like I want to. Would you like to know my income? CREEM: Noooo!

IGGY: It’s roughly $100,000 a year, since you brought it up. I make about that every year.

CREEM: That’s wonderful. Since you’re_so rich, you can buy me a beer.

IGGY: I certainly would not buy you a beer because

CREEM: Hahahahahahahaha...

IGGY/ You can buy me a beer.

CREEM: Sure Jim! I’ve got four dollars. IGGY: Well, that’s how I make my money. CREEM: Hey, I buy your albums. I bought the shitty European pressing of Raw Power after my American copy got broken over my'head at a party...

IGGY: Let’s only hope that I make better albums in the future because I think most definitely I am the only honest rocker that Detroit’s produced, that has gotten out of town. The other good ones are still in town. CREEM: What about Bob Seger and Ted Nugent?

IGGY: I wouldn’t call them rockers; they’re something else, but they’re not rockfers. What they are is quite legitimate, but they are certainly not rockers, and that’s fair enough.

CREEM: Would you produce an unknown act you found in some sleazy bar in Buttfuck, Iowa?

IGGY: No, but what I have done in the past few years is discover some of the most important acts and passed them on to other producers such as the Plastics and Devo, for two examples. I wouldn’t dream of subjecting a band to Iggy Pop’s production hahaha except for my own because that is my privilege. But what I can do is be an appreciator of other talent and be instrumental because Liard a solo and as a solo I have the ability to slide in and out of the various social milieux. I can put them in touch with the people they should know. CREEM: You wouldn’t like to be a Svengali.,. >

IGGY: OH MY GOD NO!!! I’ve never believed that anybody I like needs me as a Svengali! I am more of an admirer. I admire these guys (motions at his group). I am a fan at heart and certainly not a director. CREEM: Speaking of directors, last night you mentioned something about doing a filfn with Bowie.

IGGY: David wants very much to do^ome directing.

CREEM: Is he capable of it?

IGGY: MY GOD YES!! Are you kidding me?

CREEM: Why?

IGGY: WHY?!! Because he is one of the geniuses of the ages. He has genius, and something to say, and the guts to do things properly. He’s a better man that I. I would act under him any time, and I think he will choose me for the lead when he decides to direct:, He certainly has something to say and the technique to say it with, which are the two criteria of a good director. CREEM: How much is you, and how much is Bowie on The Idiot and Lust For Life? IGGY: That’s impossible to say. When you mix up the two of us, it becomes a moot point. You could say that his music came out of my personality on those albums and my words came out of his mouth, or his came out of mine. Two more questions then we’ll split and go to a club, OK? Ya wanna got to Bookie’s with me?

CREEM: Come on! You said that last night! IGGY: Here you sit playing Attractive Nice Guy Journalist and I’ve already talked to you for half an hour! Two more questions and that’s it, OK?!!!

CREEM: Yes. I heard you'recently bought a stereo. What records do you play on it? IGGY: Another Green World by Eno, the Wire album, the XTC album, David Bowie’s Low, Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians, Phillip Glass’ North Star, Miles Davis On The Corner and the Jack Johnson album, John Coltrane...um, I’ve got four Coltranes anyway. The /Veu 2 album.

CREEM: You said in Nick Kent’s piece that women generally stink. What would constitute the perfect woman?

IGGY: She would be hyper-intelligent, she’d probably be male and she would probably be alternately very gentle and an incredibly stimulating pain in the ass. CREEM: You told me you were a literary person as opposed to...

IGGY: That’s truell I just got a book for a present from Michael. Yeah, look at what I got.

CREEM: What is it?

IGGY: Four Comedies by William Shakespeare. It has Midsummer's Night Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest... I don’t find The Tempest a comedy.

CREEM: Did you read them in university? IGGY: No, not in university. I read nothing in university except blues charts. Nah, I just read them on my own. I really like my brain, y’know, I get so much pleasure out of my intelligence.

☆ ☆ ☆

We join the rest of his crew and I pass out the latest issue of CREEM, May ’80. Everyone flips through it, and Iggy reads the letter from the person who signed their name “Elmo Osterberg” and has a good laugh. Doug Baum (drums) reads the piece “Pop Tour Derails...Briefly” aloud. Doug makes it to “...was more concerned with a staff irifection...” and (Iggy barks “Staff infection? That’s pretty clever!” Doug gets to the part in the piece about Billy Rath, and the Ig says, “I said that? Haha! Mirice no words!” ,

By now, Iggy’s laying on .the floor on his back. “What did I say about Klaus? He’s not an asshole.” Doug continues, “It was impossible to...” “. . .judge the color scheme of the new rhythm section hahahaha,” chortles Iggy, and everyone laughs. Other comments by Iggy on,the piece, “Hiatus? Hey, it rhymes with anus!” add at the end, the part where Iggy says he likes the South, Right on, Iggy! Gonna buy me a swamp and ride aroundF’ /

The interview over, everyone decided to go to Detroit’s playpen for pinheads, Bookie’s Club 870. We arrived just a£ a local group, the Plugs, were finishing their set.

Inside the club, Iggy talked politely to people, a perfect Northern gentleman. Deciding it was time for boy journalist and Legendary Dave to ride off into the rainy night home, I said goodbye to Iggy and his friends and headed for the door. I didn’t quite make it, though.

I felt a tug at my sleeve, and turned around to find Iggy. “Have yOu got my Marlboros?” he queried.

“I don’t have your Marlboros,” I told him. “Did you look under the table for them?” Iggy: Hey, it’s alright. Sometimes I pick up someone else’s cigarettes when I don’t -mean to.”

Now I was getting mad. “I don’t have your goddamn cigarettes. I don’t steal.”

To remedy the situation, I bought him a pack of cigarettes from the machine, threw them on his table and left the club, all the while muttering under my breath about what a little shithead he was. Steal from Iggy? Me? My god! Earlier that night, I’d had my movie film taken from me by his manager, I’d bought Iggy and his lady a beer each,Awhile he (supposedly) makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off true fans like me, and then he accuses me of taking his goddamn Marlboros.

Legendary Dave and I hopped into my slide and I turned the motor over. The next thing I knew, Iggy had jumped onto the seat •next to me, and apologized. I accepted. But: next time you’re in town, Jim, I’d lik^fa pack of Vantages—// you can afford it. W