Part 3 - Rough Power
A real time odyssey into iggy's world circa 1970ish.

The Iguana Chronicles.

part 3. Rough Power

Crack... drag... beer opens in the background... bowie hears it and his face screws up like michael jackson listening to a whispers record.... they shouldn't do that... he thinks... and his healthy bat ears root out all the pain of iggy's existence... he wants to whitewash it... unbeknownst to him... he's become iggy's bitch. The record company thinks bowie is an auteur.... a madonna like figure of the seventies... there to make iggy's rancid smoove enough for a mitch miller listening audience of record execs. I don't buy it however.... iggy cut this great set of demos... bowie cleaned them up.... bowie had something else in mind... you see... bowie wanted iggy in europe.... and europe was listening to kraftwerk... not stealer's wheel and all the grungy 70s rock that was playing in 1972.... so.. he needed a crystal clear audio document to get the iguana to a rockier beach... europe... where the gays play... where the guys like bowie run around kissing buttocks all day and making money for it.... gimme danger? gimme dogshit... cuz that's all this album was once bowie got through with it.... crystally washed dogshit using a european smoothing process that makes it go down smooth for international retards. Iggy meanwhile... is putting out the feelers... feeling warm and fuzzy for bowie... wanting to talk to him about kraftwerk and ducks deluxe... when deep down in his soul... he's nurturing a need to play slade records at bowie til' bowie pukes. you see... iggy is sending out a i'm soft and fuzzy in clean eurocrapspeak to bowie.... bowie buys it... and when the cbs record whores come to town to ask him about this new kid iggy... bowie says... lemme play with it.... and he does... he jacks off all over it... keeping the raw vocal track.... dropping the rest a bit... but mainly lowering his sex rival james williamson's (iggy's other bitch) guitar down to a healthy little growl... instead of the raw fire it has become after realizing that the 60's sucked. Now... in iggy's band... nobody has provenance... there is no badass boss bitch.... not in bowie's band... you see bowie was a big ole fag (this comes as no surprise to you) and had to have everything his way... my way.. or the highway (a phrase he picked up from mitch "hendrix's dick carrier" mitchell or something... so the raw balanced simple noise that was designed to bust from the am radio that ig' grew up on... became a big quadraphonic pink floyd-y tour deforce that wouldn't upset bowie's hangerons and the record execs... who were looking at each other going... hey... can we get laura nyro to record another album? Now. Nothing up sleeve.. presto! i'm going to change the subject. This whole set of reviews isn't about Raw Power... it's about the love affair of bowie and iggy.... two starstruck lovers who were broken up by mick jagger.

Once upon a time... there was widdle boy named david bowie... and he had a lot of money and respect... but he didn't have one thing.... internal honesty... he was playing the music industry for whatever sound they wanted to hear that week.... what they wanted to hear at the time bowie was listening to iggy's demos... was another 'ziggy stardust'... only he couldn't find the riffs in his head... he couldn't find the songs to sing... he had the same old mumbledy-junk... but not quite the moped he was looking for. Iggy came along... just then.... and he knew he had a daddy.... money didn't impress bowie.... music did... and iggy had the music soaking out his pores.... bowie put away his aretha franklin and tina turner records... and started poring over iggy's catalog. He heard 'the stooges' and thought... what a piece of work... wish i'd done it... then he picked up 'funhouse' and said to himself... i've found ziggy. He dropped iggy into the entire psychic framework he had made unbeknownst to himself.... bowie had found his daddy. Now... bowie had listened to those albums once or twice along the way... but he was trying to get albums by the beatles (those gorgeous blokes) into his head... and didn't really have time for the madman from detroit. Iggy... meanwhile.... was drunker then a skunk... going... goddamn i don't know how the fuck i can get the record guys to buy this shit.... they'll ask me to tone it down.... they'll ask me to sling it on 'andy williams'... they'll ask me to do my tennessee ernie ford act for them.... and i doanfugginwanna.... so... i'm going to go burn down cbs records.... and he got a gallon of gasoline.... a gram of methamphetamine... and went to their l.a. whorehouse..... when he got there.... some zootsuited crazy in dayglo colors who didn't realize carnaby was dead said... oooh... igster.... we've got a producer for you.... and iggy stopped... and went... who... joni mitchell? bob krause? mick fleetwood? i don't care.. just get my record out there.... and they said.... it's bowie.... and ig went.... bowie sucks.... and a healthy glint came into his eye... and he said... i'll make him my bitch.

of course the record industry geek figured that this was some rockstar slang for producer and didn't realize that iggy had just turned the corner into the most storied romance of his career... not that it started as a romance for ig... just a domination of another groupie... he knew that bowie was hooked and looking for the raw primal street sound that he could only find by listening to stones records and going to 'sweet' shows... iggy went back to his motel room... and called james on the phone... and said... hey... bring me some pizza.... and james knew that the love had gone out of their relationship.... iggy twinkled.... and some fucking anchovies... i'm going to lick them off your back... and williamson smiled because he knew that iggy wasn't going to just dump him.

