CALIFORNIA BLEEDING
When I got a big package of Iguana Chronicles albums several years ago, the first one that I played was the California Bleeding LP (all the rest were CD’s as I recall). Near the beginning of the album, Iggy Pop gives a little speech: “I have no desire to continue being a failure. I’ve already done that, I’ve achieved that.” There are several other fascinating comments interspersed among the live performances on this album.
What exactly he meant by that is unclear, but it did not appear to be one of his rants during a concert. Probably though he was talking about the music by the Stooges from a purely financial standpoint. Decades later, the world would finally catch up – I have already noted that the Stooges were recently profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, and you can’t get more mainstream than that – but that was no help to the bandmembers in the early 1970’s.
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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.
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Frankly, the three live albums by the Stooges in The Iguana Chronicles series – California Bleeding, Double Danger (which is a double-CD album), and Michigan Palace 10/6/73 – run together in my head. I am replaying some of the albums as I am writing this, and they sound amazing – by the second cut on California Bleeding, I was saying to myself that it has been way too long since I played these records. But naturally, the same songs appear over and over, and it is the same band performing them, so there can’t be but so much variation.
California Bleeding is probably my favorite of these 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.
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One tape that was found in the James Williamson box is from the only known show by the Stooges in San Francisco (at Bimbo’s in January 1974). The liner notes by Frank Meyer say that there are only four songs on the tape, with “Open up and Bleed” being incomplete, so the other three songs – “Wet My Bed”, “I Got Nothing” and “Head On” – are included here, with the versions of the last two songs never being previously released. The California Bleeding album closes with three songs from the September 15th show at the Whisky, “She Creatures of the Hollywood Hills” and “Heavy Liquid” / “New Orleans” (the Gary U.S. Bonds classic) – the first concert performances of these songs ever.
The vinyl release of California Bleeding has the same music except that “I Got Nothing” and “Head On” are omitted.
(December 2017)
