London'72 - a few JW quotes

LONDON '72 SONGWRITING... from the aborted Stooges book project (Per Nilsen)

Defries eventually heard some of the songs the Stooges had put down on tape. According to Nick Kent, it contained four tracks: “I’m Sick Of You,” “Gimme Some Skin,” “Fresh Rag,” and a “primitive attempt” at “Search And Destroy.” However, James denies having taped an early version of “Search And Destroy” prior to the start of the Raw Power sessions. Regardless, Defries expressed disappointment in the material, expecting something more commercial and slick, perhaps along the lines of the Bowie-produced albums Transformer by Lou Reed or All The Young Dudes by Mott The Hoople. Defries told them that he couldn’t possibly present the material to CBS and wanted them to come up with new songs for the album. Iggy and James themselves weren’t completely happy with the material, feeling that they could do better, so they took on the challenge of writing a new set of songs for the album.

The majority of the album, which became Raw Power, was written from scratch after the initial sessions in June and July 1972. In fact, the only existing song when they began the album sessions was “Shake Appeal,” which was “Tight Pants” with revised lyrics. “’Tight Pants’ was one of the tunes we liked,” comments James. “I was into the fifties sound a little and that was my impression.” Iggy has said that they also had pieces of “Search And Destroy” on tape from the demo sessions, but James maintains that the song did not exist until the Raw Power sessions were underway, “All the Raw Power material was very fresh. We went through the demo sessions and just didn’t feel they were quite what we wanted so we continued to write new material and Raw Power fell into place. We were constantly writing new music and it was clear that the newer stuff was better than the previous stuff, so we used it. I liked it so I was part of the decision. We were constantly about ‘new material.’ This was always our way.”

“We wrote it all together in rehearsal studios around London,” Iggy says of the Raw Power material. “Me and James would go book four hours in a little room, and sit around in one of these shitty little unventilated places with a space heater and horrible plastic cups of tea, freezing our butt. He had a practice amp, and I would put my hand up to my mouth to holler loud. We’d come out four hours later with a song. We did that about 10 times and we had an album.” James remembers the songwriting sessions as being highly creative, “I think that the hard work and long hours that we put in initially in London during the spring and summer of 1972 paid off for me and the rest of the band. We went through many different sessions and songwriting exercises, but ultimately you could say it resulted in my writing in ‘the zone.’ I’ve always diddled around on my guitar until I liked some riff or chord change. Then I’d add to it or change it around until I liked the whole thing. At that point, I’d introduce it to Iggy and if he could envision some lyrics, then we’d proceed to tune the music to how the lyrics were developing and this process would continue until we felt we had a song.”

ON GIMME DANGER AND PENETRATION:
“Gimme Danger” was inspired by one of the girls Iggy was seeing in London, “When I wrote ‘Gimme Danger’ I was just sick of girls. I was really alone at the time I wrote it, and the song was the kind of excitement I wanted.” James comments that “Iggy did have a girlfriend or two in London; one, whom I can’t remember her name, was the source of ‘Gimme Danger.’” Iggy says of “Penetration,” “Part of ‘Penetration’ is about mainlining, but most of it’s about the act of penetration as I do it. Penetrating people, events, breaking through doors. Books and people especially.”

waow, that was a really great read Pernil, thanks so much

so are those demos they speak of the ones that scene of the crime/sick and tight pants are from, is that them, or are there more?

and what about the raw power sessions? anything 'releasable' from them? o any boots of them?

thanks
HJW

a wonderful read..can't get enough detailed information about the songs...especially like what Iggy says about Penetration..thanks Per!

unbelievable that Tony Defries didn't recognize the potency of these songs..
because of that in a certain way...helped them into the gutter

Quote :

unbelievable that Defries didn't recognize the real potency of these songs..

i think with the bowie factor introduced defries probly thought he'd get a heavily bowie influenced album like transformer and all the young dudes, but instead he got, raw power, kinda, rough power really lol

but i know can you imagine,like sick of you, gimme some skin and freshrag/i need you? those wudve blown my mind to hear them

yeah!
this guy..his position..you expect that these people can hear/see 'beyond' what's happening at that certain time in music industry. It strikes me that he didn't had an antenna for what was upcoming.. This Tony must've been really blinded by Bowie...I read in Paul's book that someone was saying Defries had a sort of tendency to fall in love with his performers...but his love for Iggy > got sour.

Defries is supposed to have a book out this year called Gods and Gangsters which'll hopefully give his view on the Stooges, Bowie and others.

mc wrote:

Defries is supposed to have a book out this year called Gods and Gangsters which'll hopefully give his view on the Stooges, Bowie and others.

Now that is fun to read, thnx for the info... yeah it's making me really curious what he has to say on the Bowie and Iggy topic.

thanks for this Per. 'Penetration' is far from being my favourite Stooges track but it was interesting to read what Iggy had to say about it...never guessed it had a 'deeper' meaning

The writing fo Search and Destory is really interesting.... I found the edition of Life which Iggy mentions as inspiration for the title line. It was very late in the recording process, so I tend to think it was added to the line-up quite late, exactly as James mentions.

The other interesting thing about the album is the pacing - each side is identical, starts with up-beat opener, then slows down for a ballad, ups the pace again, and then has a mid-paced closer. I believe that this strict sequencing was suggested by Defries - a man whom the Stooges took very seriously indeed, at least in the early days.

Well they had to follow what Defries said it was their last shot at recording an album.