BOMP! RECORDS – Kill City
As I have written about previously, the first LP released by Bomp! Records was Kill City, representing music that Iggy Pop and James Williamson put together right after the Stooges broke up. As Greg Shaw tells the story in the liner notes for the double-CD compilation album, Destination: Bomp! in the entry for the Stooges song “I Got a Right”: “In 1976-77, Bomp was about the only established label in America that was actively pushing the new music. For a brief time, I could have had virtually any band that I wanted. It couldn’t last of course, but while it did, it was a real rush.
“But I never dreamed I could have the Stooges, until James Williamson showed up one day with a tale of woe: Iggy, fighting to kick drugs, had finished most of a great new album, but his rep was so bad no label would touch him. Even Sire [Records] had passed on Kill City. Was I interested?
“Even though I had to almost sell my soul to raise the needed cash, I wasn’t about to let this deal pass. To this day, Kill City is the single most important item in the Bomp catalog; but what made it extra nice is that James also threw in a big box of unlabeled tapes that turned out to be mostly demos and rehearsals from the Raw Power days onward – hours and hours of stuff that became the foundation for my long-term Iguana Chronicles project of documenting the unreleased side of this incredible band.”
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Officially, the Kill City LP’s were released by Bomp! Records in 1977; but in order to actually get the albums produced, Bomp! had made a deal with a leading record importer called Jem Records, and they were the ones who pressed and sold the original LP’s on ugly green vinyl and also got the licensing rights. (I have Jem Records and names similar to that, like GEMA, on who knows how many of my albums, though “Jem Records” apparently does not appear anywhere on the Kill City-era records). There are also 8-track tapes of both Kill City and Metallic K.O. out there according to Discogs.
Greg Shaw recalls fondly: “Kill City, besides being Bomp’s first LP (although this [the 1992 Kill City CD] is in fact the first time we’ve ever put it out ourselves!) also had the distinction of being the first LP on England’s legendary Radar [Records] label, as well as Germany’s equally notable Line Records. It was seen as one of the year’s more significant releases, and looking back over 15 years, I’d have to say it’s still the album I’m proudest of.”
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Besides Kill City, an EP called Jesus Loves the Stooges was released by Bomp! Records at the same time (1977), featuring a dead donkey on the cover (Greg Shaw blames Jem Records for the cover art). On Side 1 are two songs from Kill City, “Consolation Prizes” and “Johanna”; and Side 2 has a previously unreleased jam by Iggy and the Stooges called “Jesus Loves the Stooges” (and I have little doubt that He does!).
(December 2017)
