The 500 - #128 - Raw Power - Iggy And The Stooges

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album: #128
Album Title: Raw Power
Artist: The Stooges
Genre: Proto Punk, Hard Rock, Garage Rock
Recorded: CBS Studios, London, England
Released: February, 1973
My age at release: 7
How familiar was I with it before this week: One Song
Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Search and Destroy

Although I’m on a two-week winter break, I’m still focused on report card writing. If I don’t start now, January will hit like a freight train.  Elementary school volleyball season, several social obligations and publishing this blog will collide with lesson prep, report card delivery and everything else that makes the first month of the year a whirlwind of deadlines and distractions.

Despite all of this, I’m excited to bring back to the classroom an old favorite activity: CNN10. Each weekday, network host Coy Wire, a former Buffalo Bills player with infectious energy, delivers a 10-minute recap of current events. It’s quick, digestible, and engaging – the perfect way to help my middle school students think beyond four walls and connect to the wider world using their critical thinking and listening skills.

Coy Wire presenting the news on CNN 10.

I teach several literacy and social studies activities that are enhanced by the short and snappy CNN program. Moreso, I connect with a colleague at another school, Chris Wilson, who creates a current events-based trivia game based on CNN10 via a program called Kahoot! that lightens up Friday classes.

Using CNN 10 reminds me of the first time I paid attention to the news. I was about eight years old and my parents had CBC Radio on constantly. The evening news program As It Happens was a staple, often playing as we ate dinner. The voice of host Barbara Frum became as familiar as family and her recap of Canadian and world events made me feel tuned in.

It was as if I had discovered a secret window into the world of adults. Most of the headlines flew past me, but I remember the word "impeachment" tickling my brain because it sounded like a cocktail of "peach" and "mint". soon deciphered it had nothing to do with either.

Promotional poster for CBC's As It Happens (circa 1974)

Watergate was everywhere. Nixon, in my mind, was like a comic book villain. He was shadowy, scheming and, with his rubbery face and jowl-wagging delivery, larger than life. He was the kind of character who could have stepped out of the panels of a Batman or Superman monthly. The grown-ups whispered about scandals while the radio hummed with tension, and even as a kid, I could feel something cracking at the edges. I  later recognized that the optimism of the 1960s was gone; the air was heavy with mistrust and exhaustion.

That sensation of a country fraying feels like the same energy The Stooges bottled in Raw Power. It wasn’t polished or polite. The four-piece garage band from Ann Arbor, Michigan, had created something that was jagged, feral and loud. It was the sound of a world coming apart at the seams, and lead vocalist Iggy Pop didn’t just sing songs, he detonated them.

Iggy Pop performing (circa 1974)

Raw Power is the third record by The Stooges on The 500 list. I wrote about their self-titled debut (#185) in November, 2024, and their second record, Fun House (#191), a month earlier. In each post, I recap their formation and the development of their sound, as they moved from minimalist hypnotic and psychedelic grooves to a more aggressive and chaotic proto-punk sound.

Shortly after the release of Fun House, the band was on hiatus. Three of the four members, including Pop, had become serious heroin users and, in 1972, they had relocated to England in an attempt to reconstitute the group. Their new line-up, now dubbed Iggy and The Stooges, featured Pop on vocals, James Williamson on guitars, with brothers Ron and Scott Asheton on bass and drums respectively.

The Stooges (1974) (l-r) Williamson, Pop, R. Asheton & S. Asheton

The record was produced by David Bowie, who was also helping Pop recover from his heroin addiction. It sold rather poorly on release, with many critics complaining that Bowie had mixed it poorly. However, the album’s raw and rough sound gained in popularity among the earliest pioneers of punk rock, a genre which exploded in 1976.

Listening now, one can recognize its intensity. It is as if the guitars were tearing through the fabric of the era, shredding the last remnants of peace-and-love idealism and spitting out something raw, honest and dangerous. As Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong said when inducting the group into The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2010: "They symbolized the destruction of Flower Power and introduced us to raw power".

Pop (left) with Bowie (1974).

