Iggy Pop: New Releases

Hugh 'Jeep' Holland was in many ways the catalyst for the Detroit rock revolution of the late 1960s. This enigmatic individual graduated from running hip record store Discount Records in Ann Arbor to his operating his own label and management stable, as well booking every major act that played in Michigan during that heady era. The legendary bills at Detroit's Grande Ballroom were all overseen by Jeep, and many musicians in the state still single him out as the true steward of 60s Detroit rock.

A-Square (Of Course), named for Jeep's booking agency, chronicles the fascinating career of this lovable rogue whose reputation preceded him. It draws principally on the vaults of his A-Square label, so beloved of 60s garage collectors, but also includes rare recordings by some of the groups that Jeep managed and/or booked.

Foremost amongst the latter are the MC5, whose super-rare 1968 single Looking At You was issued by the band on A-Square without Jeep's knowledge. It is featured here from the original master tapes, as are the incendiary early recordings by the Scot Richard Case, later known by the acronym SRC. The Thyme were another popular group that Jeep nurtured, and in addition to their singles, several unissued tracks by the outfit are included.

Jeep also booked the Bossmen, later to become Grande stalwarts the Frost, and several previously unreleased tracks are present on A-Square (Of Course). Of great interest to Stooges freaks will be a live track by the rarely heard Prime Movers, featuring a snotty young Iggy Pop on drums and lead vocals, circa 1966. Collectable items by the Up, Apostles, Rain and others round out the set, which is profusely annotated and illustrated with items from Jeep's personal archive. A-Square (Of Course) finally and definitively documents a major chapter in Detroit rock history.

Interview with Michael Erlewine, Prime Mover member and founder of AMG here at the great Aussie music site The I-94 Bar. Buy it, tracklisting here.

Vendor info:
After the Stooges fizzled away into commercial oblivion (as so many legendary bands of the era did), David Bowie saved our heavenly father of punk rock from obscurity, and jumpstarted his solo career. Don’t miss this perfectly weeded garden of Iggy’s most prized petunias. In other words, buy this if you want to hear Iggy rip through 13 of his most classic tracks.

Tracklisting:

A1		China Girl
A2		Five Foot One
A3		Funtime
A4		Girls
A5		I Got A Right
A6		I'm Bored
A7		Kill City
B1		Knocking'em Down
B2		Loco Mosquito
B3		Louie Louie
B4		Lust For Life
B5		New Values
B6		Pumpin For Jill

Iggy Pop practically invented punk rock with The Stooges and is celebrated for his wild and dangerous attitude, whether with The Stooges, David Bowie, or other line-ups. But he’s rarely seen solo.

This DVD and CD captures Iggy without a band, but just as rock’n’roll as ever. Stripped down versions of “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, “Louie Louie”, “Night Clubbing”, “Pablo Picasso” (a cover of the MODERN LOVERS classic) and many other favourites, like they’ve never been heard before - plus five previously unreleased songs.

All areas DVD features solo acoustic show from Barcelona from 1993 plus a solo electric show from Paris in 1990 including five previously unreleased songs.
Packaged in a CD-sized jewel-case for CD racking.

1. Butt Town
2. Foolish Dreams
3. Beggar Iggy
4. The Wind
5. Starry Night
6. Brick By Brick
7. I Am
8. Think Alone
9. LA Blues
10. Nightclubbing

Iggy Pop, live and wild from 1981, plus two bonus tracks from a studio session with Ric Ocasek. Fronting a crack band featuring Blondie drummer Clem Burke and future David Bowie guitarist Carlos Alomar, Pop is as unpredictable and dominant as ever. This is a soundboard recording, taped near the end of their tour supporting his 1981 album Party, Iggy and co. are raw and ready for business. The two bonus tracks are previously unreleased versions recorded with Ric Ocasek in 1983.

