Many of the seminal bands in these rock movements released albums on the Bomp!, Voxx, Alive or Total Energy labels; most of them are not household names by any means, but they are recognized by those in the know as being important bands that shaped the history of rock and roll. Some of these better-known bands and artists are the Romantics, the Modern Lovers, the Dead Boys (and Stiv Bators individually), the Plimsouls (and Peter Case individually), the Beat (and Paul Collins individually), the Stooges (and Iggy Pop individually), Devo, Nikki Sudden, the Black Keys, and Soledad Brothers.
(May 2013)
* * *
Past UARB Thomas Anderson once perversely said that his favorite singer-songwriter is Iggy Pop; and there seems to be no other category in which to place Polly Jean Harvey either.
(January 2014)
* * *
In 1965, Michael Erlewine and his brother formed a blues band called the Prime Movers; original bandmembers were Michael Erlewine (lead singer, harmonica), Dan Erlewine (lead guitar), Robert Sheff (keyboards), Robert Vinopal (bass), and Michael “Spider” Wynn (drums). After Wynn left the band, he was replaced by James Osterberg. A few years later, Osterberg began performing as Iggy Pop; and under this name, he founded the proto-punk band the Stooges. His nickname was due to Osterberg’s serving as the drummer for another Michigan band called the Iguanas.
(March 2014/2)
* * *
Big Midnight also has released only one album, Everything for the First Time, which came out on Alive Records in 2003. Allmusic immediately notes in their review by Brian O’Neill, “Actually, there is nothing here that you will be hearing for the first time” and continues: “Everything for the First Time could have as easily came out in 1973 as it did in 2003. Call ’em ‘the Rolling Stooges’ and the band will have to plead guilty, as Big Midnight combines the nihilism of Iggy Pop (‘Love for Sin’ could have been a [David] Bowie or [Lou] Reed side written specifically with Iggy in mind) with the bloozey, boozy swagger of Keith Richards’ crew.”
(June 2014)
* * *
In 1972, Kim Fowley recorded some songs by the proto-punk band the Modern Lovers, building on previous recordings that had been produced by John Cale. As Wikipedia reports: “These included re-recordings of ‘She Cracked’, ‘Astral Plane’, ‘I’m Straight’, ‘Girlfriend’, and two versions of ‘Roadrunner’, as well as the songs ‘Walk Up The Street’, ‘Dance With Me’ and the a capella ‘Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste’. [Bandleader Jonathan] Richman also credited James Osterberg (Iggy Pop) as co-writer on ‘I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms’ as a way of acknowledging that the song borrows a Stooges guitar riff.”
The recordings were first released on Kim Fowley’s short-lived Mohawk Records (a subsidiary of Bomp! Records) in 1981 under the title The Original Modern Lovers.
(January 2015/1)
* * *
Lyric sheets began circulating with the “real” lyrics in “Louie Louie” on them. Here is what the FBI reportedly uncovered – yes, this official agency of the government that is supposed to be investigating criminal activity took their time to investigate the lyrics to a rock and roll song. Iggy Pop often sang the song with these lyrics, now that they had been conveniently written down.
A fine little girl a-waiting for me She’s just a girl across the way We’ll take her and park all alone She’s never a girl I lay at home
At night at ten I lay her again F--k you girl, oh all the way Oh my bed and I lay her there I meet a rose in her hair
(June 2016)
* * *
Not long after I put up my last post on (among others)
punk icon
Iggy Pop and his first band
the Iguanas as the
Under Appreciated Rock Band that month,
CBS Sunday Morning had a profile of
Iggy Pop in
early January 2017, mentioning
the Stooges and other career highlights. I was surprised enough when the show had a piece on
the Black Keys, but this really blew me away. At one point, he was asked about how
the Stooges became so popular decades after their music was recorded, and
Iggy said with a big grin that he thinks the world finally caught up with him after all that time.
* * *
* * *
I recently picked up a
2007 retrospective album called
Destroy All Music by
the Weirdos, one of the earliest Southern California punk bands, having formed in late 1975. Cliff Roman (guitar and bass) recalls: “I saw the [New York] Dolls at the Whisky and got their autographs. I saw the Stooges at the Whisky, and Iggy [Pop] got on my shoulders. When he was lying on the floor, I drew a red ‘X’ on his chest, and we watched his sweat melt it as the band finished their set. Walking out of the show, I told my friend David Trout (guitar) that we should start our own band.”
(March 2017)
* * *
Under Appreciated Rock Bands (UARB’s) and Under Appreciated Rock Artists (UARA’s) are hard to come by, but I came up with a fine batch this past year. The least likely UARB of them all, to my way of thinking, came along in March: Iggy Pop got his name from his first band called the Iguanas; and somehow, some way, no punk rock fan had yet prepared a Wikipedia article on this band. Also in the mix this past year were two bands featuring Mike Stax, founder and editor of one of the premier music magazines Ugly Things and one of greatest experts on 1960’s music on Earth: his current band the Loons and another from the 1980’s, the Tell-Tale Hearts. Rounding out the quartet this year are the Lazy Cowgirls, a long-time favorite punk rock band whose music is often called “outlaw rock” that put out 11 albums – not counting the 4 albums put out by frontman Pat Todd’s new band the Rankoutsiders.
Anyway, here is what and who I talked about last year:
December 2016 – 1960’s garage rock band THE IGUANAS; Story of the Month on the Muddy Waters song “Rollin’ Stone”; also, 1970’s music and proto-punk music, Ramones, Nuggets, Pebbles Series, the Sonics, New York Dolls, the Modern Lovers, MC5, the Stooges, Iggy Pop.
(Year 8 Review)
These annual posts normally summarize what I have written about in the past year, but in this case, there has only been one of them; and even that one is dated December 2017. But it is a good one, one of my best I think; Suzy Shaw of Bomp! Records gave me some really nice compliments on it. I had been writing about the Stooges and Iggy Pop over several previous posts, and I undertook a detailed examination of the long series of CD’s and LP’s of unreleased Stooges material called The Iguana Chronicles. I also took the opportunity of writing up descriptions of many early releases by Bomp! Records, as well as other peripheral info as I usually do.
(Year 9 Review)
* * *
Ten years ago, in
December 2009, I wrote the first of my 82 posts on
Under Appreciated Rock Bands, i.e., rock bands (and artists) who did not have a write-up as yet in
Wikipedia. It wasn’t much to look at, just four short paragraphs, but I got a lot wordier and more wide-ranging as the years went by. I had hoped to keep this up for at least 5 years, if not 10 years; as it happened, my last post was dated
December 2017 – 8 years later, and 2 years ago.
For two of the
Under Appreciated Rock Bands –
the Rip Chords (who had a major hit in the
surf era with
“Hey Little Cobra”) and
the Iguanas (
punk icon
Iggy Pop’s first band, and the reason that he came to be called
“Iggy”) – I managed to write my post literally the month before someone started a
Wikipedia article on them. For another two –
the Piltdown Men and
Haymarket Square – it turns out that there was already a
Wikipedia article on them; for the latter band, I just plain forgot to look! And one of the
UARB’s,
Wendy Bagwell and the Sunliters was not even a rock band – and I just found a
Wikipedia article about them also, so I suppose I didn’t look closely enough when I started that post either. But I don’t care at this point: They are all
Under Appreciated, from one end to the other, even for the handful who do have a
Wikipedia article these days.
(Year 10 Review)
