Gimme Danger: The Story of Iggy Pop
by Joe Ambrose
Omnibus Press $105
He sits astride a machine gun on the cover. His mouth is twisted into a snarl that looks set to rip his face apart while his brow knits so violently that his eyebrows appear poised to touch. Iggy Pop looks every inch the godfather of punk.
Born Jim Osterberg in 1947, he lived with his secretary mother and teacher father in a Michigan trailer park. Jim was shy and sickly, his bed just a shelf above the kitchenette. But his father instilled what Joe Ambrose describes as a 'flinty, puritanical approach to work, money and life'. The youth had talent, too. He was a rock-steady, powerful drummer who started out playing in high school bands. During his stint with one outfit, The Iguanas, he acquired the name Iggy.
In 1967, he formed The Stooges. The group's sound was an explosion of power not easy on the ear. Johnny Rotten later trashed The Stooges, saying: 'I don't need to go and listen to a saw-mill all night.'
But Pop kept the audience interested with his circus antics. He cut himself with glass and pioneered stage-diving. His behaviour owed a debt to drugs. His growing dependence on heroin led to the band breaking up in 1974.