(Jim) If I hit here,
you'll get all three cameras.
- Right?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Okay?
- Yeah. Great.
- We're ready?
- Yeah.
(Jim)
It's June 9th.
We are in an undisclosed location.
We are interrogating
Jim Osterberg,
about "The Stooges",
the greatest rock and roll band ever.
[gong booming]
(male #1) You know,
uh, one of the things
that amazes me, uh
is that, um, they do not go about this
in a show business way,
for instance, when somebody says
"Here's an act,"
and they announce the act
they may very well tune up
for ten or fifteen minutes
before they ever play the first number
that they're going to play.
Uh, and the kids don't seem
to mind this at all.
They, uh, they watch it all and,
uh, listen to the tune up
and listen to them check the speakers.
And I think we've got
some action coming up now.
Uh, we'll leave Bob Waller
for the moment
and go to the stage and listen
to "Iggy and the Stooges!"
...TV eye on me
She got a TV eye
Oh she had a TV eye on me
No
[instrumental music]
No!
[crowd screaming]
(male #1) There goes Iggy
right into the crowd!
- Down!
- We've lost audio on him.
Bob Waller is down
in the field with the crowd.
I don't know just where,
but we'll find him.
[acoustic feedback]
[man growling]
[women whooping]
[people clamoring]
[man yelling]
[man howling]
(Iggy)
Riots in the motor city!
It was tough.
And we were stumbling and bumbling
and finally
the record company didn't even
bother to have anything to do with us
but we, we had agents
and different managers, uh
who tried to see if they could penetrate
the tangled web of our, of our career
and most of them dropped out in horror.
And we bumbled around America
playing raggedly.
We started lookin',
uh, dirtier and dirtier
and skinnier and skinnier
and more and more used.
And we were getting worse and worse.
We're sinkin' fast
into semi-oblivious gigs.
Some people still liked us.
Some gigs I could
get it together to sing
some I couldn't.
Some gigs, I, we'd show up on time
some we didn't.
Up-upsetting people
usually because of me, wherever we went.
[instrumental music]
Butt f*ckers
Cock suckers
Wanna bang suck and run my world
(James) The band was
really deteriorating
very rapidly at that point.
So we went out
and played some gigs and stuff
but all kinds of stuff happened.
I mean, we had to play a job
with Steve Mackay on drums.
Which is really wild because, you know
Steve said he could play drums,
but he couldn't.
[laughing]
And s-so, so, we..
We needed the money so bad
we just let him play.
Oh, you want me to tell that story?
Iggy would call a song
and start doing it
and I'd start doing a b*at.
And he'd come back and grab
the sticks out of my hand
and go over to the floor tom
and he would b*at the b*at out.
And then I would know what the b*at was
and then I'd finish the song.
And he did that with every single song.
And the crowd's throwing bottles at him
and they're saying, "Come on, Iggy
"let's see you puke, m*therf*cker!
Ah, f*ck you, f*ck you."
And, like, you know,
givin' him all the abuse.
(Iggy) Thank you very much to the person
who threw this glass bottle at my head.
Nearly k*lled me, but you missed again
so you have to keep trying next week.
[glass shattering]
(James) Leading up to
the Michigan Palace job
was, was, what I referred
to it as a death march.
So they decided to book us
in a little club outside of Detroit
uh, called The Rock and Roll Farm.
Turns out it's a biker bar.
Here comes Iggy, out in the audience
confronting people in-the,
uh-as only Iggy can do.
And he comes up to one guy
and the guy just hauls off
and just cold-cocks him.
Just, kaboom!
[audience cheering]
(Iggy)
I don't know how many of you
saw us back in 1967
when we first started, you know
but it isn't too,
it isn't too easy being
"The Stooges" sometimes, you know?
(male #2)
Yeah!
(James)
You know, after that gig
nobody had to say anything.
It was just, like, everybody had had it.
I mean, we couldn't make a living.
People were throwing sh*t at us
all the time
and everybody was just tired of it.
And so, so, uh..
The-the brothers
moved back to Detroit.
(Scott) Jim never came to
me and said it's over.
I just figured it out myself.
Well, here I am sleepin' on the floor
I guess it's over.
I was basically homeless.
I had a drum set.
I sold it and bought
a one way ticket to Detroit.
Ended up going over to mom's house
and said, "Mom, I'm homeless
I'm broke, I'm hungry."
(Kathy) When the demise
of "The Stooges" occurred
it wasn't really a surprise.
And it goes back
to that full circle of, like
go home, you know, to mom.
After my brothers came home
I remember feeling relieved
and glad.
It was like, phew. You know?
They're safe.
That was the main thing.
That they came home safe
and they were still alive, you know?
(Iggy) That's when I went
home to my parents' trailer.
I was 24.
And, um..
The group had a... uh
a-sp, a sort of
a sputtering demise.
[indistinct chattering]
"Gimme Danger, Little Stranger."
[instrumental music]
Oh give me danger little stranger
And I'll give you a piece
Gimme danger little stranger
And I'll feel your disease
There's nothing in my dreams
Just some ugly memories
Kiss me like the ocean breeze
Hey
Oh
[indistinct singing]
[music continues]
Now if you will be my lover
Well I will shiver insane
[crowd cheering]
[children singing]
(Iggy)
When I was about five
we got a TV,
and I'd watch "Howdy Doody."
Buffalo Bob was basically like
uh, Timothy Leary for little kids on TV.
How do you feel long about the middle
of the morning, Clarabell?
Not so good, little dragged down, huh?
Well, then, Clarabell
what you should have is Ovaltine!
(Iggy) And I remember the
sound of the peanut gallery.
[laughter]
[yelling]
Wa-a-ah!
They had, uh, characters
like Clarabell the Clown, you know
and Clarabell the Clown
might do anything.
You didn't know what he was gonna do
and that just fascinated me.
But the big-big one,
it was "Soupy Sales."
[instrumental music]
It was called
"Lunchtime With Soupy."
He encouraged kids to write to him
but he said, "Always
when you write the letter
please, twenty-five words or less."
...where'd you learn
to sing like that?
At my speech class.
- At your sh.. At your...
- That's right, Bobby.
At your spee..
Who is your teacher?
(Iggy)
And that always stuck with me.
And when I wanted to start
writing songs for our group
I thought, "This is the way to go
"try to make it
twenty-five words
different words or less."
I didn't feel like I was Bob Dylan
blah-blah-blah-blah-blah,
you know?
And, uh, I thought
"Keep it really short,
and none of it will be
the wrong thing."
But no fun
My babe
No fun
[instrumental music]
(Iggy) Yeah, heh, I saw the
movie with my parents.
And it felt great
that we had the same trailer.
Inside, most of the lighting fixtures
and part of the furnishings
were built-in.
I had a little bedroom.
It was maybe, four or five feet wide
by about nine feet long.
There's room for a little palette
and a little mini desk.
So, the only place
I could set up my drums
was in the living room.
All weekend long
and every night after school
my, my drum set took up
the entire living room.
I had a lot of energy,
I'd b*at for hours.
b*at, bam, bam, bam, and I'm..
[imitating percussion music]
The whole place is shakin'.
[music continues]
They never complained
but what they finally did do
was after about a year of that
they just gave me the master bedroom.
[laughing]
At the time I thought,
"Wow, this is great!"
but now I realize,
also it was probably a..
Probably a comparable lesser
of two tortures.
And they moved a..
They-they moved
a standard sized bed
into the small room.
No desk,
just-just enough so they could
get in and out of bed.
And I had a...
...single bed and my drum set
set up all the time
in the master bedroom.
I was so lucky...
...to live at close quarters
in a simple environment with my parents.
I got to know my parents.
Uh, that's a..
That's a real treasure.
[instrumental music]
I remember dumping my Tinker toys
and my Lincoln Logs
when I was a little boy
and pickin' up the wood bits.
And I would make a drum out
of the cylinder and b*at on it.
And then, when I was in the fourth grade
they took us to
the River Rouge assembly plant
of the Ford Motor Company.
