KILL CITY – The Iguana Chronicles II
An early release by Iggy and the Stooges on Bomp! Records is a 7” EP from 1977 called I’m Sick of You, consisting of “I’m Sick of You” b/w “Tight Pants” and “Scene of the Crime”. The catalogue number, Bomp EP-113 is in the original sequence for the Bomp! Records 45’s, so I’m Sick of You might even have predated the release of Kill City; anyway, it does not appear to be part of The Iguana Chronicles. The EP came out right after the release by the Weirdos on Bomp 112, “Destroy All Music” b/w “A Life of Crime” and “Why Do You Exist?” (all three massive first-wave punk rock classics by the way).
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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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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)
