← DISGRACELAND
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- [00:05]
Jake Brennan
Double Elvis.
- [00:07]
David Harbour
I've never felt like this before. It's like you just get me. I feel like my true self with you. Does that sound crazy? And it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous. Okay, that's it. I'm taking you home with me. I mean, you can't find shoes this good just anywhere. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love, like Birkins stock, Nike, Adidas and more at your dsw store or dsw.com hey there. I'm David Harbour from Marvel Studios Thunderbolts. I don't mean to interrupt your favorite podcast. Well, actually, maybe I do just a little bit. But I have a good reason. My new film hits theaters Friday, May 2, and it's got everything. Action, suspense, humor, heart. And Bob. Who's Bob? Find out by getting tickets now. Okay, now back to the show or onto the next ad.
- [01:03]
Jake Brennan
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Iggy Pop are insane. He bloodied himself in public, taunted dangerous bikers into a violent beatdown, committed himself to live acts of sex sickness and rumored suicide on stage. He was addicted, arrested and committed to an insane asylum. He terrified and enthralled audiences, accidentally invented punk rock, post punk, and of course, was the originator of the stage dive. Iggy Pop pushed rock and roll further over the line than anyone before him and ushered in a new era of musical nihilism that was perfectly suited for the cynical malaise of the 1970s. And Iggy Pop made great music. Some of the greatest music ever made. As a matter of fact, that music I played you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called mellow submarine slog, BK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to thank you for Letting me Be Myself Again by Sly and the Family Stone. And why would I play you that specific slice of Coke Soul cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on February 21, 1970. And that was the day Iggy Pop played New York City for the first time, announcing in earnest to the world the arrival of a new kind of rock star. One who would push it further than any other musician before him, both on and off stage. On this episode. Submarine Slog, Coke Soul Cheese, Iggy Pop. And pushing it over the line. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. Iggy Pop was bleeding again. This time it was bad. He looked down at his chest. The image of the blood torrenting out. Clanged against the many hyper real images rapidly firing throughout his brain so fast it was hard to tell if he was awake or dreaming. Iggy was in his temporary room. The walls weren't rubber but they were institutional green, drab enough to make you want to kill yourself but just the same. Iggy Pop, known to his close friends as Jim and to authorities as James Osterberg, was not wearing a straightjacket. He was dressed the same way he dressed before checking into the mental institution. No shirt, no shoes, low slung pants, pajama bottoms. It wasn't the woman's dress he was wearing when the pigs picked him up, wandering down Sunset looking like one of Charlie's girls, blotto in the midst of a dark drug psychosis. But it was still typical Iggy, his skin like leather, his chest impossibly cut, his hair long, dirty, perfect. He sat cross legged on his unmade bed, his veiny hand fingering the space between his first two toes, sleepily shaking off the cobwebs of another night of tough heroin detox. The dreams hit him hard, so hard that waking was a restless, confusing endeavor filled with fear, paranoia, and the dreadful sense that this, this was going to be the day when he would finally slip over the line and never come back. Reality was tenuous at best and played tricks on him whenever it could, particularly in the minutes after he awoke from a fevered dream. Iggy blinked his eyes open. He could see out beyond the door's iron bars that kept him rock and roll animal that he was, caged. His eyes scanned down the long 15 foot wide corridor, its linoleum gleaming in parts, cracked and neglected in others. He leaned back on his bed, more of a cot really. He'd slept in smaller rooms. Hell, the trailer he grew up in with his parents back in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was tighter than this place. He opened his eyes. He was in the funhouse now, the grimy single family turned drug den that Iggy and his bandmates lived and rehearsed in at 2666 Packard Road in Ann Arbor. He could tell from the blood on the ceiling Jackson Pollocked across the room from dirty syringes, post heroin shots splattered onto the cheap acoustical ceiling. The blood was dried, browned, caked, gross and not going