METALLIC K.O.
Metallic K.O. is a live recording by American hard rock band The Stooges. In its original form, the album was purported to contain the last half of a performance at the Michigan Palace in Detroit, on February 9, 1974 — the band’s final live performance until their reformation in 2003. The performance was notable for the level of audience hostility, with the band being constantly pelted with pieces of ice, eggs, beer bottles, and jelly beans, among other things, in response to Iggy Pop’s audience-baiting. In 1998, the album was re-released under the original title with a reverse show order, (mostly) expanded track lengths, and even more complete set-lists. (More from Wikipedia)
According to Greg Shaw, James Williamson was instrumental in saving the Stooges’ musical history; besides the treasure trove given to Shaw as part of the Kill City release deal, he had saved the tapes that became Metallic K.O. (1976), from live performances by the Stooges at Michigan Palace in Detroit on October 6, 1973 and February 9, 1974 – the album originally purported to be entirely from the 1974 show, which was purportedly the Stooges’ last live performance until reforming in 2003, but later releases of Metallic K.O. cleared up the confusion on the dates. The same thing said about Metallic K.O. in Wikipedia – “Considering [James] Williamson’s involvement, and the endorsement of Iggy, it was considered a ‘semi-official’ bootleg, when released on the Skydog label in 1976” – would apply to the albums in The Iguana Chronicles as well.
According to Wikipedia: “The album proved popular, due to its release in the first era of punk rock and the Stooges’ growing legend as proto-punks. Metallic K.O. outsold the Stooges’ major label official releases, selling over 100,000 copies in America as an import in its first year alone.”
(September 2017)
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Additional information on Kill City is found in the liner notes for the CD reissue of Kill City in 1992. Most of the liner notes were written by Tim Stegall of Alternative Press Magazine, but Greg Shaw also has a few pages under the heading “. . . As I Recall it”. For one thing, Shaw remembers “. . . [the Stooges’] amazing ‘last ever live show’ (Metallic K.O. notwithstanding) at some ‘Death of Glitter’ fest at the Palladium in ’75”.
Officially, the Kill City LP’s were released by Bomp! Records in 1977; but in order to actually get the albums produced, Bomp! had made a deal with a leading record importer called Jem Records, and they were the ones who pressed and sold the original LP’s on ugly green vinyl and also got the licensing rights. (I have Jem Records and names similar to that, like GEMA, on who knows how many of my albums, though “Jem Records” apparently does not appear anywhere on the Kill City-era records). There are also 8-track tapes of both Kill City and Metallic K.O. out there according to Discogs.
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I have already discussed Metallic K.O., a 1976 release on the French label Skydog Records that was taken from live performances by the Stooges at Michigan Palace in Detroit on October 6, 1973 and February 9, 1974. Allmusic gives the album a 5-star rating, with Dave Thompson’s review of the double-CD reissue Metallic 2xK.O. stating: “Metallic K.O. means the world – to anyone and everyone who ever sat down and unsuspectingly dropped needle onto wax and then reeled back in horror; this ain’t rock & roll, it’s a snuff movie. And the fact that it all sounds so tame these days just shows how much it’s become a part of the language. . . . [T]hrough lurching takes of ‘Open up and Bleed’, ‘Heavy Liquid’, and the ever-inspiring ‘I Got S--t’ (all of which are new to the package), past the familiar dissolution of ‘Head on the Curb’, ‘Rich Bitch’, and ‘Cock in My Pocket’, and into the nightmare closure, this remains rock & roll so far out on the edge that you get dizzy just listening to it. And, by the time the last glass explodes at the end of the world’s greatest ‘Louie, Louie’, you’ll be ready to take on anything.”
While I don’t have Metallic K.O. yet, I do have a CD single by the Stooges on Skydog Records called (I Got) Nothing. According to Discogs, it is a 1989 reissue of a 12” single also called (I Got) Nothing that came out in 1977 – the year after the original Metallic K.O. album – that had “Gimmie Danger” (the song name is actually “Gimme Danger”) on Side 1, and “Heavy Liquid” and “(I Got) Nothing” on Side 2. “Gimmie Danger” is described as being different from the version on Metallic K.O..
Based on the listings in Discogs – and there are 24 of them for Metallic K.O. and 6 for (I Got) Nothing – nearly all of the Stooges releases on Skydog Records are vinyl. Interestingly, while the cover of my copy of (I Got) Nothing is basically the same as on the 12” single of (I Got) Nothing, the disc itself is marked “Metallic K.O.” and shows the same catalogue number – 622332 CD – as their double CD reissue of Metallic 2xK.O. the previous year.
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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 Michigan Palace 10/6/73 concert was performed at the Michigan Palace in Detroit about four months before the supposed “last live show” of the Stooges there on February 9, 1974; and this is the other concert that the Metallic K.O. albums are taken from. While some of this music has been included as bonus tracks on some European albums, this is the first time that these songs have been released in the U.S. The short liner notes call this the best of the tapes of Stooges concerts, as recorded by James Williamson (the famous February 9th concert was actually recorded by an audience member).
(December 2017)
