11. Iggy Pop
It was my great good fortune to stumble into a San Francisco club on my very first night in the U.S.A. and witness Iggy backed by the Sales Brothers, storming through songs from the recently released Lust For Life and tunes held over from The Idiot and his days with The Stooges. I was making my American debut at the same venue, the following night, so the club management took me backstage after the set and I suspect that Iggy recognised an innocent abroad, whatever the bravado of my demeanour. To this day, I think fondly of the time he took to speak to with me with touching concern. Over the next weeks and months, The Attractions and I saw many miles and much misadventure. Our traveling soundtrack was a small handful of cassettes played at top volume in a station wagon; Iggy’s two Berlin records and their David Bowie companions, ABBA and The Beatles were about all we could agree upon. Quite soon, it was all too easy to identify with being "Stuck on a pin" as I sought out weirder and weirder sins to commit.
Down the years I’ve found myself sharing a festival bill with Iggy and Bjork in the Tokyo dockyards, when a typhoon forced a re-location of Fuji Rock. Whether listening to Iggy’s tremendous recent records, Post Pop Depression and Free, watching Gimmie Danger – Jim Jarmusch’s remarkable documentary on The Stooges – dialling in to Iggy’s wonderful BBC 6 Music Radio show or digging his genial 2020 version of ‘C’est Si Bon’ in a trio with Thomas Dutronc and my wife [Diana Krall], I am always put in mind of this starting point and how much it will always mean to me.