And they had a machine that engineered
a controlled drop of a piece of metal
onto a stamping plate.
And every time that thing hit
the stamping plate
it made... this racket, this..
[imitates banging]
A-a-a mega-clang.
And, uh,
I-I liked the mega-clang.
[instrumental music]
I walk today
Past some old time
(Iggy) I had a high school
band, "The Iguanas."
We got a job playin' full-time
at a teen club.
A place called The Ponytail.
I kept scheming, thinking of things
to get more attention and,
uh, so I thought
"What if I played
on the biggest drum riser
that anybody has ever had?"
I was about 16 feet up.
[chuckling]
All by myself, you know
and the, and the band
is down there grumbling.
A loser in the biz named Chuck
approached me and he said
"Well, I think you guys are pretty good
"I'd like to be your manager
and I'll help you
promote your own gigs."
So we rented a pier for one night
to throw our own concert.
And we had a huge turnout,
a huge success.
[instrumental music]
Until half-way through
the floor started to give.
[screaming]
Nobody got hurt but basically,
we, we broke the pier.
[Iggy chuckling]
That was the end of the self promotion.
I was "The Iguanas" during high school
and straight out of high school
then a semester in college.
Then I dropped out of college
and was looking out for
somebody to give me a job.
And the "Prime Movers"
were these school dropout
older guys.
And they knew
about all sorts of blues music.
Butterfield's band came through town
and the "Prime Movers"
tried to establish a connection
to see if our group could get
some work through them.
I asked, uh, Jerome Arnold
the bass player
in Butterfield at the time
if he had any tips for me and my playing
and he said, "When you play,
you play it like you mean it."
I was getting fairly good
and, um, at some point I lost
respect for or faith in the group.
And I thought it wasn't really itself.
So I decided to go where the real..
[chuckles] ...real people
were doing the real deal.
[instrumental music]
Different.
Not like white America.
I sat in with a couple of guys
and, uh, actually got paid
ten bucks a couple of times
to do very unimportant gigs.
Once with a guy named Johnny Young
and once with Big Walter Horton
when they had to go out
and play for white people.
And, uh, and it was a thrill
for me and I learned a lot.
[music continues]
It was more relaxed.
They knew how to have a good time.
And the music
was... very definite.
I saw a little glimpse
of a deeper life of people
who in their adulthood
had not lost their childhood.
[music continues]
I smoked a big joint
one day by the river
and realized that I was not black.
I thought I would like to do
for our generation
what the good black players
that I loved were doing for theirs.
[music continues]
Eventually, I just got tired of looking
at somebody's butt all the time.
[chuckling]
That's your-that's,
that's your curse.
The best butt I ever played
the two best butts I ever played behind
were Abdul Fakir,
in "The Four Tops."
He was the Four Top that would unify
the other in their,
in their dance steps.
He was, he was like
a ba-large bird.
And the other one was Mary Weiss
from "The Shangri-Las."
Wonderful body and face.
Delicious, creamy, female dream thing.
He don't hang around
With the g*ng no more
I realized drumming
wasn't what I wanted to do
so I decided to go back to Ann Arbor
but I needed a ride home.
So I called Ron
and somehow Scott Richardson had a car
and, uh, I did talk Ron
into working with me.
'Cause I know that he did it for me
Can't you see And I can see
It's still in the streets
His heart is out in the street
[instrumental music]
Ron Asheton was a musician.
He was one of the few people
that had longer hair than me.
He was playing bass
occasionally with a band
called "The Chosen Few"
and I really like his style on bass.
I met his brother, Scott, later
when I was working at Discount Records.
Across the street, there was a drugstore
called Marshall's.
And Scott and a couple of guys
hung out inside this drugstore
doing nothing.
One young tough and his friends.
Now Scott looked like Elvis.
Good-looking, athletic-looking
indirect, uncommunicative kid.
Scott left school after the ninth grade.
I think he would put it
to somebody and that was that.
He immediately began pestering me
for about a year to teach him
something on the drums.
I would ask you
do you double stroke on your triplets?
Mm-hmm.
You know, I would think up
things to ask you...
- Oh, I see.. Get it going.
- Just, just to talk to you.
(Iggy) So I taught him,
like, four or five beats.
Mostly, uh, Stax, Volt
and Bo Diddley stuff.
(Scott) My name is Scotty Asheton.
I go to Garfield School.
I'm eight and a half years old.
(Ron)
Hmm! My name is Ronny Asheton.
I'm nine years old.
My.. I go to Garfield school.
(Iggy) They lost their dad when,
uh, I-I think Ron was 14.
And their father had been
a fighter pilot in the w*r
and stayed in the m*llitary
shortly after the w*r
was something we all had in common.
(Ron)
...two, one, zero, dive!
[Ron imitating siren wailing]
My dad was a World w*r II veteran.
On his travels, he would buy
a little something
like a dagger or a medal.
And then I got interested in it.
And we started collecting.
And that was like a father and son..
We found something to bond with.
It had nothing to do with politics
or what it stood for.
That's pretty oddball that you're buying
your eight year old son n*zi stuff.
[laughing]
(Kathy)
My name is Kathy Asheton.
I go to Garfield School.
I'm in second grade.
That's all, folks.
(Kathy)
I-I was standing on our porch
and noticed this guy walking
into the neighborhood with long hair.
And so I said to Scotty,
"Why don't you flag him down
and see who he is," you know?
And he whistled down Dave Alexander
who it turned out to be.
And so Scotty met him
then Ronny ended up meeting with him.
And they were the ones
that gravitated more together
because of the, the commonality
of their interest
in the British music.
(Iggy) Ron cut his
senior year in school.
Dave sold his motorcycle
and flew to England
and they saw "The Who" play.
They went to the Marquee Club in London
and they stayed
until that money ran out.
And that's what really
set me on the path.
Because when I came back,
I tried to go back to school
and I just really didn't fit in.
And Ann Arbor was still frat boys.
There's not a lot of us.
And my counselor even said,
"Well, why don't you just
"take the rest of the year off
and try to come back
next year?"
And I'm going, "Yeah, okay."
But then going back
next year, forget it.
Next year you can plan
for higher success, Bill.
Yes. Thanks, Miss Evans.
Plan for higher success.
[drum roll]
(female #1) Tape is rolling,
any time you're ready
They had had the concept of a band
called "The Dirty Shames"
and that was basically
something they would tell people
when they met people
at a party or something.
"Yeah-yeah, we got a band, we're
called "The Dirty Shames.""
There was a period when "The Stooges"
resembled "The Dirty Shames."
In that we, we decided
we had a band,
we told people we had a band
but we hadn't really done any playing.
At one point, there was a trip
we made to New York
and we met some attractive
girls... teenagers.
Younger than us.
Who said they had a band.
And we-we drove to Princeton,
New Jersey
to see these girls play in a basement.
And they were just...
lived with their parents.
And they were very, very good.
And they were much better than us.
At that point we, we were shamed.
[instrumental music]
We were gonna try a series of rehearsals
at Ron and Scott's house.
It was Ron who let me know
"Look, I gotta feel good playing with..
"It's-it's,
uh-it's a weed thing.
That's when I'm in the mood."
I found a guy who said he would sell me
an entire marijuana plant.
So he brought it to my parents trailer.
He had this-he had this thing,
al-almost four feet of it.
The roots still had dirt on 'em.
I'd seen marijuana, it didn't look like
anything I'd ever seen.
"Are you sure this is.."
He said, "Yeah, yeah."
He said,
"But you gotta cure it."
There was a communal laundry
at the trailer park.
I put a couple quarters in the dryer
and started it up and sat there
and it started to stink.
"Oh, no!" I thought, I was
really scared, but nobody came.
I went and buried
the whole bag of marijuana
but when I wanted to rehearse
I'd dig it up and,
uh, catch a 45-minute bus
and it would be about noon.
Usually I could get Ron up
anywhere from five minutes
to a half-hour,
depending on what I had to do
throw rocks, hose and, um, and with luck
we'd actually all get down
in the basement
2:30 at the earliest.
