"Godfather of Punk" Iggy Pop Turns 60!

On April 22, to celebrate his 60th birthday, just like the good old days, Iggy Pop dove off the stage and into the audience at the Warwick Theater in San Francisco.

The last time I saw Iggy Pop perform was in 1967 at the Grande Ballroom, Detroit's equivalent to San Francisco's Fillmore. Back then, he dove off stage and the Grande audience parted like the Red Sea before Moses, sending Iggy (then known as Iggy Stooge) face first onto the Grande's wooden floor. And, like always, he'd climb back onstage, his head split open and bloody, and he'd continue his vocal onslaught on the audience.

In 1967, Iggy and the Stooges along with the MC5, another punk predecessor band, would open at the Grande whipping up the crowd for headliners like Jimi Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane and the Cream. In Iggy's case, the Grande audience would be whipped into a state of frenzied hatred.

Note that most garden variety Detroit hippies weren't of the peace and love credo. Their credo was "Kick Out the Jams, Motherf*ckers!" When the Stooges were onstage, the audience wanted them off stage. We screamed until our throats were raw, we hated Iggy's shirtless writhing, his nasal offkey voice, and the same droning sound of every song. Some of the more desperate audience members would put a penny in a roach clip, light up the penny with the flame of a Zippo lighter, and fling the hot missile at the Stooges, hoping that one would land on Iggy's writhing bare torso. And the more hate he'd stir up, the more he'd love it.

Back then, no one in their right mind could've possibly known that Iggy would eventually gain a major following that included the likes of David Bowie and Andy Warhol. We all thought that the MC5 would be the breakout band. Most of us loved the Five.

But then, a strange thing happened to me in the early eighties. I got sick and tired of the bloated theatrics of power rock and the commercial sleaze of disco, and I went to the music store and bought my first Iggy and the Stooges album. And it sounded right for the early eighties. And it was preferable to everything else.

I still like Iggy and the Stooges. Go figure.

Happy birthday, Ig. The audience caught you this time.

SOURCES:

"Punk icon Iggy Pop turns 60", Dean Goodman, Reuters, URL: (http://uk.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKN2029103520070422)