Iggy & The Stooges "Metallic K.O." 1973-74(recorded) 1976(released)*****

I may be on my long-awaited, hard-won holiday in Greece, but I'm not about to neglect my blogging duties. I've still got a few posts in my drafts folder, and I'll be publishing them from my hotel room in Chora. Which, of course, could be anywhere as this is the name of the main town in any given Greek island. The typical Chora is built on a steep hill overlooking the harbour. The high position and tangled narrow streets are always the same as to better defend it from the Barbary corsairs who plagued the Mediterranean coasts for centuries: Especially during the 16th and 17th century, many Aegean islands were almost depopulated and their inhabitants sold at the slave markets of North Africa and the Ottoman empire. Compared to these guys, the pirates of the Caribbean were as harmless as the Disney version we know from the movies. But the tables have turned and foreign invaders (called tourists instead of pirates) now provide the islanders with their livelihood. The particular Chora I'm writing from is in the island of Ios, next to the world famous Santorini. I've long wanted to visit it, having heard much about its wonderful sandy beaches. But I kept postponing it, because of Ios' fame as a party island. Now don't get me wrong, I like partying - just not along with hordes of drunk kids, especially English ones. I don't know if they're all complete morons or if they only act as morons when they reach a certain mass and state of drunkenness, but any place with young Brit tourists is to be avoided at all costs. They flood Amsterdam too, but thankfully all they do is smoke weed in the coffeeshops and giggle like idiots in front of the women displayed at the windows of the Red Light District, while the rest of the city is yours to enjoy. Anyway, since it's the first time my summer vacation begins so late I thought I'd try Ios this year, expecting that the kids and students have let off the necessary steam early in their school holidays. And it's true that around this time you get a more diversified and relaxed crowd. There are couples and families next to the party kids - many Italians but also French, English, Scandinavian and a few Greeks. The emphasis is more on relaxing and enjoying the sea and sun than getting loudly drunk with cheap but awful booze. Or maybe it just seemed to me that way because I returned to the hotel before 2 A.M. Either way, it suits me fine. When I do want something loud, rude and completely out of control, I can play some Iggy Pop - the man who raised debauchery and wild behaviour to an art form. 

"Metallic KO" is the aural document of Iggy & The Stooges' last ever performance from 1974. Although it predates punk, it's considered by many to be the ultimate live punk record, thanks to its energy and animosity between the band and audience. Iggy Pop keeps insulting the biker element in the crowd, who respond by throwing things at him. He introduces songs with cries of "One! two! fuck you pricks!", gets pelted with beer bottles and replies with lines like "you freaks can throw me any goddamn thing in the world and your girlfriends will still love me, you jealous cocksuckers!" and "you nearly killed me but you missed again!". Talking about deja vu - how can I forget the incorrigible Iggy at the Rock Of Gods festival at Piraeus in '96? He got hit with a bottle on the head and just got on with the show, rocking even harder and shouting "You can't kill Iggy, motherfuckers! I'm immortal!". One of the wildest shows I've ever witnessed, just another day at the office for Iggy. Not to mention my first Iggy concert at Leoforos in '91: outside the stadium the police were clashing with punks, tear gas was getting blown inside by the wind, and some fans had set the plastic seats on fire to the immense delight of Iggy who screamed "Wow! I love fires!" and gave another impossibly intense performance. I was slamming myself against the crowd in the mosh pit, while security hosed us down with water, a most welcome gesture on a hot Greek summer night. Back to Detroit and The Stooges' last show of the 70's, it reportedly ended with Iggy charging the bikers in the audience head on, and getting beaten black and blue - I doubt he felt any pain though, as he was a heavy heroin user at the time.

Iggy Pop live at Piraeus, 1996

As for the music, it's the familiar Stooges hi-energy proto-punk, featuring razor-sharp riffs by James Williamson, primitive banging by the Asheton brothers rhythm section, and a clanging piano courtesy of Scott Thurston. The songs are often elongated as Iggy improvises new, rude and sexually explicit lyrics. The performance is noted for its energy rather than precision playing and the recording quality is far below professionally recorded live albums - more like a half-decent bootleg. It was recorded on tape and released in '76 by Williamson, with Iggy's consent. Despite (or because of) its raw sound, it immediately became a holy grail for a generation of young punks, and even outsold The Stooges' official major label releases. Later reissues (such as this) are embellished with a second album consisting of a recording of a different concert 3 months earlier. It's a similarly energetic performance, and the recording quality is at least as bad as disc one. The songs on both discs consist of material from The Stooges' Raw Power LP (garage dynamites "Raw Power" and "Search and Destroy" and the slow and Doors-y "Gimme Danger"), a wild and rude cover of "Louie Louie" and a bunch of previously unreleased songs: "Heavy Liquid" is a garage rocker based loosely on Gary U.S. Bond's R&B hit "New Orleans" and "I Got Nothin'" is one of his catchiest tunes alternating loud and melodic passages and featuring a great solo by Williamson. "Rich Bitch" and "Cock in My Pocket" are loud, irreverent, loose and hilariously rude. "Head On" is so loose it hardly qualifies as a song, and the 2nd disc closes with bluesy jam (complete with harmonica) "Open Up and Bleed". As a live album, this would be worth 3* or 4*, but this isn't a record you can judge on its musical merit alone. One has to see it as a historic document of rock'n'roll's most out-there group in its wildest and most controversial - and as such, it's priceless!

***** for Gimme Danger (disc 1), Louie Louie, 

**** for I Got Nothin', Cock In My Pocket, Raw Power, Gimme Danger (disc 2), Search And Destroy, Heavy Liquid (disc 2), Open Up And Bleed

*** for Heavy Liquid (disc 1), Rich Bitch

** for Head On