anywhere. Just like he and his bandmates, the Stooges. For a minute there was promise. A record deal, real excitement, more than a couple great songs and performances that were immediately the stuff of legend. Plus, they sounded new and were onto something that up to that point no other group of musicians had Locked into. They were too experimental to be considered pop, too rocking to be considered R and B, and too raw to be called rock and roll. They had it going on, but now there was just squalor, grime, junk and disillusion. His bandmates, bassist Dave Alexander, and the brothers Ashton, Ron and Scotty on guitar and drums respectively, were survivors, tough like the steel frames that clanged together on the assembly line in the Ford Motor Company plant they'd grown up around in nearby Dearborn, Michigan. Ron and Scotty, the Dum Dum Boys. They were something else, Icky thought. Their playing was the essence of raw power. Pummeling drums and slinky proto punk riffage. They came off sounding more like the big bad roar of the 69 Mustang boss, fresh off the line than they did their Detroit contemporaries in the MC5 or the silver Bullet band. The Ashtons were greasy grassy mill stunt doubles, rock and roll Hanson brothers, too dumb to be anything else and too smart to care. And as much as he didn't care to admit it, Iggy needed them. The Stooges on stage anyway, held it down. While Iggy the frontman did anything but as a performer, Iggy Pop was an untangled mess of spontaneous self expression. Live performances were a physical manifestation of boundary bending madness. Nobody took their last show further. Iggy Pop confronted the audience unlike any performer reform. His bony body and undeniable good looks writhed and undulated across stages in a way that made even the hardest Midwest hillbillies question their sexuality. He confronted audience members with self mutilation, nudity, public intoxication and just about anything he could think of. Anything that that would bring him closer to the edge, to the line. For some it was the edge of artistic expression, for others the edge of madness. Iggy would cut himself on stage, Iggy would vomit on stage, Iggy would pass out on stage, Iggy would leave the stage, enter the audience, have his clothes ripped off and willingly allow audience members to fellate him during the Stooges sets. Nothing, it seemed, was over the line. As mad as he was and as crazed as his band seemed, Iggy and the Stooges were moved by serious music. Even if attempting the greatness of their heroes. Miles Davis, Sun Ra and Bo Diddley among them, meant playing beyond their ability. The Stooges would live out on that fragile limb of risk or die trying. By the time 1969 rolled around, it was clear that the Stooges were in aberration. The first musical love child of the failed hippie experiment, the Stooges were the result of a broken promise. Almost like a kid born to divorced parents who, while coming apart, got together for one last fuck and oops. Nine months later, a little baby that no one wanted shows up and he's pissed and he's looking for attention. So he grows up to be a delinquent, a fuck up, a stooge. The holy union of peace and love peaked two years earlier during the Summer of Love. But peace and love didn't last. It was all bullshit. The revolution was over. The bums lost. The squares won. And America was now being ushered out of the once promising decade into the darkness of the seventies by Charles Manson, Altamont and Vietnam. And if you really wanted to know what all that sounded like, this new burgeoning era of nihilism and anarchy, all you had to do was put on a stooge's record. Peace and love? Fuck that. More like no fun. 24 chefs 24 culinary showdowns for 24 hours straight which chef will out cook outpace, outlast the competition? No chef escapes the clock. Season premiere 24 and 24 Last Chef Standing Sunday, April 27th at 8. See it first on Food Network. Stream next day on Max. Do you know about how Steve McQueen escaped murder at the hands of the Manson family? Or about DWAYNE the Rock Johnson's snatch and grab gang and the Rock's nearly 10 arrests? What about Danny Trejo running a drug protection racket while in lockup? The obsessive killing of Dorothy Stratton? The real life murder that inspired David Lynch's Twin Peaks? The three conspiracies surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death. These stories and more are told in the new podcast Hollywoodland, where true crime and Tinseltown collide. Hollywoodland is hosted by me, Jake Brennan, creator of the award winning music and true crime podcast Disgraceland. Follow and listen to Hollywoodland wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there travelers.