If history doesn't repeat, it does echo. We’re living through an era of deep political divides and alarming international tensions. Who can guess at how the future will unfold?  I can already see some of my students starting to tune into the world beyond their own circles, the same way I did back in the early ’70s. That awareness often leads to something bigger and I am sure that some of them will seek clarification of the mayhem we are living through. I think our daily 10 minute check-ins with Coy Wire and the team at CNN10 will help facilitate that.

They might, for instance,  discover a musician or band that rises above today’s cacophony and uncertainty, and bring a new era in music that reflects how we got through the current upheaval. Honestly, I can’t wait to look back a decade from now and ask: Who gave us the 2020s version of Raw Power, a record that didn’t just play the times, but ripped them wide open?

Kendrick Lamar? Run The Jewels? Childish Gambino? Fontaines D.C.? or someone currently writing their debut record?

Not me for sure. I'm too old for tearing up stages or reinventing genres...beside, I have to get back to report cards.

The 500 - #157 - Closer - Joy Division

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #157
Album Title: Closer

Artist: Joy Division

Genre: Post Punk, New Wave, Gothic Rock

Recorded: Britannia Row Studios, Islington, England

Released: July, 1980

My age at release: 15
How familiar was I with it before this week: A little

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #309, dropping 157 spots
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Isolation

It’s easy to forget just how emotionally intense the teen-age years can be. Even after three decades teaching middle schoolers, I can still be caught off guard by young people’s unpredictable mood swings, impulsive decisions, and the waves of angst or apathy that seem to crash over them without warning. Sometimes, it takes a few deep breaths -- or even a good night’s sleep -- to move past the frustration and extend grace to these kids, who are often at the mercy of their hormonal tempests. On days like that, I find solace in music. A record like Closer, the haunting final album from Manchester’s Joy Division, helped me reconnect with the raw emotions that once defined my own adolescence. It reminds me where they’re coming from -- and, in a way, where I came from too.

My teen-age years were steeped in darkness and worry. I cycled through identities like sweaters -- trying each one on, hoping it would fit without itching. Most didn’t. I’d walk the school halls with my ears cloaked by headphones, the music louder than the world around me. Some days, I was defiant in class. I would challenge ideas, naively confident that I’d brilliantly uncovered some truth my English teacher had overlooked -- despite his degrees and decades teaching the same four novels. Other days, I'd sit in silence, brooding and distant, quietly hoping the pretty girl across the room would find something poetic in my storm-cloud demeanor.

Teen-age sleep patterns, we now recognize, are plagued by nightly battles between biology and responsibility, brains hardwired for nocturnal adventures, doomed to morning misery. My interests in literature, humour and media soon became as dark as the bags under my eyes. Nothing was off limits and my fascinations moved from dark, dystopian science fiction to vulgar comedy. One night, I might be rewatching a screening of A Clockwork Orange, The Shining or Eraserhead at our local repertoire cinema and the next I would be riding the bus reading off-colour jokes and biting satire in a National Lampoon magazine.

Despite my penchant for the macabre and the absurd, I was never teetering on the edge of delinquency or genuine darkness -- I had a firm grasp of right and wrong. My fascination with dystopian nightmares, crude humor, and provocative ideas wasn’t a sign of some deep disturbance; it was a performance, a way to carve out an identity that felt sharp, witty, and just rebellious enough to be intriguing. The paperback Truly Tasteless Jokes was also in my arsenal. It was a collection of disturbingly dark jokes designed to provoke laughter, discomfort, or admiration -- sometimes all at once. Because, in the strange social economy of teen-age boys, the ability to shock was its own form of currency, a way to seem cooler, sharper, a little more mysterious than it really was. It wasn’t about corruption; it was about style.

Joy Division were also exploring existential themes at about the same time I was discovering National Lampoon magazines, George Carlin, Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor records, and The Tasteless Jokes Book. The band's members were about ten years older than me and their group emerged from the punk scene in the late 1970s. They formed in Salford, England -- part of the Greater Manchester region -- and, after a few line-up changes, comprised Ian Curtis (vocals), Bernard Sumner (guitar), Peter Hook (bass), and Stephen Morris (drums).

Joy Division (l-r) Morris, Curtis, Sumner, Hook.

Originally, they called themselves Warsaw, a tribute to one of their heroes, David Bowie, and his haunting instrumental song Warszawa from the 1977 record Low (#251 on The 500). However, they changed their name to avoid confusion with a London punk band called The Warsaw Pact. Rather than reverting to their original name, Stiff Kittens, they opted for Joy Division -- a name that, despite sounding upbeat, carried a far darker symbolism. "Joy Division" refers to a inhuman period of World War II history -- the name assigned to groups of women in Nazi concentration camps who were forced into sexual slavery. They were subjected to horrific conditions and brutal exploitation, serving Nazi officers and soldiers at the death camps.

Adult female prisoners were separated from men and sorted
into workforces at Auschwitz camp. Picture from a Daily Mail
article The Auschwitz Brothel.

The band chose their name as a provocative recognition of its atrocious origins. However, their decision to feature a sketch of a Hitler Youth on the cover of their first EP, An Ideal For Living, fueled the controversy, with allegations that the members were Nazi sympathizers.

At that time, Joy Division's music began to change. Their early sound was raw and aggressive, but they evolved into something darker and more atmospheric. Their macabre, gothic sonic aesthetic was shaped by post-punk minimalism and stark production quality. Furthermore, singer Curtis' lyrics became deeply introspective and explored themes of isolation, despair and existential dread.

In part, this was the influence of the books he was reading, which included works from Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky and J.G. Ballard. However, Curtis was also struggling with depression and late onset epilepsy -- both exacerbated by his drug and alcohol use. In 1978, Curtis began to experience frequent seizures, which sometimes occurred on stage. The medication he took to manage his affliction had intense side effects, contributing to his struggles with depression and emotional detachment.

Curtis, performing with Joy Division in Rotterdam (1979).

Joy Division's intense touring schedule in late 1979 and early 1980 to support their first album, Unknown Pleasures, was additionally detrimental to Curtis' physical and mental health. Moreover, his marriage to Deborah Woodruff was heading to divorce just a few months after the birth of their daughter, Natalie, in April, 1979. In the early morning hours of May 18, 1980, Curtis took his own life. He was 23.

The group's final record, Closer, was released two months after Curtis' death. It is widely regarded as a post-punk masterpiece and feels like an unsettling farewell from the band's singer and lyricist. His words feel claustrophobic and painfully introspective, with the songs The Eternal and Decades sounding almost funereal, while Isolation and Heart and Soul seem to pulse with a cold, detached energy.

The opening track, Atrocity Exhibition, was based on a book by the same name from English satirist and writer J.G. Ballard. The 1970 novel is a collection of experimental stories that explore themes of violence, media manipulation, and psychological breakdown. Ballard is best known for his novel Crash (1973) about a group of car crash fetishists who are sexually aroused by reenacting famous celebrity vehicular accidents, including those of Jayne Mansfield and James Dean. Crash was made into an Oscar-winning film in 2004 featuring an ensemble cast of Hollywood A Listers -- directed by London, Ontario, native Paul Haggis.

Movie poster for Crash (2004).

Though I was drawn to the macabre and the unsettling in high school, I wasn’t truly immersed in the material.-- I was playing a part, experimenting with identity and testing the boundaries of what seemed dark and clever. Had I paid attention, I probably would have connected deeply with Joy Division’s lyrics, but back then it wasn’t about sincerity -- it was about performance. Ian Curtis, however, wasn’t performing. His struggles were real, woven into every word he sang.

Lyrics from Love Will Tear Us Apart, a non-album single
released in June, 1980 one month after Curtis' suicide.

As a middle-school educator, I need to remind myself that students need more patience and grace, even when they are frustrating me with their choices. Some angsty teens may be slipping into a costume and trying out intense brooding  as a personality. However, Curtis' story reminds me that some may truly be struggling and  patience is required to look beyond the surface and  recognize when the shift into darkness is more than a passing phase or an effort to fit in.