But more often or not their mother
would come home just after three.
"I'm home, now shut up that racket!
I want some peace,
and Osterberg's a mental!"
[chuckling]
[rock music]
I was in Ann Arbor,
I never saw those riots of '67
but the way I thought,
must be abandoned houses
all over Detroit where we
could live for free now.
So I heard about one
and I went to Detroit with a tab
of Mescaline and a shovel.
And dropped the Mescaline
and went in that.
I told Ron and Scott,
I'm gonna make a house.
Prepare a house where we can live.
What are your building?
It's our house. Can't you tell?
Yes, but you haven't finished it.
I didn't know
from roofing and plumbing and..
I didn't know from that sh*t,
you know? But I tired.
This is where we hung out
for the first time
and started being a group of people
that were going to be a band.
Any time day or night, you have an idea
get together, talk about it,
play it out, work on songs.
(Iggy)
In one of our early houses
where we never accomplished
making any music
we had no discipline,
the cops kept shutting us down.
We were real communists.
We were not political at all
but we were true communists.
We lived in a communal house.
We ate the same food at the same time.
We practically shared
all the money pretty equally.
When we began to write
songs... happily
since we were too ignorant to realize
that there was intellectual property.
We shared authorship.
[instrumental music]
Michigan was a key c-crossroads
between San Francisco and New York.
And it was where everybody
stopped on the way
if they were gonna bother to stop at all
in the flyover country.
It was Ann Arbor.
I had actually heard a little bit
or read a little bit
either by or about these people.
I had everything, every sort
of record in the record store.
I was the Stooge
who knew who John Cage was
or knew Sun Ra, Carl Orff,
"The Ventures," Pharaoh Sanders
Wailers, Duane Eddy, Link Wray,
"The Velvet Underground."
"A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane.
We role-played a lot,
and listened to a lot of music
and one thing we would do
was get really stoned
on either marijuana or LSD.
Turn off all the lights
and we'd put on Harry Partch.
[bell ringing]
All these sounds..
[bell ringing]
Harry Partch was huge for me.
You know, it was the idea that he hoboed
he bohemed, he created
his own instruments.
I like to think
of w-what I'm doing
as visual and corporeal
and, uh, I-I want
the instruments on stage
and I want them to be beautiful.
I also want the, the, uh, musicians
to be a-an active part
a, a very active part in the,
the whole production.
(Iggy)
I was making instruments
while we played primitive riffs.
We'd-we'd find
an extremely simple theme
and play it over and over.
Then take a rest, and play another one.
Scott has in the basement
my old set of drums.
And then he also had
the big thing was oil drums.
He was b*ating on oil drums
with mallets.
Ron had his bass and an amp.
(Ron) Just let a feeling come over you
just kinda go with this
great sound that we're making.
A-and sometimes something
would pop in my head
sometimes, I, to get a sound
I would just hammer on my guitar.
(Iggy) They had this lap
steel and just tuned
every string b*at
to the same note, to the E.
Sounded like an airplane taking off.
We had a blender around.
And the Jim-O-Phone,
it was a cone.
It had an opening about four inches
or five inches across at the top.
As soon as you drop the mic
into the opening, you'll get..
[imitates a tone]
You lower it a little bit
and it'll just go..
[imitates a tone]
And it even goes down octaves
until you get..
[imitating a horn]
Dave, he operated
some of these instruments.
One of the first things
I used to love to do
with a mic, I would inhale..
[inhales]
And you listen
to "Asthma att*ck."
[rock music]
That's good free-form music.
One night, we'd been up
all night on LSD.
We were all in Ron's room
and I-I said
"What about a name
for our band?"
Ron just said, "Well, let's
just call it "The Stooges"
"'cause we don't do anything wrong
"but everybody's picking on us.
But we'll be
"The Psychedelic Stooges.""
[instrumental music]
(James) Here's a bunch of
guys that couldn't even play.
And they're playing the Grande Ballroom.
And the audience is just mesmerized.
You know, Iggy's in white face
playing his vacuum cleaner.
(Iggy)
I wore white face
and I had an aluminum Afro wig.
I was wearing a maternity smock
and then events would happen.
Like we would throw things
and make a noise.
I would throw a pie.
I actually tired to get the group...
...to work out a cover song.
What's simple enough
for the group to play
simple enough for me to sing,
and has a good b*at?
And I-I-I,
this was a terrible experiment
but we tried "She Cried"
by "Jay and the Americans."
[instrumental music]
[humming]
And when I told her
I didn't love her anymore
She cried
That was as far as we could ever get.
It sounded great.
I would, I'd do it right now.
(Iggy) There was a particular rehearsal
where I just handed
Ron a guitar and I just said
"You do it, I'm not that good
at the music part."
And Dave moved over on bass.
Our manager came home
and I improvised an angry song
and began again.
I-I had no way to express
my anger to this guy
who I never liked so much.
I just started jumping up and down
like, kinda the way chimps or baboons do
before they're gonna fight.
Like that, and as soon
as I started doing that
poof, up went the Asheton's.
All night
Till I blow
Away
I feel alright
I feel alright
That was the first time
I ever saw those two guys...
...powerfully motivated by something
that wasn't an imitation
of somebody else.
Something that was their own.
In the Asheton's I found primitive man.
So
Wooh!
So
[audience applauding]
(Rob Tyner) Brothers and sisters,
it's time to get down with it.
Brothers, it's time to testify,
I want to know
are you ready to testify?
Are you ready?
I give you a testimonial!
The "MC5."
[instrumental music]
Hey love is like a Ramblin' Rose
(Iggy) Fred Smith was
dating Kathy Asheton.
Scott and I and Ron went with Kathy
to see "MC5" when they were
still a cover band.
Lot of attitude, they had the look down
they were doing
British influenced R and B
rock and soul.
I remember a night when the three of us
drove into Detroit
to see if we could talk
about getting some opening slots.
And they had a practice space
with a big thick door
and Scott and Ron and I stood
there in the freezing cold
listening through the door
to "Kick Out The Jams"
coming through like..
[imitating guitar music]
It was simple and then,
uh-wow, so powerful.
We should get some of that.
[rock music]
And we would play with them
for nothing in church basements
youth centers, and we would
open some of their shows
at the Ballroom.
We joined their circus in many ways.
[music continues]
The Five were bigger time
commies than we were.
The big poohbah of the area
was John Sinclair.
(John) Total as*ault on the
culture by any means necessary
including rock and roll, dope,
and f*cking in the streets.
We believe that the... general,
uh, social structure...
...of the Western world is crumbling.
And, uh, that, that now is
the time to increase
the as*ault on this culture, and, uh..
(Iggy) Under Sinclair's
cloud of mega-organization
began to branch into, first,
there was the "MC5" commune
and then there was
Trans-love Energies.
And then they were
becoming more political
and they wanted to be
like Black Panthers
and they started this
W-White Panther party
which was, which was honestly,
it was just ridiculous.
We tried to avoid that.
We tried to avoid everything.
I guess that was why you,
you kept hearing
the word "Nihilist" about us.
But finally, at one point,
John put his foot down.
And he wanted us to accompany
the Five to play
at the democratic convention
in Chicago in '68 that culminated
in bloody rioting.
[instrumental music]
Well I'm sittin' all alone..
And I didn't want to.
There was a, you're either
with us or against us, moment
there and I-I wasn't
going for it.
I still didn't say anything.
I started somersaulting around the room.
[chuckles]
That was my reaction.
I-I couldn't think of any..
I don't know, I don't know.
Oh, well, you know, I don't know why.
But I just, I couldn't say no.
And I wasn't gonna say yes.
So finally he just left the room.
I-I remember that moment.
That wasn't who we were,
and that would have come out.
[rock music]
Not long after that, we were playing in
the student union in Michigan
when a record scout
was coming to see them.
He was, it was recommended
by Wayne Kramer
"You should check out
our little brother band."
(Danny) This was Wayne Kramer,
I'll never forget this.
He said, "You know, you'll like
us, but I think if you like us
"there's, we have a little brother band
you will really like them."
Well, he was prescient in his..
I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, who?"
It was "Iggy And The Stooges."
They were, I said,
"Well, when can I see them?"
He said, "They're playing
this afternoon.
On the campus
at the University of Michigan."
I went across the street,
and up the stairs
and heard this incredible music
just booming in the hallways.
I said, "Ah, this is so great."
And I was, I was pulled by the music.
People ask me,
"When did you first see Iggy?"
But I didn't.
I heard them before I saw them.
[rock music]
Then I saw Iggy, he was the front man.
I thought,
"This is just perfection."
We used to get those big amps crankin
and this room just rang.
It was like
the-the sound just bounced
you can hear it from this.
Just imagine Marshall stacks at ten.
This is, uh, where we were
discovered by Danny Fields.
We got done playing,
this is the same stage.
Place was packed,
you know, imagine the late
this was late sixties.
Like 1968.
He was a PR for Elektra Records.
So we get off stage and he goes, uh
"How would you guys
like to be, uh, stars?"
"Oh, yeah. Right, sure.
Throw this guy out."
And he was serious.
(Danny) I'm just gonna
call the president
of Elektra Records, and I said
"I just saw two great bands.
"The one band
is really popular around here
"they have a following
"they play to two,
three thousand people.
And the other band is a little
early stages of development."
Jac just said, "See if the big
band will take twenty thousand
and the little band
will take five."
Both bands signed on that day
it was the weekend
of September 22nd, 1968.
(Iggy) Show biz is not a friendly place
and I gotta say, of all the people
that ever extended a hand to our group
the "MC5" were probably
the most genuine about it.
As soon as we got signed,
we started feeling
more professional.
I think we realized we didn't need to be
"The Psychedelic Stooges."
We'll just be "The Stooges."
So Ron actually called up Moe Howard
to see if it would be okay.
[rock music]
That was Ron's finest hour,
when he came up over
the next months with two great riffs.
Uh, "Wanna Be Your Dog,"
and "No Fun."
So for a while we just went out
and played it
and-and I remember
on both that one
and "No Fun," the members of
the "MC5" raising an eyebrow
and going, "Uh, you got
a good riff there."
[rock music]
We-we loved it. We loved it.
Every, all, the whole group
loved New York.
There were things in that environment
that didn't really exist for
a young person in the Midwest.
[music continues]
In my room I want you here
I'd been listening
to one of Velvet's records.
It's just very, very good.
An-and it was simple.
And the simplicity,
and some of the droning
and some of the moods
had a big influence on us, you know?
So when they suggested
John Cale, we thought
it was perfect for us.
That record... wouldn't
have felt the same
if we hadn't brought it to New York
and played it for that person.
We preformed for him.
I-I remember that he
wore a big black cape
like Z-Man in "Beyond
the Valley of the Dolls."
He brought Nico in a few times.
It really looked like,
uh, Morticia and Gomez.
Ready.
When we recorded the record.
They couldn't get a decent band track
of the band unless I danced.
[instrumental music]
I would stand in the band room with them
just with no mic or anything
and just dance and jump around
and roll around.
Do whatever I had to do to get a take.
The studio was, was a tiny little room
above a peep show on Times Square
but it was an R and B studio
run by Jerry Ragovoy
with tiny little amplifiers.
And then we came in
with our Marshall stacks
and everybody freaked out.
[screaming]
The host engineer started saying
"But Jerry Ragovoy
does it this way."
"I don't care about Jerry Ragovoy.
You know,
you don't understand."
[screaming]
Cale finally got us
to turn our amps to nine.
That was the compromise.
You took my arm
And you broke my..
We had four songs.
"Dog." "Fun." "69." and "Ann."
And the idea was,
each song had a song part
that lasted about two minutes.
And then there'd be about ten
minutes of improv on the riff.
When we heard it back taped, I thought
these songs are great,
for the first three minutes
this is good.
And then after the three
minutes, I started thinking
I don't know if this is really
so great to listen to
at minute seven here.
But I didn't say anything.
And-and then it took
the very sensible
record store owner
in business, Jac Holzman.
No, no, no, no.
He said, "I can't put this out.
There's not enough songs."
And you know,
I-I knew he was right.
Oh, we got a lot more songs,
just, uh, give
book us another session.
[instrumental music]
She
Not right
I want something
I want something tonight
(Scott)
Half or more of the songs
were written in the Chelsea Hotel.
The day before we went into the studio
and the song, "Not Right,"
we had never played.
The first time we'd ever played it
that was it, that was the take.
[instrumental music]
It's always
Well it's always this way
[chanting]
Shree Ram..
Dave Alexander,
he said...
..."Why don't we do something
with an Om chant?"
I don't know if it was Ron
or me, but one of us
melodicized the chant and then made it..
Om...
...Shree Ram...
...Ja.
Ram, ja, ja, Ram..
Tonight..
If we didn't have that
song on that album
we-we would have had
just a bunch of similar
rock tracks in the party line.
[chanting]
Ram, cha, cha, Ram..
I hold myself tight
[chanting]
Shree Ram..
It did make a statement that
we weren't like the other bands.
[chanting]
...cha, cha, Ram.
I won't fight
(Iggy)
Dave changed our history.
I won't fight
[chanting]
Ram, cha, cha..
That record, I thought it was a..
...myself that it was a...
...sort of neat, petite, well-organized
good, sharp, little poke, and, uh..
I was, I was real proud of the, uh
the clarity of the songs.
Midnight winds are landing
at the end of time
(Iggy) Nico's the most culturally
and artistically knowledgeable
beautiful woman that I'd ever met.
She's ten years older than me
and she had an opinion about
almost everything
that had to do with the arts,
and I listened to her.
Now I began being influenced,
probably got a little crazier.
She stayed a couple of weeks, I think.
They hated having a girl in the house.
(Ron) And at first we
resented her being there.
It's like.. Dammit!
And they pretty much kept to themselves
so there's no hanging out...
...and then the worst was, uh...
...bringing her in the practice room.
No women or girlfriends
in the practice room.
She'd sit there..
(Iggy) ...watch, and she'd
critique it, you know.
"This one is very good."
I-I think
she was on the rebound
maybe from something
with Lou Reed, perhaps
so she'd, she'd usually
get in a dig at Lou
whenever she liked something
I was doing, she'd say
"You, you are much better
you are much more talented
than Lou."
So we just started hanging out and, uh
gave her a break because she was
an interesting, good person.
[instrumental music]
(Iggy) And we went and
played that material
at the World's Fair Pavilion...
...in Queens, near where
the Ramones grew up...
...as, as an opening act to Joe Cocker.
Well, you know,
Joe Cocker's singing, uh..
You are so beautiful..
And everybody's...
...going nuts. You know,
this is it, and then we're like..
[humming]
And just..
[crowd cheering]
In the 50's...
...they figured out how to suck
the life out of rock and roll
on the one hand they replace
Elvis with Fabian
and then also at the same time
we'll run out Perry Como on 'em.
This was happening again.
Rock and roll at the time
was being co-opted
by a political-industrial
complex of corrupt performers
and evil manager-owners,
who were going to create
whatever they thought
was the best product for them.
Whether you want it or not
we're gonna shove this down
your little throats.
They rejected their own
country and their own people.
It's a, it's cultural treason.
There was more "American Idol."
More of the corny talent show
suggested to the American
audience at that time than, uh
than people like to admit.
It was all, you know..
[humming]
Marrakesh Express
Wouldn't you know we're riding
On the Marrakesh Express..
I mean, somebody needs to say, you know
some of the biggest
peace-love acts
of the California, uh
five years of love, umm...
...were created in m-meetings.
And stuff... smells.
I say it s-still smells.
[instrumental music]
[man screaming]
[screaming continues]
[music continues]
We crossed the Mississippi
for the first time in, uh, 1970
to record Fun House and
every day, around noon
we would all go into the studio
and, uh, record for the day.
Each day was always, it was
this is the day of loose
and that's all we
were gonna do that day.
And there was the day of
down on the street,
et cetera, et cetera.
