Raw Power: Legacy Edition (Including 8 Songs From Atlanta's Richards!)

• Posted by Lauren Griffin April 21, 2010 - 498 views
  
  Wow, it's hard to believe that Iggy Pop a.k.a. Jimmy Osterberg is celebrating his 64th birthday today! Iggy has actually been in our thoughts even more than usual lately. Freddi and I regularly listen to Jeff Clark's Stomp and Stammer Radio Hour (Sundays from 3:00 - 5:00 PM on AM 1690). So, we were kicking back with our cocktails and tuning in and Jeff opened up with "Gimme Danger" live at Richards in '73! Freddi was completely dumbfounded. He was at one of the Richards shows with his best friend Keith Atcheson. As a matter of fact, Keith was furious because Iggy spilled his drink; Freddi says that Keith "hated" Iggy ever since. Freddi had another encounter with Iggy as well earlier in the evening: he supplied him with the heavy downers that caused Iggy to wake up in the bushes next to the Days Inn, hahaha!
  
  Freddi wanted me to find out if there was a way for him to get a copy of the song and if any other recordings from the Richards shows were available so I asked Jeff Clark and learned about the re-issue of Raw Power. The Raw Power: Legacy Edition came out on April 13 and a Deluxe Edition will also be released on April 27. As well as the 3 CDs the Deluxe Edition will include photo prints, reproduction 7-inch artwork, a making-of DVD, and a 7-inch booklet with with writings from Lou Reed, Cheetah Chrome, Slash, Joan Jett, and others. The first disk is the original Raw Power and the third (which will come out with the Deluxe Edition) is supposed to include rarities, outtakes, and whatnot. Of course, Freddi and I were mainly interested in the second disk, titled Georgia Peaches because of one of Iggy's rants at an audience member. It features a one-hour performance at Atlanta’s notorious rock club Richards in October 1973 where Iggy and the Stooges played three or four nights, two sets each night, with one long set on Friday and Saturday nights. Many collectors were in possession of various heavily-edited bits from Richards, as much as a half-hour’s worth on cassette.
  
  After the Stooges reunion got underway in 2003, Ron Asheton made Robert Matheu (author of last year’s The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story) aware of a Richards cassette he had stored away. Matheu tracked down Joe Neil, the original recordist of “Sam’s Tape Truck” parked outside Richards (who now runs an archive house and digital recording facility in Atanta called Doppler Studios). Many, many shows were recorded at Richards for the top labels, for use on syndicated radio shows like King Biscuit Flower Hour. But radio was rarely ready for Iggy and the Stooges, and so the original pristine board tapes languished from 1973 on. Their discovery on Joe Neil's desk was nearly miraculous.
  
  A few of the songs from Raw Power were still in the set by the time the Stooges played Richards – “Raw Power,” “Gimme Danger,” “Search And Destroy,” “I Need Somebody” – but as Matheu observes, “They weren’t just going out and playing the Raw Power album in its entirety. They were constantly writing new songs and updating the setlist with new songs, always thinking forward.” So the other four Georgia Peaches songs – “Head On,” “Heavy Liquid,” “Cock In My Pocket,” and “Open Up And Bleed” – would all be part of the set by the time Iggy and the Stooges were in their final stages together as a band five months later, back home at the Michigan Palace in February 1974, as first documented on the Metallic KO album.*
  
  Freddi and I have listened to the album several times since its release last Tuesday and it’s one of the best live Stooges recordings we’ve ever heard. And you Atlantans should check it out just for the historical (hysterical) value! The Stooges are supposed to be touring this year (and with James Williamson!) so we can only hope that we'll get the chance to see them perform again.
  
  
  
  * Album information paraphrased from the Stooges MySpace site.