It is tough to compete with The Stooges and Fun House when it comes to menacing rock & roll/ punk with as much ambiance as attitude. With a bootleg type feel, Live San Fran 1981 is still able to rise above the predictable with a few choice cuts to satisfy those devoted to Iggy's music. Opening with a decent "Some Weird Sin" from 1977's Lust for Life, this set is not comprehensive, and that it is so haphazard is actually a plus here. The obligatory "TV Eye" and "1969" are included, but outside of the title track to "Lust for Life," everything else will be obscure to people not acquainted with the Stooges' brand of mayhem. The core of the album is in support of the 1981 Arista release Party, and the second track, "Houston Is Hot Tonight," is one of the more manic and exciting cuts here. It sounds like a bizarre and revamped sequel to "White Light/White Heat" by the Velvet Underground with plenty of grunge to bring it over the top. "Rock & Roll Party," "Eggs on Plate," "Pumpin for Jill," and "Bang Bang" are the other titles from Party, those five tracks being half that album represented here on the twelve live tunes. "Dum Dum Boys," the only track from 1977's The Idiot, has eerie guitars and a sinister vocal that propels and differentiates it from most of the show on display in this package. "I Need More," a Matlock/Pop collaboration, has a good anthemic feel to it with a made-for-football-game chorus, and "I'm a Conservative," also from 1980s Soldier disc on Arista, has some decent moments. Despite the low sonics, the performance is very good and some of the selections -- "Houston Is Hot," "Bang Bang," "Dum Dum Boys," even parts of "I'm a Conservative" -- are hard driving and successful. The two studio bonus tracks, "Fire Engine" and "Warrior Tribe," were produced by Cars mastermind Ric Ocasek They don't have Pop's sneer nor Ocasek's trademark edge, but they are nice to have for completists. At the end of "Bang Bang" the Ig announces the band to an appreciative audience, though the tracking appears not to be in the order of the concert. About Iggy Pop/Jim Osterberg's recorded "live" concerts, Greg Prato says in his review of Ultimate Live: "either Iggy is focused and ready to take on the whole crowd (1977-1978, 1985-present day), or indifferent and half-hearted (1979-1983)." This 1981 disc is the exception to that rule, except for the Ocasek produced studio material, which is a shame because Ocasek is a truly gifted producer when he puts the elbow grease into it. Perhaps Ric and Iggy were having too much fun to settle down and let it rip, as the techno drums on both tracks get in the way of the hard-rocking live set. But all of it -- live and studio -- is nice to have for Iggy completists, and there are some key moments on this fine little platter. [A DVD of the show was released in 1986; this CD-only version was released in 2007.] ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide

Track Listing/Features:
SOME WEIRD SIN
HOUSTON IS HOT TONIGHT
TV EYE
1969
ROCK & ROLL PARTY
BANG BANG
DUM DUM BOYS
EGGS ON PLATE
I'M A CONSEVARTIVE
I NEED MORE
LUST FOR LIFE
PUMPIN' FOR JILL
FIRE ENGINE
WARRIOR TRIBE

Holiday Gift Pack: A Million in Prizes: The Anthology (2CD) and Live at the Avenue B (DVD) [EXPLICIT LYRICS]

Released: November, 06, 2007
Record Label: EMI

For many first wave Euro punks, the first time they had the opportunity to experience Iggy Pop in the flesh was during his 1977 tour (his first since exiting the Stooges), and the 2007 four-disc box set, 1977, features some of Iggy's finest performances from his inaugural solo/Euro jaunt. An impressively assembled package, 1977 features (supposedly for the first time), Iggy's complete performance from the Rainbow Theater, as well as performances from Paris and Berlin, and studio outtakes/alternate mixes. With the Stooges still being listed as the chief influence of many of the era's punk bands, expectedly, quite a few Stooges tracks find their way into the set, including such standouts as "Raw Power," "1969," "Dirt," and "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Also featured are then-fresh solo Iggy ditties (some feel the best of Iggy's solo career), including "The Passenger," "Lust for Life," "Funtime," and "Sister Midnight," and tracks that were performed only live ("CC Rider," ""That's How Strong My Love Is"". From those who were lucky to catch Iggy during this tour, it's regarded as among the most intense and focused of his career -- as he appeared to be a man out to prove that there was a reason why he was being heralded as the Godfather of Punk.offers the in-concert proof. ~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide

Original Punks

Released: January, 02, 2007
Record Label: Music Club International
Purchasing info here.

1977 was a huge year for Punk in the UK but as these recordings underline Iggy Pop and The Stooges were already liberating music from its bloated prog meanderings a few years earlier. Indeed their story appeared to have come to an abrupt end when they disbanded amidst chaos in 1974. But over the next few years a wealth of legal and not so legal releases featuring finished recordings, demos and rehearsals hit the shops with alarming regularity. The quality of those releases varied dramatically and often left a lot to be desired. So here we’ve put together the best of those tracks for your listening pleasure.

