Iggy & The Stooges Metallic KO (1976)

From thevinyldistrict.com

What a disappointment. Here I’ve been hearing about what a definitive live document and astoundingly raw slab o’ Iggy at his Iggiest Metallic K.O. is FOR YEARS, and having put off the fun until this late date because hell you have to have SOMETHING to look forward to in your golden years I discover it ain’t all that.

Sure, the LP positively drips egg-yolk authenticity (“I’ve been egged by better than you,” says the Iggster) but when my favorite moment on an album is a cover of “Louie Louie” I really have to ask myself how much I love that album. And I once heard a better live version of “Louie Louie” by cult legend and very outsider artist Mikey “Mayor of South Street” Wild in Philadelphia, so put that in your crack pipe and smoke it.

Yeah, Metallic K.O. is “live” alright—you get to hear Iggy deliver such cracks as “We’re the hardest working band in the business, I don’t care we’re if the best” and—on the three and one-half minute waste of space called “Iggy Talks”—“Let’s hear it for the singer. I AM the greatest.” But beyond that I don’t know what you’re paying for, besides “Louie Louie” and an okay version of “Raw Power” and a just alright version of “Cock in My Pocket,” which Iggy says was “cowritten by my mother.” Which is my way of saying this is a comedy album, and while I love comedy as much as the next guy I dislike Lou Reed’s live comedy LP Take No Prisoners for a reason.

I do like the sludgy sound, but James Williamson’s guitar isn’t nearly ugly enough for my tastes, and the rhythm section sounds soggy to boot. Iggy’s mean-spirited dedication of “Rich Bitch” to “all you Hebrew ladies in the audience” is a joke that just doesn’t come off. And come to think of it I feel the same way about “Rich Bitch” itself—it’s as ugly an example of unmitigated misogyny as I’ve ever come across, and in the woman-hating world of rock’n’roll that’s saying something.

Besides, the song itself ain’t all that—just a loose and rather anorexic groove, attention grabbing in a way, stretched across ten and one-half minutes. That said, I do like Williamson’s spin on the guitar. And Scott Thurston’s piano is nothing to scoff at either.

My main problem with Metallic K.O. is that, ironically, it just isn’t metallic enough. Or scary enough. On their studio releases the Stooges sound downright menacing; on the live “Head On” they sound almost anemic. I could swear I hear somebody call “Will you turn it up?” and I share his disgruntlement. And the same goes for “Gimme Danger,” which just kinda sits there like wilted lettuce between slices of white bread, although Williamson has his moment on guitar and Iggy sounds almost inspired towards the end.

But in the end I can say pretty definitively I will never listen to Metallic. K.O. again. Because where’s the danger, I ask you? Because I don’t hear it in Iggy’s cry of “Fuck you, pricks!” If I want a fuck you delivered with real passion I’ll take Michael Gerald of Killdozer over Mr. Stooge any day. So I ask you again, where’s the danger? Huh? Gimme danger!

Iggy & The Stooges Raw Power (1973/2010)

From pitchfork.com

One of the greatest rock albums ever is reissued again, this time in two versions; both useful but less than ideal or definitive.

When Iggy Pop commanded a generation of glam-rock kids and biker-bar burnouts to “dance to the beat of the living dead” on Raw Power‘s totemic title track, he wasn’t just talking B-movie nonsense– he was heralding his band’s back-from-the-grave resurrection. Because the Stooges heard on Raw Power were not the same band that produced 1969’s self-titled debut or 1970’s Funhouse, but rather some mutant, zombie version. With the Stooges dropped from Elektra, Iggy exploited a solo-artist deal with David Bowie’s management to reassemble his band around new guitarist James Williamson, pushing Ron Asheton to bass and re-branding the Stooges as “Iggy & the Stooges”. And in accordance with those changes, Bowie’s infamously treble-heavy Raw Power mix thrust Iggy’s vocals and Williamson’s searing solos miles out in front of the rhythm section, to the point of practically writing Ron and drummer/brother Scott Asheton out of the set.

All of which has made Raw Power the most contentious release in the Stooges catalog, a fact that Iggy himself effectively owned up to in 1997 when he issued an exponentially louder and beefier new mix that took the album’s title to literal extremes (and, in the process, horrified audiophiles with a distaste for digital distortion). It speaks volumes about the songs’ pure immediacy and charisma that, even in its original mix, Raw Power became the album most responsible for giving the Stooges a life after death. Where the primordial caveman blues of The Stooges and the proto-metallic grind of Funhouse made them touchstones for future grunge, stoner-rock, and noise artists, Raw Power provided a mainline for first-generation punks and the 80s hard-rockers that followed in their wake. (Case in point: When J Mascis and Mike Watt hooked up with Ron Asheton for some 2001 dates, they only performed songs from the first two Stooges albums; when Guns N’ Roses and the Red Hot Chili Peppers covered the Stooges, they did songs from Raw Power.)