And then a couple of days mixing.
It was under two weeks.
We were experimenting
after "The Stooges"
with more aggressive music,
with more space
a la b*tches Brew by Miles Davis
we hoped...
...and everything that
James Brown was doing
with Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker.
And I saw Steve playing with
his band "The Carnal Kitchen."
Oh, my God, this guy
can really blow a horn.
He had "1970" and "Fun House"
already written
just waiting for me.
And we got to "Fun House" and he said
"Play like Maceo Parker
on acid."
[saxophone music]
(Iggy) And we did some
interesting things with space.
Things like, uh, very minimal...
...drum, uh
four-four drum beats
but with, uh, syncopations on the top.
[instrumental music]
And double tracking leads sometimes
but with no rhythm guitar.
That's not usually done in rock and roll
it's not very.. It's supposed
to be very commercial.
Elektra studio was just marvelous.
It was just one room,
there were no choices.
It was intimate, but big enough
that you could
spread things a little bit.
It had a, it had a nice throw rug.
I was using my own PA stack in there.
I didn't want
the studio-made sound
that the vocals had on the first album.
- Would you like a music stand?
- Say what?
- Would you like a music stand?
- No, that's okay.
Ron says he needs the bass up again.
(Ron)
He-he turned it up.
(Don) We got the red lights,
anytime you're ready.
[Iggy laughing]
(Iggy) We were housed
in the Tropicana Motel.
And Warhol had the d-door
to his room ajar one day
I went in to say hi.
He suggested, he said,
"Why don't you do some songs..
"Just sing the newspaper.
Just sing what it says
in the newspaper."
I haven't gotten around to it yet but
that was his, that was his idea.
While we stayed there,
the suite next to mine
it was occupied by Ed Sanders
who was writing "The Family."
I was, int.. Always interested
in new looks, too.
There was a pet store catered to dogs
called The Bowser Boutique
down the street on Santa Monica
and I walked by one day...
And I saw this
red dog collar and I thought..
"I would look so cool if
I had that dog collar," right?
So I bought the dog collar
and I started wearing it every day
to go to the studio,
and Ed Sanders would
look at me and he'd say..
"You don't know
what that means, do you?"
You know, I still, I-I still
don't know what it means!
- You know, but he was like..
- It was cool.
(Iggy)
One day, I was out for a walk
and I was walking
in the opposite direction
from the Tropicana.
It was on, uh, Santa Monica
I think it was the corner of Westmont
and a black caddy came tearing
assin' down, down the hill..
He had to slam on the brakes
because I was
stepping off the curb. I..
He looked at me and he says,
I was sure it was John Wayne.
"g*dd*mn it!"
I haven't lost my temper in 40 years
but, Pilgrim, you caused
a lot of trouble this morning
mighta got somebody k*lled.
(Iggy)
And then he swerved
he swerved around me
and sped off in the
general direction of Dan Tana's.
(Mondo) And here's the world-famous
Whisky A Go-Go on the strip.
A favorite dancing spot
for both the mods and
movie stars who want to get it on.
Let's drop in and see
what's happening tonight.
[instrumental music]
(Iggy)
It was really a California experience
and then to pay for it,
we were bidden to do two
two nights at the Whiskey.
And the Whiskey a Go-Go in LA
and two nights in San Francisco
at the Fillmore.
(Scott)
Which freaked everybody out.
Every time, every place we played...
(Iggy) Nobody had ever
seen anything like
what we did, you know..
I took a record of pretty music
Now I'm putting it to you
straight from hell
Upon our return to the Midwest
we were playing larger festivals...
...larger events and we were getting
pretty good life
because the stuff on Fun House
was pretty damn rocking live.
I feel fine to be dancin', baby
I feel fine I'm a shakin' leaf
I feel fine to be dancin', baby
(Iggy) Festivals that, that
became bigger and where we..
Where we were stating to get more notice
happened in the summer of '70
after we completed Fun House
and, uh, and we would generally go out
and a-a-as people often do,
play that whole work
and we were pretty much ignoring
the stuff from the first album.
And, uh, I remembered
I read a q-quote
from Johnny Ramone once
he went to see us and apparently
there were too many new songs
that he didn't know
and he was disgusted.
[rock music]
(male #1) Since we broke
away for our message
Iggy has been in the crowd
and out again three different times.
They seem to be enjoying it
and so does he.
(Iggy) The group was always very aware
of the theatrics of the moment.
And they never moved, ever.
In 40 minutes, the drummer
would never look up
and, uh, the other two
might move a foot or two.
(James)
We never knew what would happen
and so, in the old days, you know
we just literally, I mean, it could be
we'd be out there, you know..
[guitar music]
You know, and there's no vocals.
You know, the guy's out in the crowd.
He's down on the floor
somewhere, you know
there's no vocal, so we're still going..
[guitar music]
So until he starts singing,
we don't do anything.
And, uh, and then, you know
eventually he'll climb back up
and start singing and that's, you know
it's all about,
you know, working together
to, to make a show.
(Mike) You know, the way he works a gig
it reminds you that life,
big time, is in the moment.
M-maybe most of it.
But the moment is really intense about
what's going down because
you know, "I feel like
a short-order cook.
"I gotta get everybody's order.
You want fries?
You want a shake?"
You know, he's going out, in his mind
he says, he's going to the crowd.
(Iggy) It was important to make contact
I felt at every show.
And we were opening for
"The Mothers of Invention"
that was the best group,
in my estimation
that we'd ever opened for.
So, near the end of our set
I was not sure we'd really
reached across.
And there were
a couple of girls, big ones.
They'd moved up
right in front of the stage
and they just were laying there
on their backs
making themselves
very comfortable, relaxing.
And I got to the edge of the stage
and I did what I'd seen little kids do
sometimes when they want
attention from their parents.
I thought, I'm just gonna fall forward
they'll catch me, and, uh
they moved. I..
My, uh, my front teeth
which I've since had repaired
went straight through one of my lips.
Sometimes it was eventful,
sometimes it was, listen..
I-I-I was a guy,
very young, in a rock band
and having beautiful summers
in the Midwest.
So, so-sometimes I'd just
go down there, and, you know
see some chick and go,
"Hey, what's your number?"
You will come to me
whenever I call you...
...and I will enjoy that very much.
(Iggy)
I had seen a lot of pictures
of the, the Pharaohs and, um
and some of their
a-atttendants.
Egyptian iconography
I guess you'd call it.
And it impressed me that the Pharaohs
seldom wore shirts.
Here in a minute
end of all these announcements
we're gonna...
...we're gonna have a big ceremony
and we're gonna plant the seeds
and then we're gonna
light the joint and celebrate.
[instrumental music]
Hey hey mama tell you now
I was gonna die..
That particular festival
came along at a time
when all the different
free-love
free-wheeling, free-roaming
social groups in Detroit
were all starting to sizzle up
in the frying pan of dr*gs.
We all got so stoned.
[indistinct chatter]
I was in a tent with some wild people
and I took so much of
what I thought was coke
before the thing that I had amnesia
accompanied by
a vertical malfunction with my vision.
Like the sort of thing
that used to happen
with televisions of that era
when the picture
would keep flipping over and over.
Couldn't remember who I was
and then finally I remembered
there was something
I had to do.
[rock music]
Out of my mind on Saturday night
1970 rollin' in sight
Dave, he just went
all the way out that night.
(Scott) He got extremely
drunk before the show
and he couldn't play the songs.
One of the road crew went out
and turned his volume
all the way off on his amp
and he kept playing
he didn't even realize
that his amp wasn't on.
(Iggy)
We had a good billing
Danny had brought important people
from New York to see us.
We were on the same bill with,
uh, Rod Stewart and the "Faces"
we wanted to do well, we got out there
there's no bass.
So, I was extra aggressive.
I did try to get to the fence.
Um, I was prevented.
There was an actual trench dug
and there were horse police.
And so I started calling, "Come on!
[chuckles]
Tear that fence."
I think I mentioned
"Tear the fence down."