2006 two CD compilation of tracks recorded after their second album, Fun House. Contains original versions of tracks that eventually would become the Raw Power album, including the legendary Kill City sessions. History tells us that 1977 was a huge year for Punk in the UK but as these recordings underline, Iggy Pop and The Stooges were already liberating music from its bloated Prog meanderings a few years earlier. Indeed, their story appeared to have come to an abrupt end when they disbanded amidst chaos in 1974. But over the next few years, a wealth of legal and not so legal releases featuring finished recordings, demos and rehearsals hit the shops with alarming regularity. The quality of those releases varied dramatically and often left a lot to be desired. This CD contains the best of those recordings. 28 tracks including 'Gimme Danger', 'Raw Power', 'I'm Sick Of You', 'Consolation Prizes' and more. Music Club.

Track Listing
1. Consolation Prizes
2. Kill City
3. I'm Sick Of You
4. Scene Of The Crime
5. Tight Pants
6. Delta Blues
7. Shuffle
8. Johanna
9. Sell Your Love
10. I Got Nothin'
11. No Sense Of Crime
12. Raw Power
13. Gimme Some Skin
14. Night Theme
15. Jesus Loves The Stooges
16. Gimme Danger
17. Open Up & Bleed
18. Penetration
19. Raw Power
20. I Need Somebody
21. Consolation Prizes
22. Beyond The Law
23. I Got A Right
24. Head On
25. Rubber Legs
26. Wild Love
27. Pinpoint Eyes
28. Death Trip
29. I'm A Man

Same Stooges. Different World. Finer Wine.

NYTimes article and video

THE STOOGES
“The Weirdness”
(Virgin)

The old Stooges stomp from the late 1960s — a pounding, wah-wah-ing, cymbal-socking, garage-psychedelic blare — is back in force on “The Weirdness.” Nearly everything else has changed.

“The Weirdness” is the first full album that Iggy Pop has made with Ron Asheton on guitar, his brother, Scott, on drums and Steve Mackay on tenor saxophone since the Stooges’ 1970 “Fun House.”

The world now remembers the Stooges as a proto-punk band, and they reinforce that impression on “The Weirdness.” There’s only a hint of the deliberate, droning vamps that linked the group back to psychedelia, and the longest song runs just over four minutes.

Despite his reckless, self-immolating stage act with the Stooges, Iggy Pop, 59, survived the decades as a working rock star. Always a blunt songwriter, he has left behind the cocky nihilism of the original Stooges for a grown-up assortment of experience, irritation, leering, humor, calculated defiance and glimpses of burnout.

He’s not a street kid anymore; more than one song on the album revolves around money. Yet every so often he tries, a little desperately, to tweak taboos: “My idea of fun is killing everyone,” he rhymes.

After three decades of punk it’s harder to get a rise out of people with a bad attitude. But that Stooges stomp, primal and insolent, still sounds like trouble. JON PARELES

AGE has really caught up to Iggy Pop. The punk rocker, who turns 60 in April, tells Spin: "To feel good when I was 21, all I had to do was to smoke a joint. Now I have to turn off my phones, do tai chi for an hour, drink a strong cup of coffee and stay away from bad people, so I can feel good for an hour or two - knowing [that] when it ends, I'm gonna feel like the miserable 59-year-old [bleep] that I actually am."

Before London was burning, America had a small but pivotal fire in Michigan during the late sixties and early seventies. Two of the most important bands behind the flames were MC5 and The Stooges. Loud, revolting, angry, without any care for their audience except which fan would provide a bed for the members to sleep in, these bands helped set the attitude and aesthetic for the punk movement while taking from the past to reshape rock n' roll to what it should be: something that confuses parents, entices the youth to indulge, and scares the hell out of political and religious leaders.

It's futile to argue over which of the two bands was the most important, but The Stooges most certainly let loose more sex, anger, and were the more gritty and creative of the two bands. One of the reasons for this is because of what Iggy Pop brought to the group. A living legend and testament to what stage presence should be and what it means to be a front-man, Iggy Pop (then called Iggy Stooge) walked on the audience like Jesus on the water (and you thought crowd-surfing was exciting), cut himself by rolling around over broken bottles and, er? rubbed peanutbutter over himself.

It's a shame that Pop has become the focus of the group because Ron Ashton's guitar created walls of sound that perfectly evoked the sexual, aggressive, and flirtatious tone of Pop's voice while his brother drumming, along with Dave Alexander's bass work, created a great rhythm section for the guitar to work from (which would later influence some of the No-Wave bands of the 80's).

