Iggy And The Stooges / Metallic ‘KO (Vinyl LP)

Description

Vinyl LP / Reissue

Remastered – Includes inner bag with background notes

The last ever Iggy and the Stooges show — Michigan Palace Detroit, Oct 73 & Feb 74.

1976-US

Format: Vinyl LP

#Ref: FREUDLP096B

Release date: 2020

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Release notes

‘Metallic K.O.’ is the remarkable album of Iggy & The Stooges confrontational ‘last ever gig’ (until their reunion almost 30 years later).  Effectively the fourth Stooges album with then brand new and unheard songs, it was released in 1976 three years after ‘Raw Power’ while Iggy was in limbo.  Soon after the gig Iggy checked into a mental hospital.

The sound of kamikaze Iggy provocatively abusing his audience and then dodging eggs and bottles thrown by a biker gang enhanced Iggy’s reputation in the embryonic punk scene as the Punk Godfather.  Nothing like it had been heard before.  It became a must-have album and far out-sold the first three Stooges albums, with sales of over 100,000.

It is now re-issued on vinyl with the original LP track list – previously it had been extended to a double-CD with the complete 1973 & 1974 shows it is taken from.  In the 2007 CD re-mastering, an original tape-speed error was discovered and corrected – so now for the first time on vinyl the album can be heard at the correct pitch.

The album contains Iggy Pop’s story of the events surrounding the gigs as well as contemporaneous reports from Nick Kent, Giovanni Dadomo and Lester Bangs.  An essential album in Iggy’s history.

Nick Kent said: ‘I’m convinced that side two is a masterpiece’ and Lester Bangs said: ‘It’s the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer bottles breaking against guitar strings’.

The night before the gig, Iggy Pop went on a Detroit radio station and began to bait a local motorbike gang by calling them a bunch of pussies. The gang later turned up at the show and all hell broke loose. As soon as the band walked onstage, they were immediately bombarded with broken glass, beer jugs, bottles of piss and shovels.

Full story: ‘METALLIC KO’ — THE STOOGES’ TUMULTUOUS, LEGENDARY FINAL SHOW LIKE YOU’VE NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE.

If you’re an Iggy and the Stooges fan, you’ve surely heard their infamous live album, Metallic KO (1976). But did you know that, due to a technical error, the record was issued at the wrong speed and was off pitch? It would be decades before anyone noticed and the blunder was righted, but the tapes of the two shows that were edited down for the LP didn’t receive the same treatment. That’s all changed, and for the first time the full recordings of both gigs, including the Stooges’ tumultuous final show, can be heard in all their speed-corrected glory.

In the spring of 1973, Columbia Records released Raw Power after a long delay. The album justly received critical acclaim, but failed to sell. Also during this period, Iggy and the Stooges were dropped by their management company, Main Man, so things were not looking good. In July, needing money to survive, the guys hit the road, touring heavily, leading to what turned out to be their final show in February. By then, the Stooges’ contract with Columbia had been terminated.

During the February 9th, 1974 gig at the Michigan Palace in Detroit, the crowd threw all sorts of objects at the Stooges, including ice cubes, lit cigarettes, coins, beer bottles, light bulbs, and eggs, all the while egged on by a defiant Iggy. Pop, incidentally, was dressed in a leotard and wearing a shawl fashioned as a skirt. They closed with an X-rated version of “Louie Louie,” leaving the stage as projectiles continued to fly towards them.

A burnt-out Iggy would soon leave the group and the Stooges were no more.

Metallic KO contains two shows that took place at the Michigan Palace. Side A has three songs from an October 6th concert at the venue, with the remaining three on Side B from the riotous February 9th gig. Both were taped on a four-track cassette recorder by Michael Tipton, a fan and friend of bassist Ron Asheton. Ron had a copy of the last show, which guitarist James Williamson borrowed and got to British rock journalist Nick Kent, who in turn put in the hands of Marc Zermati of Skydog Records, a French label. Scott Thurston, who played piano for the Stooges in their waning days, was the source for the October 6th tape. Metallic KO was released by Skydog in September 1976, with Iggy’s nihilistic, taunting banter and the Stooges’ savage songs influencing the burgeoning British punk movement. Lester Bangs famously wrote, “Metallic KO is the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer bottles breaking against guitar strings.”

Fast-forward to 2007 when Metallic KO was being readied for a CD reissue. In the studio where the album was being remastered was Sterling Roswell (aka Rosco) of Spaceman 3, who, with guitar in hand, began strumming along with the recording. Roswell noticed that the band sounded like they were playing in a flat key, leading to the discovery that, back in the ‘70s, the tapes had been transferred at the wrong speed. Corrections were made, and Metallic KO finally sounded as it should have all along.

For the first time, the Detroit shows used for the album, both released in full in 1988 by Skydog on Metallic 2xKO, have been speed-corrected and sound better than ever. (Dangerous Minds)

 

Tracklisting

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