[indistinct chatters]
(male #3)
Lead Stooge is freaked out.
(Iggy) I think the fence
took a couple of hits.
(male #3)
He jumped over the fence
and we've lost power on the amp.
(Iggy) I don't remember being arrested.
I remember just sitting
after the gig, really like
still whacked out,
and watching Ronnie Wood
and Rod Stewart drinking Mateus
to get ready for their show.
That was their, uh,
intoxicant of choice.
[rock music]
(Scott)
Iggy fired him, but not really
cause Dave wanted to be let go.
Yeah, I felt bad but, um...
...I also felt there's no sense
in having someone in the band
that's not serious, who doesn't
really want to be in the band.
We remained friends after.
Damn
[vocalizing]
His parents called me up,
said he was in the hospital.
What it was was an inflamed pancreas
which he could have survived
but they had an IV in him...
...and he wanted it out,
and he wanted to go home
and he wanted a beer.
So they sedated him to a point
to where he was unconscious
and when he was unconscious,
he got pneumonia
and the pneumonia k*lled him.
He'd recorded two albums
he, um, became to be in a
famous rock and roll band.
He had accomplished
what he wanted to do.
He was ready to go.
...do you feel it?
Said do you feel it
when you touch me?
And do you feel it
when you touch me?
There's a fire
There's a fire
Oh it's just a dreaming
I just wanna be dreaming
(Iggy)
I'd been using psychedelics.
[yelping]
They were probably
cut with a lot of speed.
[screams]
God, no! No! No! No!
I began to have problems
controlling my nerves.
Get me out of this terrible place!
(Iggy) That was about
the time that one guy
who lived in our house,
a guy named John Adams
didn't have much to do in his life..
Here. Lookey here.
(Iggy)
Decided he wanted to take up
an old heroin addiction.
- What's H?
- Shh! Not so loud.
And uh... I fell into that.
As did other members of the group.
Everything just decayed.
And to see those guys
just to see everyone hit rock bottom
to see your whole world crumble
when it's not really your fault.
And I never did it, and never wanted to.
Aside from us just being
flat out unreliable
uh, we, we had Scotty Asheton
was driving the equipment truck one day.
It's like a-a bridge
with whatever, ten feet or
eleven feet clearance, and
truck's twelve feet, you know?
(Danny) That's the metaphor of
the early Stooges, that's it.
The van's destroyed
the instruments that
they rented are destroyed.
The bridge is destroyed.
[rock music]
They were victims of their own, um...
...lack of professionalism.
Down on the street
where the faces shine
But they were also
the victims of other forces
that we could call anti-art.
[music continues]
"The Stooges" record Fun House
so we're at the point
where Elektra has to decide
whether or not to pick up
the option for a third album.
William S. Harvey and I
went out to Ann Arbor
went to Stooge Hall, and they played
what were the songs
that were going to be their new songs
and I just thought "Yes.
"The music is what I loved
and there's more of it."
They were accelerating
from where they started
they were better, but
that made no difference to him.
And we got into our rental car
went back to the hotel,
we got in the elevator and..
"So, Bill, what'd you think?"
And he said
"I didn't hear a thing."
Got out of the elevator,
the elevator door closed
I called them up, and I said
"You're being dropped."
"I didn't hear a thing."
That says it all.
[music continues]
They didn't hear a thing from day one.
They had the world's
greatest band sitting there
they didn't hear a thing.
And that's kind of what the world said.
I don't think they formally
dropped me, but they said
"Look here's a, here's a
Nikon camera, as a gift.
[chuckles]
Go away for awhile."
And so I scurried off to clean up
and shut down the band for a while.
My parents were very friendly
with a pharmacist
who completely illegally,
without a prescription
ordered, uh, a bottle
of liquid methadone
for my exclusive daily use.
This was a few miles,
couple of miles from our trailer
on the edge-edge of Ann Arbor.
And I would usually walk
in the morning over there
to take a small dose
that he would personally give me
from this family pharmacist.
I got to the point,
I could go a few days
without anything.
[siren blaring]
And that was
when I... went to New York.
Iggy and I were sitting on my bed
we'd fallen asleep to some
black and white Western
and Lisa called me and she said
"Oh, is-is Iggy with you?"
I said, "Oh yeah."
She said "Well, I'm with
David Bowie, we're at Max's
he really wants to meet Iggy."
I went down there and met this
th-this manager, Tony Defries.
I met David, who was... cool.
They were going back to England,
I went back to Detroit
and there an, there was an understanding
that at a later date
um, they would arrange,
uh, for me to go to London
and make some sort of a recording.
[bells chiming]
They had somehow and someway
signed me to something
and, uh, using that in turn, uh
uh, s-signed a deal
whereby they got some money
from Columbia for my services.
Like that chick Pebbles
that signed up TLC
or, uh, Lou Pearlman
with the boy band "NSYNC."
It was one of those contracts.
It was in-insane work demands
uh, ridiculous splits
of money. Uh..
I didn't really understand...
...who owned what, with who I,
with whom I was signed.
I was in the big bad world now,
I was not..
I-I-I was not the, uh, uh..
I wasn-I wasn't
a teenage communist anymore.
This fella, Tony Defries, what I thought
was gonna be an effective,
and was an effective flamboyant
theatrical management style
based on Colonel Tom Parker
with the big cigar
big Afro hair,
and a great big mink coat.
But in the interim I decided
I wanted to re-retain
my Detroit identity
and, uh, told them in advance
"You gotta bring
James Williamson with me."
[rock music]
Alright
Whoo
(James) I guess he was trying
to capture the attitude
that I had, which I did
have quite a bit of attitude
when I first started, uh, out.
You know, I didn't really
have any framework for anything
I was, what? You know,
not even twenty years old yet.
And I, um, I didn't have any skills.
And so, all I could do
was play the guitar.
I went from living
on my sisters couch
literally, to getting
a phone call from Ig and saying
"You know, tomorrow,
we have a plane ticket for you
and you're going to London."
Right?
And so I-I just, I-I
I got my guitar and I left
and my sister didn't
even know where I was.
You know, I mean, my girlfriend
called and-and she goes
"Well, I don't know where
he is" and-and the girl goes
"Well, is his guitar there?"
And she said, "No" And she goes
"Alright, he's gone."
(Iggy) So James and I got to
Heathrow, and, uh, you know
and the cops took
one look at us and thought..
"Undesirable, no money.
What are you doing?
"What do you mean, you think
you're not going anywhere.
You're-you're going
into this holding t*nk."
And, uh, it took us a while
to contact Defries
on the phone and he came down
and signed for us.
I don't think he ever really wanted us.
I think David Bowie was interested
in working with American artists
who he admired at the time.
I also think there was a bit of
an American invasion planned.
Ultimately, they were hoping
to probably have us produced
by David Bowie who had
a parallel career in production
and he was producing Lou Reed's
album around the same time.
It wasn't what I wanted to do.
I would've been polite
about the, uh, backup musicians
but the-the names
bandied about were people
who had already been
in the "Pink Fairies."
[rock music]
When I investigated the "Pink Fairies"
it sorta looked to me like an amalgam
of the ideas that had
already been thrashed out
by the "MC5" and Alice Cooper.
It wasn't right for us, I thought.
I talked them into, uh, bringing
two more Stooges
over from America.
[rock music]
I'm hungry
I'm hungry
We had a vision
and we started rehearsing in earnest
in a filthy basement,
and, uh, started getting tight.
The song-writing
wasn't really there yet
but the... the grooves
the, um, the force was.
Some of the songs we had already written
and brought in at that time
were "I Got A Right"
"Gimme Some Skin"
"Tight Pants."
Which later showed up as
"Shake Appeal on Raw Power."
We did some demo sessions
w-a, at a little eight track
called R.G. Jones in Wimbledon
and those were good demo sessions.
[rock music]
[indistinct singing]
Then later...
...we did, uh, we did a little
little more formal session in
Olympic Studios with Keith Harwood
who was The Stones engineer at that time
and that's the recording
of "I Got A Right"
that's become so popular, since it's
fast as lightning and kicks like a mule.
