Pop Iggy - The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music

The Last Beach Movie Revisited was written in the spring of 1993. The first two chapters use many quotes and describe incidents that were first featured in The Last Beach Movie, a 30,000 word text that the NME ran in three parts on 21 June, 28 June and 12 July 1975. The third part is based on an encounter first written up in an NME, 19 April 1980, feature entitled High and Bri, and the fourth comes largely courtesy of a French writer, Michka Assayas, whose remarkable interview with Wilson, conducted in the summer of 1992, takes up much of the text. I want to thank him here for so graciously allowing me full permission to quote from it.

The Killer in Aspic was first published in The Face in May 1989, under the title Man on Fire.

The Bewildering Universe of Roky Erickson and His Two-headed Dog first saw the light of day as I Talked with a Zombie in the NME, 30 August 1980.

The Cracked Ballad of Syd Barrett, as it appears here, was written in the winter of 1992 but sections still correspond to the article of the same title that first appeared in the NME, 13 April, 1974. A couple of new quotes come from Jonathan Greens Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 19611971 (Heinemann, 1988). Nicholas Schaffners Saucerful of Secrets (Harmony, 1991) was also helpful.

Brian Jones, Tortured Narcissus first ran in 20/20 magazine, September 1989.

Twilight in Babylon was written in the summer of 1993. The piece fleetingly quotes from some of the many features Ive written on the Stones, most notably Melodrama in Munich (NME, 24 December 1974), Jagger Hits Out at Everything in Sight (NME, 15 October 1977) and Back to Zero (Spin, April 1986). The Glyn Johns quotes first appeared in a Musician, December 1988, interview with Bill Flanagan.

All Dressed Up, Got No Place to Go begins with a feature, Dead-End Kids on the Champs-Elysees, first printed in the NME, 26 January 1974. The coda was written in the autumn of 1993.

Lou Reed: The Wasted Years begins with an extended quote from John Cale taken from A Welshman in New York (NME, 13 April 1974), followed by a shorter quote from Nico, from I was a Hausfrau from Hanover Until I Discovered Heroin. The Lou Reed quote after that is taken from an interview written up by Tom Hibbert and run in (Q Magazine, February 1989. The piece that follows originally appeared as A Walk on the Dull Side in the NME, 9 March 1974.

Sid Vicious the Exploding Dim-Wit first appeared in The Face, August 1986, under the title The Scum Also Rises. Belated apologies to Hunter S. Thompson.

Horn-rims from Hell began life as The Man Who Would Be King, which ran in the NME, 27 August 1977. The coda is based around a summer 1991 encounter I later wrote up for the French journal Libration.

Morrissey, the Majesty of Melancholia and the Light That Never Goes Out in Smiths-dom is loosely based on several pieces Ive previously written, chiefly Dreamer in a Modern World (The Face, May 1985) and a piece on the Smiths in Les Inrockuptibles, a French quarterly in June 1989. A couple of quotes also come from The Deep End, my final encounter with Morrissey (The Face, March 1990).

The Moon, the Gutter and Shane McGowan is the unedited original of what ultimately became printed as The Agony and the Ecstasy, the clumsily edited feature that appeared in 20/20, August 1989.

The Daze of GunsNRoses is the unadulterated original of an article that first appeared in The Face in January 1990.

The Mancunian Candidates is the unadulterated original of an article that first appeared in The Face in January 1990.

The Four Ages of a Man Named Pop is another new piece of writing from the early winter of 1993, and quotes liberally from many articles Ives written on Iggy Pop, chiefly Iggy Pop vs the Chilling Hand of Blight: A Fight to the Finish (NME, 3 May 1975), Dr Iggy and Mr Pop (NME, 24 March 1979) and Goodbye Cool World (The Face, December 1986).

Lightening up with the Prince of Darkness first appeared as Prince of Darkness in The Face, October 1986. Thanks to Paul Rambali for his sterling editing job on the original.

Gods Got His Plans and Ive Got Mine first gained exposure as His Masters Voice (The Face, 1989).

Neil Young and the Haphazard Highway That Leeds to Unconditional Love was written in the summer of 1993. Im indebted to Scott Youngs book Neil and Me (Seal, 1975) for helping me to comprehend the breadth of his sons odyssey. Im even more greatly indebted to Young himself, who allowed himself to be interviewed at length in the winters of 1989 and 1990 and the late autumn of 1992. The Elliot Roberts and David Geffen quotes come from Long Time Gone (Doubleday, 1988) by David Crosby and Carl Gottlieb. The Dylan quote stems from an interview conducted by Scott Cohen and run in Spin magazine (1986).

Iggy Pop: The Innocent was first published in the September 1999 issue of British GQ magazine.

Prince Is a Champion Too originally appeared in a December 1999 edition of the French daily newspaper Libration. This is the first time its been made available in translation.

The Conflicted Cool of Johnny Cash was first published in the September 2000 edition of British GQ.

Eminems Rage in a Cage first appeared in the January 20/February 5, 2001, issue of the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles. This is the first time its been made available in translation.

I would like to thank James Osterberg, Simon Pettifar, Tony Lacey, Jonathan Riley, Christian Eudeline, Michel Vidal, Neil Young and Nick Logan.

Extra special thanks to my beloved Laurence Romance without whom this book probably would never have materialized.

The Dark Stuff is dedicated to the memories of Lester Bangs, Pete Erskine and all the death or glory boys gone too soon.