Gimme Danger: The Story Of Iggy Pop
by Joe Ambrose

Much-hated hatchet job gets paperback update

When it appeared in hardback in 2002 this self-opinionated cut-and-paste account of Iggy’s story garnered major flak from fans for its smug style, nasty little putdowns and the author making it clear that he was never a Stooges fan anyway. He instantly instilled outrage here by trying to write off the great Lester Bangs’ love of The Stooges as “homosexual”, lumping Ron Asheton’s spectacular early guitar onslaughts with “nauseating psychedelic/ progressive convention” and dismissing Fun House as an “OK timepiece”. Clearly not the man for the job. Several vast tracts of interview (in addition to the huge lumps of press regurgitation) which make up most of the book also went uncredited, now corrected in this partially-updated revamp.

Iggy deserved more, and got it last year with Paul Trynka’s definitive Open Up & Bleed, which puts this, and most other music biographies for that matter, in the shade, boasting the man himself among its hundreds of interviewees and getting as close as it can get to the full picture. By happy coincidence, this has also just appeared in paperback, with update and extras. With Iggy’s seismic effect on rock’n’roll there should be room for more than one biography but, in this case, there’s only one you need.

1 stars

ISBN 9781847721167

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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