by roving reporter Shaun "Thornswrath" Lawton
I drove out to the Graywhale in Taylorsville, shopping for some used CDs to get some Xmas presents for ?? ????, cuz our car, the good ol' 2013 Chevy Volt, the Skibidi Skooter, comes equipped with a CD player, a rare thing to find in automobiles, these days. It's the greatest car I ever owned, being an electric hybrid, it runs silent, making it into the ideal stereo on wheels.
I came across two Iggy albums, the quintessential first album he released in 1975, without the Stooges, KILL CITY, w/ James Williamson (who granted, had earned his Stooge stripes by appearing on the seminal Raw Power, released the year before), and the 1999 album Avenue B, produced by Don Was*. But back to KILL CITY, in its own right arguably a Stooges release, despite the absence of Dave Alexander and Ron and Scott Asheton, still, the album in my view remains the natural follow-up and proper evolution of the down and dirty sound the godfathers of punk had established.
*Avenue B, we'll get back to later. For now, this article strictly deals with the legendary KILL CITY.
Right off the bat, the album leaps into a snarling rock'n'roll attitude, with Iggy crooning "It's a playground to the rich, but it's a loaded gun to me," the jagged rhythmic riffs punctuated by backup clappers and vocals, leaving zero room for doubt this picks up straight from where Raw Power left off. It's a short title track that introduces the album perfectly in 2 min and 20 seconds. Next we get Sell Your Love, which slows down with some late night jazzy saxophone offset with Iggy's vocal register dropping to begin serenading the listener with the backstreet dealings that go on in this dangerous section of the city that never sleeps. The drums and sax and all the instrumentation, including backup vocals, intertwine in perfect synchronicity while Iggy sighs and moans about life on the streets of Kill City.
The third song launches right in to straight up razor sharp unleashed fury with what might be my favorite track, Beyond the Law, it sounds like an outtake from Raw Power itself, with the Sales brothers, Hunt and Tony Scott providing their low end drums & bass for the first time with Iggy (before moving on to Lust For Life and The Idiot, and then of course performing their duties for David Bowie in his forward looking outfit TIN MACHINE, but that's another story I can get to later in this digital rag).
I Got Nothing to say, except this album has been in my rotation enough this year to the point my blood has soaked it up and it's ringing in my bones, filling me with that same feeling Lou Reed's stellar live album Rock 'n' Roll Animal used to do, but hearing Iggy wail away on these tunes, backed up with such flashy effectiveness by John "The Rookie" Harden on a blasting, sultry sax and James Williamson unleashing his guitar to rival the prowling sleek animal ferocity he showcased on Raw Power, except now on KILL CITY, Iggy really sounds like a beast freed from his cage, evoking a sound that conjures shades of Bobby Zimmerman and the Rolling Stones yet somehow keeping it all his own.
Music like this doesn't just push your buttons and tickle your fancy on a first listen, no you have to fucking get down in the dirt and live with this music until it penetrates it's raw ferocity and soulful intent deep into your bones and heart, slamming through your veins with the forcefulness of a tide of fresh oxygen to dispel the poisonous CO2 and liberating you with the one ingredient I think Iggy made his own from the get go: FREEDOM. He conjures the spirit of freedom like no one else, because he lived and prowled the streets beyond the law, on his own terms, believing in nothing but the pure moment in time that he rode like an expert surfer on the incoming waves of circumstance.
These cats really got it together to release something special, a time capsule from 1975 that captures all the deranged excitement and visceral power of stalking the streets for the alluring musk of femme fatales and riding high on all the alcohol and drugs one could get their hands on. It's the special and private domain of flaming youth, captured on disc in no uncertain terms with a musical force to be reckoned with, all these fifty years later, in 2025. Iggy, James, Troy, Brian, Hunt, Fox, Steve, The Rookie and Gayna, providing backing vocals. What a crew.
I was ten years old when this album dropped, an innocent kid with a bowl haircut, who couldn't even imagine such wildness existed in music, much less in life. I was captivated by Don McLean's American Pie at the time, asking my parents for coins to feed the jukebox at this Chinese Restaurant my Dad used to take us to in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Nanking. It featured the long version of American Pie, and I loved that song so much, it was a tradition every time we ate there.
I can see how kids today who only got the CD of this album might wonder about tracks 6 and 7: Night Theme, and Night Theme (reprise), short, barely over a minute long instrumental pieces that bring the excitement and pace down, well in retrospect it should become obvious that Night Theme ends side 1 of the vinyl LP, and when you flip the record over, side 2 begins with it's reprise, a nifty sort of Nightfall and beddy-bye time, if you will, to then move on to Consolation Prize, moving into the next day on side 2, where the party never ends.
Listen up, if you haven't taken the time to either revisit, or listen to this album for the first time, just remember it's a real trip, culminating with the final track Master Charge, whose music has truly evolved into an electronic merger with a soulful guitar plus saxophone theme that brings the whole sordid journey to a satisfying conclusion. It's a thoughtful rendering of what seems to be a 24 hour stint of partying in the glory days of what might be a long lost youth for some of us, but if you're still in your early twenties, and want to go back in time and visit Kill City, this album will really take you there.
After listening to it enough times, I've found an extra special place in my heart for it, it's just a total trip, from the first song to the last, which virtually amounts to an audial movie, leaving the listener spellbound and satisfied when the end credits roll, and the music fades out, feeling like the tide will never return with such bounties again.
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