A real time odyssey into iggy's world circa 1970ish.

The Iguana Chronicles.

part 4 - Open Up and Bleed!

I wouldn't buy this album. Now let me tell you why it's an indispensible part of your record collection. Iggy was gettin' sick of rockin. I know... Iggy? not rock.... well... I guarantee you he was fucking sicking of it... BLeeeYaahaaa... all night... every night... to dozens of adoring fans.... to loud blazing guitars..... but now he had something he needed.... a fool to play organ for him, and a cheezy fartfisa it was.... electric piano from hammond or some awful crap.... but who cares.... it' made him what he always wanted to be..... a lounge singer.

For what is a lounge singer... without a cheezy pianner. He finally was halfway there....

Iggy was born James Osterberg... stuck in detroit.... admittedly a musical hub thanks to folks like Berry Gordy. Mow-town! he used to call it.... doin' the neighbor's lawns so he had an extra hunnerd pennies to buy a joint with. And there it was... him out there... mowing the lawn of some freak who was working at a power plant or something.... a doob tonight.... he's thinking.... vrooom.... vrooom...... the lawnmower of iggy's music is undeniable.... running through leaves.... seeing them fly all the fuck up all over the place... smoke choking him from the diesel engine that the neighbor bought at sears.... and him.... sweating... wanting to get back home to smote out and sing along with a dean martin album....

i been pushed... i been shoved too long... even tried to buy my song.... bleeaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhh...... iggy has it made.... singing his first true lounge song.... a drunken lounge song ala tom waits only with a cheesier organ..... out of money again.... even though he's slaving on a tour and has just stopped in rehearsal studio in new york.... he's already made kissy-faces with bowie... but he knows that he needs some money to party with him in europe.... so he's cruising through the nation.... makin' a lil' cash here... a lil cash there... and considering a new album... cuz those always made him more money then shlepping around the u.s. getting wasted on tour. Open up and bleed.... the lounge lizard... mr. iguana himself.... the man is singing a great tune.... his background musicians (they stopped being his band around bowie... when he realized the cult of personality was stronger the then the cult of society) are playing along.... doin' some great riffs... but for the first time... it's iggy out there alone.... doin' his thing just like he always was... but not with his brothers.... alone.... strong.... and slower then usual..... still sounding like he'd swallowed asphalt..... but obviously thinking about his future as a lounge musician.......

he doesn't trust his bandmates not to give away his secret though.... he wants to be doin' como songs. tina tina tina marie.... Hip, I didn't know lips could kiss, ( Hip hip ) Hup I didn't know wives could flirt, ( Hup hup ) Hoop, I didn't know girls could be like "Tina Marie"..... except he sings it like... Johannnna.... johaannnnna.... i wanna blow... wanna blow right back to you..... soft organ riffs ala 'the trip'... iggy moanin' low into the microphone... gettin ready to smooth his hair back ala buddy love.... check out my rings asheton.... check out my cigarrette.... i'm cool to drool..... it's ig... and he's still havin' to rock a little bit.... but he's almost there..... to where he's not a 100% motorpsycho nightmare... but someone to whom falling up the wagon could mean something
.... cuz... isn't that what lounge singers do? fall off the wagon... into their cups... smackin' their woman around like perry como, dean martin, and of course... the inevitable... jerry lewis.......

gotta cover... gotta cover..... more rock... gotta cock in my pocket... gotta cruisa-a down that old highway... or whutever the lyric is.... it never really matters with ig... sexual suggestion.... leeer...... bleaaarrghhh.... it's just another song... it's just another tune... and another martooni at the end of the line..... this one's a rocker though.... so he's gotta open his shirt up a little bit..... tug again at the cigarrette... and let the smoke drift up while he headbangs.....

nobody has ever spotted ig's lounge tendencies... he wears the rock and roll suit like it was tailor made for him.... and it probably was... tailor made by the finest groupies hollywood has ever seen.... make-up done for him right down to the beauty mark.... a junkies manicure.... and waiting for him when he gets home... a robe and ascot.... only it's more like more bruises and vomit.

now.... why would a guy do that to himself... bet iggy hears that all the time at this point... he's not in comfortable l.a. where drag queens and hippies hang out seamlessly at the whisky.... he's in new york... detroit... pittsburgh... baltimore.... home of class struggle and urban renewal.... he's not very happy about having to flex his muscles and act like a detroit metal rockstar... and to retaliate... he's got a buttmoidal electric pianner instead of the hammond organ that most of his compatriots use to make the dancefloor rumble....

drunker then usual.... he's wishing the set were over so he could sit back and get oral sex from some empty-headed bimbette that he could fill with his member...

it's 1973... he's been on tour... he's been to all the seedy watering holes this side of devil's junction... and now... he's back in a studio... thinking new album... but he's not feeling good.... he's not strutting... he's drowning... drowning in rock and roll.... wanting to snap his fingers... do his changes.... 'i'm a street walkin' cheetah with a heart full of napalm <snap, snap, snap>' but instead.. he's gotta keep up with the band... they want him to rule the stage like jim morrison.... but instead... he wants to fade into the club.... become part of the background to a martini glass and a dame....

and finally... he figures it out.... that the blues is what rock and lounge music have in common.... one went into a vegas room... the other went into a garage... and he's been in both.... hangin' out.... lickin' his eyebrows.... groovin like it's tuesday on a summer moon.....

so he trots out an old janis joplin tune 'cry for me' and rules the room for a minute.... cuz that dame and the martooni ain't everything... came here to see a show... di'n't yah...

