Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed: A Biography

To enjoy and marvel at this book, it is not necessary to know who Jame Osterberg is or even be familiar with the music of Iggy Pop, The Stooges or David Bowie. The story is stranger than fiction, but if it were fiction, it would be The Great American Novel. (Although I suppose it could be compared to  The Genius  by Theodore Dreiser.) If it were fiction, the book might have won a Hugo award. (Although I suppose it could be accused as being a plagiarism of  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .)Here is the story of a bright young man: popular, headed for success in all ways. Captain of the debate team. He plays drums in the local rock band. A few short years later, he a heroin addict sleeping in a gutter in LA, and it gets worse from there. He has no scruples, no morals, and betrays friends, male and female, without hesitation. The epithet “narcissist” is thrown about casually these days, but chronicler Paul Trynka pulls no punches; he portrays Iggy/Jim as an unequivocal narcissist, bi-polar or hopelessly addled from drugs, with no place to go but down.Then, unbelievably, the narcissist achieves his wildest dreams. He becomes universally admired, a legend, a millionaire who drives a Rolls-Royce and owns houses in Florida, Mexico and the Cayman Islands. People write books about him. Serious books. If Donald Trump hadn’t come along, Iggy would likely be President by now.But it’s just as undeniable that Iggy made some of the greatest music of his g-g-g-generation.Wait! Iggy >and his friends< made some great music. But you don’t know the friends, because Iggy took all the credit . . . and they’re all dead now, anyway. All of ‘em. (Since this 2011 book was published, Scott Asheton died in 2014, Ron Asheton died in 2009, David Bowie died in 2016, Steve Mackay —not to be confused with Andy Mackay—in 2015, Ben Edmonds in 2016 . . . The list goes on.)The book starts out slow. Clawing my way through the Prologue, I winced, *Oh, no! it’s rock journalism writing!* But once he gets going, telling the story, Trynka does his own Cinderella act and turns into one of the finest stylists writing in English today. (Except for the few Britishisms such as “raddled” on page 388, and “being a prat” on p.391.) I’d rate him second only to Geoffrey Wheatcroft of The Guardian. I’m a nit-picker and a grammar nazi, and all books should be this free of blemish.A staggering amount of research has gone into this biography. It’s more accurate than the books of British historian A. J. P. Taylor. But here I have a few quibbles:(Kindle) Page 22: Trains passing through Iggy’s hometown of Ypsilanti are not running from New York to Chicago. They’re coming west from Detroit.Page 69: The Psychedelic Stooges could not afford Marshall amplifiers. Prior to 1969, they used West amps (which had purple pilot lights and a grungy sound) as did other Michigan bands such as Grand Funk Railroad.I also dispute a few of Trynka’s judgements. Sponge were not “a dreadful Detroit covers band.” Iggy did more covers than Sponge ever did, and Sponge never did anything as dreadful as Iggy’s cover of John Hiatt’s “Something Wild.”Professor Trynka gives Iggy’s 1995 album “Naughty Little Doggie” a one-star rating, and dismisses it as “a dull, meat-and-potatoes rock album.” Not all the songs on it are memorable, but “To Belong” certainly is. It’s the greatest song Iggy ever wrote, and there are numerous YT videos of him performing it live with different bands. It’s a far better song than any by Roger Waters or Townes Van Zandt or Ed Sheeran. If you don’t know that song, you don’t know Iggy.Also missing from the book’s Iggy discography is the magnificent “Why Was I Born (Freddy's Dead“ from the soundtrack album to  Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.  I can’t navigate Amazon’s new music section or I’d provide a link to the song, but it’s a must-have tune that he did with Whitey Krist.Paul Trynka is spot on when he gives a high rating to  American Caesar  as it was obviously the best thing Iggy had done since “Lust for Life.” (I saw him perform on the tour for that album. Cop Shoot Cop opened, and it was one of the all-time greatest shows I’ve witnessed. No monkeyshines, just superb musicianship.) But the problem with Iggy’s albums since the end of The Stooges is that he and the record companies both wanted commercial success, so they put out generic rock and whatever was selling at the time. But Iggy’s original fans didn’t want what was selling, and they turned to new, more original artists, such as Swans.Not far from where Iggy lived on Avenue B is the studio of JG Thirlwell, who was breaking new ground as Foetus. One listen to his 1985 masterpiece,  Nail  and I no longer had any desire to listen to Iggy do more covers of oldies with the shabby production of Don Was. Instead of chumming around with David Bow-wow and other rock stars, Jim/Iggy should have strolled over to learn the new techniques of Jim/Foetus (a/k/a, Clint Ruin). Alas, he didn’t want to do anything new, he just wanted fame, fortune and rock stardom. If that meant performing “I Wanna Be Your Dog” for the rest of his life, he’d get down on all fours.Well, you gets what you pays for. It’s all in this book. As Paul Trynka observes on page 372, “This was tragedy rewritten as farce.”

