Paul Trynka - Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed

Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed

PAUL TRYNKA

www.littlebrown.co.uk

Published by Hachette Digital 2009

Copyright Paul Trynka 2007 www.trynka.com

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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eISBN : 978 0 7481 1430 6

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To Lucy and Curtis,
my Chinese rugs.

PROLOGUE

I Never Thought It Would Come To This

This wasnt magnificent, but it was definitely war. Scott Asheton hunched low behind his ride cymbal, which offered a little protection from the incoming hail. From his position at the back of the stage he could see the projectiles clearly once they flashed out of the lights - whisky bottles, Strohs bottles, heavy black champagne bottles, glasses, coins and lit cigarettes - and Scotts vantage point and keen eyesight meant he could also spot the occasional bags of weed as they hit the stage, and point them out to his guardian John Cole, whod throw the drugs inside Scotts bass drum for safe-keeping. He looked over at Iggy, his singer and one-time drug buddy, increasingly irritated as he realised that each time the singer whipped the crowd into a new surge of fury, he would come and stand over by the drum kit, attracting more missiles in Scotts direction. But he didnt blame Iggy. The singer was only a little more messed up than he was.

Each member of the Stooges was in his own private world as they battled through their doomed set on the freezing-cold night of 9 February 1974 at the Michigan Palace, the decayed, depressing 1920s movie hall in downtown Detroit. Pianist Scott Thurston was a recent arrival, but hed grown to respect his bandmates for their dumb heroism and what he thought of as their forlorn hillbilly hope, a hope hed come to share: that maybe they could spruce up their act and grab victory from whatever was happening. But this was... degraded, he decided. As he watched Iggy surge into the crowd to provoke them once again, he felt admiration tinged with pity. The guy was driven. Driven to everything except success.

James Williamson, the hotshot tough guy guitarist whod seen the Stooges as his meal ticket to fame, the sensitive thug derided by most of the Stooges and their tiny camp of followers as the Skull, concentrated on keeping his guitar in tune and cranking out his magnificent, dangerous guitar riffs, and looked over at Iggy with something closer to contempt. Wearing a bizarre sci fi outfit crafted by Hollywood designer Bill Whitten, James looked striking from the back of the hall, but up close you could see his costume was dirty and frayed. Even a month or so ago, James had been driving the band forward, compelled to write and rehearse new material even when there was no prospect of a record company ever releasing it. But now he too was starting to despair. His singer was a failure, and he was a failure too. The Stooges had fucked their way through some damn good orgies, but his own burning drive for success was fizzling out. Once, hed enjoyed the psychodrama, but now it was unbearable. Iggy had sold James out, and now he couldnt even keep his own act together. Nonetheless, James felt a twinge of sympathy, knowing what his one-time friend had been through.

Ron Asheton felt drained. Hed survived the most painful humiliations, sacked as the Stooges guitarist, demoted to playing bass, estranged from his brother and his singer, clinging to the hope that the band hed co-created could fulfil their destiny and become the American Stones. But, free of the drugs that had numbed most of his bandmates, he knew, with inescapable clarity, that this tour was beating a dead horse - a dead horse that was turning to dust. Until now, hed survived on gallows humour, entertaining all those around him with his deadpan observations on the desperate state of his singer and his band. Hed porked some girls, had some good times, but now the good times had gone.

Then there was Iggy. Indestructible Iggy, who hoovered up whatever drugs were placed in front of his nose, whod been thrown unconscious onto the stage by his tour manager several times over the preceding months, whod been knocked flat by bikers a couple of days ago but invited them back to the Michigan Palace for more. Who now seemed so physically and mentally damaged, by himself and those around him, that at times both his life force and his luminous beauty looked to be draining away. By now, at least one of his closest confidantes had concluded that hed suffered some kind of breakdown that had left his nervous system permanently damaged. His face was puffy, and there were lines etched round the hypnotic blue eyes that had charmed so many of Americas desirable chicks. Tonight hed chosen to enrage the biker audience, who were convinced he was a fag, by wearing some kind of black leotard, augmented with a shawl fashioned into a see-through skirt. Despite the ludicrous outfit, he was telling them, or maybe because of it, their girlfriends still wanted to fuck him. And just in case the message wasnt explicit enough, he enunciated lasciviously the title of the next song, Cock In My Pocket. Even now, as he danced around the stage, lithe, balletic, there was a shamanic power that electrified the crowd, half of them besotted, half of them contemptuous, or perhaps simply numbed by the Quaaludes that had become the drug du jour at the Palace. Relentlessly, James Williamsons thuggish, psychotic guitar kept propelling Iggy forward as he threw himself into songs like Gimme Danger or I Got Nothing, songs hed written about feeling doomed, songs he was compelled to keep writing even when no record company was interested in releasing them. Now everyone in the audience, friend or foe, seemed to know he was doomed too. As he quipped, I dont care if you throw all the ice in the world, Im making ten thousand, baby, so screw you, everyone present knew this was empty bravado. And if Iggy Pop didnt know it, Jim Osterberg, the man whod created this out-of-control alter ego, did.

Earlier that evening, during his short conversation with Jim, Michael Tipton, who was planning to tape that nights performance on an open-reel recorder, had realised that this would be the last Stooges show - an occasion for Iggy to play around, to mock the audience and his own desperate state. Many fans and foes alike turned up at Stooges shows eager to see what ludicrous outfit Iggy would wear that evening, to enjoy the banter and occasional hostilities between band and audience, but this evenings was a more pointless circus than any of them had witnessed before. I am the greatest! Iggy screamed at the audience in the shows dying moments as a hail of eggs flew on the stage, one of them hitting him in the face. As eggs soared over in Iggys direction, Ron kept a lookout for lit cigarettes, worried theyd set fire to his hair. When a heavy coin shot out of the lights and clipped him painfully on his scalp, Ron put his hand up to where it hurt, and saw blood on his fingers.

For everyone around the Stooges, there was a sense the circus couldnt continue for much longer. Natalie Schlossman, their one-time fan club organiser, had looked after the band for nearly four years, nursemaiding Iggy when he was out of control, often tucking him up in bed and taking away his clothes in the forlorn hope he wouldnt trawl the hotel corridors in search of drugs. By now, Natalie had walked in on the band in every possible sexual combination - James in a blood-soaked bathroom with two girls, Iggy in a bedroom with three girls, Scottie Thurston and Ron in a hotel room with one girl, twenty different people in an orgy in Iggys room - but she regarded their activities with a benign, maternal concern, cooking for them and washing their increasingly scummy costumes. Whatever pathetic state shed found Iggy in, Natalie knew that on stage hed reach inside himself to tap into something pure and honest. But now she found herself disturbed by the malevolent miasma around the band, for which she mostly blamed James Williamson. If it were over soon, it would be a blessing for everyone involved.