And now, anyone that didn't have a chance to see The Stooges perform with their original line up will be able to see them with replacement bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen) as they begin their tour March 8 at the Caprices Festival in Montana to support their first new album in over three decades, The Weirdness.

Stooges' guitarist Ron Asheton talks about the band's new CD ''The Weirdness,'' and what it's like to be back with Pop and brother Scott after a 34-year hiatus
http://www.ew.com/
Feb. 22, 2007
By Simon Vozick-Levinson

LUST FOR LIFE Ron Asheton says ''It's still the Stooges'' when he gets together with Iggy and brother Scott. ''It's still sex, it's still anger. And there's always that little tinge of humor.''

On March 6, the Stooges will unleash The Weirdness, their first studio album in 34 years. Much has changed since the Michigan garage-rockers split up: Frontman Iggy Pop went on to solo stardom long ago, and the three noisy, nihilistic LPs that he recorded with the band unexpectedly have become cultural touchstones. Largely ignored or reviled in their day, the Stooges have served as patron saints for anti-establishment movements from punk to grunge. What should fans should expect from the band's second act?

''They're gonna enjoy it, and they're gonna be surprised,'' says Ron Asheton, the Stooges' guitarist. ''[We're] treating the Stooges as a living band. We could go out and be an oldies band and just play shows and the same songs, but [Iggy] wanted to get more out of it.''

The three surviving members of the original quartet — Iggy, Ron, and Ron's brother Scott Asheton on drums — spent the last three years writing new material, with the Minutemen's Mike Watt filling in for late bassist Dave Alexander. Last fall, they cut the album in producer Steve Albini's Chicago studio. ''It wasn't like having to start over, or any kind of struggle,'' Asheton says. ''When I hook up with those guys, I'm right back where I started. It was like all those years [in between] just evaporated.''

Of course, with their 60th birthdays looming, the old friends aren't quite as wild as the Stooges of legend. ''Now there's no drugs, there's no crazy times,'' Asheton says. But he assures us that their new jams are as raw as ever. ''It's still the Stooges. It's still sex, it's still anger. And there's always that little tinge of humor. It's just dissing all the proper things, and loving all the right things.''

With The Weirdness ready to hit stores, the Stooges are already contemplating their next move. Spring tour dates are in the works, and Asheton is looking forward to recording another new album with the band as soon as next year. ''We're having a good time,'' he says. ''I love being in the studio. So we're going to continue as long as the people want us.''

The Weirdness, the first new album by Iggy and the Asheton brothers in 34 years, doesn't reach the unhinged heights of their three classics

http://www.ew.com/
The Weirdness (2007)
Release Date: Mar 06, 2007; Lead Performance: Iggy and the Stooges; Genre: Rock B-
By Dalton Ross Dalton Ross
Posted Feb 21, 2007

Dalton Ross is an editor-at-large EW, and swears there are better pictures of him out there...somewhere.
History is littered with once-vital rock acts whose reunion efforts couldn't come close to capturing the oomph of the original outings. So let's take a look at Iggy Pop's seminal pre-punk outfit, the Stooges, who are back with a new album titled The Weirdness. When other bands of the late '60s/early '70s were busy singing about peace, love, and understanding, Iggy was out to search and destroy. He smeared peanut butter all over himself and crooned about being someone's mutt — all pretty outlandish stuff. The band's 1969 self-titled debut was a tad uneven, with some filler (the 10-minute ''We Will Fall'') and songs that sounded suspiciously familiar (''1969'' and ''Little Doll'' are pretty much the exact same tune), but its nihilistic high points (''No Fun,'' ''I Wanna Be Your Dog'') planted the seeds of a musical revolution.

Filled with Iggy's random yelping and Ron Asheton's buzz-saw guitar, the band's follow-up, 1970's Fun House, was quite simply one of the dirtiest, grimiest, and most sweat-stained albums ever. It's hard now to appreciate just how radical this record was upon its release, but suffice it to say it's not often you hear a lead singer coughing over the music, as Iggy does on ''T.V. Eye.'' The album felt primal, unpredictable, dangerous. It still does. Even with a rejiggered lineup and piss-poor David Bowie production, 1973's Raw Power contained enough dirgy anthems (''Gimme Danger,'' ''Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell'') to cement the Stooges' reputation as the forefathers of punk. They were a band that never sold a lot of records, but they mattered. The Weirdness, the group's first full-length release in 34 years, may not do either.Asheton can still manufacture some cutting, blues-drenched riffs, most notably on ''Trollin''' and ''ATM,'' but he now seems to be playing his guitar less as a weapon and more as — gasp! — an instrument. And while Iggy has never been a master lyricist — his simplicity, such as chanting ''I feel alright!'' about 312 times in a row, has always been his charm — there are several stanzas (''She wore some short shorts, man, she filled them out/ These bodies only come from way down South'') that come off more corny than minimalist.

