/|\(;,;)/|\ There's an ocean of music, and I'm swimming as hard as I can. I use this blog to post music & commentary; I hope you find something here that does it for you. Peace!
“No Fun” by The Stooges
This is the record that killed the ’60s.
“Search and Destroy” by Iggy & The Stooges (Iggy Pop Remix)
There are actually three versions of Raw Power. There’s the Rough Power bootleg, documenting Iggy’s earliest mixes. Then there’s the version most of us are familiar with, the one mixed by David Bowie and released in 1973. That record is a fucking masterpiece in spite of the limitations Iggy and Bowie faced. “It’s not a bad job that he did,” Iggy later said. “I’m very proud of the eccentric, odd little record that came out.” But in 1996, Columbia Records called Iggy and said they were going to remix Raw Power, with or without him, so Iggy revisited his early work and, in my opinion, he did a fine job; the Bowie mixes had no bottom to them, and while that made for a wonderfully volatile sound, it’s also great to finally hear Iggy’s remix bring out the powerful rhythm section of Ron and Scott Asheton.
“Loose” by The Stooges
A lot of my favorite records took time to grow on me. Not so with this one. The very first time I heard The Stooges, I remember thinking: This is it. This is what every other Rock band is trying to sound like. This is Rock & Roll in its purest, strongest essence—the vanishing point that every other band is reaching for.
And that’s still how I feel.
“Skull Ring” (live) by Iggy & The Stooges
I’ve been posting a lot of Iggy Pop lately, and it occurs to me I haven’t posted anything by the reformed version of The Stooges. Their studio work has been kinda disappointing so far—I don’t recommend you waste your hard-earned on The Weirdness—but they’re a fierce live act. Check out this track from Telluric Chaos, recorded live in Japan while Ron Asheton, bless him, was still alive and destroying eardrums.
“No Sense Of Crime” by Iggy Pop & James Williamson
After Iggy Pop left The Stooges, but before he found David Bowie, he made some recordings with James Williamson, lead guitarist for the Raw Power-era lineup of Iggy & The Stooges. But there were some, uh, problems…
Kill City was originally recorded in 1975 after the disintegration of [the Stooges]. It was to be used as a demo to give to record labels in hopes of getting Pop a new contract. His vocals were recorded on weekends when he received permission to leave a mental hospital he was staying in at the time for treatment of his long-standing heroin addiction.
Yeah, what he said. Mental hospital, heroin, blah blah blah. Anyhow, they didn’t find a label until 1977, when the Bowie-produced album The Idiot made such a splash and Bomp Records (who has also released many Stooges bootlegs, including Rough Power) decided to take a chance on Kill City. A small chance. They gave Pop and Williamson roughly no time and no money to mix the album—and, surprise surprise, it sounded like crap. Fortunately, James Williamson finally got around to remixing and remastering it in 2010. (What the fuck was he doing all these years?) Remasters are usually a ripoff, but this is one of the rare cases where a neglected record has been saved by a good remaster. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
“Hard To Beat” by Iggy & The Stooges, from Rough Power
“He wanted me to mix Raw Power, so he brought the 24-track tape in, and he put it up. He had the band on one track, lead guitar on another and him on a third. Out of 24 tracks there were just three tracks that were used. [Iggy Pop] said, ‘See what you can do with this.’ I said, ‘Jim, there’s nothing to mix.’” —David Bowie
There are actually three versions of Raw Power. There’s the version mixed by David Bowie, which was released in 1973, and it’s a fucking masterpiece in spite of the limitations Iggy and Bowie faced. “It’s not a bad job that he did,” Iggy later said. “I’m very proud of the eccentric, odd little record that came out.” But in 1996, Columbia Records called Iggy and said they were going to remix Raw Power, with or without him, so Iggy revisited his early work and, in my opinion, he did a fine job; the Bowie mixes had no bottom to them, and while that made for a wonderfully volatile sound, it’s also great to finally hear Iggy’s remix bring out the powerful rhythm section of Ron and Scott Asheton.
Which brings us to Rough Power, the earliest version, the one that was never officially released. See, when he was originally mixing the album, Iggy went a little overboard. (Hard to believe, right?) He holed up in the studio and produced several very eccentric mixes of Raw Power that scared the suits, which is why Bowie was called in the first place—to rescue Iggy from himself. But (this is the story, anyhow) Ron Asheton, frustrated at the failure of those first two Stooges albums, leaked those wild early mixes to a radio station, hoping to gin up some publicity—which is why you’ll hear two DJ’s bantering about this “upcoming Stooges album” at the beginning of this track. This early mix of “Hard To Beat” shows just how out of control Iggy got when he was making Raw Power.