The 500 - #194 - Transformer - Lou Reed

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #194

Album Title: Transformer

Artist: Lou Reed

Genre: Glam Rock, Pop Rock

Recorded: Trident Studios, London

Released: September, 1972

My age at release: 7

How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at position #109, moving up 85 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Andy's Chest

I am excited to introduce a new guest poster to The 500 Blog series – Jennifer Jones. I have been friends with Jennifer for more than 25 years, having met her through her husband Oscar. Not only was Oscar the goaltender on my tournament hockey team, he was also a talented musician and is still part of the live music scene here in the city of London, Ontario. There were many nights when my wife, Jen and I would be in the audience at a local watering hole (The Wick, The Brass Door, The Salt Lounge, Call The Office) while Oscar played bass. I always appreciated her perspective on music, as her tastes varied from mine.

Last November, Jennifer was posting photos of some of her favourite albums of all time. Among those posts was the cover to this week’s record, Transformer by Lou Reed. I dropped her a line and asked if she would be interested in sharing a few thoughts and, delightfully, she agreed. Here is her post.

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As a really young teenager, the soundtrack of my life was monopolized by the Velvet Underground, and by Lou Reed in particular. It’s hard to explain my love for Lou: Despite his infamy, I can say that this love has been long-lived and has zero chance of dying.

Guitarist, singer and songwriter Lou Reed (Circa 1975) 

To me, Lou’s music is about stories: Stories that paint a picture of the people he surrounded himself with (or who happened to surround him) and the kinds of things that irked or inspired them. These stories are so raw and colourful and real, I’ve always felt a little transported back to Andy Warhol’s Factory and the dirty streets of New York. (Holly, good for you, girl - I would have gone too!) I feel like Lou did with his music what Andy did with his art, which was to create these stark, unapologetic snapshots capturing – even elevating - the culture around them and reflecting this back to those living it - and to anyone paying attention.

American visual artist Andy Warhol (left) and Reed in the 70s.
Warhol's studio in New York was called "The Factory" and
was a famous hang-out for artists, musicians and celebrities. 

I was later to the Transformer party, for sure, but since I first heard it, it’s always been my favourite: It is simply impossible to get sick of this album. Like my love for Lou, I find it hard to explain, but I suspect it’s because it is textured with a little of everything, from the catty, campy, burlesque (New York Telephone Conversation, Good Night Ladies), to the sweet, melodious, slightly tragic (Perfect Day and Satellite of Love) and of course the ultimate story-scape anthem that is Walk on the Wild Side.

Album cover for the single, Walk On The Wild Side. An
iconic song and Reed's best known, Rolling Stone ranked
it #223 on The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Although some of the songs were written or recorded earlier than Transformer, every single one belongs here - and has to be here - to make up this magnificent whole. Even in the midst of some of Lou’s most celebrated work, Andy’s Chest is still one of my all-time favourite Lou songs, less for the honour it gives Warhol (wonderful in itself) but more for the magical intimacy of its tiny, nonsensical, surely drug-fueled, vignettes. For me, this song has always been a kind of demented lullaby - maybe it’s all that swooping and rocking.

Marilyn Diptych - one of Warhol's best know art pieces.

While Transformer does feel a little gentler in some ways than what I think of as typical Lou (because of David Bowie’s involvement and influence?), Lou’s trademark “snark” is definitely felt all the way through. The connection between Lou and Bowie is interesting: I always saw Lou as much grittier and rougher around the edges, but maybe paired with Bowie’s grace and elegance, the match was all the better.

Friends and musical collaborators, Bowie (left) and Reed (right)

take a humorous photo with Iggy Pop. Collectively, with

14 records on The 500 list (as musicians).

I like to think about the album title and all that it evokes: Lou transforming himself, becoming “someone else, someone good”, moving in a different, separate direction (I’m So Free, Hangin’ Round), and the evolution/ transformation/becoming that occurs in some of the songs (Make Up, Walk on the Wild Side).