There are certainly moments of The Weirdness that rock. A few of these new Stooges songs may even cause you to stand up and take notice. The difference is, the old ones made you duck for cover. B-

The Weirdness is right
Roxana Hadadi
http://www.diamondbackonline.com/
Issue date: 3/6/07

What the hell happened to Iggy Pop? Back in the day, the front man of The Stooges was a crucially rebellious punk icon, the kind of guy who made cutting yourself look cool - emo kids, take note - and put peers such as Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious to shame with his wild onstage antics, such as smearing peanut butter on himself and then stage-diving into crowds of leather-jacketed, spiky-haired toughs.

But more than 30 years later, when punk is a mere mainstream shadow of what it once was, Iggy Pop seems like a shadow, too. And, on The Stooges' latest, The Weirdness, his cultural non-significance shows all too obviously.

Punk drew its origins in one main sphere of thought, epitomized in The Clash's London Calling and Combat Rock and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bullocks: Politics matter, politicians don't. No one was free from mockery or criticism, not even the Queen of England or her "fascist regime."

But what set The Stooges apart from the rest of the pack - and The Stooges came earlier than both the Sex Pistols and The Clash, effectively paving their ways - were their banal lyrics, swaggering youth, whip-fast guitar riffs and shouted vocals. Raw Power was the band's tour de force, a shining, 32-minute-long example of minimalist musical genius that relied on Iggy's charisma and songs such as "Search and Destroy" and "Gimme Danger" to inspire a cult-like, proto-punk following.

Yet everything that made The Stooges so great is significantly lacking on The Weirdness, the band's first LP in 34 years. Iggy's vocals are dull and monotone; the lyrics could be interesting, but he delivers them in a lackluster, lifeless way that begs to be ignored. On the first track, "Trollin'," Iggy delivers an awkward ballad about what a "suave thing it is to do" to write a song about searching for easy girls. "I see your hair as energy/ My dick is turning into a tree," Iggy growls - or is it rasps? Either way, the song starts the album on a subpar, somewhat sleazy route that it never shakes off.

And tracks such as "The End of Christianity" are also repetitive and drawn-out, a tedious departure from The Stooges' normal one- to two-minute song lengths. Ridiculous and meaningless lines such as "I saw a goddess in a pizza joint/ She hit my weak spot at a crucial point/ When it's a black girl you cannot resist/ It's the end of Christianity" aren't doing much to help Iggy's case either.

But don't worry, it gets worse, not only with the lyrics but also with the music. The lightning-quick, raging guitars that gave The Stooges their recognizable sound are gone, replaced by chuggingly predictable instrumentals that sound generic and common. Songs such as "Idea of Fun," about how Iggy's ideal pastime is "killing everyone," start off like old Stooges, but then immediately veer back into a sadly safe and unimaginative area of rejected hard-rock riffs.

Sure, Iggy pontificates about his hatred of mankind, suggests that friendships are all fake dalliances, and claims mankind is full of "greedy, awful people." But the thing is, these were all things Iggy was singing about more than 30 years ago, back when punk was defining the concept of angry, aimless youth. It's harder to swallow these type of songs from the mouth of a 60-year-old man who has already defined his "Lust for Life."

And that's the main problem with The Weirdness: It's simply not believable. In "Trollin'," Iggy claims "rock critics wouldn't like this at all." Too bad that's the only thing Iggy and the rest of The Stooges get right with this album.

20th Century Masters - Millennium Collection: The Best of Iggy Pop

Released: August, 29, 2006
Record Label: A&M
Purchasing info here.

Personnel: Iggy Pop; David Bowie, Hunt Sales, Tony Sales, Steve Jones , Ricky Gardiner, Carlos Alomar.

Recording information: 1977 - 1988.

