Iggy Pop on UK music TV show, ‘The White Room,’ 1996
 
It’s always a treat to feature a vintage performance from Iggy Pop here on Dangerous Minds, and boy do I have a doozy for you today. In 1996 Iggy paid a visit to UK music television show, The White Room...
 

A member of “The White Room” audience reacting to what you are about to see in the video below
 
Each episode of The White Room featured a different band performing three songs in front of a live audience and according to show legend, were required to wear either black or white clothing to give the show “a serious look.” Never one to play by the rules, Iggy showed up on stage wearing plastic see-through jeans and no underwear. Because I’m pretty sure that just like shirts, underpants are of no use to Iggy Pop.

Keep reading after the jump…

David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Ivan Kral in Berlin, 1979

This is a guest post by Ivan Kral, a musician/songwriter, as well as the director of The Blank Generation, a documentary concerning the ‘70s New York punk scene. Catch up on Ivan’s long and interesting career via this previous Dangerous Minds post, which focused on his years working with Iggy Pop.

After David Bowie’s recent passing, Ivan shared a story of a night he spent hanging out with Iggy and Bowie.

Sometime in 1979, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and I walked to a Berlin apartment from a small, dingy studio—where we were just playing for fun and weren’t working on anything specific—a few blocks away. The entry key was in a “secret hiding place,” which was inside the torn pocket of a mustard-colored overcoat hanging on the hall wall, where anyone could’ve found it.

Once inside, we smoked marijuana, but were still lucid afterwards. David sat down on the sofa in front of the TV that was playing old silent movies, the kind where the actors appear to move quickly or in bizarre sequences because real film cameras hadn’t been invented yet. As there wasn’t any sound, text like, “They wouldn’t let the dog take dancing lessons anymore,” would appear on screen, and then cut to young ladies making exaggerated movements.

I watched the film because David watched the film, and I wanted to be like him. He alternated between thumbing through books on the coffee table and then looking up at the TV—back and forth, back and forth. So I did, too. Iggy announced he had taken some L.S.D. earlier, and offered some to us. David declined, so I did, too.
 

 
I copied David’s every move as he looked curiously at each page in a book. The book I was looking at was unique because it had photos of small tree branches that were trimmed upward with a slant skyward, as, apparently, doing so might create a little dent. When a raindrop lands on the angled tip it won’t be able to slide off, so it hugs the newly exposed angled end where it could rot and/or mold, then freeze and kill new flower buds next season. When I shared my discovery with David it blew his mind. He’d look at the book and then stare off into space, repeating several times, “One raindrop can bring down an entire forest,” which I found very profound. I still can’t relax when I see someone outside cutting down trees.

Still sitting on the sofa, David crossed his legs, so I did, too. Soon Iggy emerged from the bathroom wearing mismatched socks and girl’s underwear. He had too much energy for the small place, so he left to walk up and down the halls.

David smiled at the flapper girls on TV doing the Charleston, so I did, too. Before he disappeared again, Iggy draped a bed sheet over his body so it looked like a toga. David just stared past him at the starlets still dancing on TV, so Iggy left in a huff, marching back into the hall. David and I continued with our discussion, trying to figure out how many branches are on a tree. We obsessed over it for quite some time that night.

Continues after the jump…

 
It’s a challenge to picture Iggy Pop chilling out next to an open fire savoring a snifter of eggnog, but versatile Iggy, that’s more or less who showed up to sing on his cover of “White Christmas,” the Irving Berlin Christmas classic mostly associated with Bing Crosby.

In fact, Bing’s version is reputed to be the biggest-selling single of all time, or at least it once was. Is it fair to say that one can hear Bing’s influence in Iggy’s gravelly and super-slow rendition?
 

 
Information on these recordings is hard to come by, but there’s also a fuzzed-out iteration, lovingly dubbed the “Guitar Stooge Version,” that appeared on a 2013 comp from Cleopatra Records called Psych-Out Christmas that also features holiday tracks by the Fuzztones, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, and Dead Meadow. It also appeared on a Cleopatra box set of Iggy singles called Gimme Some Skin that looks pretty tasty.
 
“White Christmas”:

 
“White Christmas (Guitar Stooge Mix)”:

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
A Bing Crosby death metal Christmas

Iggy Pop on the UK TV music show, The Tube, 1983
 
About four months before UK music TV show The Tube went off the air, one of its hosts, the excellent Jools Holland uttered the phrase, “be there or be ungroovy fuckers” while doing a live trailer for the show. It’s also a fairly accurate way to ease into this equally excellent footage of Iggy Pop performing on the show back in 1983.

