Gimme Danger: Cherry Red Collects Iggy and The Stooges' "Raw Power"-Era Rehearsals on New Box Set

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Cherry Red has recently released its second volume of archival material from Iggy Pop and The Stooges following 2020's You Think You're Bad, Man? The Road Tapes '73-'74. The new title is Born in a Trailer: The Session and Rehearsal Tapes '72-'73, and it's a 4-CD collection chronicling the band's rehearsal recordings made in London, Michigan, Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York.

Author Kris Needs doesn't pull any punches in his liner notes to this box when he describes this period in Stooges history as a "slow motion car crash." Yet he observes that the recordings here are "evidence that no matter how chaotic the live shows got, usually thanks to whatever was coursing around Iggy's short-circuiting system, The Stooges' ingrained Detroit work ethic rarely flagged at rehearsals." Those are the recordings featured here, from the period just before and after the release of the band's Columbia LP Raw Power. This is the era right after the band's first breakup in July 1971; it didn't last long as Iggy invited his bandmates James Williamson and Ron and Scott Asheton to London early the next year.

On July 15, 1972, The Stooges played their only U.K. gig of the 1970s in London; two days later, they entered Olympic Studios and recorded the material heard on the first disc of this set. There are no fewer than thirteen takes of Iggy's first solo composition, "I Got a Right," a couple of "Gimme Some Skin," and some thunderous workouts on "Louie, Louie" and "Money (That's What I Want)." The outtake "Tight Pants" would be reworked for Raw Power as "Shake Appeal" while "I'm Sick of You" and "Scene of the Crime" also didn't make the cut for the final LP. ("I'm Sick of You" and "Shake Appeal" would be included on 2010's Raw Power reissue bonus disc.)

Iggy and The Stooges spent much of September and early October recording Raw Power. After much back-and-forth and an eventual remix by David Bowie, Raw Power was released in February 1973. One month later, the band returned to their original stomping grounds of Michigan, rehearsing at Ypsilanti's Morgan Sound Studios for a Detroit gig to be held on March 31. The rehearsal tapes reveal a surprisingly solid band despite their well-publicized offstage activities as they work through the album's title track, "Search and Destroy," "Gimme Danger," and "I Need Somebody," plus a loose romp through Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose."

The box continues with cross-country rehearsals made in Los Angeles and Detroit in spring 1973, and New York and Detroit in summer. There's plenty of fire and spontaneity throughout; polish was never what the Stooges were after, and there's ragged charm to these primal takes. While ostensibly rehearsing for various gigs (helpfully laid out in Needs' notes), they were also preparing material for another album that never happened. In February 1974, the group disbanded for a second time, and this one stuck. James Williamson worked with Iggy on his initial solo endeavors before moving behind-the-scenes in the field of electronics engineering. In 2003, Iggy reunited with the Asheton brothers to reform The Stooges. Ron Asheton died in 2009, but Pop pressed on with Scott and the returning James Williamson. Scott passed away in 2014, and two years later, The Stooges disbanded for the final time.

While the material on Born in a Trailer: The Session and Rehearsal Tapes '72-'73 has appeared before, this set handily curates it in an accessible fashion. It's packaged in a clamshell case and includes a 20-page booklet with credits as well as Needs' notes. Simon Murphy has prepared the audio for release but the credits stop short of calling his work "remastering." This collection of the proto-punk rockers persevering in the face of all sorts of offstage debauchery is available now at the links below.

Iggy and The Stooges, Born in a Trailer: The Session and Rehearsal Tapes '72-'73 (Cherry Red CRCDBOX111, 2021) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: OLYMPIC STUDIO, LONDON, 1972