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This man is a survivor. No one better than him today can act as a testimonial for an insurance advertisement. If they're willing to sign a policy with a guy like that, then even we, with eighteen points less on our license, shouldn’t suffer to get one.
In 1973, the Stooges lived for heroin (My girl hates my heroin) and had returned to where they started years before: the home garage in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Michigan, where the final episode of their tumultuous life together would unfold.
Iggy Pop, who at the time was not afraid to die, came to challenge the Scorpions, a local motorcycle gang that had it in for that punk. The appointment was for February 9, 1974, at the Michigan Palace in Detroit, and they arrived armed with bottles, eggs, and cans. Do you think Iggy trembled with fear when he got on stage? Hell no, he got excited, provoked them, insulted them: "you assholes can throw any damn thing at me in this world, and your girls will still be crazy about me, yes jealous suckers!...A one...two...FUCK YOU PRICKS!!!" And so starts "A Cock in my Pocket". The fire and flames start immediately: Ron Asheton moved to the bass, grinding out scales that descend into the swamps and rise to the stars, while little brother Scott is not a drummer but an infernal rhythmic machine, Scott Thurston's work is as good as you can ask of a rock&roll pianist that isn’t Nicky Hopkins. Iggy is unleashed, he screams, groans, boasts, attacks, and gets hit with bottles from the hostile crowd.
It’s the legendary shattered glass concert, every now and then you distinctly hear a bottle shatter on stage. He, like a captain of a ship that DOES NOT sink, stands firm on the prow: "Heavy Liquid" is just like the title, showing the Stones how to play heavy, imagine their "Brown Sugar" possessing the same firepower and you’re still far from the idea. Or "Rich Bitch" with the valuable Thurston/Hopkins work on the piano and finally Williamson's guitar (hindered by the recording quality) in great shape... "Give me the drum!" shouts Iggy to Scott Asheton yet the guitarist's solo starts. When the trembling chords of "Gimmie Danger" begin, preceding Iggy's intimate-style voice, you wonder how many more dangers this little man, made of nerves attached directly to the bones, wants to face.
And like a tamer, he tries to calm the beasts under the stage by asking what they want to hear, and to their requests, he doesn't give a damn, surprising them with a piece from 1955: "Louie Louie". Forget the tame version he did later as a solo artist once he removed the broomstick David Bowie had shoved up his ass, reducing him to a new wave puppet. Here, the pistons of the Asheton Bros. machine are heard, Scott Thurston makes the black and white keys fly while James Williamson seems like Pete Townshend tackling the windmill.
And Iggy? He thrashes and shouts, inflating the veins in his neck, and finally thanks the people who threw bottles at him, dodging just as the last one shatters on the microphone "...you could have killed me but you missed once again so you'll have to try again next week!"
What a son of a bitch...they didn't see him on stage again, it was the last Stooges concert before their breakup.
Epilogue
One of the greatest live albums in rock history, a cleaned-up bootleg that struggles in the mids, all for the benefit of Iggy's voice and the Asheton brothers' rhythm. Too dirty to be among the peaks of live rock? I don’t care, I prefer a poorly recorded album like "Metallic KO" to the trashy glitz passed off as masterpieces. In recent times, people have made billions recycling for street metal and more what the Stooges invented thirty years before, even today, any band could take full advantage of records like this and present themselves to young fans as the new rock messiahs.
What do you say, does this mean stealing? If you haven’t noticed, rock has been working this way for thirty years.
Dedicated to Ron Asheton, found dead last January 6th. Old pirate, I owe you another one with New Order. May the earth be light upon you.
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