Iggy And The Stooges – Raw Power

RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK:

Iggy And The Stooges – Raw Power

This week’s Recommendation Of The Week is an album that changed everything! No, no… let me rephrase… it was actually, more like it ripped it all to shreds...to pieces, blew it all up and smeared the blood of everything in its wake all over it! Sounds a little dramatic, right? Well, if you’ve never heard The Stooges, you probably don’t understand. Well, what are you doing? You need to stop what you’re doing right now! You need to find “Raw Power” and listen. Once you do, you’ll know.

“Raw Power” by Iggy And The Stooges is, in my opinion, the first Punk rock album ever released. This album influenced all of it… everything and anything musically that is loud, angst filled, out-of-control and in-your-face… any music that was made to confront… any music designed to blow your mind, blow out your speakers and destroy your eardrums! Anything that sounds like that, it learned from “Raw Power”!

I still remember the first time I heard this album. I was 19 or 20, trying to find my way and still searching for “my sound”. With my lifetime of listening and unfettered love of The Velvet Underground and David Bowie well underway, I was thrust into the world of Iggy Pop. It just happened one day, and what a beautiful surprise! I knew Iggy. Hell, everyone knew of the legend of Iggy... “Godfather of Punk Rock”. But why was that? I really wanted to know!

Around that time, someone told me a story that happened that caught my interest completely. So the story goes, at my local record store, when Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was released, some kids wanted a copy of “Nevermind” on cassette. The guy at the record store told the kids that they would also like this tape, and he them with a copy of “Raw Power”. The kids were hesitant at first, and reluctant to buy in to some "old music", as young people often are… we are all like that at some point. Supposedly, they took the tape, and were blown away. They went back the next week, and wanted more, more, more! That experience sounded like something important to me... I wanted that! I wanted to know what was within “Raw Power”!

At the time, I only knew “Lust For Life” by Iggy, but hearing that story, it sounded like The Stooges were legendary, mythological and dangerous! I wanted that! Any time you heard a “Rock ’N’ Roll Story” about degenerate debauchery and decay… “the crumbling of society and unraveling of the thread of decency”... you would see Iggy’s name come up. You heard stories like the one I heard about the kids and the “Raw Power” cassette, hanging around record stores. That’s where you learned, usually shyly eavesdropping conversation, trying not to lead on that you didn’t know, while browsing for hours!

So, one day while browsing, I found a pretty beat copy on Vinyl, and I knew it was my time!

Well, when I got that copy on my turntable…

From the first punch in the face from “Search And Destroy”, I just knew I was gonna feel this one forever! It has so much energy and power, that, as the story goes, the needle on some turntables would lift off the record, especially if you played it on the cheap old All-In-One systems. It wasn’t from the bass… it was from the power in every groove of the vinyl that made it too out of control for the turntable to handle it! Hey, that’s what the story says, and I’m backing it up!

A little history… The Stooges, along with the MC5 came out of Detroit in the late 60s. At that time, you had the “hippies” in San Francisco, the “freaks” in L.A., the “cold artist esthetic” of NYC, and you had Detroit, where things were raw, angry, tense and full of high voltage energy… it was a city ready for war. Racial tensions tore the city apart, and you could feel that it could blow at any moment. As the opening band for The MC5, The Stooges were also signed to Elektra. Their Self-Titled debut and “Fun House” albums provided a fuzzy, saturated, anger-laded, drug fueled mess of a punch in the head… A soundtrack for the streets of fire, raging throughout the city. Those albums gave a small glimpse, a peak into what was to come. When 1973 rolled around, “Raw Power” exploded on turntables like an atomic bomb, and nothing sonically was ever the same. At this point, Iggy Pop was just coming into his own as frontman over The Stooges. He was like no one ever before him. He had the sexual energy of Elvis or Jim Morrison, but he was deranged, drug fueled, dark, tough, dangerous…he was much like a rabid, wild animal… out for blood and destroying all things and all convention!

People took notice. People like Alan Vega of Suicide, David Johnanson of The New York Dolls, Joey Ramone of The Ramones, Dave Vanian of The Damned and Ian Curtis of Joy Division… just a few of Iggy’s disciples.

Iggy And The Stooges blew up the minds, eardrums and the stereos of generations of kids wanting to rebel against the norm, their parents and society’s expectations… wanting to destroy the system. Bands like Suicide, The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Joy Division, The Damned and countless bands since found their voice... their heartbeat… their fight… their will from this album. It led to the creation of generations of powerful music and continues today.

When I found it, in my late teens, in the late 90’s, it was the perfect collision of timing, angst, sound and destruction for me. I felt that energy flow through my veins! I felt reborn and alive for the first time in my life! I can still feel it today! I will never forget the power of hearing those first notes of “Search And Destroy”! It blew my mind and helped me realize the possibilities of sound!

If you’ve ever seen “Almost Famous”, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of Lester Bangs was legendary. His most memorable scene was him gushing poetically and obsessively over Iggy Pop and the true power of “Raw Power”. 

Back in 1973, as America was tumbling into a hangover, a depression fueled by failed promises of the 1960s, it needed something. Everything felt stale. Rock music felt a little stale and a little out of touch. As the 60’s closed, America launched into Outer Space and didn’t really come back. That euphoria didn’t match what was happening on the streets, however. In cities like Detroit, reality was that life was dirty, concrete, bloody, broken, and dangerous. A war was raging and the kids needed something to reflect how they felt... hopeless, directionless… completely disenfranchised with the failed “American Dream” … something was needed to help process and convey the hurt and the anger. Iggy And The Stooges never glossed or waxed politically… No, they didn’t have to… they just wanted to take the system and viciously dismember it… smear its blood on their faces, cut their chests open with shattered street glass, expose their hearts and souls and proclaim…

“I'm a street-walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm
I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys

Honey, gotta help me, please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, detonate for me, ow”

Essential Track: “Search And Destroy”