2. Iggy & The StoogesMetallic K.O.
There used to be a British rock magazine called Cream, and they did an article on The Stooges which must have been around the time that Raw Power came out. I was reading all about Iggy and the rest of the band and I just thought, ‘This is brilliant, it sounds absolutely nuts.’ They were reminiscing about how they were listening to the first Velvet Underground album in some dismal, damp basement, and it sounded impossibly decadent and glamorous for all the wrong reasons.
Metallic K.O. is really obnoxious. Really, really obnoxious. It came out in 1976 I think, so it tied in very neatly with the beginning of punk, and the time we were starting to think about forming a band. At the time it was a bit of a myth – ‘Did you hear what happened during the recording of this record?’ I think some Hell’s Angels had climbed under the stage and decked him. It had such an untrammelled, unfettered sound to it, and I think that spoke to a lot of people. Live At Max’s is also a great rock & roll record, but Metallic K.O. is totally unhinged, and the band is electrifying when they stop fucking around and actually start playing. One of the songs that [Pogues predecessors] The Milwall Chainsaws used to do – if ‘songs’ is the right way to describe it – was the Metallic K.O. version of ‘Louie Louie’ [featuring obscene altered lyrics]. Their version is thoroughly unpleasant, but it just sounds fucking great. It hits so hard. I actually altered the lyrics even further – I thought it’d be even more transgressive if it was sung to a bloke!
