Kill City

just bought it yesterday on vinyl and i have to say it is one of the most underrated albums in rock n roll let alone iggy's back catalogue. whats everyone think of it? personal favorites are 'i got nothin' 'sell your love' and obviously 'johanna'.....

"consolation prizes" is great

it's a strange wonderful album...my choice is:

1. Johanna
2. Kill City
3. No Sense of Crime
4. Lucky Monkeys
5. Sell Your Love

"Sell Your Love" is fantastic. The overdubbed sax is especially good.
But actually the whole album is great, the only slightly poor track being the downbeat instrumental ending "Master Charge".
"Lucky Monkeys" suffers from what sounds like damage to the master tape (and it was taped at a different studio to the rest of the album) but somehow works because of these problems.
I prefer the original version of "Johanna" wthout the added sax - in fact it would be fascinating to hear all the original 1975 recordings - maybe one day these might be unearthed. It would make for a great double disc reissue - the original raw recordings and a remastered version of the 1977 Williamson overdubbed finished version. Just imagine how good that would be!
Cheers,
Richard

Richard, I also preffer Johanna without the sax but the highlight for me without a doubt is, "I Got Nothin". I also think "Open Up And Bleed" would have fitted in perfectly with the other songs. It is the an incedibly underated album.

Oh, and "Consolation Prizes" is brilliant too. You can get the hear the original 1975 recording of it on a compilation called, "Iggy Pop & The Stooges: Original Punks".

I too would love to hear the original mix, which apparntly 'rocked like a motherfucker".

Do you think James overdubbed the saxes in 1977, Richard? I knew Jaems remixed but it didn't occur to me that he added the sax later, intriguing possibility.

Others here might know that when James put out Kill CIty, Iggy complained in print. Then when people said it was a masterpiece, he called him up and asked him to produce what became New Values.

I too believe Kill City is an undervalued, classic album. It's both sad and inspiring, recorded at a time when Iggy was at an absolute low, mocked by all around him. Music was his therapy, his only outlet for his troubles, and ultimately, of course, would provide an escape route. And he recorded those songs for a world that seemingly didn't give a damn.

I always understood that most of Kill City was taped in 1975 then shelved for a while. Iggy tried to hawk his copy around various record companies in 1975 but there were no takers. James, at this point, seemed unhappy with Iggy trying to flog what James considered to be little more than a bunch of demos.

Then Metallic KO came out in 1976, and the Iggy resurgence took place in 1977 with Punk hailing him as a hero and The Idiot staking out new ground.

So James returned to the 1975 tapes, tidied them up, overdubbed what needed to be overdubbed and viola! Kill City! This time Iggy wasn't very pleased, as Kill City was quite a distance removed from his new sound, but he sure forgot his annoyance pretty damn quick as quite a few Kill City songs crept into the late 1970s set lists and the album got great reviews...

I always assumed - no hard proof mind - that the saxes were late additions - played by John Harden, who also crops up on the 1978 recordings that became New Values. The early version of "Johanna" without the saxes points to this being the case. I assume that the saxless "Johanna" was from the original 1975 sessions - it certainly rocks like a motherfucker!

As a theory it all seems to hang together. What do you all think?

Cheers,

Richard

that all sounds pretty plausible. they should re-release this album asap.

adams66 wrote:

s...

I always assumed - no hard proof mind - that the saxes were late additions - played by John Harden, who also crops up on the 1978 recordings that became New Values. The early version of "Johanna" without the saxes points to this being the case. I assume that the saxless "Johanna" was from the original 1975 sessions - it certainly rocks like a motherfucker!

As a theory it all seems to hang together. What do you all think?

Cheers,

Richard

Yes, seems very plausible!

I think both james and Iggy were keen to get the original tapes out there, altho they thought of them mainly as demos - they originally started as demos for Rocket, or for John Cale, then as leverage to get a management deal with Bennett Glotzer. It was Bennett told them to get the tapes from the studio. All the sessions had been funded by Ben Edmonds, a journalist friend, who of course never saw any return on his investment.

When I see James again, I'll try and find out more. I really wish it were possible to get a decent vresion of Kill City out there, maybe look out the original masters. In fact, I'll ask James about that, too.

Defintily do Paul, even ask him if he would do a question and answer thing, like we provide you with questions to ask him - if it isnt too much of an imposition of course

kinda like what the stones did with youtube recently that would be cool

and definitly ask him about kill city, i'd love to hear that, if we can get that, unganos, and a two CD version of raw power - with bowies and iggy's mixes and maybe a few extras we dont know about, then we'd be happy!!!

- and maybe ashtma attack too!