During its five-year run, The Tube played host to a wide range of musical guests like The Cramps, PiL, and Motörhead. The Jam even played their last live televised gig on The Tube before calling it quits in 1982. This clip from The Tube features a live set from punk king, Iggy Pop performing with what appears to be his Zombie Birdhouse Tour lineup of Larry Mysilewicz (drums), Frank Infante (formerly of Blondie on guitar), Michael Page (bass) and Rob Duprey (former Mumps member also on guitar). The always shirtless Iggy rips through three songs, “Run Like a Villain”, “Eat or be Eaten” (from 1982’s Zombie Birdhouse which was produced by Blondie guitarist Chris Stein), and the sweet throwback “Sixteen” from 1977’s Lust for Life.

According to legend, The Tube was sort of infamous for screwing up the sound for their live acts from time to time, and while the sound isn’t great in this video, the performance is fucking great and true to form, Iggy kicks out the jams like a punk rock version of The Rockettes. I’m also pretty sure Iggy’s eyes were on the verge of shooting lasers at the audience because he looks, let’s just say, enlightened (according to the book Open Up and Bleed, during the soundcheck Iggy fell backwards into the drum kit so there’s that).

Iggy had a really good run in the 80s due much in part to his pal David Bowie who not only gave Iggy a fat paycheck thanks to his cover of “China Girl” (which was originally recorded by Pop on 1977’s The Idiot and co-written by the pair), but who helped convince Iggy to kick his drug habit to the curb. Is there anything The Thin White Duke can’t do? Probably not. But I digress. Here’s Iggy Pop, his crazy abs, and some sweet punk jams, courtesy of 1983.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Real Wild Child: Iggy Pop’s electrifying 1980s appearances on ‘Late Night with David Letterman’

 
Just some fun photos of Iggy Pop playing a casual outdoor gig with his band the Prime Movers in 1966. These photos were taken a year before The Stooges formed. By 1966 standards, that was some LONG hair!

 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

Steve Jones and Iggy Pop circa 1988
 
There exists a recording of the Stooges playing a straight-ahead cover of “Purple Haze” sometime in the 70s (see the dodgy-looking Anthology Box), but I’m in love with this weird, opiated bum-out version of the song Iggy recorded with Sex Pistol Steve Jones a decade later.

Along with several Pop/Jones compositions and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Family Affair,” “Purple Haze” was one of a number of songs the pair demoed in a home studio in L.A.‘s Hancock Park neighborhood in 1985. According to at least one crummy fan bio, Bowie was so impressed by the Hancock Park demos that upon hearing them he decided to reunite with Iggy for Blah-Blah-Blah.
 

 
Instead of the Day-Glo flash of acid, Iggy’s “Purple Haze” evokes the feeling of stumbling through a Ralphs supermarket at midnight on a handful of downers. (Despite the track’s druggy feel, Iggy biographer Paul Trynka says both men were clean and sober during these sessions.) It’s a radical rewrite of the song, with a new bridge, lyrics that mention The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and like none of the distinguishing features of the original. The vibe is more like the Stooges’ “Sick of You” than anything Hendrix ever played; Jones’ arpeggios remind me a bit of that gorgeous guitar break in the middle of Black Sabbath’s “Cornucopia,” and Iggy croons in his low register.

As on the previous Pop/Jones collaboration, the immortal “Repo Man,” Jones gets in a “Secret Agent Man”-style figure, though here it replaces one of the most famous rock guitar lines of all time. Unless I am merely going deaf, there is also a high-pitched drone throughout the song, reminiscent of the piano on “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Maybe this is what happens when you take the “brown acid”?
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Before he was Jimi: Jimmy Hendrix with Curtis Knight and the Squires
Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and Paul McCartney: The supergroup that wasn’t
‘White Christmas’ sung by Iggy Pop

Lucia Pittalis before transformation

As RuPaul once said, “You’re born naked and the rest is contour and shading.” And Italian portrait painter and artist Lucia Pittalis proves that point with these insane makeup transformations. Lucia uses her own face as a canvas and turns herself into these iconic characters that are simply fan-fucking-tastic. She nailed Keith Richards, IMO.

If you want to see more of her work, you can follow Lucia on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Frank Zappa
 


Iggy Pop
 

Bette Davis
 

Keith Richards
 
More after the jump…
 

Photo by Esther Friedman

I’m just a few months shy of two years as an excavator here at Dangerous Minds, and in that short a span, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been asked “How do you FIND all this stuff?” —even by people who’ve known me forever and should know damn well. In truth, I can’t answer that, I just find all this stuff because it’s what I’m into doing, and I don’t think any of my colleagues at DM, or my counterparts at other sites that burrow through the internet for mutant cultural produce would say anything terribly different. I’ve always been into digging for weirdness, so the question of “how I find all this stuff” is kind of beside the point, and sometimes even actually annoying, because I hear it so often and there really is no concise answer besides, “I dunno.”