“Tight Pants” by Iggy & The Stooges
“Tight Pants,” another great song the Raw Power lineup of The Stooges never got to put on an official release. This is from the two-disc Original Punks bootleg collection.
“My Girl Hates My Heroin” by Iggy & The Stooges
This bootleg was taken from some Raw Power-era rehearsal tapes. Listening to all the great Stooges songs that never found their way onto a studio album, I can’t help but think, “Why the fuck didn’t they put this on a record?” And then I remember: Because The Stooges were a commercial flop. They only got to make those first two records because the MC5 and Danny Fields had their backs, and they only got to do Raw Power because of David Bowie. Nobody was buying Stooges records. Here’s Iggy himself from Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk:
“I didn’t know, at that time in New York, that there was this Punk scene. It seemed like what New York was all about was Patti Smith—which was more a star poetry kind of thing. I didn’t know much about what was happening at CBGB’s, and all of that. But I was kind of aware there was a fringe group of malcontents in New York. I mean, I thought there must be two or three bands in the universe that weren’t complete dicks, but I never thought, Oh, punk is happening, it’s taking over and it’s gonna be big and huge.
“I mean, all I knew was that Raw Power had been in the thirty-nine-cent bin at Erwin Brothers out in Los Angeles, and I thought, Well, this is it. Nobody cares.”
“Doojiman” by Iggy & The Stooges
This was a discarded studio recording that Columbia included as a bonus track for the recent two-disc Legacy Edition remaster of Raw Power.
“You Don’t Want My Name” by The Stooges
Almost every Stooges bootleg you can find was recorded with the Raw Power lineup: Iggy Pop, lead guitarist James Williamson, and the Asheton brothers (AKA “the Dum Dum Boys”) on bass and drums. Apparently it took that long for the band to develop a small but devoted following who recorded their every move. But this bootleg collection, You Don’t Want My Name, You Want My Action, is different: It documents an earlier Stooges lineup with both Williamson and Ron Asheton on guitar and some guy named Jimmy Recca on base, braving out the long dry spell The Stooges suffered in the early ’70s before David Bowie got Iggy a record deal. I dearly wish this lineup had made it into a studio, but since I don’t have a time machine and a record label, I guess we’ll just have to make do with this kickass bootleg.
“Head On” by Iggy & The Stooges
Of all those orphaned Stooges tracks that never found their way to an album, this is probably my favorite. “Head On” is one of the most tasteless songs ever, and if you don’t know what it’s about, just ask your mother.
“I Got A Right” by The Stooges
Here’s a wildly different mix of “I Got A Right.” I suspect this is one of the eccentric mixes Iggy Pop produced before Main Man called in David Bowie to save Raw Power from Iggy’s excesses, but it’s also possible this is an unauthorized mix produced years later by a fan who wanted to make his own Stooges track. Either way, it’s a great take on one of my favorite Stooges songs.
“I Wanna Be Your Dog” (Extended Psych Version) by The Stooges
Yes, I know you’ve heard this song before, but this is a very different version.
“I Got A Right” by Iggy & The Stooges
Iggy Pop has got to be one of the most bootlegged artists in the history of Rock & Roll, and he doesn’t seem to mind. He certainly hasn’t hired a team of lawyers to sue Bomp! Records, the most notorious peddler of Stooges bootlegs. Considering that the original run of The Stooges only released three studio albums and found virtually no commercial success, I would guess that Iggy is glad he has such a rabid fan-base.
“I Got A Right!” is probably the most notorious Stooges song that was never included in any of the “official” Stooges releases, though Iggy still performs this song live all the time, and I think this is a fitting way to kick off my weekend-long marathon of Stooges bootlegs. So stay tuned, folks, because Doc Shoe’s Music Blog will be playing some great overlooked tracks from The World’s Forgotten Boy.
Addendum: I originally ran this Stooges bootleg marathon late last year, but unfortunately I was using FileFreak and all those links are dead, so now I’m repairing the broken links.
Put It To A Vote
This afternoon I’ll be fixing dead links, uploading and re-posting a Stooges bootleg marathon I originally ran late last year. But for next week, I’ve uploaded tracks for three different marathons, and I’ll let you folks vote on which I’ll run first:
- Captain Beefheart
- Lou Reed
- Townes Van Zandt
What’ll it be, folks?
