Free Iggy Pop by Paul Trynka Page B

it’s like peaking on acid, inside about five seconds,’ says Ron. ‘Panther was one guy who wouldn’t take shit from anybody.’ It was Panther who ensured the Iggy name became a permanent fixture. The drummer didn’t complain about being saddled with the name of his uncool former group; it could have been worse. Ron Asheton, who had a spotty teenage complexion, was given the name Javalina - a midget warthog found in Texas, an animal which, according to naturalists, you can smell before you can see.
    Three months out of high school, the 18-year-old Osterberg seemed keen to lay waste to his former straight, fratboy image. And where he’d made a real effort to fit in at high school, impressing fellow students with his intellect, his attendance at the university was desultory, and seemingly confined to hanging out at the library and the coffee shops. Lynn Goldsmith had bumped into Iggy standing in line on their enrolment day at the University of Michigan; there was an instant erotic attraction between them and they arranged a rendezvous for later that day - to which neither turned up. When they met again, each of them admitted they were still virgins and had chickened out. ‘Iggy was cute. Girls like cute guys, it’s that simple,’ says Goldsmith. But she remembers that where Panther was naturally unique, ‘Iggy worked at being unique. He used to go in this coffee shop on the campus, and he’d sit there, pick his nose and eat his boogers. But only when people were watching him. That was my take.’
    When eyewitnesses remember Jim over that period, the adjective ‘coy’ occurs again and again. Janet Withers had had a crush on ‘Ostie’ ever since she’d been introduced to him by her sister Dale at high school, and would hang around the university campus and Discount Records in order to catch a glimpse of this elusive creature. She kept a diary of her sightings, describing how Ostie would look her up and down as they talked, then look away, a true coquette. ‘He’s about my height [5’ 9”], has a thin but very good build, black hair in a long Beatle [cut], large, large, beautiful blue eyes and a long straight nose,’ she confided to her diary. ‘His mouth is naturally appealing and just the right proportions. He has muscles, of course, and man! just the ideal guy for me.’ Janet’s crush was never consummated - but then none of them was. ‘Jim was very coy and flirty, very come-on, but nothing to back it up,’ says Dan Erlewine, who shared a one-room apartment on State Street with his drummer in 1966. ‘But that’s not bad, that’s just being shy.’ The shared bedroom gave Dan more of an insight into Iggy’s character than he would have liked, particularly as Barbara Oliver, who was a couple of years older than Iggy and supposedly going out with Dan’s brother Mike, was a regular visitor. As Dan vainly attempted to get to sleep, he would hear Jim tease her with the phrase, ‘You can look, but you can’t touch.’ Jim getting girls over and teasing them with ‘his thing’ became quite a regular ritual. ‘I wouldn’t have done that with him in the room,’ says Erlewine, ‘but he would with me.’ Both Erlewine brothers agreed that Osterberg’s generously sized ‘thing’ was a crucial part of his self-image. It was no surprise when he announced that his featured vocal with the band would be ‘I’m A Man’.
    Seducing (or tantalising) Michael Erlewine’s girlfriend underlined Jim’s Oedipal relationship with this father figure. Later, Jim would denigrate the Prime Movers as effete bohemians, but throughout 1966 Erlewine’s influence was crucial. ‘[Iggy] was a sponge, I think he soaked up ideas,’ says Scott Richardson, then the singer with the Chosen Few. ‘Michael was a very bossy figure, but a very influential one.’
    Bob Sheff observed Iggy from close up, both in the Prime Movers and the Stooges, and he felt that Michael Erlewine was ‘not a mentor exactly, but he made him. The