Metallic K.O.

Metallic K.O. is an infamous live recording by The Stooges. During much of the performance, Iggy Pop sings while pieces of ice, eggs, beer bottles and jelly beans, among other things, are thrown at him in response to his audience-baiting. The album, recorded on a reel-to-reel tape machine by Michael Tipton and later obtained by Stooges guitarist James Williamson, was originally released as a bootleg on the Skydog label in 1977, and is made up of the second halves of two concerts, one of which was the group's final show. (A 2001 release titled Metallic 2X K.O. includes the first halves of both concerts as well.) It is mostly composed of unrecorded material; some of the songs would later turn up in Stooges and post-Stooges collections in more polished forms. The album is notable for Iggy Pop's long, vulgar rendition of "Louie, Louie", which deviates widely from the song's original lyrics. Interestingly, the album outsold the Stooges' major label official releases. It sold over 100,000 copies in America as an import. The playing on the album is ragged, and during 'Rich Bitch' the band go out of time with each other, having to be coached back into the song by Iggy - "Gimme just the drums! It's the only way you're ever gonna get it right, take it down to the drums!". He then counts the other players back into the beat.

In the essay "Iggy Pop: Blowtorch in Bondage" critic Lester Bangs calls the album a "documentation of the Iggy holocaust at its most nihilistically out of control." He describes the Stooges concert he attended that immediately preceded the Metallic K.O. performances:

''The audience, which consisted largely of bikers, was unusually hostile, and Iggy, as usual, fed on that hostility, soaked it up and gave it back and absorbed it all over again in an eerie, frightening symbiosis. "All right," he finally said, stopping a song in the middle, "you assholes wanta hear 'Louie, Louie,' we'll give you 'Louie, Louie.'" So the Stooges played a forty-five-minute version of "Louie Louie," including new lyrics improvised by the Pop on the spot consisting of "You can suck my ass / You biker faggot sissies," etc.

By now the hatred in the room is one huge livid wave, and Iggy singles out one heckler who has been particularly abusive: "Listen, asshole, you heckle me one more time and I'm gonna come down there and kick your ass." "Fuck you, you little punk," responds the biker. So Iggy jumps off the stage, runs through the middle of the crowd, and the guy beats the shit out of him, ending the evening's musical festivities by sending the lead singer back to his motel room and a doctor. I walk into the dressing room, where I encounter the manager of the club offering to punch out anybody in the band who will take him on. The next day the bike gang, who call themselves the Scorpions, will phone WABX-FM and promise to kill Iggy and the Stooges if they play the Michigan Palace on Thursday night. They do (play, that is), and nobody gets killed, but Metallic K.O. is the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer bottles breaking against guitar strings.

Track listing

All tracks were recorded in Detroit's Michigan Palace. Tracks (1-3) were recorded on October 6, 1973; tracks (4-6) were recorded on February 9, 1974.

Skydog Records (Distributed by Melodie (France))

Face A

1. "Raw Power"
2. "Head On"
3. "Gimme Danger"

Face B

1. "Search & Destroy"
2. "Heavy Liquid"
3. "I Wanna be your Dog"

Face C

1. "Open up and Bleed"
2. "I got Nothing/I got Shit"

Face D

1. "Rich Bitch"
2. "Cock in My Pocket"
3. "Louie, Louie" (Richard Berry)

References