Track Listing
1. Sister Midnight
2. Lust For Life
3. Real Wild Child (Wild One)
4. Cry For Love
5. Fire Girl
6. Isolation
7. Cold Metal
8. Tuff Baby
9. Kill City - (live, live)
10. 1969 - (live)
11. I Wanna Be Your Dog - (live, live)

If Iggy Pop fans are a little evangelical, they can be forgiven based on the evidence presented on this disc, which delivers eight classic solo offerings from the fertile decade between 1977's THE IDIOT and 1988's INSTINCT, as well as two live renderings of Stooges songs ("I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "1969") and a lesser-known gem from his collaboration with former Stooge James Williamson. Although in no way a comprehensive collection (even casual enthusiasts may wonder where "The Passenger" is) many highlights from his storied career are here: the all-pervading "Lust for Life," the Bowie-produced genius of "Sister Midnight," and some selections from his underrated pseudo-comeback album BLAH BLAH BLAH. While other collections provide more scope, this one-disc compendium offers a tidy introduction to roughly the first decade of his solo career.

I Wanna Be Your Dog

Skydog International SKYD20062.2
Release date 11.26.06

Purchasing info here in French, here for the US.

BARCELONA (solo/acoustic) Sputnick TV Show 1993
SOON COMING "ACCOUSTIC KO" ON SKYDOG CD +DVD
SAN DIEGO (Iggy Pop) November 17, 1977
TOKYO (1) (Iggy & The Stooges) March 24, 2004
"TELLURIC CHAOS" ON SKYDOG CD
SWITZERLAND (Iggy Pop) July 15, 2000
TOKYO (2) (Iggy & The Stooges) March 24, 2004
"TELLURIC CHAOS" ON SKYDOG CD
DETROIT (Iggy & The Stooges) October 6, 1973
Rap version Heavy Liquid,"METALLIC KO" ON SKYDOG CD

The Stooges To Be Reissued And Expanded This August
Tuesday June 28, 2005 @ 04:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

The Stooges The majority of Iggy Pop's career may have been a tad marred by drug addictions, public vilification
and abysmal sales, but the influential punk pioneer continues to find ways to stay relevent.On August 16, only a month after the release of The Iggy Pop Anthology, Rhino will unveil its tribute to Pop's Detroit-based rock band, The Stooges.Billboard.com reports the band's first two studio albums, 1969's The Stooges and 1970's Fun House,
will bereissuedin special expanded editions. Both albums will come with a second disc of rare tracks. The Stooges, with an introduction penned by shock-rocker Alice Cooper, will feature unreleased versions, original mixesand alternatevocal takes of classic songs like "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "No Fun." Jack White wrote the introduction for Fun House. It will include demos, alternate takes and single
mixes only previously available on the currently out-of-print Rhino release, 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions. The track listing of The Stooges (Deluxe Edition):Disc One:"1969"
"I Wanna Be Your Dog"
"We Will Fall"
"No Fun"
"Real Cool Time"
"Ann"
"Not Right"
"Little Doll"
Disc Two:"No Fun" (Original John Cale Mix)
"1969" (Original John Cale Mix)
"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Original John Cale Mix)
"Little Doll" (Original John Cale Mix)
"1969" (Alternate Vocal)
"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Alternate Vocal)
"Not Right" (Alternate Vocal)
"Real Cool Time" (Alternate Mix)
"Ann" (Including "The Dance Of Romance")
"No Fun" (Full Version)
The track listing of Fun House (Deluxe Edition):Disc One:"Down On The Street"
"Loose"
"T.V. Eye"
"Dirt"
"1970"
"Fun House"
"L.A. Blues"
Disc Two:"T.V. Eye (Takes 7 & 8)"
"Loose" (Demo)
"Loose" (Take 2)
"Loose" (Take 22)
"Lost In The Future" (Take 1)
"Down On The Street" (Take 1)
"Down On The Street" (Take 8)
"Dirt" (Take 4)
"Slide (Slidin' The Blues)" (Take 1)
"1970" (Take 3)
"Fun House" (Take 2)
"Fun House" (Take 3)
Bonus Single Mixes:"Down On The Street"
"1970"
—Angela Kozak

Fans of the legendary Stooges, Iggy Pop's breakthrough band, can look forward to expanded remasters of 'The Stooges' and 'Fun House' through Rhino in August.

The collectors editions will feature previously unreleased bonus tracks, rarities and remastered versions of the two albums.

The 1969 self-titled debut was produced by John Cale and featured 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and '1969'.

'Full House' from 1970 will include a bonus disc featuring the long out-of-print '1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions' from Rhino Handmade.

