![]() ![]() The Stooges continued to play around the Midwest, and in 1970 they entered the studio to record their follow-up LP, Funhouse. With songs like “No Fun ” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog ” it was obvious the band was about as far from flower-power as one could get. Former Velvet Underground member John Cale produced their first album, The Stooges. By 1969 Elektra records realized the potential and signed both the Stooges and MC5 to contracts. The Motown sound was dying down but bands like the MC5, Frost, and the Amboy Dukes were highpowered and revolutionary. The music in Michigan at that time was quite different from what was popular on the national scene. They played their first gig on March 3, 1968, opening for Blood Sweat & Tears at Detroit ’s Grande Ballroom. With Dave Alexander on bass and brothers Ron and Scott Ashton on guitar and drums respectively, Iggy held down the vocals and insanity positions. Upon moving back to the Ann Arbor area, he switched his name to Iggy Pop and formed The Psychedelic Stooges. He left them for a rival band, the Prime Movers, before he took off to Chicago to play blues drums. All of this a good seven years before the punk movement and about 1, 000 light years away from the Pat Boone school of rock and roll.īorn James Osterberg in 1947 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, he first became musically involved in high school, playing in a local band, the Iguanas. Resembling the freak show in a circus, Iggy often reverted to tactics such as smearing peanut butter and feces on himself, rolling around on stage in broken glass and even diving head first into the crowd. Indeed, that ’s the exact reaction Iggy Pop hoped to get out of his audiences as they witnessed a show by his band, The Psychedelic Stooges. This isn ’t just a show -he ’s out of his mind. “I ’d just watch him and I ’d think, ‘Wow, this guy will stop at nothing. Regardless of subject matter, I can guarantee that there will be plenty of long, uninterrupted, static shots of Iggy sitting in sparsely decorated hotel rooms.“Iggy had gone beyond performance -to the I point where it really was some kind of psychodrama, ” said John Sinclair. The project is planned as a “long-term documentary project” where Jarmusch will most likely film a couple shows, follow Iggy around for a handful of months, provide an insider look into the rock and/or roll lifestyle, and ultimately end with an existential crisis wherein Iggy will either travel to Florida to discover America or head west and become an unwilling gun-fighter. Well, Jim, not to sound like a dick, but you better rush it because I want to see Iggy in another one of your movies! “There’s a rule in my household that if Iggy is playing anywhere within 90 miles, we go. So, imagine my face (it was pleased as punch) when I heard that my favorite film director, Jim Jarmusch, was getting ready to make a new film with Iggy in it! “It’s something Iggy asked me to do,” the cool-as-shit director said before elaborating on his love of Pop. Whether Iggy is playing a suburban dad ( Adventures of Pete and Pete), acting like an alien ( Star Trek: DS9) or just writhing across a stage covered in his blood and broken glass (the late 1960s), I just can’t get enough! If there’s one thing that I’ve always wanted to see more of, it’s gotta be Iggy Pop.
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