Paul Trynka‘s well-researched and highly-readable biography of Iggy Pop includes this related story about Sonic’s Rendezvous Band – an all-star assemblage of musicians from revered ’60s & ’70s Detroit rock groups:
Formed by The MC5‘s guitarist, Fred ‘Sonic‘ Smith, and The Rationals‘ singer, Scott Morgan, with Dum Dum Boy [and former Stooge] Scottie Ashton on drums and Gary Rasmussen – who’d played with The Up – on bass, SRB [Sonic’s Rendezvous Band] would become Detroit’s lost supergroup, issuing just one legendary single “City Slang” in their brief history.
Sleeve credits for the original 45 (that actually plays at 33 1/3 rpm) indicate the single to have been a “special preview edition limited to 1000 copies.” Released November 1978 on Fred Smith’s own Orchidé label.
Iggy, who had jammed with these musicians in Detroit during his 1977 tour, would later asked them to accompany him on his TV Eye Live promotional tour of Europe. But alas, the personality clash between Iggy and Fred Smith would would make an artistic partnership prove to be unworkable. When Iggy asked the SRB to then back him on successive dates in the US, the band would decline the offer – much to Scott Ashton’s and Iggy’s collective chagrin As Trynka observes, “it would be twenty years before Iggy would again play with the man he frequently mentioned as his favorite drummer.”
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Iggy Pop:
Product of His Time?
Illuminating bit of wisdom from Jim Osterberg on Iggy Pop’s function in modern society — taken from Roy Wilkinson‘s interview with Iggy Pop in the May 2009 edition of The Word:
Roy: Who’s going to take over after Iggy? Who do you most see yourself in?
Jim/Iggy: Peaches. She’s the closest to me. I would say. But I don’t know if society wants more of that stuff. I think I was able to tap into things people secretly wanted to say and do. But now those conditions aren’t there anymore. Youth is after power and ease. Stuff is what they want, material stuff.
