Neighbourhood Threat: On Tour WIth Iggy Pop

Rating:
Summary: "We have abandoned the mundane, formal world."
Review: "Neighbourhood Threat: On Tour With Iggy Pop" is written by musician, Alvin Gibbs. In 1988, Iggy Pop hired Alvin Gibbs, former bass guitarist for the British punk band, the UK Subs, for a world tour. Andy McCoy, former lead guitarist for Hanoi Rocks, is the person who hooks up Gibbs with Iggy. Soon Gibbs is on the road with Iggy and being paid $1500 a week for the duration of the 230 day tour. They are joined by Steve Jones, formerly of the Sex Pistols, Seamus Beaghen, formerly from Madness, and Paul Garisto from Psychedelic Furs. The tour begins with The Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles in July 1988 and ends in February 1989 in Australia.

Gibbs is a good observer and a fast learner. He quickly assesses that Iggy's musicians come and go--who plays this tour may very well be absent for the next one. And that means they're replaceable. When the tour begins, there's a 'new and improved' Iggy. Iggy is 41 and married to a Japanese woman he met at one of his concerts. Iggy has "discovered it was necessary to work harder and harder to maintain his vocal ability and physical shape." Gone are the wild days--and now Iggy maintains a strict regimen of exercise, and is--more or less--drug free.

Gibbs relates details of the day-to-day grind of this back busting tour--along with highlights of some of the naughtiness. Andy McCoy is the volatile band member, and Gibbs admits he'd "been half expecting Andy to go pharmaceutical."

Fans of Iggy will enjoy the book--although it is a teensy bit on the dry side. Black and white photographs complement the text, and Gibbs re-creates a neatly presented synopsis of the tour and life with Iggy both on and off the stage. Iggy's life is indeed, as Gibbs claims, "a rock 'n' roll Iliad."--displacedhuman


Rating:
Summary: Genius at Work
Review: Iggy is a genius. This is confirmed by the late Lester Bangs, so no doubts are accepted. (And I agree.) This book covers some two hundred dates in the period 1988-89 his then current band worked. Gibbs, a survivor of the UK Subs, is asked to join the band by Andy McCoy, a Johnny Thunders-inspired fellow from Hanoi Rocks, and then begins a tour that covers small clubs in the hinterland to Texas Stadium to Brazil, Japan, and even parts of the wilds of Canada to New Zealand and Australia. Iggy is married at the time and civilized, and so is merely a ticking time-bomb (as opposed to the usual exploding one), and thus quits cigarettes and hard drinking. (But check out his Miami temptations.) We hear of the life suffered by those forced to live in 5-Star hotels. the horrors of having to say no to groupies, the pain of Iggy taking the author's last bottle of cognac--yet it all adds up to a pleasant and literate read; the work of man who knows what of he speaks and does it well. While all readers with a knowledge of Iggy would await a book by, say, Ron Asheton, this one will do.

Rating:
Summary: Great inside look at Iggy!
Review: In the sleazy, fly-by-night world of rock'n'roll there are many pretenders to the throne, but few true legends. And in that select group of larger than life icons, few can lay claim to having made a deeper impact than one Iggy Pop (a.k.a. James Osterberg). His groundbreaking work as frontman for the explosive Stooges from the late 1960s through the mid-'70s, as well as his later solo albums (including collaborations with David Bowie) challenged the established ideas of how a rock band could look, sound and behave.

By the time Iggy recorded "Instinct" in the late '80s, the L.A. glam metal scene had taken the music biz by storm, and the album's sound perhaps reflected Iggy's desire to fit in commercially after a series of poorly received albums. For the subsequent tour, Iggy assembled a band of seasoned pro's--including former UK Subs bassist Alvin Gibbs and the eccentric ex-Hanoi Rocks guitarist, Andy McCoy. Many months of touring followed in the U.S. and abroad--and while Gibbs indulged in the offstage debauchery, he obviously also observed the goings on around him with a keen eye and ear. The result was "Neighborhood Threat: On Tour With Iggy Pop" a compulsively readable first-hand account of a major rock tour with none of the dirt excised for the faint of heart.

"Neighborhood Threat" unflinchingly captures Iggy at his best and at his worst: onstage, backstage and out on the town. Gibbs also took care to document the real life "Jim Osterberg" side of Iggy, providing a more fully-fleshed portrait of this rock immortal than any other writer. In addition, Gibbs delves into the excesses of ex-bandmate Andy McCoy whose personal demons may have cost him opportunities at greater glory.