My fascination with Iggy Pop continues. I've been reading this book and I must say it's a great read. The Iggy Pop phenomenon is actually only one side of the equation. There's another person named James Osterberg in the mix - a quiet, bookish, articulate dude from Michigan. Together they make up a real interesting character, someone Robert Louis Stevenson could have written about (oh yeah, I think he already covered it!).
Iggy is a cat who has had at least nine lives. Just when you think he's down for the count, he emerges again - not exactly unscathed, but somehow unbowed. Too many drugs, too many women, too much rock and roll. Iggy Pop endured more humiliation, more abuse and more invalidation than a normal man should endure. The only thing is, this man can never get enough.
Pop/Osterberg seems to have this incredible love hate relationship with fame and fortune. Just when you think Osterberg is on the verge of success via Iggy Pop, Iggy goes one bridge too far and the gods of destruction come down upon his head. Osterberg couldn't imagine success without Pop, but Pop doesn't play by anyone's rules. It all makes for a good story, a classic r&r myth.
I found the chapters dealing with Iggy's unique collaboration with David Bowie amazing and infinitely interesting. In many ways those two guys seemed so incompatible, but it turns out they were creative twins and they helped each other draw out some of their best work on both sides of the fence: "Lust for Life," "Low," "Heroes."
As some one else once said, "it's only rock and roll, and I like it." Iggy Pop is one of those strange rock and roll heroes. He's crude, primal, a supreme asshole, a rock and roll animal. He lives the life of a r&r god/demon so we don't have to. If he didn't exist, we'd have to invent him.