Now... at this point in time... you're going 'it wasn't anything like that.... it was a formal antiseptic corridor where mitch miller told iggy.... ok... we like your record... but we're going to have to have a producer on it... we're going to ask around....

that doesn't suit iggy's mad power persona though... can you see the igster nodding happily and going... sounds great... let's get right on it... buttkiss buttkiss? neither can i. I can see iggy going FUCK YOU MITCH MILLER! I CAN'T READ... MUCH LESS FOLLOW THE GODDAMN BOUNCING BALL IN FRONT OF YOUR CROWD OF RAINCOATED URBAN SLIME. only he'd say it... like... "RARRRGH MITCH... YOU kNOW I Don'T lIKe BoB EZrin"... mitch stank at him gleefully from behind his hai karate... and iggy went.... i need a beer.

now.... at this point in time... i've listened to the entire set of raw demos.... you haven't... you should buy them.... they aren't my favorite of the iguana collection... but they still are pretty good... they were kind of a letdown though... i expected different rhythms.... more cussing... something.... instead of bowie twiddling switches and tossing filters on them. that's all he fucking did... added his name.... twiddled some switches... and history was made.

iggy smiled.... and once the record was cut... sed... we should go on tour.... and they did.... that's what's coming up...

at the moment though..... the fags at wabx are saying that iggy doesn't sound like mott the hoople.... NO SHIT! iggy created mott the hoople.... they were just some ex-hippie band until they heard 'the stooges'... and then decided to toss a dylanesque spin on it.

what? you want poetry? you want pavoratti? i'm listening to an album that represents a personal amount of pain to me... i spent several dozen hours trying to whip creem into a publishable conceptual thing... then realized that it was a whitepower joint.... putting non-whites into subsidiary roles... dropping any reference to non-whitepower-based rockers... and tossing in some salt by referring to fleetwood mac or whutever crap they used to listen to between slade albums in the 70s... was it always whitepower? nope... but whitepower fags are attracted to names like 'creem' or anything white... and the guy that ran it kicked the bucket... and all of a sudden.... they're doing whiter then white bands like 'talking heads' and 'that fag band that i can't remember' and any other non-rock (too many jews in rock) that they can get their hands on... people that got beat up by the anti-nazi contingents in punk rock. FUCK JONATHAN RICHMAN.

Now... while creem was busy ignoring anything that had any non-white performers put into the forefront of music... I was working my ass off fighting a battle for the underdog... the palestinian peoples.... meanwhile... every couple weeks or so... i'd get into a rock and roll writing jag... trying to turn the poop that creem under Bitch Matheu had become into the old rag that made music critics cry... but it wasn't to happen.... Matheu had his stable of retards and wanted me to try and play lester bangs... erudite maniac... only i wasn't playing that... i had too many chops in 'black' music.... you can almost see 'black' music on the few reviews that Bitch Matheu tossed into the mix so he wouldn't have to hear it from racists... just like you could almost see 'black' musician on some of the musicians that are buried in the background on his website. NO FREE PLUGS BITCH!

So I balked... wrote public enemy and a number of music professionals (in journalism and other) and said... watch out for creem... they're white power. Guess what happened next.... Someone loosely affiliated with the chuck d/p.dudey megamix released a classic rock toon... 'hey ya' on the speakerboxx album... almost daring Bitch Matheu to review it. They didn't.. until it won a messa grammies... then grudgingly... they put it on their website... until they could bury it again.... one of the tastiest rock/hybrid albums of the decade... and they treat it like a sidenote.... while they hype 'burning monkeys' or some other whitepower garbage.

Suzy at BOMP takes off on me when i tell her that I just said FUCK CREEM.... the whores at creem "brian bowe" pretend they never heard of me... even though i was writing back and forth with them and had just been given a whole webpick section on their private group links board. I don't blame her for being p.o.'d... she'd just sent me 10 albums in the iguana collection.... for me to review for creem.... something that sounded hunky dory to Bitch Matheu when i wrote him about it.... I wrote him a bunch... figured they needed a little conditioning... you see... not only am i an NSA agent... I'm also CIA... FBI... DEA... and any goddamn other government agency you could imagine.... I WHUPPED THE NAZIS ASS... we sold radioactive materials to hitler's fagboys and then strapped some geiger counters into the radio systems of the british and american planes.... so we had a clear stereo 'static' warning in the gunner and pilots headsets
whenever nazi steel was around. This psychic endeavor (as well as hipping churchill to the nazis as early as 1928) won me mad respect in international intelligence communities.... but they had to wait for me to be born.... I was born in 1970... out of my mind... but it wasn't a saturday night.... it was a hell night.... adopted by some crazy bitch because my birthmother was being oppressed psychically and financially.... and here i am.... listening to raw power... and going.... NSA, DEA, CIA, FBI, as well as brass positions in ALL FOUR MILITARY BRANCHES OF THE U.S. ARMY. My whim becomes law.... the patriot act was made to protect me from israeli spies... and Ms. Suzy Bomp (who i respect tremendously cuz she wrote back to a punk rocker who just wanted to tell her how much he dug the gravedigger v) is barking up my ass cuz i have promo that i can't put into a magazine format because whitepower isn't my bag.

Well Ms. Suzy? i understand.... i've had my work go free to a number of buttmunches over the years... I hope that this series of diatribes makes you feel better. I love you... and would lick your ass if you weren't so damn old!

The rock show from wabx is still playing in the background.... it's retarded fm chatter... drivetime or morning jocks... it doesn't matter... the music is great... buy this album.... it's even got a tinny recording of 'not right' (is this licensed? fuck if i know... It would explain some karma if it wasn't)... just to save suzy's ass if it isn't licensed... the static on it could qualify it as 'pop art' or collage-modification of art for copyright purposes.

Now.... you wanted a review... you got one... and i'm not talking to bomp... i'm talking to ig. I know you read this.... I know you heard it at a psychic level... I know you're itching to avoid my show and say 'it sucks'. Well... i've got some news for you! Bowie was your bitch and still is... He cries himself to sleep every night thinking of how he ruined his relationship with iggy because of the art.... you see... bowie wanted to go to the museum... iggy wanted to find some drugs and get a party going on... bowie had been doing that for years and was sick of it... i know.. you're thinking... bowie? jaded? really? how unexpected.... Only you're saying it like this... I'm glad he's fucking done with this review.

end rant 3. part 4? a shitty album called 'open up and bleed'