[rock music]
Anytime I want I got a right to move
No matter what they say
Anytime I want I got a right to move
No matter what they say
I got a right I got a right to move
Anywhere I want anywhere
It was our best effort, uh, to, to..
To make hit records, basically.
We wanted-we wanted
to make a good record
um, but the, the thing about us is that
w-we're so delusional about
what is popular, you know
because all we really care about
is what we like.
Sometime, I don't know
if it was late fall
somebody knows.
We, uh..
We had-we had written
the second batch of material
that was gonna be "Raw Power."
And eventually, they just
all got busy with Bowie
and left us in the studio
cause we owed a record to CBS
and that's where "Raw Power"
came out of and
and we really, you know,
I-I've said this before
we were just left
without any adult supervision
I mean, we just did our thing.
[rock music]
I'm a street walking cheetah
With a heart full of napalm
I'm a runaway son
of the nuclear A-b*mb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
(Iggy) As a guitarist,
James fills the space
as if somebody's just let
a drug dog into your house
and it's big.
And he-he finds every corner...
...of a musical premise
and of a piece of space and time
and fills it up with detail.
It's a very detailed approach
and it's really hard to find
a space to say something
that he hasn't thought of or occupied.
[music continues]
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby penetrates my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searchin'
searchin' to destroy oh
(Iggy) And so Ron plays a
sort of a nimble bass style
and it really-really helps
lift James, my vocals
I had to go way up high
I'm-I'm an octave above
Fun House to find a space
that James isn't occupying.
Uh, Scott solved the problem
by-by just b*ating
the living sh*t out of his drums.
[music continues]
Look out honey 'cause
I'm using technology
(James) The bass player
and the drummer are
the most important thing in
the band, other than the songs.
You know, when those guys were together
they were just like
this unit and, you know
and it just was rock solid.
It was so good,
it was really, really good.
And that's what, uh,
unfortunately on Raw Power
you don't actually hear the bass
that much
but it was there, it was good.
[music continues]
[crowd cheering]
(Iggy)
The band from late 1971
when we were signed with Main Man
to early '72 or whenever
we went to London and began
working with them, to early '73
when they publically dropped us
but privately told me
that I was suspended
for moral turpitude
and embarrassing their company
they consistently refused
to allow us to play a gig.
And we were...
we were popular enough
that we could have gone out
and earned most of our bacon.
They wouldn't let us play.
The situation brought out
our old weaknesses
and we were told
that we were gonna go live in Hollywood
in this firm Main Man house there.
And it was oil and water
James Williamson behaved badly
Iggy Pop behaved badly
Scott Asheton just looked at the floor
and let it roll
and Ron Asheton was embittered
and powerless and threw up his hands
and the group drifted into dr*gs.
Again, this embarrassed these people.
Defries came through town
one day in a limo.
I think he was gonna talk to me
about something
they could do with me
that didn't involve these guys
that would
put a positive spin
on his investment with me.
And he got me into his limo
and he said, "James..
"...I want to tell you
what we're going to do.
"We're going to take you to New York
"to Broadway
and you're going to be
Peter Pan."
If I'm pleased with myself
I have every good reason to be
And I, with deep sincerity
an-and I mean this.
I said, "No, no, no, Tony.
"I've gotta be Manson.
We've gotta make a movie."
He dropped me off and it was
just a couple days after that
that the rest of us
got thrown out of the house.
(Williamson) The brothers
moved back to Detroit.
Later on, Iggy and I
decided we would
give it another whirl.
And so we, uh, we created
what later became "k*ll City."
We lucked out,
we-we had a friend, Jimmy Webb
he had a studio in his house.
It was funny, I mean,
you know, you'd have guys like
Art Garfunkel come in to the session
he'd listen to play backs
and then they would just leave,
you know?
And without anybody,
any takers for the album
we-we, we just called it quits.
Jim went off with Bowie to Europe...
...and I went to work
for a recording studio
but I, um, quickly realized
that there's only one thing
worse than playing in a band
you don't like
and that's recording
five or ten bands every day
that you can't stand.
So, I-I really wasn't
very cut out for that
but I did learn a lot,
and it stimulated, uh
an interest in electronics,
and at that time
it was the very, very beginning
of the personal computer
and so I went off and I learned
how to do all that stuff.
I'll tell ya, uh, when I was
uh, studying engineering
to go from "The Stooges" to calculus
was a huge existential gap.
[man screaming]
So I went and moved
to the Silicon Valley
and started working
in the electronics industry
so, and I've been there ever
since, I mean, that's been
uh, 27 year career.
[rock music]
(Iggy)
After "The Stooges" collapsed
Ron first joined "New Order"
and then he did "Destroy
All Monsters" with Niagara.
[indistinct singing]
[rock music]
(Scott) I played five years in
the "Sonic Rendezvous Band"
with Fred Smith, and, um..
He married Patty Smith.
And once he did that was
the end of the band.
Went on another five years
playing with Scott Morgan without Fred
making $30, $40 a night.
Three sets a night.
I'd have day jobs.
Warehousing
landscaping
for two years I drove a taxi cab.
Just crummy jobs.
(Danny)
I think that "The Stooges"
reinvented music as we know it.
If I say that "The Stooges"
music is-is point zero
The "Ramones,"
who were a great love of mine
after that
knew each other not because
they liked each other
because they were the only four people
at their school
who liked "The Stooges."
I'm a street walking cheetah
with a heart full of napalm
I'm a runaway son
of the nuclear A-b*mb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
[rock music]
[indistinct singing]
(Dinah) Do you feel you've
influenced anybody in the..
I think I helped wipe out the sixties
[crowd laughing]
You'll get one number
and one number only
because I'm a lazy bastard.
This is "No Fun."
[rock music]
No fun my babe
No fun
No fun my babe
No fun
...want to be alone
I'm out here by myself
I don't want to be alone
In love
Nobody else
It's-it's Dionysiac.
If you know the difference
between Dionysiac
and Appolonian art.
[rock music]
[indistinct singing]
Now I want to be your dog
Now I want to be your dog
Come on
[instrumental music]
Yeah I do mean you
She got TV eye on me
(Mike Watt) There was
a movie "Velvet Goldmine"
in which one of the dudes
is a composite of
Ig and they wanted like some kind of
music coming from somebody
called "The Rats."
They put Steve Shelley out
because he's from Midland, Michigan
to go with Ronny and he'd write songs
and he comes to New York
and we get to record with him, yeah.
And here I got to sit across
and Thrust, too, you know.
There's the guy doing the "TV Eye"
we could see his hands and play along.
It was a trip.
Uh, I got sick
when I was, uh, 42
and it almost k*lled me, this infection.
They had to put tubes in me
and I couldn't work bass,
so it was the first time
I stopped since I was thirteen
and when I came back
I was all atrophied and really lame.
I thought you were not supposed
to lose that kinda stuff.
So I panicked and then started doing
Stooges songs to get strong
and I put together some bands
just to do this.
There's not chord changes
but it's a lot about the feel.
So, "Little Doll," "Little Doll"
"Little Doll," "Little Doll."
On the West Coast I did one
with Perk and Peter
from "p*rn for Pyros," and on the East
I did it with J and Murph from Dinosaur.
Well J gets his solo album
and he asks me to tour.
He says, "Man, it's hard for me
to sing every song every night
"so why don't you do some Stooges
like we did with those gigs."
And when we come through
Ann Arbor, he says
"You know Ronny" because of the..
Now I got his, uh, phone number.
I call him and he comes to the Blind Pig
and he jams Stooges with us.
So J says, "Come on tour!
"First two thirds will be mine, and then
the last third
we'll do Stooges."
Then 2002 comes and, uh..
Thurston is curating
a All Tomorrow Party
at UCLA and he says
"Why don't we get Scotty?"
You know.
He was living in his truck.
And so rent him a drum set and he comes
so me and J are playing
with both Asheton brothers
and we do some gigs in Europe...
...and that's where I think
Ig heard about it.
It was time for me to record again
and, um..
