Iggy Pop Johnny Marr Music The Stooges

The Record That Changed My Life: Johnny Marr on Iggy & The Stooges / Raw Power (1973)

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I was 14 and trying out some guitar riffs with my first band. There was an older guy, and throughout one of our songs he said: “That sounds like Gimme Danger from The Stooges– and you sound like James Williamson.” I didn’t know the Stooges back then and was quite pissed off: when you’re 14 you still think that you’re inventing something completely new with every song.

But eventually curiosity won. I drove to my favourite record store- and froze when I saw Iggy on the cover. What a creature! I didn’t have enough money to buy the record. So I saved money, and when I finally had bought the record, I kept starring at the cover on my bus-ride back home. What a creature! The photo seduced me. It promised an alternative universe, and that is what rock-music should be about in my opinion. At home, I put on the record and had to agree with the guy in my band: my song was a copy of Gimme Danger. But it didn’t piss me off anymore, because from that moment on I knew that I was on the right track as guitar player.

I was living with my parents, in a small flat in what was Europe’s biggest concrete complex back then. Outside my room’s window, there was one of those big yellow street lights that would seep through the room. I listened to Raw Power, the orange light shone through the curtains, and I was in another world. A dark and dangerous world, sexy and full of drugs. But most of all beautiful.

by Johnny Marr

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