Name the outlandish rock star whose claim to fame rests on an odd relationship to the world of gold albums, drugs, party-til-you-drop and that timeless line, "Die young and leave a pretty corpse."
Give up? The name James Newell Osterberg Jr. will probably be of little help in identifying the career trajectory of proto-punk recording artist-singer-songwriter Iggy Pop, the subject of the new bio-doc Gimme Danger. Its director Jim Jarmusch describes it as a "love letter to possibly the greatest band in rock-n-roll history." Jarmusch, whose resume features such hard-to-define American New Wave classics as Stranger than Paradise, Mystery Train, Night on Earth, Dead Man, and his recent vampire black comedy Only Lovers Left Alive, has with Gimme Danger truly outdone himself.
The boy born James Osterberg, Jr. was a 2010 Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame inductee. His high school graduation picture presents the image of a clean-cut downright sweet-looking kid who should have been running for Congress from his Ann Arbor birthplace rather than representing the lower depths of the late-60s, early-70s mosh-pit-diving, sweaty teen club decadence. Jarmusch, with the full support of his 69-year-old subject, provides a raunchy non -cautionary tale of how to succeed in the rock business despite being at one point dropped from his major-label recording contract by a recording industry "suit" who was unimpressed by the payout from hanging onto The Stooges as a business proposition.
Gimme Danger is essentially a 108-minute talking heads film where the music passes by almost subliminally for those not intimately familiar with The Stooges' playlist. The real reason for shelling out for this one (opening Friday at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinemas in SF and Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley) is Iggy's unique gift for gab, and his impressive physical state. Except for the turkey neck, this guy seems good for another 100,000 high-decibel miles belting such Stooges classics as "Asthma Attack," "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "TV Eye," "Kick Out the Jams," "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell," "November 22, 1963," "I Got a Right," "I'm Sick of You" and my fave, "Cock in My Pocket."
Why isn't Iggy queer? Neither the filmmakers nor your reviewer have a clue, and Iggy ain't saying. Perhaps the best clue to where this bundle of raging hormones is coming from is contained in the lyrics to "Cock in My Pocket": "I've got a cock in my pocket, and I'm reelin' down the old highway./I'm gonna whip it out on you, honey/Gonna whip it, truth or dare?/Gonna get up, turn around, try it anywhere./I got a cock in my pocket, and I'm shoving it through your pants./I got a cock in my pocket, and I don't want no romance." The lyrics to Iggy's songbook give credit to all members of the original Stooges band, some of whom are now deceased. As Iggy puts it, "Back then, we were communists."
The only other hairpin in the Iggy Pop saga is the brief time Iggy and bandmates spent in England as guests of Ziggy Stardust himself, the notably bisexual David Bowie, another rock trickster known for playing stealth games with identity, all in the interest of career longevity.