I'd run out of things to say.
And my record label had, um...
...run out of patience with, uh
my middling sales
on the last couple of albums.
To pre-empt, uh, being produced
which was, is,
was the kiss of death to me
I offered to do a-a guest..
A guest star album.
I started listing everything
everybody I thought of who was cool
and then I realized
none of them are any as cool
as "The Stooges."
[rock music]
Sometimes just a,
a hop or two in front of me
playing with J. Masci
from Dinosaur Jr.
I got a phone call oneday
from Ron Asheton...
...and he was saying,
"Well, we're playing
this thing with J. Mascis."
J. Mascis
pulled the whole thing together.
J. Mascis.
[rock music]
(Scott) Then we did the Asheton, Asheton
Mascis Watt thing
which Jim got ear of
cause people wanted to hear those songs
and we were playing the old Stooge songs
and getting good reviews
so that sparked Jim...
...to want to get the band
back together.
I gave Ron a call, I still knew
the phone number was the same
at his home from, uh, 1966
and, uh, he said
"Yeah! I'll do it."
I remember going to my mom's house
Ronny was there
and, uh, my mom's, you know
I walk in and she's going
[whispers]
"Guess who just called?"
And I'm like, she goes "Iggy."
And she was so excited, you know
cause she was like..
Thought it was the coolest thing
that Iggy called
and the band's getting back together.
So in a weird way, it was
the cats Don Fleming and Jimbo
Dunbar who asked Ronny,
I mean, this is my guess
to do that "Velvet Goldmine"
that kinda started
the whole ball rolling.
And then that sickness in a weird way
and J saying "Come on aboard."
He had... somehow, you know,
I don't know exactly
but I think this was the dynamic
that led to the...
...2003 Coachella.
Before we left
the st-left the studio
we got a call from Coachella
and they offered us a show.
To be honest
at what would be a good price
for a Iggy Pop show, but, um..
If I was gonna work with "The Stooges"
we're communists!
We split all the money.
So I had, uh, only way
I could do it was say
"Well, you'd have to give us
three times that,"
and I thought they'd go away
and they came back
and said "Okay."
[instrumental music]
[crowd cheering]
Woo!
Ah!
Everybody!
Now look out!
[rock music]
(Scott)
When the band got back together
I was so happy.
It was a dream come true, it was just..
Oh, my God, finally!
I'm back with the band.
[indistinct singing]
(Mike) I could tell that
they really enjoyed
playing with each other,
I could really tell
that they were glad to be doing this
even with all those years in between.
[rock music]
Yeah!
I'm so messed up I want you here
In my room
I want you here
(Iggy)
Certain parts of history
have repeated themselves
both in the history of this
reunification of our group
which, I prefer to call it
that rather than a reunion
and one thing that
happened was, uh, you know, we..
We did a substantial period with
with Ron doing the guitar.
Now I wanna be your dog
Well come on
(Iggy) The last time I saw
him was, uh, after the show.
I opened the door
and-and he and Scotty
were sitting in profile
at the end of the room
and they were surrounded
by young Slovenian musicians.
So I just saw that they were busy
and, um, split.
I last saw him in profile.
He popped up in my dreams
a few times since then...
...and he never spoke or looked at me.
It was always sort of
more something like,
uh... you know.
The guy in "The Third Man" or
the guy in "The French Connection"
always walking by
and you can't quite catch him.
He was a lot like that.
When he passed away
it coincided with James
retirement as a Sony Executive
and...
...he wanted to rock
and...
...I was sure that there
was nothing else meaningful
that the group could do other than
do his,
do-do some things with him
doing his material.
And having just finally
done the right thing
thirty years,
thirty-five years later
with Ron's material
to do the same thing for his
and complete the job.
Iggy's talking to me about,
"Well, you wanna play guitar?"
and I'm going, "Well..
"I don't know,
I mean, I haven't played guitar
in thirty years, so.."
Uh, but I, but I felt like that, uh..
And this is the truth, is I felt
like that these guys were
you know, they're my buddies
I mean, I know these
guys from my twenties.
And so, they needed me,
you know, to do this
and I, I felt like
I needed to step up and do it.
Raw power it's a more than soul
Got a son called rock and roll
Raw power honey just won't quit
Raw power I can feel it
Raw power honey can't be b*at
Get down and a kiss my feet
Everybody's always
tryin to tell me what to do
(James)
I really had no intention
idea or wildest dream
that I would be playing, you know
guitar again for "The Stooges."
I mean, it was really the
furthest thing from my mind.
[rock music]
(Iggy)
They were a group of the
slightly more popular
slightly more physically aggressive
guys in my class.
And there were about four
or five of them at the time.
I'd been to one or two
of their homes, used to eat
French fries with them across
the street from school.
So one of them had a car
his dad had given him.
They came out
they did three things, one of them said
"Yeah, look, his dad drives a Cadillac
"and he lives in a trailer.
Car's bigger than his house!"
Few of 'em got together
"Let's see if it shakes."
And they started pushing it
and trying to shake
the trailer on its foundations
which it would not.
Uh, but you did feel, you could feel it.
Uh, yeah, I want to be friends
with these guys and, uh
I admired certain things about them.
One of them jumped in the bathtub and
made some sort of remark
about the size of the, the bathroom.
Ever since I've been out to get 'em.
Ever since, you know.
I'll bury those guys.
[crowd cheering]
Uh!
We three here are the surviving Stooges.
[cheering]
Ron and Dave woulda gotten
a big kick outta this
and, uh, Ron was pissed off
that it didn't happen
while he was alive.
I don't know how he feels about it now
he's probably sitting up there in heaven
having martinis with Brian Jones
trying to flick ashes on our head.
Music is life
and life is not a business.
Ron Asheton knew this
and Ron was cool.
The "MC5" are cool.
[crowd cheering]
My friend, Danny,
who discovered the band is cool
and Nina, my beautiful wife
you're cool!
All the poor people
who actually started
rock and roll music are cool.
(female #2) Yeah!
[cheering]
Thank you Stooge fans!
There may be three of ya up there
and I'll bet there's a couple
in the fancy seats.
So thanks for being so... cool.
[rock music]
Yeow!
I'm so messed up I want you here
And in my room I want you here
And now we're gonna be face to face
And I'll lay right down
in my favorite place
And now I wanna
Now I wanna
Now I wanna
And now I wanna be a dog
Now come on
[music continues]
[barking]
Uh! Yeah!
Come on, Ron!
Play! Play!
[indistinct singing]
I'm in f*cking Detroit
I salute you now
Now I'm ready to close my eyes
Now I'm ready to feel your hand
Lose my heart on the burning sand
(Iggy)
Come on! Do it, Michigan!
Now I want to be your dog
Now I want to be your dog
Now I want to be your dog
Well come on
Now..
I don't want to belong
to the glam people
I don't want to belong
to the hip, hip-hop people
I don't want to belong
to the, to any of it.
I don't want to belong
to the TV people...
...alternative people, none of it.
I don't want to be a punk.
I just want to be.
retail by H@w-to-k*ll @subscene
[gong booming]
[guitar music]
Gimme danger little stranger
And I'll give you a piece
Gimme danger little stranger
And I'll feel your disease
There's nothing in my dreams
Just some ugly memories
Kiss me like the ocean breeze
(Iggy)
Hey!
Now if you will be my lover
I will shiver insane
But if you can be my master
I will do anything
There's nothing left to life
But a pair glassy eyes
Raze my feelings one more time
[rock music]
Alright
Well it's 1969 okay
All across the USA
It's another year for me and you
Another year with nothing to do
It's another year for me and you
Another year with nothing to do
Now last year I was 21
I didn't have a lot of fun
And now I'm gonna be 22
I say oh my and a boo-hoo
And now I'm going to be 22
Oh my and a boo-hoo
Well it's 1969 okay
All across the USA
It's another year for me and you
Another year with nothing to do
It's 1969
It's 1969
It's 1969 baby
It's 1969 baby-y-y
Baby
Gimme Danger (2016)
Moderator: Maskath3