AND YET, If I ever get to meet the people who run Network Awesome, I will surely break down and ask them where the hell they find all their stuff. On a daily basis, they post well thought out thematic programming for which someone has clearly dug DEEP. Some of the stuff they find completely blows me away, and I’ve been an obsessive collector/curator type my entire life. I applaud and bow to those people. So recently, in the course of indulging myself in a day of surfing around that site, I came across a program of theirs that collected commercials starring Iggy Pop. Each of them is a great watch, because Iggy Pop is Iggy Pop, and I already knew a fair few of them, but one jumped out at me, both for its awesomeness and its howdidinotknowaboutthisness.
 

 
Just a couple of years ago, an ad agency in Madrid did a Schweppes lemon soda poster campaign with Pop. It got around—even DM did a piece. What I did not know about, and what Network Awesome had posted, was the television commercial that went with it, which starred the 65ish-year-old proto-punk legend out on the town with his father, Mr. James Newell Osterberg Sr., the very pop whom Pop credited with his choice to become a singer, in a 2007 Esquire interview:

Driving down a nice two-lane highway, summer day, Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’m in the backseat of a ‘49 Cadillac. Always had a good car, my dad. Frank Sinatra’s singing: “Fairy tales can come true/It can happen to you/If you’re young at heart.” My dad’s singing along. From that moment on, when people asked me what I wanted to be, I would say, “A singer.” As I got older, I realized that might not be realistic. So then I thought, I’ll become a politician.

All I can say to that is right fuckin’ on. Here’s the commercial. It’s been uploaded to YouTube by a fair few users, but every single upload has a ridiculously low view count, which seems to me absurd for such a gem.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
‘Knockin’ ‘Em Down in the City’: Iggy Pop on Cleveland local news, 1979
Iggy Pop was on ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’
Iggy & the Stooges playing at a high school gym in Michigan, 1970

 
Today’s happening young person has every reason to invest in a copy of Iggy Pop’s memoir, I Need More. One compelling reason is right there in the title: Iggy needs more, and it is your duty to give it to him.

But dude, I hear today’s happening young person whine, the book is like out of print and Iggy will collect like no royalties from my purchase on the secondhand market. Pull your pants up, junior, because this lame attempt to shirk your duty only brings us to an even more compelling reason: on Amazon, a used copy of the original 1982 edition is now cheaper than the reprint published by Henry Rollins’ 2.13.61 (pictured above). That’s two compelling reasons right there, without even mentioning the content of the book.

Among the treasures that await you inside this handsome volume is a high quality, suitable-for-framing reproduction of Iggy’s closest childhood friend, the “imaginary Mexican.” (Sorry, that’s a lie—the portrait, reproduced in the margins of the book, is actually the size of a large postage stamp.) During his asthma-haunted childhood in the Osterberg family trailer, stoned on Quadrinol, Iggy fantasized about a life of high adventure on the Brazos or somewhere with this bandoliered character:
 

 

As a kid I had a character in my brain. I drew him over and over and over. He was my imaginary Mexican; well, you look at him and figure it out for yourself.

 
You’ll notice that the rude health of the imaginary Mexican’s right side (from his point of view) compensates for his withered left side, and that he has one great birdlike talon exploding through the toe of each shoe. Does the body’s muscular right side indicate a left-brain predominance? I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure the boy was destined for greatness if this righteous dude was his ideal playmate.

Watch Iggy dance with a refrigerator in the little-known music video for “Dog Food” after the jump..:

Ivan and Iggy, 1979 (courtesy of Ivan Kral)

Ivan Kral sure has led an interesting life. The Prague-born songwriter and musician had his first brush with fame at the age of sixteen when a track by his band Saze broke the top ten in Czechoslovakia. But just as the song was breaking, his family relocated to New York City. In the early ‘70s, Ivan played in glam bands and, for a brief period, was part of Shaun Cassidy’s backing group. In 1974, he played guitar with an embryonic version of Blondie before joining the Patti Smith Group. As part of Smith’s unit, Ivan played guitar, bass and keyboards, appearing on all of her early records (including the seminal Horses), and was involved in writing a number of her songs (he co-wrote “Dancing Barefoot,” one of Smith’s pivotal tunes). He’s also a documentarian, having had the foresight to capture Iggy and the Stooges on film, as well as the burgeoning punk scene happening at CBGB’s in the mid-‘70s, which became the documentary, Blank Generation.
 