There’s no denying that the Raw Power era was the band’s most prolific: the album’s eight songs account for just a fraction of the music Iggy & the Stooges produced between their 1972 reformation and their unceremonious 1974 dissolution. Over the past three decades, the number of bootlegs that have attempted to collect all the unreleased material from this period– from the Rough Power comp of de-Bowie-fied mixes to the notorious last-gig document Metallic K.O.— have amounted to a mini-cottage industry that’s been as vital to sustaining the band’s legend as their four official releases.

So, for an album that runs a mere 33 minutes, Raw Power should provide ample fodder for deluxe-reissue treatment and an opportunity to streamline all that bootlegged ephemera into an official storehouse of all the songs the Stooges produced between 1972-74. However, this reissue– available in a 2xCD, budget-priced Legacy Edtion set and as a more elaborate $60 4xCD Deluxe Edition– doesn’t attempt anything quite so ambitious. Instead, the main impetus is bringing a remastered version of the original Bowie mix back to market. This is understandable from an historical-preservation perspective, but then why not also include the ’97 mix and allow fans to compare and contrast?

The new remaster certainly enhances the ambient details in the mix– like the tense acoustic underpinning of “Gimme Danger”, or the echoing beat in “I Need Somebody” that illustrates Bowie’s intention of making Scott Asheton’s drums sound like a lumberjack chopping wood. But, personally, after spending the past 13 years having my ears ravaged by the ’97 Iggy mix, I find it difficult readjusting to the leaner, original version– even with the remastering, the ’97 version far outstrips it in fidelity and sheer brute force, and remains a better entry point for younger listeners seeking to understand the album’s impact.

Still, even if you’ve already bought this album twice, the Legacy Edition’s second disc offers a compelling reason to shell out again: an immensely entertaining, well-preserved 1973 Atlanta club set that was intended for a radio broadcast but later aborted. Recorded months after Raw Power had been released, ignored, and consigned to cut-out bins, the set sees the Stooges in another transitory state, further asserting *Raw Power’*s 50s-rock roots with the addition of jaunty pianist Scott Thurston, but also patiently stretching out new songs like “Head On” and “Heavy Liquid” into loose, exploratory, Who-style workouts. It also unintentionally redresses Raw Power‘s initial imbalance by smothering Williamson’s leads in the Ashetons’ thick low-end. Naturally, the combination of Iggy and a crowd of southerners results in some colorful exchanges (“You wanna get your little fucking face punched out, little cracker boy?”), and it’s fun to revisit a moment when the Stooges’ audience was sparse enough to make out individual conversations (says one spectator: “I don’t think he likes us!”). But more than a document of Iggy in his audience-baiting element, the set serves as a great tribute to the late Ron Asheton, whose bass-playing is finally revealed to be every bit as fierce and inventive as his guitar-playing.

The live disc is appended with two Raw Power outtakes– a more compact, studio version of “Head On” and the silly rumble-in-the-jungle jam “Doojiman”– but anyone hoping for more vault-clearing revelations on the expanded 4xCD Deluxe Edition (available exclusively through www.iggyandthestoogesmusic.com) will be disappointed. The “Rarities, Outtakes and Alternates” disc seems especially ill-conceived, padding out its few genuine finds (an amusing, embryonic version of “Penetration” dubbed “I’m Hungry”, and the Velvets-via-Hendrix goof “Hey Peter”) with a random assemblage of alternate mixes (including a pair of 1997 representatives) and an incomplete sampling of the era’s well-known outtakes (“I Got a Right” and “I’m Sick of You” are accounted for, so where the hell’s “Gimme Some Skin”?).

Easy Action’s 2005 bootleg box-set, Heavy Liquid, did a far more thorough job of compiling the Raw Power-era castaways, so Stooges completists investing in this Deluxe Edition will need to be satiated by the non-musical extras: a replica Japanese “Search and Destroy” b/w “Raw Power” seven-inch, 48-page book (filled with celebrity testimonials and Mick Rock’s iconic period photography), five 5×7″ photographic prints, and, most valuably, a DVD documentary about the album’s creation by Morgan Neville. Comprising recent interviews with the surviving Stooges and famous fans like Johnny Marr, Chrissie Hynde, and Henry Rollins, the doc covers all the main album talking points and offers a memorable moment of candor when Iggy admits to feeling vindicated that the Stooges still have such vitality and relevance today. There was certainly no lack of irony and cheek when Iggy first sung “we’re going down in history” on Raw Power‘s kamikaze closer “Death Trip”, but watching the closing shots of Iggy & the Stooges performing for a Brazilian festival crowd last year, with Mike Watt inheriting Ron Asheton’s mantle, those words now sound more assuredly prophetic than ever.