Iggy Pop by Paul Trynka

[Prime Movers] experience was important to Iggy in an emotional way. Michael liked very emotional situations and he put that into the music a lot. Iggy’s the same way.’
    An intellectual, inspiring, often infuriating character to this day - it’s sometimes hard to extract his opinions of other people, for he’s far more interested in himself - Michael Erlewine was ruthlessly committed to his music. But this wasn’t a selfish commitment, for he was devoted to bringing the audience with him - sometimes literally so. There was one late-night Prime Movers’ show at Clint’s Club where he worked up the audience into such an exalted state that after their final song he led the band and twenty kids from the audience through the streets of Ann Arbor, preaching and encouraging them to contemplate the beauty of the everyday objects around them. They stayed up until six o’clock in the morning, sharing the spirituality of the night turning into the dawn, before bundling into a 24-hour Greek restaurant for more earthly sustenance. ‘It was an incredible experience,’ remembers Sheff. ‘A charismatic experience.’ Few other performers would have taken such risks, but Michael’s commitment in stimulating and challenging his audience was a crucial lesson. And one in which the pupil would eventually outdo the master.
    There were some respects in which Iggy was already way ahead of his mentor, though, for as with the Iguanas, a substantial chunk of the Prime Movers’ audience was there to follow the drummer. Kathy Asheton, sister of Ron and Scott, was one of them: ‘I gathered up a couple of my girlfriends and we concocted a fan club, played the screaming-fan roles. I had a huge crush on him. There was a time we would walk down the street, holding hands, a real innocent thing, or sitting on his bed . . . for me this was very sophisticated.’
    Joan Boyle was another Prime Movers fan who, despite Jim’s habit of doing things to gross people out (‘saying obnoxious things, sticking his tongue out’), saw him as sweet, considerate and ‘sen sitive. Definitely. He helped me get together with my husband [Dan Erlewine], gave me counselling on how to snag him.’ Iggy’s attraction to women inspired his agony-uncle column in the otherwise rather staid Prime Movers newsletter - the effect is rather akin to seeing a Page Three boy in a Stalinist propaganda leaflet. In it he would dispense wisdom to lovelorn teenagers, handing out sage advice.
Dear Iggy,
I just wanted to know if you think a girl should kiss a boy on the first date.
Love Veronica

Veronica,
That depends on where you kiss him.
Love Iggy
    Happy to exploit his attraction for the opposite sex, Iggy nonetheless exhibited an unexpected humility, which deepened his charm. Dale Withers attended the University of Michigan with Jim, and she often saw him making his way from booth to booth in the semi-subterranean Michigan Union Grill. ‘Jim would come through and stop at each booth or table, saying humbly with downcast eyes, and I remember him saying these exact words, “Please please please please come to our gig.”’
    To Dale, such humility seemed rare among men in general, let alone aspiring rock stars. It was all the more alluring in someone so naturally extravagant. Iggy himself recalls how his attitude to the audience differed from that of his bandmates. ‘I remember once in the Prime Movers, we were on a break, we were playing in a bar, and the [Erlewine] brothers were going on and on about how fat and ugly the two girls in the front were. I just told them, “Are you guys crazy? You have two fans there! I don’t give a damn what they look like. This is a treasure, you have two people paying attention to you!” You know?’
    This faithful compact with an audience is something that would, in its unconventional way, endure in Jim Osterberg’s life - even if this notion would seem ridiculous to some of his peers, including Pete Andrews, who regularly booked the