Open Up and Bleed

 Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed, by Paul Trynka pg. 371

Our first book in the Rhythm n Books book club was a David Bowie book, so it seemed only fitting to end our summer reading list with a bio about Bowie's estranged friend and sometime collaborater, the Godfather of Punk himself, Iggy Pop (aka Jim Osterberg). 

This was a pretty good deep dive into Iggy's entire life, starting out in his childhood in Detroit, Michigan where he was voted most likely to succeed in school--yes, Iggy Pop was a pretty straight-laced young person before he heard the call of rock n' roll music. As his first offical group, The Stooges, started picking-up steam, Iggy realized he could really wow audiences with his high energy, violent and weird performances. They got people talking and that got the word around about how they were a great group to see, eventually garnering the attention of the starman himself, Bowie, who took Iggy under his wing and tried to help him create a long lasting music career, which in some very real ways, he did. But the addition of drugs into his life made him more erratic and brazen, which over time only fueled the very legend he was trying to construct. The book even delves into his 80's period, when he was trying to clean-up his act. Incredible that as strung out and awful as Iggy could be, girlfriends, friends, radio execs, kept giving him chance after chance to succeed. In the 2000's with song royalties finally coming in, his band reformed, a growing back catalog, and a new generation of listeners, punk enthusiasts finally gave Iggy Pop his due as the Godfather of punk. Adults only.