- [11:40]
David Harbour
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- [12:05]
Jake Brennan
Go to your happy price. Priceline. Jim Osterberg, AKA Iggy Pop, knew what time it was. Time to push the limits Limits of your music. Tease madness to make great art. The trick was not getting caught on the wrong side of that line. And all of it took its toll. Heroin and LSD laced speed and cocaine and pills and of course weed and alcohol and anything and everything else he could get his hands on to come down after a show. Years of hardcore drug use turned into a serious heroin and cocaine addiction. Before his band broke up just after. Two records, one great and a third as a solo artist fronting a Frankenstein Stooges lineup. A battered reputation and police mandated stint in a mental institution was all Iggy Pop had to show for it. That and scar tissue. He looked down at his chest. The bleeding had ceased. The scar tissue snapped him back. He remembered Max's Kansas City, 1973. It was supposed to be Iggy and the Stooges triumphant return to New York after recording their latest album, Raw Power in London. What it was instead was a bloody mess. The sound of Scotty's snare, big like a shotgun or a rifle. A.22 like Chris Burden's 22 and boy howdy did it Ever. And the cut on stage from the glass was intended to be like the cut from the bullet Burden had fired at himself in his much talked about 1971 performance art piece Shoot. The one where he filmed a friend shooting a.22 at him from just 15ft away. Imagine that, having a gun fired at you on purpose and taking a bullet in the name of art. The piece was meant to protest the absurdity of America's obsession with guns in the Vietnam War. And it worked. Shoot was all the Smart Set could talk about. Iggy was obsessed with it. And here he was on stage at Max's Kansas City, the epicenter of downtown Cool, the venue that set the bar for the rest of the world. On what was happening in front of said Smart set. Iggy had burden on the brain. He'd show the audience it would be just a flesh wound, just like in Shoot, but it would be raw, powerful and unlike anything to happen before in rock and roll. Iggy was pushing himself closer and closer over the line. He could see them now, all in their seats there in front of him. BB And Todd, Nico and Fran, Andy Lou, Alice and Danny. The band now with master of Dark arts Glam Satan himself on lead guitar. James Williamson kicked into Search and Destroy. And Iggy laid into the first lyric, possibly the greatest opening line in the history of long playing rock and roll records. The crowd was wrapped instantly. Scotty tore the ass out of the beat. Ron, recently demoted to bass but still holding it down. On stage, wearing his Nazi SS choker, ran rough over the crowd with his low slung gild, James ate up all of the sonic space. Utilizing every square inch of his worn out Les Paul's neck, Iggy reminded them all of who he was. The one who searches and destroys. And they kicked it up a notch, pushed themselves further toward the line. Iggy headed into the crowd, stood on the tables in front of the stage, spacewalked his way over low tops, stomped on downtown glitterati. Horrified and excited every last one of them along the way, James hit the solo. Iggy dove back onto the stage and landed on a mess of broken beer bottle glass. The cut didn't feel like anything special, just another shard of glass penetrating his tough Midwestern skin. But when he looked down at the blood, he knew he was in trouble. This was no grazed 22 Chris Burden flesh wound. This was penetration. Iggy stretched himself out and pumped his right arm to test the pain. And when he did, blood spurted out on his wound and into the audience like a squirt gun. It was too good to be true. Iggy pumped his arm again. More blood shrieks from the audience. Not one to be outdone, James made his guitar squeal with feedback like a stuck pig. Booze, smack and adrenaline masked the pain. The blood from Iggy's chest gushed out. The audience freaked out. Iggy kept pushing. The band kept chugging. The staff feared the worst. Imminent death by one of their performers. Iggy Pop feared nothing. Alice Cooper rose out of his seat in the audience and rushed to the stage. Iggy collapsed. The band started, stopped. A stagehand dragged the bloodied singer off stage. Alice called for an ambulance for his old Detroit buddy Jim. Ron dropped his bass and pulled his friend out of the melee. Iggy could hear them all chattering. He could hear the audience squeal of the feedback and the siren from the ambulance. It was soundtrack now to the eerie melody from Miles Davis's Miles Runs the Voodoo Down. Iggy loved that song. His song. Subconscious would call upon it often. It was so unlike Miles. But then again, Miles was Miles. He never knew what he was going to do. Miles was backstage with Iggy now, but they were no longer at Max's. They're at Nganno's, site of the Stooges. Very first New York show. Miles was in on the blow. Iggy and Ron were hoovering up before their set. Wild man Miles Davis. He liked the band, vibed on their spirit. He'd recommend them the next day. To whoever would listen. Iggy