Danny Says Page #8

motherfuckers

( "Kick Out The Jams"

(by MC5 plays)

John:
Jac Holzman suckered us

into putting "motherf***er"

on the record.

He urged us to do that.

Of course,

we've got a single version,

Rob:
Kick out the jams,

brothers and sisters

John:
"No, man, come on,

nobody'll give a sh*t!"

- And I said,

- "They're not gonna like this,

We're out here in Detroit.

- I know they.

- Aren't gonna like it."

- They don't like it now when.

- t just comes out on the stage.

- They're really aren't gonna.

- Like it in vinyl.

Wayne:
They put out

the David Peel album.

Have a marijuana,

motherf***er

- "Great, if they don't have any.

- Problem with his 'motherf***er, '

- They're not gonna.

- Have any trouble.

- With our 'motherf***er'."

- We told them,

"Let the single go up the charts

"before you release the album."

'Cause the album's gonna

have the real version of.

- "Kick out the jams,

- motherfuckers" on it,

- But, see, they won't be able.

- To stop us then.

'Cause we'll have a hit record!

- The minute the single.

- Started going up,

They rushed the album out.

Kids were arrested in record

stores for selling the album,

and parents are freaked out.

Then Jac Holzman says,

- "Is it okay if we put out a.

- Clean version.

'Cause we're losing money."

Jac:
We had problems

with a chain called Hudson's.

And then the MC5 took out an ad

in the local Detroit

alternative newspaper,

which said,

"F*** Hudson's!"

- And stuck.

- The Elektra logo on it.

Everything that was

an Elektra product,

including Bach and Mozart,

came back.

We said, "You can't do that."

- They said, "Jac, we thought you.

- Were part of our revolution."

- I said, "No, I'm interested.

- n documenting.

What you do with music

in the context of that."

- And they said,

- "We're not comfortable."

I said, "Well, fine."

Danny:
The MC5 should have been.

Grand Funk Railroad.

They should have been

the big, fast-moving,

hard-rocking, rabble-rousing,

mid-western band that.

Grand Funk Railroad became.

- When you're on the front pages.

- Of the paper,

You can be making

the best music in the world,

but no one will pay attention

to you for that,

they just wanna know

how much you vomited,

and what dirty words you used

and what trouble you made.

Jac:
People like Danny

are not even producers.

I mean there's not a quantity

of work that is measurable

- that comes out of them.

- Every day.

They're here for

the hallelujah moment.

- Danny jumped up and down.

- And said,

"You've gotta sign this band,

you've gotta sign this band."

And we saw nothing,

it was one of these things

that's a...

It's a prayer.

The Stooges were

difficult in that

they did not have songs written

and Iggy was strung out.

Danny screamed, "How come

you don't have any songs?

"Go to the hotel tonight

and write songs!"

So "I Wanna Be Your Dog",

"1969",

all that came out of

one night's production.

John Cale:
Cool Song, take one.

Jac:
John Cale was

a very talented musician,

and I thought the juxtaposition

of a really experienced musician

in the studio with them

would either agitate them

or inform them.

They got along pretty well.

And then the problems

with Bill Harvey started.

He heard this, and he said,

"Are you gonna put that out?"

And I said,

- "I don't quite understand it,

- but it's interesting."

And he said,

- "Well, you put that out,

- you're gonna ruin your label."

- And I said,

- "I don't think so."

Danny:
People who had to say

something about them say,

"This is not music."

- It's the same thing.

- They said of rock 'n' roll!

- To say that was the worst thing.

- You could say.

Doesn't deserve

to be called music.

You know, I'm sure.

Wagner heard that and

anybody who did something

fabulously different.

Lenny Kaye:
"If 1967

was the year of The Beatles

and 'Get Together'.

If 1968 was the year of The Band

and Beggars Banquet

then 1969 might well be

the year of The Stooges.

You might not like it,

but you can't escape it."

Lenny Kaye,

August 10th, 1969.

Obviously written two minutes

before I went up to Woodstock.

(laughs)

If you were on the fringe, and

trying to understand who you are

and you heard

this bleat of sound.

To me, these bands are

a lot about yearning.

They're about finding

their place in the world,

finding your place in the world.

- You listen to The Stooges,

- "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and you.

Can get those three chords

in a second,

and then all you gotta do is

- just keep turning.

- The amplifier up,

Turning it up.

It was a beautiful

explosion of noise.

And the fact that Danny

was behind both of these bands,

is, to me, a thing of wonder.

Jac:
It's like someone

who talks you into buying

a painting that you don't get,

an impressionistic painting.

You just don't get it at all.

And later you find

it has achieved

notoriety and value that

you never would have imagined.

- Iggy:
When you're starting out.

- n show biz,

Part of what you do

to figure out

who you are and

how you can operate is...

- You put yourself.

- Somewhere where.

People who know more than you

can react to you.

He had an interesting spread

between the world

of teen vacuity

way over to your

very hard-core social deviants.

("Loose"

(by The Stooges plays)

He was on location with us

in the Tropicana Motel

in Los Angeles.

There were The Stooges

making Fun House...

Andy Warhol,

Paul Morrissey,

Joe Dallesandro, Jane Forth,

and the entire cast of Heat.

Danny gave me something that...

I don't know if he was the first

one to ever give me this but

he let me try something

called cocaine.

(laughs)

And I tried it and I thought,

"I don't feel anything!"

(laughs)

And then three days later,

I found myself...

crawling in through his bathroom

window at the back of the motel,

taking all of his stash,

you know.

And that was

the sort of buddy I was.

I was a very bad, bad buddy.

Look, we did

so many terrible things

to blacken Danny's reputation,

and just destroy

his faith in us.

And we would show up

very, very late for gigs,

or not at all.

Or once we were...

The band was playing

the intro riff,

and I was having sex

on the bathroom floor

of the men's room

with a groupie.

(laughs)

"Wait, I'll be right there!

- Tell them to just.

- Keep playing there!"

(imitates guitar)

And on and on and on.

And then there were times

when I was shooting up.

And...

not fun to talk

about it anymore,

but, yeah, that happened

and there he was...

trying to get

somewhere in his life.

Yeah, I got...

I finally scored my methadone.

- Danny:
Yeah.

- Iggy:
It's not a thing that

you're supposed

to have all the time.

- Danny:

- I thought that he would expect.

You to just keep taking that?

Iggy:
No, it's... You know...

- It's pretty easy to kick.

- With methadone, it really is.

I've kicked three f***ing times

with it but every time...

started again.

Danny:
Why do you start again?

Iggy:
I don't know,

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