Ivan, center, with the Patti Smith Group, 1975

The Patti Smith Group ended in 1979 when Smith began her self-imposed retirement, which left Ivan looking for a gig. He hooked up with Iggy Pop in time to play on the Ig’s 1980 album, Soldier, and subsequently became Iggy’s right-hand man, touring and writing a number of songs with the Godfather of Punk. Eight of those co-writes appeared on Party (1981), and while Ivan came up with some catchy and interesting tunes, Iggy’s lyrics often left much to be desired, and the production generally felt lifeless. If you’re in the mood for it, Party has its fair share of goofy charm, but it’s hard to imagine it appealing to fans, critics, or the general public at that time—and it ultimately didn’t. Party was a disappointment both critically and commercially, with Ivan quitting Iggy’s band before the year was out.
 

 
Ivan is a rock star in his native land (there’s even a mid-‘90s documentary about him, with another in the works), and has released ten solo records in the Czech Republic; the most recent is called Always. For some time now he has resided in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is somewhat ironic, as the college town is also the birthplace of the Stooges.

The following interview was conducted via email. A big THANKS to Ivan for letting us use some photos from his personal archive.

How did you meet Iggy?:

Ivan: There was an unknown blonde guy in a yoga pose—naked in my living room. He gets up, extends a hand and says, “I’m Iggy Pop and I’m producing your next album,” for Luger, my 1973 glam band. I was thinking, “Yeah sure, he’s just another nobody with big plans.” After I saw the Stooges I realized that I was the nobody with big plans.

So, I went to The Stooges show at the Academy of Music in New York City. He owned the crowd. Fans were begging to be humiliated by him. He’d spit and they’d thank him. Never saw anything like it. I was filming with my “movie camera” (no sound) anticipating his next move so I wouldn’t waste film. Every second counted. I’ve posted a few clips on YouTube.

More from Ivan, plus a live Iggy video, after the jump

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Below you’ll find Motor City’s Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges, A 2008 BBC documentary that gives a brief summary of the musical trajectory and evolution of Detroit’s music scene through the riotous decade. It’s a little overly ambitious in scope and far more focused on MC5 and the Stooges then it is on Motown, but it’s worth taking a look as it traces a path from John Lee Hooker to Berry Gordy’s slick Motown production, through the Detroit riots of 1967 and the emergence of the MC5, the Stooges, George Clinton and Alice Cooper. The music scene is necessarily tied to the history of Detroit and the rise and fall of the auto industry and the 1967 Detroit riots.
 

 
There are many luminaries interviewed here including Johnny Bassett, Lamont Dozier, Martha Reeves, Mary Wilson, Mike Davis, Wayne Kramer, John Sinclair, Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, Lenny Kaye, Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper.
 

The MC5
 
Some of the best commentary in film talks about the dichotomy between views of the city in the sixties. Inner-city African Americans had a clearly different experience from the largely suburban white acidheads freaking out to the likes of the MC5 in places like the Grande Ballroom (shown in contemporary footage and in complete dilapidated abandon) where the MC5 had a residency. John Sinclair, the MC5’s headline grabbing manager and White Panther Party founder, discusses the fact that white kids came to inner city Detroit looking for “urban adventure.”  African Americans on the other hand felt intimidated and provoked by white police and increasingly infuriated over the ghettoization their neighborhoods. While groups like the Motor City 5 lived right in the middle of the unrest, their largely white audience often did not.
 

Iggy
 
John Sinclair’s arrest for two joints and the John and Yoko support concert is discussed, while Iggy Pop talks about the early Ann Arbor scene, and there’s good footage particularly of John Lee Hooker, MC5, the Stooges and George Clinton throughout the film.

The documentary leaves a lot to be desired with kind of Cliff’s Notes oversimplification but it has some notable anecdotes and perspectives. If you’ve got an hour to kill or you just don’t know much about the Detroit musical phenomenon, one could find a worse primer.
 

 
I have heard—on very good account—that David Bowie is meant to be a total eBay addict and that having a conversation with him might often see his attention divided between what you’re saying and him furiously bidding on something. Apparently eBay is a great way for the thin white duke to discover all of the various ways people made money off him during his long career, that he was never previously aware of. If I were him, I’d do the exact same thing!

