Hard to believe the Godfather of Punk (and all that followed the genre) is now 60. There was a big to-do for him this Spring at SXSW because reunited with two of the Stooges. They’re supposed to have an album out in the near future.
I had the opportunity to see him in concert during my final semester at Marquette for his Brick by Brick tour when he had his first, big mainstream hit “Candy” with Kate Pierson of the B-52’s. He opened with “Raw Power” and the rest of the show really was a bigger showcase of the current record and his past, “louder” material. Nothing from Blah Blah Blah or the stuff I recognized such as “Repo Man,” “Bang Bang” or “The Passenger.” I think he did a couple tunes from Instinct and he did “China Girl” (Bowie made it a hit in 1983) after explaining how he met his wife Suchi, who is really Japanese. The music was loud as well as educational because within a year, another band he influenced named Nirvana would storm the national scene.
Like many people my age, I hadn’t really heard of Iggy (nee James Osterberg) until the Eighties. Even then it was from other bands saying he influenced them and the hit David Bowie had with his song. It wasn’t until I heard the opening theme to the movie Repo Man did I know any songs he performed. College was when I became a bit more familiar with him, probably a typical rite of passage for many diehard music fans. The stories of his drug usage and violent or sexual antics on stage in my “research” were revealing but after the Sex Pistols and the Plasmatics, it didn’t phase anyone anymore. I also admit to not liking much of his material. Most of it had an unrefined Heavy Metal sound which I hated passionately in the Eighties and early Nineties. Yet he remained in my mental database for his progeny: Peter Murphy, Siouxsie & the Banshees, INXS, Was (Not Was), Duran Duran and The Cars (seriously, the covered “Funtime” like everybody else has. Iggy’s appearances in children’s programming for Nickelodeon, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and other movies have been more amusing since he has a genuine death-warmed-over look from his past lifestyle, Trainspotting wouldn’t be possible without him.