There’s an addictively bold, infectious, prideful energy to all of Transformer’s stories that draws you back to listen again and again - and again! To me, overall, Transformer is disarmingly poetic, a little fantastical, and a little snide – just like Lou.

Guest Blogger - Jennifer Jones

The 500 - #251 - Low - David Bowie

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #251
Album Title: Low
Artist: David Bowie
Genre: Art Rock, Experimental Rock, Avant Pop, Ambient 
Recorded: Château d'Hérouville, Hansa (West Berlin)
Released: January, 1977
My age at release: 11
How familiar was I with it before this week: Fairly

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #206, up 45 spots since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Always Crashing In The Same Car

It has been a tremendously busy week. While still enjoying some summer break activities, I have started my preparations for a new school year. I'm also rehearsing for a play that will run in late-September and I've realized that my memorization skills are not what they were twenty-years ago -- when I last had a chance to "tread the boards". I also traveled to Toronto to attend the four-day Annual Meeting for my Teachers Federation in Toronto.

That event, attended by more than 600 Ontario educators, provided plenty of opportunity for socializing. However, long, sedentary sessions participating in debate, conducted according to the rigid protocols of  Robert's Rules of Order, can be mentally exhausting. Consequently, I took advantage of breaks to amble around the facility and help the blood return to my legs.

Robert's Rules of Order for Parliamentary procedure.

The hotel and conference centre where the meetings were held are massive. Traversing the expanse throughout the day required crossing the vast lobby to venture from room, to suites, to caucus chambers, to cavernous convention halls. It was a good opportunity to don my headphones and a revisit a familiar record -- Low, the eleventh studio release from English musician, singer, songwriter, actor and cultural icon David Bowie.

Low was the first of three records dubbed The Berlin Trilogy. It, along with Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979) were recorded in collaboration with English musician Brian Eno (a staple on The 500 list) and American producer Tony Visconti. The first two records were recorded in Berlin, while Lodger was completed in studios located in Switzerland and New York. It was during the promotion of the third record that Bowie began to refer to the trio of albums as The Berlin Trilogy.

Low, Heroes and Lodger comprise The Berlin Trilogy

Bowie's decision to move to Europe was impelled by an effort to free himself from the drug culture in Los Angeles, where he had lived the previous two years. Bowie's drug use, mainly cocaine, had escalated substantially. Fueled by the powerful stimulant, he rarely slept and subsisted on a diet of red peppers and milk. Already slim, his weight dropped to below 100 lbs. Years later, he admitted he had little recollection of the recording for his 1976 album, Station to Station (#324 on The 500). As he put it, "I know it was (recorded) in Los Angeles because I've read it was."

Album cover for Station To Station (1976)

A particular favourite of mine on Low is the fifth track, Always Crashing In The Same Car. The song references an event that occurred during the height of Bowie's cocaine addiction. While driving through Los Angeles, Bowie spotted a drug dealer who (he believed) had ripped him off. Furious, Bowie rammed his Mercedes repeatedly into the dealer's vehicle. After, "five crazed minutes" Bowie drove away from the incident and returned to the underground parking lot at the hotel where he was staying. He spent the next few hours driving the car in circles.

Bowie behind the wheel of his Mercedes prior to the 1976 incident.

That event was the catalyst for change for the English musician and he made the move to Berlin shortly after. Consequently, the title (and chorus) of the song serves as a metaphor about the human tendency to make the same mistakes in life, over and over again. It always reminds me of the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, that "Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results".

It seems we humans are prone to repeatedly making the same mistakes. Psychologists have postulated that it is because our ego-driven choices can create "grooves in our neural pathways" that we are compelled to follow. Freud called this "repetition compulsion" and believed it was connected to the learned behaviours we locked into our psyche during childhood.

Bowie's decision to move to Berlin was, according to researchers, a smart one. A change in scenery or situation is valuable in re-routing neural pathways, so pursuing a different creative activity has additional cognitive benefits. It certainly worked for him. He got clean and created an absolute gem with the release of Low, and the rest of The Berlin Trilogy.

There is a lesson in that for us all.

Perhaps that is why I don't mind keeping myself busy with different pursuits during the summer months?