JOHANNA (Kill City)
They never went into the studio to record their fourth album; Iggy Pop decided to do something else since the Stooges’ records were not selling. Under the name Iggy Pop and James Williamson, these two ex-Stooges put together an album called Kill City in 1975. They brought a couple of the more mellow songs from the new Stooges material – “Johanna” and “I Got Nothin’” – but mostly this was new music and definitely a new direction.
(December 2016)
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Whatever else might be said of the Stooges, Iggy Pop and the other bandmembers put their heart and soul into their music; but none of their first three albums were big sellers. As fantastic as their new songs were sounding in concert, there was no reason to think that a fourth Stooges album would do any better. Additionally, the excesses of the rock and roll life were taking their toll, particularly the drug use by Iggy Pop. Thus, Kill City was a move in a different direction, and only two of the songs from the later years of the Stooges were included on the record, “Johanna” and “I Got Nothin’”. Kill City is also different from Iggy Pop’s other records, in that it is not a solo album or a Stooges album; the artist is given as Iggy Pop and James Williamson.
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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!).
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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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Naturally, the material would have been arranged and polished and mixed and mastered, and the songs might have sounded completely different from the way they do on Open Up and Bleed!. That is certainly true of “Johanna” and “I Got Nothin’” as they are presented on the Kill City album. I have said before that this could have been the best Stooges album of them all, and I mean it.
(December 2017)
