JESUS LOVES THE STOOGES (10” Vinyl EP)
Based upon the Discogs listings, the earliest album in The Iguana Chronicles series is Rough Power; Discogs shows a 1994 date for the earliest copies, while Allmusic has a release date of January 30, 1995. The back page of the CD booklet has a list of 5 other releases in The Iguana Chronicles; though they are not all marked that way (at least in early copies), in order they are the 7” EP I’m Sick of You, the reissue as a 10” EP of Jesus Loves the Stooges, the 7” single of I Got a Right and the 12” single of I Got a Right, the Kill City CD, and the 10” vinyl edition of Rough Power.
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Three other albums in The Iguana Chronicles rework previous releases by Bomp! Records. One of these is the Jesus Loves the Stooges 7” EP that came out at the same time as Kill City and was also actually put together by Jem Records.
The new release of Jesus Loves the Stooges is a 10” vinyl EP that has four songs instead of three; Side 1 opens with the title song from Kill City, “Kill City” followed by “Johanna”; and Side 2 has “Jesus Loves the Stooges” and “Consolation Prizes”. The latter three songs were those on the original 7” version. The back cover has a photo of Iggy Pop rather than the Christmas style layout on the original Jesus Loves the Stooges; the liner notes on the back cover say that the 7” EP was originally released for Christmas 1977. As a bonus, there are 3-D glasses provided.
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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)