was sure of it. More likely than not, though, Miles Davis would forget all about the Stooges as soon as his hangover passed. Iggy could hear his horn. Iggy could hear the shot from Chris Burden's 22. Iggy could hear that voodoo running down. Iggy could hear the feedback from the Les Paul. And Iggy could hear that heavy clanging from the Deerbo. It was all there, along with the sound of a familiar laugh and paranoid whispers from a cocaine tongue. The sound of a friend, Iggy's friend, Jim's friend, actor Dennis Hopper, up in Iggy's dream, high as a bird on cocaine. In the dream, Hopper was playing the role of Jack Nicholson's Randall Patrick McMurphy for One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and shuffling through the same mental institution, institution that Iggy was now locked up in. Hopper made a better McMurphy by Iggy's estimation. He was more paranoid and as such, better suited to maneuver around the wicked ways of Nurse Ratched. But Iggy's nurse was no burly sarge. She was slight and sexier than any astronaut's wife. That nurse's uniform hugged tight in all the right places. Her hair, red and Gestapo like authoritarian vibe, pushed all of Iggy's buttons at once and the feedback in his head swirled. The institutional green walls split into psychedelic waves of rich, verdant beauty. Hopper McMurphy's cocaine tongue snaked its way around Iggy's waist and extended itself to Ginger Nurse Ratched, coiling them together. Iggy's cock pulsed up against her uniform. He could feel himself swelling inside the rush. The line was in sight, about to be crossed. The deafening clang of American steel. The crowd chanting. And then a familiar whisper in his ear, calming. The voice was that of another friend. It sounded supportive, superior, English, safe, deep and knowing. Iggy felt the fevered dream breaking. The familiar voice gave him the confidence to come out of the dream, to open his eyes, to jump back into reality. So he did. And now, once emerged from the dream and safe inside the drab green walls of his insane asylum bedroom, Jim Osterberg, AKA Iggy Pop, could see that he had company. In real life, Hopper McMurphy had gone full Dennis Hopper, the actual Dennis Hopper, Iggy's old friend in the flesh, sitting in front of him, along with Ginger Nurse Ratched sitting at his side. And Ginger Nurse Ratched had gone full thin white duke right there in Iggy's room, seated next to Dennis Hopper. Ginger Nurse Ratchet, the thin White Duke was none other than Davy Jones, AKA the man who fell to earth to save Iggy Pop, AKA David Bowie. Bowie opened his mouth and said, well Jim, how about a line? And we blast out. We'll be right back after this.
- [20:41]
David Harbour
Word, word, word. PayPal lets you pay all your pals like your graduation gifters. Who's paying for the mattress topper? You mean the beanbag chair? Aren't we getting a mini fridge? Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us collect the money before we buy. Oh yes, that's smart. Glad we can agree on something easily. Pool split and Send Money with PayPal. Get started in the PayPal app. A PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool. If fashion is your thing, ebay is it. Ebay is where I find all my favorites. From handbags to iconic streetwear. All authenticated for real this time. A little supreme, some Gucci. I even have that vintage Prada on my watch list. That's why ebay's my go to for all my go to's. Yeah, eBay the place for new pre loved vintage and rare fashion. EBay Things people love this episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes. Us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat Starting Start prioritizing their financial education and future Today with a risk free trial at greenlight.com Spotify greenlight.com.
- [22:12]
Jake Brennan
Spotify David Bowie had no cocaine, which was an oddity. The show at the Rochester War Memorial in upstate New York earlier that evening was great. Bowie and his band were on fire, Perhaps buoyed by the touring presence and competitive spirit of David's new friend and co conspirator, Iggy Pop. Or as he called him, Jim. The two met back in 1971 in New York at Max's, before all the blood. Bowie was keen on producing a record for this uniquely American artist who represented what Bowie could never be. Raw, uncalculating, exciting. In a manner that eluded Ziggy's Stardust. Ziggy could never be Iggy, but he could at least help Iggy. And Bowie, of course, represented something Iggy could never be. Refined, creatively disciplined, driven, business minded. Despite their differences, their genius was Obvious to one another, they had an easygoing dynamic and almost instantly formed a real bond. David Bowie was steadfast in his support of Iggy Pop and his flailing career at a time when his own career was exploding and making him one of the biggest stars on the planet. At first, Bowie secured a management deal for Iggy, which led to a record deal, which led to the recording of Raw Power, an album that Bowie mixed. And soon the two were nearly inseparable, which was why Iggy was on the road with Bowie in 1976. What else was he gonna do? The Stooges