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Baker's Dozen

Bristol Fashion: Mark Stewart Of The Pop Group's 13 Favourite Albums
Julian Marszalek , March 22nd, 2012 06:44

Julian Marszalek talks to post punk agitator Mark Stewart about 13 favourite albums

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Iggy And The Stooges – Metallic K.O.

This is crucial. Over the years, since the age of about 15 or 16, I’ve been travelling all over the place. When we started off as kids we’d go up to the Roxy and meet other musicians and people in bands. And I remember talking to Ian Curtis, the Mary Chain, German people, American people, whoever from all over the world and suddenly you realise that somehow, by chance, when we were all 14 or 15 we all discovered this album and a few other seminal records.

In isolation there’d be a few people in schools – in Glasgow with the Mary Chain, in Manchester with Joy Division, in my friend’s school there were two other people who were interested in similar music. Talk to any people from the punk or post-punk generation and you will find that there are a handful of albums… but for me, Metallic K.O. and that footage of Iggy walking over that crowd as they held him up is just incredible! I talked to Iggy earlier and he was saying that he thought The Stooges were like a Motown band. They thought they were making something that was like black music because the roots of garage rock are black. People didn’t seem to understand that. I saw them playing in Berlin and there were noise restrictions in the venue and you could hear Steve Mackay’s saxophone and it sounded really funky and really black.

But Metallic K.O. is crucial.