Tracklistings are:
THE STOOGES (DELUXE EDITION)
Disc One
1. "1969"
2. "I Wanna Be Your Dog"
3. "We Will Fall"
4. "No Fun"
5. "Real Cool Time"
6. "Ann"
7. "Not Right"
8. "Little Doll"
Disc Two
1. "No Fun" (Original John Cale Mix)*
2. "1969" (Original John Cale Mix)*
3. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Original John Cale Mix)*
4. "Little Doll" (Original John Cale Mix)*
5. "1969" (Alternate Vocal)*
6. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Alternate Vocal)*
7. "Not Right" (Alternate Vocal)*
8. "Real Cool Time" (Alternate Mix)*
9. "Ann" (Including "The Dance Of Romance")*
10. "No Fun" (Full Version)*
*previously unissued

FUN HOUSE (DELUXE EDITION)
Disc One
1. "Down On The Street"
2. "Loose"
3. "T.V. Eye"
4. "Dirt"
5. "1970"
6. "Fun House"
7. "L.A. Blues"

Disc Two
1. "T.V. Eye (Takes 7 & 8)"
2. "Loose" (Demo)
3. "Loose" (Take 2)
4. "Loose" (Take 22)
5. "Lost In The Future" (Take 1)
6. "Down On The Street" (Take 1)
7. "Down On The Street" (Take 8)
8. "Dirt" (Take 4)
9. "Slide (Slidin' The Blues)" (Take 1)
10. "1970" (Take 3)
11. "Fun House" (Take 2)
12. "Fun House" (Take 3)
Bonus Single Mixes
13. "Down On The Street"
14. "1970"

Stooges Reopen "House"
Deluxe editions of Detroit rockers' first two albums due

COLIN DEVENISH
(Posted Jun 23, 2005)
http://www.rollingstone.com/

Expanded versions of the Stooges' howling, hard-rocking first two albums are headed for record stores on August 16th. Rhino Records' double-CD deluxe editions of 1969's The Stooges and 1970's Fun House will feature the original album plus a bonus CD of demos and rarities. The bonus disc of the Stooges' eponymous debut contains alternate takes and mixes of classics like "I Wanna Be Your Dog," while its Fun House counterpart also includes two songs, "Lost in the Future" and "Slide (Slidin' the Blues)," that did not appear on the original release.

Formed in 1967, the Stooges were Detroit's gritty response to what singer Iggy Pop calls the "wockety-wickety-wackety-woo" of the hippie movement. "It didn't even rock," he told Rolling Stone in 2003 of the flowery soundtrack to the Summer of Love. "I mean, 'Marrakesh Express?' It may be the worst song ever written."

The Stooges' noisy anthems resonated with fans looking for a different sound, and later influenced generations of punk and post-punk musicians, such as fellow Detroit denizen Jack White, who wore the digital dots off of his Fun House cassette when he was growing up.

"I played the hell out of [that tape], like someone was gonna break in and take my tape deck while I was driving," the White Stripes frontman writes in the Fun House (Deluxe Edition) liner notes. "I remember screaming in my head, 'This is Detroit!' And that's what Fun House is to me, the very definition of Detroit rock & roll, and by proxy the definitive rock album of America. The record's passion, attitude, power, emotion and destruction are incalculable."

Caroline Bermudez reports:
Normally coughing up more money to get albums you already own sucks, but the good folks at Rhino make sure it's a worthwhile investment with their lavish reissues. Such will be the case on August 16, when deluxe editions of the Stooges' first two albums, The Stooges and Fun House, are unleashed.

Each expanded version will feature the original album, plus a bonus disc of demos and rarities. The bonus CD of the self-titled debut has 10 previously unreleased cuts, such as producer John Cale's original mixes of "No Fun", "Little Doll", "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "1969", a full version of "No Fun", and three alternate vocal takes.

The Fun House edition contains demos for "Slide (Slidin' the Blues") and "Lost in the Future" (both tracks did not make it to the original album), single mixes of "1970" and "Down on the Street", and three alternate takes. In 1997, frontman Iggy Pop himself oversaw the remastering of the Stooges' masterpiece, Raw Power, which was originally mixed by David Bowie. No word as to whether Iggy Pop or the other members of the Stooges were involved in these reissues.

The Stooges snarled like a teenager with its anthems for the young and discontented, "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "1969", "No Fun", and "Real Cool Time". Trying to recreate the band's chaotic live shows, 1970's Fun House is a garage rock classic and helped set the stage for punk's advent later on in the decade. It boasts the stomping ravers, "Loose" and "TV Eye".

