Last night I watched an Iggy Pop performance on the post-Brexit Graham Norton show from about a week ago, and was struck by two things
1. I had no idea he was so short
2. I had no idea one leg was so much shorter than the other. Is that from birth? or an injury?
I saw Iggy with Alice in Chains backing up. He was very charismatic - very good performer.
Absolutely, and he did something very few artists on Graham Norton do, he went walk about in the audience while singing the song. Still got a great voice.Originally Posted by mozo-pg
I saw him with The Stooges in 1970 performing Fun House. He was one of the most electrifying performers I've ever seen. He paced the stage and stared at the crowd like a panther on mescaline. At one point he jumped into the audience and flipped over benches that people were sitting on, bodies flying.
I wish I saw that!
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Rolling Stone interview, 2007:Are there physical things you can't do onstage anymore?
[Points to the live "Raw Power"-era photo of himself on the front of his T-shirt] Can't do that! Can't bend over backwards and pick up an apple in my teeth. If I have to work two nights in a row, I'll jump real high on the first night. The second night, I'll get up about six inches.
I have a dislocated shoulder. I have a lot of cartilage lost in my right hip. Both knees are about to go. I have one leg about an inch and a half shorter than the other. When I was thirteen, I was run over by a big guy playing junior high football, and the right leg ended up a quarter-inch shorter. By my midtwenties, it was a half-inch. Then in the Eighties, I had no money and was taking packed economy flights everywhere, night after night. The combination of that schedule and a fall I took dancing on an amplifier left me with my spine twisted and a slight limp.
Aleve and tai chi brought me back. But as I began to lose unlimited use of my body, I had to start using my head. I'm a much more remarkable person mentally than physically.
Too bad Iggy turned out to be a stooge for Phantom Limb. Him and Klaus Nomi, too (though as Klaus noted, "I wasn't in the Stooges!").
Talking about Iggy not being able to do any of the stuff he used to do onstage, I imagine Pete Townshend has similar problems. I seriously doubt Pete's leaping through the air and sliding across the stage upon re-entry, as per his performance in The Kids Are Alright.
In fact, I always reckoned the real reason Pete wanted to switch to acoustic guitar in the 80's wasn't his hearing, so much as he wanted to divest himself of the image he had created in the 70's, ie the gravity defying, windmilling guitar hero. I remember reading an article where he talked about how he used to get his fingernails caught under the strings when doing windmills, and the resulting yanking maneuver that would occur was apparently very painful. I always reckoned he thought to himself, "Right, if I switch to acoustic and let someone else play electric, I won't have to do the windmills or the leaps or any of the rest of it".
I never knew there were corrective Crocs.
Never found anything to like about Iggy Poop!
Dave Sr.
I prefer Nature to Human Nature
But can Sammy still Jump?
Wow! Really? Not even the punk energy?
I saw Iggy even earlier, when his band was known as the Psychedelic Stooges- he and the MC5 opened for Blue Cheer at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. No one had ever seen an Iggy before, shirtless and muscular and putting the mike stand down his pants- literally. And jumping into the audience. At the time, they did not even have their first record out.
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
I read an interview with, I think, Frank Infante from Blondie, and I guess after Blondie broke up, he talked about playing guitar in Iggy's band. When he was asked to contrast the two projects, he said with Blondie, he just had to make sure he didn't play too loud that it bothered Debbie Harry. With Iggy, he was more worried about whether or not Iggy was going to jump on top of him during the set. Frank said something, "He didn't whether he was going to jump on top of me!"
Not really a punk energy person, l'm all about the music. Iggy Pop does not meet my musical criteria.
Dave Sr.
I prefer Nature to Human Nature
Cool. I saw them at The Birmingham Palladium. The opening band was The Up, the skinniest band ever.
Thanks for sharing.
"1969" - song of the century.
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
His album Blah Blah Blah is great, IMO. It rivals some decent Bowie albums I think. His voice can't compare of course, but it works for him. I think he and the Stooges are pretty great, really.
I've never seen him perform either, BTW.
There was a guy who came to my store a few times to demo locally-produced Wild Tonic kombucha a few times who looked exactly like Iggy Pop, blue bug-eyes, sharp angles, veins and all. Other than that I know of the song that's been used in a dozen TV ads, and Iggy playing a rapey pedo creep in 'Tank Girl'. Oh, also that internet meme with the face based on the lines of his torso in a still shot taken during a concert.
^
That's new. And my favorite thing today.
I wish life could be..
Swedish magazines....
Iggy is in a close race with Keith Richards and Steve Howe for who has aged the worst.
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