January 28, 1978 - Iggy Pop James Williamson NME Kill City Review

MR POP'S REAL DEAL

Messrs. Pop and Williamson keep each other vertical

IGGY POP AND JAMES WILLIAMSON Kill City (Radar Records)

WELL, IT'S finally out and yup, disregarding the shoddy cover, it's a great album.

The timing however couldn't have been worse for this, the only legitimate recorded link between the rabid Stooges hyper-drive of "Raw Power" and the duress of Bowie's motorik on "The Idiot".

As I'm writing this CSM is similarly reviewing a 12 inch Skydog three-tracker of "Metallic K.O." outtakes as well as a Bomp EP including two of "Kill City's official cuts coupled with a dreadful blues dirge entitled "Jesus Loves The Stooges". Not to mention the EP of "Raw Power" outtakes that Paul Morley reviewed last week. . but let the facts speak for themselves.

For a start, "Kill City" wasn't recorded between '74 and '75 as claimed elsewhere. All but one track - the instrumental "Master Charge" - were laid down in (almost certainly) May of '75 at the expense of ex-rock critic/A&R man Ben Edmonds and famed MOR songwriter Jim Webb, using a modest financial donation from the former and the LA demo studio owned by the latter.

The tracks themselves were pretty basic in terms of instrumentation and were certainly unmixed when someone who for convenience's sake will remain anonymous - decided to take possession of the tapes and hawk them round American record companies.

Some of these expressed interest at the time. Sire for example was hot for their release but, like others, baulked at the price this anonymous gent was asking for their ownership. The final straw snapped when this same character demanded that if these tapes were to be released, then one Iggy Pop should sign a five year contract donating a charming 50% of anything he was to make into the gent's possession. Even Iggy wasn't going to fall for this old stunt and the tapes were abandoned by their creators in a mixture of despair and disgust. Subsequently, by early '76 Iggy had departed with Bowie and Williamson had returned to his record engineering job in LA.

Then came the Iggy goldrush and-well, I don't know the details - Williamson got the tapes back somehow and, after adding further instrumentation and mixing down decently, sold the album first to Bomp's Greg Shaw who duly passed on their lease to Andrew Lauder for his Radar Records' first release.

So that's the story behind the album's three year neglect. Now never mind the facts, here comes the bollocks!

"Kill City" is rightly credited to just The Pop and Williamson because when these songs (except for "I Got Nothing") were conceived and recorded there was no Stooges left. As such most of these numbers could rightfully be credited as the pair's third shot at a fruitful songwriting partnership, following "Raw Power" and the transitory "Head On The Curve", "Cock In My Pocket", "Wet My Bed" phase.

The "Kill City" tapes have often been compared favourably with The Stones' "Exile On Main Street" and The Doors' "LA Woman". Both comparisons have their points of relevance and their shortcomings.

This is after all a definitively

IGGY POP & JAMES

Los Angeles album: a real deal gutter view shot at the plush, decadent cameos that The Eagles considered on "Hotel California".

The title track says it all really with its keen, sharp images of The Promised Land as "Kill City, where the debris meets the sea". Lines based at the jugular vein of despair itself, motivated purely by the sheer adrenalin pulse of dancing in the ruins and the vaguest feeling that somewhere - beyond all the garbage, beyond all the vicarious highs, lows and in-betweens might just lie some grand, unimaginable freedom that will swoop down like some great white bird.

The imagery of "Kill City" is simple enough. That playground Land which can only lead to d to indulgences that leave you "overdosed and on your knees" is counterpointed by a raging chorus in "Give it up, turn the boy loose". You just take it from there.

The album proceeds through a collection of gutted confession, including a bonus in the classic punk anthem "Beyond The Law", a bulletin from the abyss where love and hate are inter-changeable in "Johanna" and then the frankly succinct "I Got Nothing".

"Lucky Monkeys" seals the "Exiles" connection; the sound here is straight from the same claustrophobic mould pioneered by such wasted, warped masterpieces as "Ventilaor Blues".

Elsewhere Williamson's arrangements meet Iggy's lyrics punch for punch - the fearsome crashing piano chords of the finale to "Johanna", for example, or the exquisite acoustic guitar that lulls one into "No Sense Of Crime". In fact this is arguably more Williamson's baby than Iggy's. He picked up the pieces on this project and his talents are what often gives "Kill City" its leading edge.

Both partners are in the ascendant for the album's finest work, "Sell Your Love", where Ig's passionate diatribe is set against a haunting, tragic melody embellished by fierce sax howls courtesy one John Harden (who knocks previous Stooges collaborator Steve Mackay into a cocked hat). Williamson in fact uses saxes and keyboards more than his own guitar drive.

Watch this man's work carefully but meanwhile don't bother with most of the other Ig stuff floating around - too much of which strikes me as too ghoulish to bear - and stick with "Kill City", a potent and suitably dangerous set of excellent rock.

Nick Kent