HJW

I would love to hear this album original takes... This album should really be remastered professionally from the masters and released with the cartoon cover! ...

homesickjameswilliamson, unganos?

homesickjameswilliamson wrote:

Defintily do Paul, even ask him if he would do a question and answer thing, like we provide you with questions to ask him - if it isnt too much of an imposition of course

kinda like what the stones did with youtube recently that would be cool

and definitly ask him about kill city, i'd love to hear that, if we can get that, unganos, and a two CD version of raw power - with bowies and iggy's mixes and maybe a few extras we dont know about, then we'd be happy!!!

- and maybe ashtma attack too!

HJW

You don't ask much do you

Quote :

You don't ask much do you

well you've gotta be ambitious with unheard stooges recordings!

Quote :

unganos?

it is a previously unheard recording, but now know and may get a pressing under easyaction hopefully

its of the stooges in 1970 i think either just after or just before funhouse was released

Fun House was recorded live in the studio (as we all know) so what you hear is pretty much what was played live apart from that "Funhouse" and "L.A. Blues" merged together instead of being seperate.

Listening to the Chicago gig it backs this claim up. Through reading bits and peices it seems that Dirt (and occasionally T.V. Eye) would often be dropped from their set when they were supporting another band.

Would "Lost In The Future" and "Slidin' The Blues" have been encores? I've heard rumours that "Dog Food" was an encore and I was wondering if they played "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and people have just misheard.

wow that would be cool (it probly was dog food, dunno if they would play dog, tho i wish they did -and even more wish we could hear it) - i wonder how much does dog food live 1970resemble its professionally recorded self on soldier?

was dogfood really stooges tune?

I would doubt that The Stooges ever played (or wrote) "Dog Food" as the version on "Soldier" is UK punk like but not Stooges like at all.

Glen Matlock also said the song was written about housing complexes where you can buy dog food but aren't allowed to keep pets. Then again Betsy is mention in it.

I would love it if it turned out to be a 1970 Stooges track and hear it. Then again I would be equally happy with a live 1970 version of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".

i always thought dog food was about like cocaine or heroin, so some drug - which made me think it couldve been written around stooges time as they were knee deep in pretty much all narcotics, lol

I was thinking that too but then again Glen Matlock was never a rock star type or as Steve Jones puts it, "he washed his feet to much".

It has long been claimed that "Dog Food" dates from 1970 though I've never seen any concrete proof of this.

I have to agree that the tune just doesn't really seem Stoogelike enough, but Iggy's girlfriend Betsy (she's just 13) is mentioned, which does sort of tie it up with that period.

I suppose it could have been just a jokey just a sort of throwaway type tune that they bashed out at soundchecks or rehearsals but never intended it to be a 'proper' Stooges tune.

Iggy has a good memory and has been known to recycle bits of tunes years later - some lines in "Dum Dum Boys" came from Kill City (at that point unreleased) and "Scene Of The Crime" (still a relative rarity in 1986), donated a verse to "Winners And Losers". So it's quite possible that an old unreleased tune could crop up ten years after it was first written.

Cheers,

Richard

i doubt they/ig wouldve rehashed that tune, adn its definitly not stoogelike, i think it may date from 1970, but only as lyrics that he wouldve mumbled over some random jam every once in a while

homesickjameswilliamson wrote:

i always thought dog food was about like cocaine or heroin, so some drug - which made me think it couldve been written around stooges time as they were knee deep in pretty much all narcotics, lol

Never thought of it that way, but that does make sense of the lyrics "Dog food is my whole life/Dog food composes my wife"...a nod to The Velvet Underground's Heroin ("It's my wife and it's my life")? Who knows.

I don't think the song dates from 1970. Yes, as Richard points out, he does mention Betsy. But Betsy was 15, he's just adding that in as a zany reference.

I think the song derives from a Blues documentary - can't remember the name, it's an excellent one with lots of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and Muddy Waters - where one commentator mentions how dog food sales were high in the projects. But in the projects, you weren't allowed to keep a dog. So people were living on dog food. The documentary dates from 1972, I believe, and was really celebrated at the time, most musicians who have any interest in Blues will have seen it. edit: in fact, on reflection, I'm pretty sure Glen Matlock mentioned to me the song was inspired by the film.

And again, I'm with Richard, in thinking this bears no resemblance to the Stooges' style. And also, having looked at lots of notes and reports of contemporary set-lists, I've never seen or heard of this song in a Stooges context.

All that said, it's not at all unlikely that he revived a couplet, or even a couple of words, from an old song. Iggy, Bowie, countless other musicians recycle good ideas from abandoned material![b]

That's it exactly Paul, "Dog Food" just isn't in any 1970 / 1971 set lists.
The Stooges had a limited number of songs as it is, and it's unlikely that any finished song wouldn't have been used, so I reckon "Dog Food" was just a few lines of lyrics that Iggy dug from years before. Thinking about it, the lines about Betsy are completely unrelated to the rest of the song anyway.

Interesting to hear about the documentary that inspired the rest of the song. Thanks Paul.

Cheers,

Richard

WOW ........ great stuff here