Sunday, January 22, 2006

Big day out - get mashed
Here's some BDO artists getting mashed up, in case you're feeling left out...

White Stripes vs Eric B and Rakim - Pump up the doorbell (link)
Franz Ferdinand vs Chic - "(Triple) Freak Me Out" (link) scroll down
The Stooges - TV Eye GHP REMIX (link) scroll down

"In the 60s when we started out, there were very few other bands articulating our concerns. In a very short time music had gone from Bob Dylan's `It Ain't Me, Babe' to Sonny and Cher's `I Got You, Babe'. Feelgood crap was everywhere, and the Stooges never fitted into that. We never set out to piss anybody off, but people got so pissed off anyway!" Iggy Pop.

Iggy interviewed on Canadian TV... "on March 11, 1977 Iggy Pop, a singer synonymous with a new musical movement called punk rock, joins CBC host Peter Gzowski for an interview. Iggy Pop is wearing black dress pants and a beige blazer but he's forgotten his dress shirt. He's also forgotten his manners and Gzowski's name. He picks at his nails, saying they're dirty, rather than answering the host's questions. But when Gzowski asks him what punk is, Iggy Pop's heavily-lined eyes brighten: "It's a term that's based on contempt." Link.

More Iggy footage, live in 1970..
"Here's a video (51 MB mpg video, for download) from a 1970 Cincinatti concert, in which a boyish looking James Osterberg has his way with a vat of peanut butter while singing TV Eye and 1970. Pay special attention to the play by play announcer ("That's..peanut butter!") and the various shrieks, cries and etchings of audience members as they swarm Iggy..." Link.


Great article on Iggy and the Stooges in the Listener by Gordon Cambell, who gets on Iggy's nerves asking fanboy questions - nice one! - see story here.

snip...

"... In 2001, Ron Asheton gave a thoughtful and generous interview about, among other things, what a genius prick Iggy has been over the years. It can be found at furious.com/perfect/ronasheton.html and is worth checking out. It may finally be time, though, to bury the great Iggy issues of the early 1970s. Like, for instance, the eternal question – Funhouse v Raw Power? You choose. Or the Ron Asheton v James Williamson battle for supremacy, so central to any decent undergraduate programme on Stoogesology. Not to mention the different forms of crappiness that afflict both the Bowie and the Iggy mixes of Raw Power, which leave plenty of room for a third remix that might finally do justice to the rhythm section. Shouldn't we all just get a life, though, and move on?

No way, at least not today. Argument is good. "It's one of the joys of literature," Iggy replies. "And once music is recorded, it becomes a lot like literature. It's covered by the same copyright laws, as a matter of fact. One of the joys is that it can be reassembled and ripped off – and it's there to be argued about."

Fine, let's argue. When it came to his songwriting chemistry with Ron, the lasting perception is that Ron came up with the riffs, which Iggy would then edit, and add the lyrics. Was it as simple and clear-cut as that? "No, no, it wasn't always that way." Though, come to think of it: "It was that way with some of the really key [songs]. With some of the other ones I would have a riff, and Ron would come up with a counterpart."

For instance? "No, no … that's all you need to know," Iggy says tersely. "Especially in a short interview before a tour … [But] when I write a lyric, it reflects the culture of the whole group." The way he sees it, that's part of his special burden, being leader. "That's usually typical of the frontman position. Frontmen tend to be the mouth of the group, backed up by the muscle of the others …"

Foolishly, I try to push on further. "Hush!" Iggy orders, now in full-blown captain-of-his-ship mode. "Hush! I'm talking!" It is not, and never has been, he indicates, a Ron v Iggy situation. Why, it's really been about Scott the drummer, all along. Imagine that. "My or Ron's contribution would be f--- all, except for the drummer. Really, Scott sells the group. In the same way Led Zeppelin really needed to disband when something happened to [drummer John] Bonham. This couldn't be done, without Scott's peculiar style." And, heh heh, that's all he has to say on the subject. "That's all ya gonna get out of me."

Oh, apart from one final word on this stuff about the Stooges being all about being nasty'n'all. So utterly untrue. The way Iggy depicts it, the Stooges made music that was built to last, that was classic, that was humane. "It's clean work, done in a way that's allowed it to last a long time. Not a lot of fuss or ornament. The lyrics are generally universal. And large. Because of that, they're not really so nasty as has been made out in the press. They're generally inclusive, in some way." Truly, a Funhouse for all the family."

No comments: