Mick Rock’s book on Iggy And The Stooges, circa 72-3, the ‘Raw Power’ era, doesn’t just capture the zeitgeist. It captures the feral energy of the best band in the world at that time, except for Bowie’s Ziggy and the Spiders.
Iggy Pop at 25 was beyond rock, beyond roll, beyond entertainer, beyond androgyny, beyond insanity, beyond music, beyond Mick and Keith. He exposed himself, his kink, his Dionysius side. He was Jungian, the shadow self, a case study, pushing the limits of himself and the audience. Was he sexually incontinent? Of course. He liked fourteen and fifteen year old girls, worryingly. I can’t justify that. Teenage girls bleed, and they know. They get it. Because, like Iggy, they’re aware of always being watched, judged, scrutinised. Iggy exploited his body like a cadaver for anatomy students, did a bump and grind like a Vegas stripper.”Shake appeal…so hot and low. Memories have gotta go”.
He was in it for kicks, bruises and back bends, breaking teeth, cutting himself, looking for the inexpressible , that impossible high at the intersection between what could be said and what was felt. Blood and stretched limbs serving as metaphor for the (little) death impulse, always just lurking there in the margins.
Nothing is impossible when you are high on your own supply. Adrenaline is a drug too, it sparks your kidneys. This shit is visceral. The music gets in your insides. You dance to sweat it out, like sweating out a fever.
‘Raw Power’ epitomises this. “Always searching to destroy”, then tabula rasa. Start all over again. Shed one skin, slip into another. Destroy and then rebuild. Endlessly, towards a void, until numb. Play with oblivion. “Gimme danger, little stranger”.
All images: Mick Rock, archive.
