I’M SICK OF YOU (CD)
An expanded album based on the 1977 Bomp! Records EP, I’m Sick of You was released in the same time period. The Discogs listing for the I’m Sick of You CD has a date of 1991, but that is in error; both this CD and the I Got a Right CD came out in 1995.
The songs originally released – “I’m Sick of You”, “Tight Pants” and “Scene of the Crime” – are demo recordings by the Stooges that were made in June 1972. Along with “I Got a Right” and “Gimme Some Skin”, they were summarily rejected by David Bowie’s management company MainMan Management, with only “Tight Pants” considered to have any promise; this song was rewritten and included on the Raw Power album as “Shake Appeal”.
The new Iguana Chronicles CD, I’m Sick of You – I have a 2006 reissue of I’m Sick of You with the original cover – starts with the three demos from the 1977 EP I’m Sick of You – “I’m Sick of You”, “Tight Pants” and “Scene of the Crime” – and then presents five live versions of these songs that were made between 1978 and 1993.
Cub Koda notes in the review of the album for Allmusic: “The sound quality is surprising good on these [demos], and any of them would have fit in perfectly with the final sequence on the released version [of Raw Power]. . . . The other five tracks capture an intriguing idea: live versions of the same tunes entering [Iggy] Pop’s solo set list throughout the ’80s and into the ’90s. It isn’t the Stooges, but it’s pretty darn good and well worth a listen.”
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The liner notes for Wild Love, which sound like they were written by Greg Shaw, lay out the process that Bomp! Records went through to sift through the box of tapes that James Williamson gave them. The box included rehearsal tapes from Detroit, CBS Records in New York, and probably Los Angeles that evidently date from 1973, plus others made in 1972 that included demos for some songs that wound up on Kill City. However, there was no way to know for certain when much of the music was recorded, since the tapes were mostly unlabeled or incorrectly labeled. Among the bandmembers in the Stooges, only Ron Asheton was forthcoming with information about the tapes, and he was unclear on many of the details or wasn’t present at all.
After pulling the finished studio masters that provided the songs on the Kill City, I’m Sick of You and I Got a Right albums, and also the live concert performances that make up a third to a half of the Iguana Chronicles releases, the remaining tapes were almost all post-Raw Power rehearsal sessions. Greg Shaw mentioned that songs like “Johanna” and “Head On” were practiced seven or eight times in a row, often with stops and starts. Many of these songs were taken out on the road after Raw Power was released and often show up on the Iguana Chronicles concert albums. The best of these rehearsal performances were pulled out and assembled, along with selected live versions of other songs, for the hypothetical fourth album by the Stooges that was released as Open Up and Bleed!.
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Buying Wild Love first is certainly not the route most people would follow if they wanted to start buying albums in The Iguana Chronicles series. I imagine that Rough Power would be the best album to start with for most people, since it features the original mix by the Stooges on the Raw Power album; and/or Open Up and Bleed!, a presentation of a potential fourth album by the Stooges. Then one or more of the live albums – California Bleeding, Double Danger, and Michigan Palace 10/6/73 – would likely follow. As noted above, Year of the Iguana serves as sort of a greatest-hits set of the Iguana Chronicles albums. Perhaps someone whose interest had been piqued would then check out the more in-depth examination of the Stooges demos that were rejected by MainMan Management on I Got a Right and I’m Sick of You. If you already have Kill City, you wouldn’t even need Jesus Loves the Stooges unless you just wanted to hear what a song called “Jesus Loves the Stooges” sounds like.
After all of those purchases or selected ones, only people who would be referred to by rock critics as “Stooges completists” or “diehard fans” would likely go for Wild Love. Unless the idea of getting Stooges songs that have hardly been heard at all by anyone is appealing to you, like it was for me.
(December 2017)
