Iggy & The Stooges - Metallic K.O. (1976)

"If I don't terrorize, I'm not Pop"- Iggy Pop

It's become an article of pat faith among today's so-called 'arts commentators' that Iggy Pop is something of a joke: the one-time real-deal embodiment of rock filth reduced to extolling the joys of domesticity, singing about how he wants to live "a little bit longer". What these smug excuses for amoebic pond-life fail to realise is that no-one has embodied rock'n'roll more totally than Iggy, nor come closer to paying for such utter commitment with his life. He can, therefore, do whatever he wants.

Conclusive proof for such exorbitant babble resides with 'Metallic KO'. Legend maintains this more-talked-about-than-actually-heard document of the last Iggy And The Stooges gig on February 9, 1974 (plus another show from October '73) offers a goo-drenched vantage point at what was, as Iggy himself gleefully yowls, a "riot in the Motor City!" caused by an entire Hell's Angel chapter bent on snuffing out these no-mark punks. In truth, however, the recording's limitations - two fans bootlegged the gig and sent the tapes to Stooges guitarist James Williamson - conspire to minimise the mayhem at Detroit's Michigan Palace. All we have are Iggy's words for it, but as ever, these speak more eloquently than the combined life's work of a million poets.

Musically, 'Metallic KO' is hardly a thing of beauty. At points, The Stooges sound like a barely alive bar band from hell - which, after years of internal rancour and merciless narcotic abuse, they essentially were - and indeed the '73 recording reveals a far more cohesive unit, with portents of all the bands who would subsequently claim these scrawny losers as prime inspiration. Yet as a portrait of a man simultaneously defined and doomed by his unquenchable desire for an adrenalin kick he couldn't find elsewhere, this is vivid, brutal entertainment.

Metallic K.O. concert

Iggy Pop’s story of the ‘Metallic K.O.’ concert.

"One time, we were playing in a place called the Rock and Roll Farm in Wayne, Michigan. I mean this place was a pit. I used to play a lot of pit holes. Nobody in the Stooges cared, we just played, you know. Well, we’re playing this pit in Wayne, Michigan, way out on a farm road - about 800 or 1,000 kids - and I was dressed in a floppy woman’s hat with three flowers on it and wearing long bleached blonde hair and a dancer’s leotard with little ballet slippers - practice slippers - and a sash affair around my waist: I think it was somebody’s curtain.

Eggs kept flying up on the stage, and as the set went on I was getting REALLY sick of it. So I said, "OK, stop the show RIGHT NOW!". I do this sometimes.

It's a funny thing - maybe it's common to other rockers, I don’t know - but the sort of music I do is very aggressive and intoxicating, and after a few songs I enter another state, probably an adrenal overload of some kind. I believe I can do just about anything. It’s not true, of course, and I often used to get into fights I just couldn’t POSSIBLY win.

So finally I say, "OK, stop the music!" Again, this is a low ceiling dump of a room - could have been a pinball palace. I want to know who’s the one throwing the eggs. Lo and behold, the waters part, and hundreds of people spread apart, and there before me - about 75 feet yon - really just standing there like man mountain Dean, just grinning, feet squarely planted, toes out, was this ENORMOUS youth with the most, the biggest, happy smile I’ve ever seen. Really, it was a wonderful smile, cause he KNEW he was king and was about to kick my ass (I’m hoping not too badly), with long flowing red hair. He must have been 6’ 5", huge shoulders, had this large plaid lumberjack shirt, this big grin. And this one arm had a knuckle glove on, a KNUCKLE GLOVE that went ALL THE WAY UP the arm, studded at the knuckles. He was carrying one of those dozen-egg cartons - his weapon. He’s clearly got his act, and he’s just standing there, a hand on his hip, just leering at me, you know, and in a deep resounding voice he says, "Hello".

So I had to make a show of it, and I’m on my toes like what I’d seen boxers do on TV, and I come out like David against Goliath to face my tormentor. Watching his fist moving toward you was like waiting for a train to hit you. He just squared off and decked me with one punch, right down on the ground, and I’m bleeding - I still have a scar, just dead between my eyes. I’m bleeding and everything. I saw stars. It was obvious I couldn’t win so I said, "Alright, well… on with the show."

And I went back and did "Louie, Louie".

That next day I went back to Detroit. I went to the radio station and challenged the entire gang, the Scorpions, of which the guy was a member, to come down and do their worst at my big show in Detroit - at the Michigan Palace - which they proceeded to do.

It became "the last ever Stooges gig" tape, ‘Metallic KO’, with a picture of me on the front of it knocked out cold - a picture of me lying IN STATE as it were. And you can hear all sorts of things on the tape flying through the air. Shovels, four-gallon jugs, M-80’s, blah blah; - but our lady fans in the front rows threw a lot of beautiful underwear, which I thought was sweet." (Extract from ‘I Need More’ by Iggy Pop)

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