Although the Stooges only released three albums, they influenced a generation of underground acts. Of the Stooges' audience, Iggy Pop said they were "high-school drop-outs, troubled drug kids." Speaking as neither a high-school dropout nor a troubled drug kid, I think these albums rule.

Iggy Pop
A Million in Prizes: The Anthology
[Virgin; 2005]
Pitchfork.com
Stephen M. Deusner, July 29, 2005
Rating: 7.9

The title of Iggy Pop's second career retrospective seems to me as arbitrary as, say, That's Like Hypnotizin' Chickens or Of Course I've Had It in the Ear Before, albeit much less entertaining. And it's subtitled like we've been waiting for it for a long, long time-- which is true, but only to an extent. For the past nine years, Pop's career has been summarized only by the single-disk Nude & Rude: The Best of Iggy Pop, which tried to explain a complex artist in only 17 tracks. Even to an initiate, Nude & Rude had to seem only cursory-- a problem A Million in Prizes seeks to correct. It collects 38 tracks from nearly 40 years (!), including alternate takes, non-album tracks, and live cuts. It renders its predecessor immediately obsolete-- look for N&R to flood your local used CD store-- and is probably as good a Pop retrospective as we're likely to get on two disks.

Most collections like this give us an opportunity to reassess an artist's accomplishments and reconsider the shape and effect of their output. A Million in Prizes: The Anthology, however, seems just the opposite: several years of revisiting and reconsidering his past work have finally culminated in a retrospective anthology that might be the crest of a second wave that started with Trainspotting (did it really? or did it just seem to?) and has been building ever since. In the intervening decade, Pop has become a legend to the garage rock bands and punk nostalgics while remaining a guiding saint to throngs of disaffected adolescents (including the dropout who used to blare "Lust for Life" in the apartment above me all hours of the day and night). Todd Haynes made a movie about him, Jim Jarmusch made a movie with him, and we here at Pitchfork placed four Iggy-related albums on our Top 100 Albums of the 70s list.

Murmured rumors and outright statements claim that Pop's the father of both punk and the garage-rock revival. While it's tempting to assign that extra meaning to his stage surname, influence does not necessary produce a positive paternity test. Pop is punk only in retrospect. Instead of defining a movement (that already had a leg up with MC5 and wouldn't hit full steam for several more years), the Stooges simply stripped 50s rock and roll down to its animal essence-- broken-glass blues riffs, steady backbeats, and punctuating hand claps-- then exaggerated its hedonistic appetites and self-destructive tendencies to brutish, nearly comic proportions on their first three albums, which are represented by 10 tracks on A Million in Prizes-- almost a fourth of the compilation.

I can't really argue with that. The Stooges' distillation of rock is no small feat, but Pop wasn't a first amendment pioneer. A succession of 60s artists from Jim Morrison to Lou Reed had already cleared the way for Pop's anarchic aesthetic, but just as this lineage doesn't dull his music, neither does it dull his legacy. Instead, it points out his distinct accomplishment-- the performative aspect of his music. It wasn't the lyrics that made his songs dangerous, but Pop's yelping insistence, the depraved howls that punctuated his verses and hid a curiously smooth baritone. Just like his body, his voice was wiry and exposed and graceful, slithering and bleeding and peanut-buttery.

The first disk of A Million in Prizes showcases this aspect of Pop's music, but the second disk has the unenviable task of summing up everything since, from New Values and Soldier to Beat Em Up and Skull Ring. Admittedly, there are some incredible moments: the live cut of "TV Eye" from the 1993 Feile Festival in Ireland suggests Pop hasn't lost as much edge on stage as he has in the studio. Two duets stand out: he and B-52 Kate Pierson are well matched on the wistful "Candy", and he and Debbie Harry have a goof with Cole Porter's "Well, Did You Evah!" from Red Hot + Blue. And even though it mercifully omits his collaboration with Peaches, the second disk can't possibly match the first for sheer raw power. Really, who could keep it up that long?

But A Million in Prizes tells a story that's greater than the individual tracks themselves, one that elevates even the dimmest of material. Even so, there's something a little sad about seeing such a vital artist canonized like this. Greatest hits compilations are round holes into which pegs of every shape are fitted, and they tend to have a neutering effect, absorbing rebel music into the very system it once railed against. Even though A Million in Prizes accomplishes exactly what it set out to do, it's difficult to get excited about this collection, especially with upcoming reissues of The Stooges and Fun House to look forward to.