Detroit Rock City by Steve Miller Page A
Authors: Steve Miller
rest of them was strictly LSD and marijuana.
Jimmy Recca: They played the Goose Lake pop festival that summer, 1970. It was, like, a miserable fucking time. It was like 115 degrees all day long, and the Stooges go on at, like, five oâclock in the afternoon and itâs fucking like a hundred percent humidity and, you know, it storms on and off all day long. Nothingâs in tune, and Traffic was ready to pull out themselves. Thatâs the gig that Dave Alexander quit. They said he was fired. Iggy fired him, but he forgets. Dave just said, âFuck it.â He was resigned to the fact that they were going to cancel the show and that no one was going to go on, so he just started drinking and took some acid. So he got up on stage, and they put him up there and Iggy may have made a point to embellish on it, and Dave gave him the finger and that was history. After that Iggy, having the power to fire people, did so.
Iggy Pop: To the best of my recollection, I would say I fired him.
Scott Richardson: I lived with Dave Alexander. He was an only child, and his parents really doted on him.
Iggy Pop: But at that point he had been leaving on a regular basis as far as not staying at the groupâs house for weeks on end, not being in town for weeks on end. He had a girlfriend he was kind of obsessed with. And just not making rehearsals sort of thing. On this particular show he could not play one note on his bass; he just froze. It was, Iâm told, a case of being extremely drunk. It could have been. He was a less experienced musician than most of us; he was the guy down the street. He was a really witty kid who never opened up to anybody in the world outside of our group. He got into the group because he was the buddy down the street of Scott, and we needed an extra guy at one time. Also, he had the only car in the group and he did a great job, he really did. When it got to the point where, you know, I was trying to run the group at a really large venue and, you know, thereâs no bass. That was it. Thereâs a lot of our live recordings on YouTube, and you canhear it. So we finally fired him. Iâm not a formal leader of the group but was like, âIâm not going to do it anymore. Iâm not going to play with that guy.â
Ron Asheton: We went on later in the day on Saturday. The band was hot, and when we were hot, kids would get worked up. But the time we got to âDown in the Streetâ in our set, Iggy had those kids pretty damned worked up. There was a trench in front of the stage, four feet deep and four feet wide and running the length of the stage. It was secured by two police officers on horseback on the stage side and a wooden fence and Cyclone fence six feet high extended on the audience side of the trench. It was a wall of security to diffuse the crowd. As the song hit its groove, where the band holds the groove, Iggy raised his arm and beckoned to the crowd that was now smashing against the fence. When we got to the chorus where Iggy wails, âthe wall,â those kids must have thought we were talking to them because they pushed the fence down and rushed the stage, which pretty much ended the festival.
Iggy Pop: The other three guys grew up within. Ron and Scott were brothers, for Christâs sake, and even spent more time together than most brothers because they didnât go to school. Dave was their buddy from one block down in the subdivision who also didnât go to school, so they had a bond forged many years before I met them. I tried to join as much as I could, and I could only get so far. Once the group got going I started getting a lot of attention. It never bothered Scott, but Ron and Dave would scribble on the walls, âSee Iggy. See Iggy puke.â It was funny, but on the other hand, there was something going on, and I was the guy who was forced to be the nag to get it. There wasnât going to be a rehearsal unless I asked eighteen times. So as the
Jimmy Recca: They played the Goose Lake pop festival that summer, 1970. It was, like, a miserable fucking time. It was like 115 degrees all day long, and the Stooges go on at, like, five oâclock in the afternoon and itâs fucking like a hundred percent humidity and, you know, it storms on and off all day long. Nothingâs in tune, and Traffic was ready to pull out themselves. Thatâs the gig that Dave Alexander quit. They said he was fired. Iggy fired him, but he forgets. Dave just said, âFuck it.â He was resigned to the fact that they were going to cancel the show and that no one was going to go on, so he just started drinking and took some acid. So he got up on stage, and they put him up there and Iggy may have made a point to embellish on it, and Dave gave him the finger and that was history. After that Iggy, having the power to fire people, did so.
Iggy Pop: To the best of my recollection, I would say I fired him.
Scott Richardson: I lived with Dave Alexander. He was an only child, and his parents really doted on him.
Iggy Pop: But at that point he had been leaving on a regular basis as far as not staying at the groupâs house for weeks on end, not being in town for weeks on end. He had a girlfriend he was kind of obsessed with. And just not making rehearsals sort of thing. On this particular show he could not play one note on his bass; he just froze. It was, Iâm told, a case of being extremely drunk. It could have been. He was a less experienced musician than most of us; he was the guy down the street. He was a really witty kid who never opened up to anybody in the world outside of our group. He got into the group because he was the buddy down the street of Scott, and we needed an extra guy at one time. Also, he had the only car in the group and he did a great job, he really did. When it got to the point where, you know, I was trying to run the group at a really large venue and, you know, thereâs no bass. That was it. Thereâs a lot of our live recordings on YouTube, and you canhear it. So we finally fired him. Iâm not a formal leader of the group but was like, âIâm not going to do it anymore. Iâm not going to play with that guy.â
Ron Asheton: We went on later in the day on Saturday. The band was hot, and when we were hot, kids would get worked up. But the time we got to âDown in the Streetâ in our set, Iggy had those kids pretty damned worked up. There was a trench in front of the stage, four feet deep and four feet wide and running the length of the stage. It was secured by two police officers on horseback on the stage side and a wooden fence and Cyclone fence six feet high extended on the audience side of the trench. It was a wall of security to diffuse the crowd. As the song hit its groove, where the band holds the groove, Iggy raised his arm and beckoned to the crowd that was now smashing against the fence. When we got to the chorus where Iggy wails, âthe wall,â those kids must have thought we were talking to them because they pushed the fence down and rushed the stage, which pretty much ended the festival.
Iggy Pop: The other three guys grew up within. Ron and Scott were brothers, for Christâs sake, and even spent more time together than most brothers because they didnât go to school. Dave was their buddy from one block down in the subdivision who also didnât go to school, so they had a bond forged many years before I met them. I tried to join as much as I could, and I could only get so far. Once the group got going I started getting a lot of attention. It never bothered Scott, but Ron and Dave would scribble on the walls, âSee Iggy. See Iggy puke.â It was funny, but on the other hand, there was something going on, and I was the guy who was forced to be the nag to get it. There wasnât going to be a rehearsal unless I asked eighteen times. So as the