JOHANNA
For Open Up and Bleed!, which has a subtitle “The Great Lost Stooges Album?”, Bomp! Records collected available recordings of songs that were written and developed by the Stooges after the release of Raw Power in February 1973. The first six songs – “Rubber Legs”, “Open up and Bleed”, “Johanna”, “Cock in My Pocket”, “Head On”, and “Cry for Me” – were made during practice sessions at CBS Records in New York in 1973 and are taken from the only tape that has surfaced from these rehearsals. The liner notes for Open Up and Bleed! by Frank Meyer state that “Head On” is also known as “Head on the Curve”, but not “Head on the Curb”, as the song is called on the Metallic K.O. albums.
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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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California Bleeding is probably my favorite of these live albums and likely the one of most interest to collectors. The first four songs – “Search and Destroy”, “I Need Somebody” (which has probably never sounded better), an extended performance of “Open up and Bleed”, and a shortened version of “Johanna” – are taken from the five-night stand (two sets a night) by the Stooges in September 1973 at the landmark nightclub Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
The songs on a CD called The Stooges Live at the Whiskey a-Go-Go that was released in France on Revenge Records are taken from the September 16th show; these songs are from the September 19th concert and have not been previously released. Also, “Johanna” is the only recorded version of the song that the Stooges played at the Whisky. It was the first time that I had heard the song as performed by the Stooges at all, and it was an instant favorite.
(December 2017)
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Items: Johanna