were broken up again, so the plan was to hang with Bowie and steal time on the road to work on new material that Bowie would eventually produce. Iggy needed Bowie and Bowie needed Iggy, and right now they both needed cocaine. But the after party wasn't panning out. Rochester wasn't Manhattan. Drugs, the powdery kind anyway, did not flow as freely here as they did in the city. And there was something weird about the company. The women they'd picked up at the show, two of them Bowie had signaled to from the stage and was keen on meeting afterward. But there were two others, pretty athletic but kinda square looking, who were off. And they were super concerned with scoring. More specifically, with scoring cocaine from David Bowie himself, which was of course seen as being gauche. Still, there was the matter of the lack of drugs. Grass and wine alone wasn't going to cut it. Bowie did a lap through the suite at the Americana. Rochester, the Four Seasons, December 1963. Oh, what a night crackled through the cheap bedside clock radio. The vibe was low key. Iggy Pop sat quiet, spectacles resting atop his nose, casually perusing the local newspaper, absentmindedly hitting joints as they were passed his way. The walls of the Americana were thin, and as mellow as the party was, it was anything but quiet. The two plainclothes cops on the other side of the suite's wall were listening intently. There were no bugs, no mics or anything approaching a high tech listening device. Just two donut eaters with cheap hotel tumblers pressed between the wall in their ears, desperately listening for drug lingo to hopefully slip from the lips of the rock stars and their groupies partying on the other side of the wall, where David Bowie stood, bored and annoyed, but too polite and aloof to let it show. One of the square girls had him buttonholed, talking about nothing. Such a bore. Finally he politely interrupted. I'm sorry, isn't there anyone you know in this town who you could trouble for some Cocaine. And with that the handcuffs came out. That was all the square girl undercover cop needed the ask. David Bowie along with Iggy Pop were both cuffed and they and the suite were searched. Whereupon no cocaine was found. But a half pound of marijuana was the two along with all the other people. People in the suite were arrested and hauled off to jail for the night. It was small time stuff, small town stuff. Bowie had everyone bailed out, including the partiers. He didn't know and Iggy Pop was excited. He could now buy a suit for court. Bowie's high paid, high powered lawyers eventually got the case thrown out. And after finishing his Station to Station tour, he and Iggy split for Europe. Berlin to be precise. To get down to the business of making an Iggy Pop record. The apartment was not befitting of an international pop star and his wild frontman collaborator. It was small, bleak and sat above an auto parts store. And there was little to do during the day, which was great. It meant time for making music. Nighttime on the other hand, in Berlin in the mid-70s was another story entirely. The post war party had never burnt out in this city and the bars never closed and the women never got old and the drugs were never in short supply. And the conversation was always stimulating and the sex was always all over the place but never stale. And the party rolled on and on and on, night after night. Except on Thursday nights. Thursday night for Iggy Pop and David Bowie was TV night. It's when they hunkered down in their apartment and watched their stories. Took a night off. Iggy fried German sausages. They stunk up the plate, placed something awful, but they hit the spot. He and David sat on the floor waiting for the U. S Armed Forces Network to air Starsky and Hutch. The buddy cop serial was where it was at. As far as Iggy Pop and David Bowie were concerned. Most televisions sucked, especially German television. But not Starsky and Hutch. High speed chases, tight corduroys, cable knit sweaters in the summer and I mean come on, Huggy Bear. While they waited for the broadcast, Bowie stretched out on his back on the floor reading a dog eared copy of Dostoevsky's the Idiot. Iggy sat cross legged on the floor fingering his cheap ukulele when the TV set snapped from white noise and static snow to technicolor and the sounds of the familiar Morse code like call signal that the American military network began every broadcast with. The rhythm of the call signal. Signal coming from the television reminded Iggy of Detroit. The Supremes. You can't hurry love. Iggy started plucking out a little riff on his uke to the call signal. Bowie perked up, began tapping his foot on the creaky floor, which rattled the near empty plate of German sausage and silverware resting on the floorboards. Iggy began strumming his uke. Bowie approximated a kick and snare sound using his other foot and his thigh body drumming. The call signal had morphed into a full on Benny Benjamin beat. Iggy strummed his way into a chord progression. Bowie swung like a motherfucker. Iggy was now standing up, pacing, pounding on the uke. Bowie was