During November 1979, Iggy Pop was touring the States promoting his latest LP, New Values, when he made an appearance on a little-known PBS program in Minnesota. Naturally, it made for wild TV, with the censors unable to keep up with Iggy’s shenanigans.
KTCA is the PBS affiliate serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. From 1977-80, the station aired a program called Wyld Ryce, which was referred to as an “arts magazine.” The March 5th, 1980 episode featured Taj Mahal and Iggy Pop. The Iggy segment was taped while he was in the area for a gig at fabled Minneapolis bar, Jay’s Longhorn.
In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the Longhorn was the place to see punk and new wave shows in Minneapolis. The bar hosted a number of the finest touring club acts from the era, including the B-52s, the Buzzcocks, Gang of Four, and the Ramones. It’s also where local groups like Hüsker Dü and the Replacements cut their teeth.
Minneapolis band the Suburbs onstage at the Longhorn, 1980
The Wyld Ryce piece on Iggy includes footage of the man working his way through the airport, and signing autographs for fans during a record store appearance (the interviews with the faithful are priceless). There are also clips of Iggy answering questions in his typically frank manner, plus awesome live video from the Longhorn gig on November 20th, in which he stops the show a number of times due to fighting in the audience. It was a 100 degrees in the bar that night, a fact that surely affected everyone’s agitation levels.
Iggy tries to get everybody at the Longhorn to cool it, as Glen Matlock looks on.
For the New Values tour, Iggy assembled a crack group of musicians: Brian James (The Damned) on guitar, Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols) on bass, Ivan Kral (Patti Smith Group) on guitar/keyboards, and Klaus Kruger (Tangerine Dream) on drums. In the Longhorn footage, Iggy and the band are seen ripping through a number of tunes, including a couple of Stooges classics, the title track from New Values, and “Dog Food,” a new song that would show up on his next album, Soldier.
There’s an online archive of Wyld Ryce episodes—including the Iggy/Taj Mahal show—sourced from the KTCA vault. Even if you’ve watched the Iggy segment on YouTube, or had a VHS dub you got in a trade back in the day (like I did), you’ve never seen it look this good. Unfortunately, we are unable to embed it, but you can view the episode here. The amusing intro (missing from the YouTube upload, seen below) features a local DJ reading copy that’s pretty darn goofy, which he recites in a peculiar cadence (and I think he’s trying to tell us something with his eyes). Before “Dog Food,” Iggy lets a few cuss words fly, which are bleeped, but the editors missed a subsequent F-bomb, and the fact that you can see part of the Ig’s, um, member, in the shot.
Enjoy!
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Blood, Guts and Cocaine: Ivan Kral tells us what it was like to write, record and tour with Iggy Pop