Free Detroit Rock City by Steve Miller Page A

put us on with fucking everybody, all the time. We basically opened for half of the great young bands and musicians in the world at his place, and I am forever in his debt because of that. We’d be second or third on the bill with these terrific people. It would be Van Morrison or Love or the Who.
    Russ Gibb: Iggy’s father taught with me at Fordson High School. I had subbed there when I first came back to teach, and that’s where his dad taught. When I first hired him, Iggy’s daytime job was working as a counselor at the YMCA summer camp around Ann Arbor.
    Iggy Pop: I was a junior counselor. I went to a day camp in Michigan called Varsity Day Camp, which was run by a fellow who was a basketball star at the U of M, Irv Wisniewski, called Wrong Way Wisniewski because he scored a basket againsthis own team. And when I got a little older they gave me a job. I think I started at a buck a day when I was fourteen, teaching little kids how to swim and catching frogs. Russ sort of kept an interest in us. When I got married, I had a marriage ceremony on the lawn of our house in Ann Arbor. Russ called in from the radio station where he was hosting a show, and the gag was—everyone thought it was a Kardashian thing—you know who would marry Iggy Pop? That was a contradiction in terms, so he had a certain outlook on us.
    Patti Quatro: Iggy was like a frat kid, and he was wild. But he was still a frat kid.
    Jimmy Recca: Guys would bring their girlfriends to shows, and the girls would sit and be enamored with Iggy. And he was just like this fucking guy that—this skinny guy. These guys working at Ford Motor Company, they want to do something nice for their girlfriends on their birthdays or their anniversary, and what do they want to do: “Let’s go see the Stooges.” The Grande was festival seating. Everybody’s crowded up and they’re all sitting, and the girls, and Iggy out there working the crowd. And it’s like he’s got his shirt off, you know, and these guys just stand by, and it would be the biggest thrill to see the Stooges, and they would put the lights right down there on the fucking crowd, man. I’d move in closer to see the whole fucking psychodrama unfold. The girls just want to touch Iggy’s chest, and Iggy’s, like, looking right at her, and all of a sudden he just hacked out and spit right in this girl’s fucking mouth, and next thing you know the guy is looking like, “Whhhatttt? What’d you just do to my fucking girlfriend?” He’d just be set to throw a swing, and the next thing you know these cats would come out of nowhere. I mean these fucking guys, these storm troopers fucking commando. And Iggy was saved.
    DJ Dianna ( Club DJ ): I was just a little girl and I loved the Stooges. They played them on WABX, and I was really into what was going on. But I was fourteen or so. But my mom finally let me go to a Stooges show at the Eastown; my friend’s parent took us and dropped us off. It was really cold out—this was 1971. We’re sitting, and finally the Stooges come out, Ron comes out, then Scott, and they start the intro, and Iggy comes dancing out and he has no shirt, the jeans—the whole thing—and looks like a complete madman. I was twenty-five feet from the stage, and I think, I have to get closer. The Eastown had a low stage, and you could walk up, and I was tall for my age, five-seven, and the edge hit me in the middle of the chest. So I’m up there watching, and I am literally on the stage, hands resting on the stage, and Iggy comes dancing over to me, and he has this big smile, and he’s wriggling away, and he reaches down and runs his hand over my cheek, and I’mfrozen. I can’t move; I’m like “Oooooo.” I had very long hair, wavy, down past the middle of my back, and he runs his hand into the back of my hair, and—wham!—he smashed my head into the stage. My cheekbone