i listen to the music for a minute... letting my readers fade.. letting my thoughts of iggy fade... and realizing... that all my feelings about this record upon casual listening around the bong have faded away.... this could have been the greatest stooges of all time.... except it wasn't.... iggy didn't want to drive another album home and become the new mick jagger.... there already was a mick jagger... and he was in rehab with keef.... pukin' out 'it's only rock and roll but i like it' and iggy din't... he liked the blues... he liked dean martin.... he liked a martini.... and here was another window of opportunity to show it off for the world.... only his band member's weren't having it... they're all straining to play l.a. blues again.... fading back to a setting for iggy is beyond them at the moment.... me me me and my guitar is rock and roll.... me me me and my band is lounge. And iggy was comfortable in both forms..... but hell if he didn't slide into lounge at any given moment... when the drums quieted down... and the guitarist got tired... you see.... they weren't used to being all tired all the time like the jazz musicians... when the adrenaline ran out they got tired.... and started to nod off.....

rich bitch. iggy has taken control of the band.... made it clear that they were his.... and now his ultimate love song.... the lovesong to bowie that he wanted to sing on 'raw power' the lovesong that never materialized on an album because it was so personal to him.... it was one of those songs that couldn't be put on vinyl because then he'd be asked to interpret it.... instead of letting it sing through him. Sometimes iggy just lays back and lets the band play as he cries... knowing that he's going to serenade bowie through the tapers in the audience... and that eventually... he'll lay his rich bitch... you see.... ig was the p. dudey and bowie was the j. lo of his generation
... they were a lovestruck couple who even when they weren't together were always whispered in the same breath.... it was luvvv ferever...


bass and pianner and lounge and all the things that made memphis great.... iggy's soul roots are showin' again... the time he snuck into a baptist congregation.... the time that he stayed up late looking into an after hours joint... the time that he took a hundred hits of acid and watched the nutty professor....

the music slows down... the blazing guitars fade away... and the pianner plays on.... and iggy blasts bowie and his money thing and his cryin' shame you don't have any talent there igster attitude... bowie hides behind his rock and roll persona... iggy lives it.... even though it isn't him.... the band keeps playing.... iggy isn't part of it anymore... even though they are all his friends...... and sometimes... he fades into the music with them.... he's moved beyond... he's been adulated.. he's been vilified and lauded by the press... and they've just been the band... or scott and ron and james on guitar bass and drums.... nobody's tried to get inside their head... nobody has tried to imagine what they do after hours... nobody has given a fuck whether they cut themselves with glass or climb out on the crowd or not.... just as long as they keep playing.

Had scott thrown down the sticks.... had ron smashed his guitar into a fan... had they done anything to keep iggy from singing.... it'd have made them infamous in the eyes of the fans.... instead.. they're the troopers.... performing til' their fingers bleed.... tired up to their eyesockets from the party that iggy threw next door... banging their shoes against the wall to shut him and the groupies the fuck up.. they weren't even about the drugs... they were about the next days gig.... the next song... and then walter cronkite to see the lists of the dead.

I had to take a break from my writing here... it calls to me like rock and roll called to iggy.... it's a part of me.... i'm recognized for my skill at it... but my nature? is a musician.... all forms.... from country to jazz to blues to reggae to trance to all that the music is.... i don't distinguish... scat in the punk song.... rock steady versions of elvis... music is mutable and formless... but in iggy's time... it wasn't.... you had to be a rocker.... or you had to be a ___________ or you played country music or you were something unwanted in music.... the eagles... the 13th floor elevators... the count five.... the stooges... and no jumpin' to the lounge side of the fence once you've made it as a rocker.... country was ok if you were folk like those dogfuckers the byrds... but to leap into lounge? unheard of.... so... everything so often.. iggy slips a oooooooh.... or a beebopadooliedoo into the tune.... every so often he struts around like a fascist lounge singer doin' his i me mine routine.... but then.... he pulls the covers back over his eyes... and starts doin' a mick thang.... i got nothin'.... nothin' to sing... nothin' to feel.... nothin' to do.... i got nothin.... cept fer this here pianner.... and the joy of stage and radio and performance that began in the music of bob wills comes to a screeching halt in iggy.... cuz iggy's about the limelight.... and wants to be adulated.... but nobody gets him... because he hasn't taken the time to discover who he is.... he will... he spends the 70s... 80s... and part of the nineties rediscovering his personality.... but... i'm getting a little ahead of myself there..... he's not pouring his self into the music... he is the music... cuz it's all he knows except for skool... and he din't do too well in skool.

more later. i'm going to cry for iggy... the evita of rock music... even though he's bowie's badass muthafuckin' daddy. This album doesn't suck... but it doesn't own... it has moment's of utter joy and abandon... it has moments of complete unadulterated goofiness.... it's a good album... it was a good surfboard... it's tough to find a surfboard you like...

if you're reading this... you probably know how tough it is to find a surfboard you like... guarantee you if this album got stolen... i'd replace it. new orleans soundin' like a drunkass hammered chorus of phil spector drag queens... only more and more evil then anything you've ever heard.

there are two more songs to listen to again... on this album that i couldn't catch the groove in for my entertaining some goddamn loadie that was smokin' all my dope.... i still don't quite catch the groove on it... but i wouldn't trade it for anything... and i'd kill anyone who took it.

the she creatures of the hollywood hills... and a big ass smile on my face... and the first coke i've drunk in a month... and my unemployed existance with some neat toys await me........

end rant 4. rant 5 California Bleeding comin' up next....