yelling, jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy. Two were rocking out now hard. Iggy was banging on the UK and started improvising lyrics on the spot. Here comes Johnny Yen again Liquor and the drugs and that's like hypnotizing chickens well, I'm just a modern guy of course I've had it in my ear before I've got a lust for life Lust for life they knew immediately that they were on to something. The next day they were in the studio recording what would become Iggy Pop's most recognizable song, Lust for Life, a song whose infectious, totally swinging rhythm is owed as much to the US Armed Forces Network as it is to Hunt and Tony Sales, the rhythm section in Iggy's new band, another pair of Dum Dum boys whose madcap energy rivaled the delinquent doom of the Ashtons from Iggy's previous band. Hunt and Tony were the sons of Iggy's childhood TV hero, comedian Soupy Sales, and their behavior was just as insane as their dads. But when they got to their instruments, the fucking around ceased, as can be heard in the rhythm to Lust for Life. It is serious business. Real rock and roll clowns need not apply. Lust for Life led off Iggy's second solo effort that David Bowie produced, longplayer of the same name, and the album was great, making it two creatively solid record releases in a row by the famously inconsistent Iggy Pop after the release of the Dostoevsky inspired album the Idiot, released earlier that year. In 1977, Berlin was paying off. Iggy and Bowie were on a roll creatively, if not commercially. Iggy's records were received well critically, but compared to Bowie's record sales, they were flops. Which was ironic, given that at that exact same moment in time, there's a revolution happening in music. In New York and in London, a young wave of nihilistic rockers were pummeling growing audiences with fast Jagged stooges like riffs and grabbing headlines with behavior nicked directly from the Iggy Pop playbook. The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Heartbreakers, the Clash, Generation X and others were all making noise with a new type of music called punk. And they sounded and acted a lot like the original nihilist, the free spinning Detroit wheel, holed up in Berlin, singing loudly and proudly about his newfound lust for life. Some punks saw Iggy as the musical godfather he was, but others thought he was over the past. For Teague, after taking in the opening show to mark the release of the Idiot Heartbreaker, Johnny Thunders, the ex New York doll, disappointingly proclaimed that Iggy had gone cabaret. However, Iggy Pop wasn't the past. He wasn't out of time. He wasn't too old for punk. He was just too busy inventing post punk once again ahead of his time. The Idiot and Lust for Life, despite their critical failings, would go on to heavily influence the next wave of punk artists to follow Susie and the Banshees, Joy Division and of course, Public Image Limited. But Iggy Pop didn't know or care about any of that at the time. He was preoccupied, per usual, with David Bowie, who was on an epic cocain, uncharacteristically angry behind the wheel of his Mercedes and ramming it maniacally into the rear end of a German economy that Bowie believed belonged to a local drug dealer who had ripped him off. Bowie kept ramming the gas, violently surging the car ahead and into the dealer's car, pushing it up against the parking lot wall again and again and again. Bowie's vengeance was inspired, and the dealer's car wasn't going anywhere. Soon enough, after he'd slowly turned the crooked dealer's car into an accordion, Bowie lost interest, threw his Mercedes in reverse, its front end nearly totaled, and took off for the apartment. Vengeance, no matter how inspired at first, is always a dead end. Kinda like Berlin. Iggy and Bowie Bounty Iggy Pop's relationship with David Bowie was and always would be solid. But by the early 80s, Bowie was off again and on his own, selling out stadiums, collaborating with Queen, working with Sheik's Nile Rogers, and writing and releasing stone cold hits let's Dance, Modern Love and the Iggy Pop pen China Girl. Bowie was embracing his pop side, and there was no room in this phase of his career for his old friend Iggy, who accidentally invented punk. Iggy's career was dead. A string of albums, New Values, Soldier and Party, flopped. He was uninspired with Blondie's Chris Stein. He produced the album Zombie Birdhouse, an unfocused, droney stab at post punk world music mania. Imagine Paul Simon's Graceland, produced by John Zorn and peppered with out of tune vocals. That's kinda what Zombie Birdhouse is. But despite its obvious failings, it is compelling. It's the sound of Iggy Pop getting closer to that line, that demarcation that separates madness and ordinary life that so many other artists, Van Gogh, Beethoven, Sylvia Plath crossed and never came back from. Who was Iggy kidding? He could never be like David Bowie and produce great art while simultaneously maneuvering through the straight world. Ambition, focus. Iggy did not understand these things. For him, it was madness or nothing at all. And you can hear that on Zombie Birdhouse. And perhaps sensing it himself, after the album