Rob Trynka has done a great job gathering the details of Iggy's life, including a few "lost" eras when Iggy dropped out of the public eye. The author presents a very readable account that rings true in a way that many rock biographies don't. Even though he interviewed Iggy extensively, he also interviewed seemingly every living musician who's worked with Iggy (with the notable exception of David Bowie, who would not participate). He also interviewed many of Iggy's childhood friends and acquaintances and other musicians from the late-60s Michigan scene. And in recounting a lot of Iggy's self-mythologizing, and a lot of the classic Stooges tales, Trynka will often conclude that the recollections of another witness are more plausible than Iggy's version. That's something you usually won't get in a rock biography whose writer has the access that Trynka had. There are behind-the-scenes recollections from the participants of just about all of Iggy's albums, Stooges and solo. And the author even makes a strong case for the origin of the term "punk" in describing music--citing Lenny Kaye's original review of the first Stooges album, which he called the music of punks cruising for burgers. I'd always wondered where the first reference to "punk rock" appeared.Beyond the 320-page biography, there's an appendix that lists Iggy's albums in chronological order, with original release and label information and info on the musicians. And as hard as it is to get excited about footnotes, they really stand out in this book. Each chapter's notes are like an add-on chapter, where the author provides supporting quotes, and often gives a longer version of a short quote from the narrative.Maybe best of all are the two sections of photos. You can flip through the photos and captions and get a good preview of the full narrative, with great photos from the Stooge and solo eras. But if you read in public (as I did, on the subway) you might want to watch out for the full-nude shot.

OK Im Listening to a hard show in Barcelona 1981(years that Iggy gets trashed (physically/critically)in this book.WOW IGGY influencened me from a young age-I 1st scene him live at the Palladium in 1977 I was an impressionable 10 year old who the prior year my parents took my to my 1st rock concert (KISS)lol-My young mind remembers for all the"show"kiss" had -Iggy&THAT BAND did SO MUCH MORE W?/TALENT,& THAT Devil/Zues of a man-even though I seen him a # of x's met him a couple -esp. when we both lived near each other on the lower east side-ahhh the mudd,save the robots,pyramid,the World.Sorry-This book took a slightly cynic reader I though this was going to be so much that I thought I knew-BUT LIFE IS WONDERFUL when you are suprised and humbled by exceptional work.Mr.Trynka-spent over 10 years carefully reasearching &as hard as he could objectfully wrote Iggy/Jims carrer so Far!!1st I actually am so gratefull that Iggy and the Stooges are still here(most of) to entertain,enlighted,educate,and remind us that its ok not to follow to get ordinary &its ok to suufer for something better.Iam still rereading this book for the 24th time it is that Great,That entertaining,More messages I reveal from it -Well needless to say Even if you do not like Iggy or Rock or proto industrial,or are mental stable -It Behooves you to read this book.I humbly thank Mr.Trynka for writing &doing the dillingence it took to properly write this...PS.Since I also Love selvedge Denim-Paul Trynka has written a seemingly definitive book on Denim that I look foward to getting.

Although not the worst bio I’ve ever read it certainly is not the best. I don’t need to know everybody who Iggy came in contact with. I had to skip over all these names in long and I mean long chapters. There was no essence of Iggy just more names. I am sure the author didn’t miss a one. Encyclopedia comes to mind. When I read bio’s I need to feel the artist not all the details. Well researched though. Give it some soul.

Dieses Buch ist die wohl beste Analyse über Herrn Pop.Alle Stationen seines Lebens auch im musikalischen Kontext erklärt.Liebevoll, einfühlsam, kritisch und detailiert

Not a bad read. Not much more info than in other books about Iggy. A little bit long winded. 9 out of 10.

Bien écrit, bien sentie .sensibilité à fleur de peau.

In this instance I'm not reviewing the quality of the content of the book but the state. I ordered it as a present for a friend, and because this book is out of print I had to opt for a used copy. Which normally isn't an issue for mostly they are in good nick. However, this book was described as "used-very good" but what I received was not even good or indeed acceptable. That all pages were held in place was about the only positive. Will order another copy from a different seller and avoid this one from now on.