Well, an unusual Bowie item is currently on offer on eBay with four days to go, and although the price has dropped 25%—or $5000—it’s still got a starting bid of twenty grand. Perhaps Bowie himself is the only one who could afford this, but what a weird little memento it is: an original vintage photograph taken precisely at the moment when undercover cops in Rochester, NY slapped the cuffs on when Bowie and Iggy Pop were arrested for someone else smoking pot in Bowie’s hotel room in 1976.

The story is told in greater detail in this post I put together previously of the local news reporting of the Bowie bust.

Here’s the description from the eBay seller:

For offer, a very rare photograph. Fresh from a prominent estate in Upstate NY. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antique, NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !! This photos came from a man who was present when Bowie and Pop were arrested in Rochester, NY, March 25, 1976. Most people have seen the famous mug shot. But this is a “behind the scenes” photo taken with undercover officers. Officer on left putting the cuffs on Bowie. Kodak paper. In excellent condition.  Please see photo for details. If you collect 20th century American Rock history, Americana crime photography, pop culture, etc. this is a treasure you will not see again! Add this to your image or paper / ephemera collection.

Worth mentioning is that the Rocester mugshot was not taken when Bowie was processed at the station that night, but rather when he showed up for his court date, hence the change of clothes.
 

 
h/t Hadrian Von Paulus

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
When Bowie got busted: Local news reports from his 1976 Rochester, NY pot arrest with Iggy

 
If you’ve got room for more 1970 Detroit so soon after yesterday’s John Lee Hooker post, then feast your eyes on these wonderful snapshots of Iggy Pop, shirtless (does he even own any shirts?) and becollared (because you know what he wants to be) for a Stooges performance at suburban Detroit’s Farmington High School (GO FALCONS!) in December of 1970, which was historically noteworthy as James Williamson’s first gig with the band. I found them on the wonderful blog Black Coffee Bonus Cup, but they first made their way to the web via Detroit rock lifer Jim Edwards of the Rockets, who posted them to Facebook. (I can no longer find that album, so I presume it’s either deleted or set to friends-only, now):

I got these slides from a guy at work. He walks up to me and says, ‘You’re a musician, right? I got these old slides from a show at my high school, Wanna see ‘em?’ I held the first one up to the light and nearly shit myself!

Black Coffee Bonus Cup offered this info about the gig:

The gig was late due to Iggy being arrested earlier that evening and The Stooges played only four songs but I bet it was the end of innocence for all the unsuspecting teen students attending this show when the 23-year-old Iggy appeared shirtless, wearing a dog collar and jeans with cut-out crotch, revealing his red briefs, and performed his legendary on-and-off stage stunts…

 

 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Good news for fans of the Repo Man soundtrack: Iggy Pop, who wrote and performed the song “Repo Man” (with help from Sex Pistol Steve Jones), has also contributed the theme song to Alex Cox’s latest movie.

Cox made the Kickstarter-funded Bill, the Galactic Hero with his film students at the University of Colorado Boulder, where the movie premiered last month. It’s adapted from the 1965 book of the same name, the first in a series by author Harry Harrison. The director describes Bill as “a classic anti-war science fiction novel” and a “counterblast to STAR$HIP TROOPERS.” I haven’t read the book, but Cox sure makes its prole’s-eye view of war sound timely:

It’s told not from the flight deck but from the engine room: or to be more exact, the fusebays, where ranks of expendable Fusetenders Sixth Class wait to replace burned-out fuses, or die.

You can hear about a minute of Iggy’s theme song in the movie’s latest trailer. Apparently, life has a lot in common with pizza.
 

 
Not sure how or why this happened, glad it did: Cleveland-by-god-Ohio’s blandly caucasoid time-filler news magazine show Afternoon Exchange visited Iggy Pop during his rehearsal/soundcheck at the Agora Ballroom one day in November of 1979. Iggy’s touring band that year featured founding Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock and guitarist Brian James in-between his stints in the Damned and Lords of the New Church. Further name-drop action: the video was posted by Zero Defex bassist turned Zen Master (I’m not kidding) Brad Warner.

This all-star band performed “Knockin’ ‘Em Down in the City” from the then-forthcoming LP Soldier. Iggy being Iggy, he put on a full show for the local news cameras to benefit an afternoon audience of homemakers, unemployed, and shut-ins, all of whom surely changed their plans for that evening to come out for the concert. Iggy also gracefully endured the goofily clue-deprived questions from milquetoasty interviewer Bob “The Real Bob James” Pondillo, whose enthusiasm is appreciated, but seriously, safety pins in the cheeks? It’s amazing that so many suburban normals seemed to think that kind of thing was standard practice. And how weird is it that he couldn’t name-check the Dead Boys or Pere Ubu, but he knew who the Lepers were?
 

 
Iggy’s performance after the jump…