was recorded, Iggy decided to double down on the insanity of that record's sounds and seek out that line, maybe even cross it, and see what true madness could do for one's creative spirit. So in search of inspiration, Iggy Pop headed to Haiti, the land of the real zombies. Baby Doc Duvalier, Haiti's brutal dictator and his murderous Taunton Me Coutts didn't go in for all that voodoo jive Baby Doc's regime outlawed. The ancient practice made it punishable by death. So naturally, Iggy Pop needed to get in on that action. The Porter Prince bar was dark, the music unrecognizable. But then again, most things for Iggy Pop in Haiti were unrecognizable. He was blotto nearly the entire time, taking full advantage of the permissive drug culture, living off of a two dollar a day opium tincture from the local pharmacy that he would mix into his pina coladas. The jukebox blasted. It reminded him of Miles Runs the Voodoo Down. The melody was always there, always swirling around his head. Miles horn went south low and took the shape of another familiar melody. Iggy's own. The passenger Iggy was out of the bar now, in the backseat of an unrecognizable ship box, riding through the city's backside, seeing the stars come out of the sky. Something about some cash at some local girls to bring him to see. The priest and the shit box slowed to a stop. There was a small fire, a gaggle of locals, eerily quiet. Iggy and his guide joined the larger group under suspicious eyes. Then the drums started pounding, pounding. The men in the group stood. Women from the shadows emerged, most wearing little to no clothing. The drums broke into a warp speed rhythm and the women began their Dance. And the men began chanting. Iggy Pop could not resist. He sprung up and joined in. Shirtless, long hair, Tezozo idiot whispered in Creole along with the other whispers, growing louder, louder, louder. A chorus backtracking the ceremony's rhythm. Iggy vibed. Miles ran that voodoo down. Opium and Creole. Coco stirred him closer to that line. That damned line. Was it madness on the other side? But once in his life, it occurred to Iggy that maybe it was something else. Maybe it wasn't madness. Maybe it was mystical. Another dimension, not death. Rebirth. The syncopated drumming grew more intense. A woman fell to the ground, gyrating, convulsing. The whispers grew louder. A priest was suddenly present. Giant headdress, bone necklace, big big eyes and even bigger mouth. He stepped to the convulsing woman, raised his fist to his face, opened his palm and blew the dust in his hand onto the woman. Her body stopped moving. Dead. Iggy Pop had found the line. The priest, the hungan, was the conduit, the guide. Iggy the passenger. The woman lay still. The music picked up. The dancing intensified. The fire roared. Iggy stopped dancing, entranced by the priest who held his gaze eye to eye, all menace. The priest raised his other hand, his fist gripped tight around the neck of the chicken. Hypnotized, Iggy watched the priest raise his other hand. The gleam of the blade. The chicken screamed as it was pierced just below its neck. The blade split it right down the middle, middle of its chest. Blood torrented out and the chicken flapped its right wing incessantly and the blood splurted out all over the priest's audience as they danced. Enraptured, held. Now with sacrifice. They were connected to the other side, to the spirits, to the mystic world. There was no madness. There was no curse. There was union, connection, inspiration. And that voodoo had been run down. And for Iggy Pop, that line had been crossed. Finally. The result, Rebirth. Upon returning from Haiti, Iggy's old friend David Bowie would record five more of their co written songs from their Berlin days, resulting finally in financial security for Iggy, the artist who had contributed so much culturally but seen so little for his efforts. Iggy would then see success in via his musical contributions to various films and through collaborations with Lou Reed and the Sex Pistol Steve Jones. In the 90s, Iggy scored a legit hit with his song Candy and appeared alongside Johnny Depp in John Waters film Crybaby and Jim Jarmusch's Deadman. Eventually, Iggy Pop would successfully reunite in tour with both Stooges lineups and in 2009, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. At long last, Iggy Pop had become a cultural icon and recognized the world over as the great contributor and artist that he was. And this is something that really happens. An artist who pushes it harder and further than anyone else who gets to live to tell to enjoy his spoils. Iggy Pop crossed the line, and when he did, he emerged reborn. For him, somehow, somehow the madness did not consume him like it did Van Gogh, Beethoven, or Plath. And the music didn't drive him to a too soon grave like it did to his brothers Ron and Scotty, his hero Miles, and his friend David Bowie. Iggy Pop is still standing and I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland Ad Free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rola He's a bad, Bad man.
- [41:38]
David Harbour
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