Largely regarded as something of a forgotten classic in IGGY POP’S waywardly brilliant catalogue, ‘Kill City’ had a typically bizarre gestation.
Originally intended as a demo for record companies in the hope of getting Iggy a new contract after the heroin and havoc-fuelled dissolution of The Stooges, it was recorded in less than ideal circumstances during 1975. With Stooges guitarist JAMES WILLIAMSON and some heavyweight alternative LA faces (sax player John Harden, future Motels drummer Brian Glascock and under-rated fellow ex-Stooge Scott Thurston on bass and keyboards) providing some impressive musical muscle, Iggy would lay down his vocals on weekend release from the mental hospital he’d checked into to help deal with his heroin addiction.
Showing just how much Iggy’s stock had temporarily fallen, record companies hardly beat a path to his door when they heard the results and it was 1977 by the time the Bomp label finally gave Williamson an advance to add overdubs and finish mixing the songs for release. By that time, the two had parted ways: Iggy heading for Berlin with David Bowie for the influential ‘The Idiot’ and ‘Lust for Life’ albums and Williamson for the lure of Silicon Valley and the burgeoning computer industry.
At the time, the version of ‘Kill City’ that eventually slinked into the racks suffered from a similar sonic neutering to The Stooges’ classic ‘Raw Power’ album. The original master tapes were lost after the LP was released and earlier CD issues of the album suffered sonically due to being mastered from the poor quality green vinyl LP pressing.
However, with Pop and Williamson once again re-united with The Stooges, what better time could there be for Williamson and engineer Ed Cherney to go into the studio to produce new mixes of the songs from the original multi-tracks? The new versions of the songs – now wholly re-mastered – finally let us hear ‘Kill City’ as it should have been and it’s an absolute blast, fully deserving of its’ ‘lost classic’ status thirty-five years down the line.
Despite Pop’s precarious mental state at the time, the songs are brutally honest and vivid. The opening title track is his frighteningly candid open letter to LA, a place which is “a playground to the rich, but it’s a loaded gun to me.” Yet, despite its’ dark and wasted imagery, it’s a riot to listen to with aggressive Williamson guitar, a strident beat and Iggy’s great lewd and leery vocals.
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Defiant, no-nonsense rockers like ‘Consolation Prizes’ and ‘Beyond the Law’ are equally brash and exciting, stuffed with Williamson’s swaggering, Keef-y guitars and smoking performances from the band. ‘Johanna’ and the nihilistically sad ‘I Got Nothin’’ (“but you ain’t got any chance against the things I know/ out of the cradle straight into the hole”) are hold-overs from The Stooges last days in late ’73/ early ’74 but both are a step forward musically from ‘Raw Power’ days. The former finds John Harden’s Roxy-ish sax coming to the fore with Williamson’s stinging, off-the-wrist guitars, while ‘I Got Nothin’ is even better, sounding dreamy and (almost) redemptive during the verses yet utterly bitchin’ come the vicious chorus.
Elsewhere, several tracks veer towards the pioneering sounds Iggy would summon with guidance from David Bowie over the next couple of years. ‘Sell Your Love’ is an almost ballad full of whoring and hard knocks (“with any luck you will rise from slut to prostitute”), but with Iggy’s creepy vocals and Harden’s dreamy sax to the fore it’s compellingly seedy. ‘No Sense of Crime’ is woozy and wasted, framed by Williamson’s chiming guitar figures, organ and an early version of the charismatic croon Pop would perfect on ‘China Girl’. The closing instrumental ‘Master Charge’, meanwhile leans the closest to the keyboard-driven, Krautrock-influenced grooves of ‘The Idiot’, though – ironically – it turns out it was written by Scott Thurston. Oh well, go figure and all that.
‘Kill City’, then, finally emerges from its’ original blurry sonic cocoon to take its’ rightful place as a proto-punk classic. Its’ importance as the stepping stone from ‘Raw Power’ between ‘Raw Power’ and ‘The Idiot’ is finally apparent for all to hear. And be positively thrilled by.
Alive! Naturalsound online
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