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A REAL WILD CHILD
written by Phil Shoenfelt, originally published in Headline magazine by Antonin Kocabek, 2016
I’ve loved Iggy Pop – especially with The Stooges – ever since I first heard “Funhouse” back in the 1970s. I was living in Manchester at the time, and the album blew me away. It changed my life and prepared me for the UK punk explosion a couple of years later. Amazing music, heavy and unrestrained, like nothing I’d heard before. Iggy was my hero, The Stooges my religion.

I moved to New York in 1979, and in the autumn of 1981 I met Marcia, the woman who was later to become my wife. I picked her up at “Berlin” one night, and she took me back to her place on the Lower East Side. In the morning the telephone rang. Through the haze of my hangover I heard her yelling at someone down the line: “Fuck you Jim, I DID NOT steal your fucking Telecaster! You left it at A7 after you jammed with that punk band. You were so goddamn drunk you don’t even remember. FUCK YOU!” She slammed the receiver down and crawled back into bed.

“Who were you shouting at?” I asked.

“Oh, that was Jim – you know, Iggy. He’s such a goddamn jerk! I was with him on tour for three weeks, but he’s too far gone. I had to stop him jumping out of the hotel window one night when he was high on acid. Now he’s accusing me of stealing his guitar. FUCK HIM!”

I looked at her in amazement. “What, you mean Iggy as in Iggy Pop? The guy that was in The Stooges and worked with David Bowie?” She rolled her eyes, like it was no big deal.

I never met Iggy in person, and I don’t know if he ever found his Telecaster. But hearing Marcia balling him out made me realize that even Rock Gods have to answer to someone.