Gimme Danger

---

(Jim) If I hit here,

you'll get all three cameras.

- Right?

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Okay?

- Yeah. Great.

- We're ready?

- Yeah.

(Jim)

It's June 9th.

We are in an undisclosed location.

We are interrogating

Jim Osterberg,

about "The Stooges",

the greatest rock and roll band ever.

[gong booming]

(male #1) You know,

uh, one of the things

that amazes me, uh

is that, um, they do not go about this

in a show business way,

for instance, when somebody says

"Here's an act,"

and they announce the act

they may very well tune up

for ten or fifteen minutes

before they ever play the first number

that they're going to play.

Uh, and the kids don't seem

to mind this at all.

They, uh, they watch it all and,

uh, listen to the tune up

and listen to them check the speakers.

And I think we've got

some action coming up now.

Uh, we'll leave Bob Waller

for the moment

and go to the stage and listen

to "Iggy and the Stooges!"

...TV eye on me

She got a TV eye

Oh she had a TV eye on me

No

[instrumental music]

No!

[crowd screaming]

(male #1) There goes Iggy

right into the crowd!

- Down!

- We've lost audio on him.

Bob Waller is down

in the field with the crowd.

I don't know just where,

but we'll find him.

[acoustic feedback]

[man growling]

[women whooping]

[people clamoring]

[man yelling]

[man howling]

(Iggy)

Riots in the motor city!

It was tough.

And we were stumbling and bumbling

and finally

the record company didn't even

bother to have anything to do with us

but we, we had agents

and different managers, uh

who tried to see if they could penetrate

the tangled web of our, of our career

and most of them dropped out in horror.

And we bumbled around America

playing raggedly.

We started lookin',

uh, dirtier and dirtier

and skinnier and skinnier

and more and more used.

And we were getting worse and worse.

We're sinkin' fast

into semi-oblivious gigs.

Some people still liked us.

Some gigs I could

get it together to sing

some I couldn't.

Some gigs, I, we'd show up on time

some we didn't.

Up-upsetting people

usually because of me, wherever we went.

[instrumental music]

Butt f***ers

Cock suckers

Wanna bang suck and run my world

(James) The band was

really deteriorating

very rapidly at that point.

So we went out

and played some gigs and stuff

but all kinds of stuff happened.

I mean, we had to play a job

with Steve Mackay on drums.

Which is really wild because, you know

Steve said he could play drums,

but he couldn't.

[laughing]

And s-so, so, we..

We needed the money so bad

we just let him play.

Oh, you want me to tell that story?

Iggy would call a song

and start doing it

and I'd start doing a beat.

And he'd come back and grab

the sticks out of my hand

and go over to the floor tom

and he would beat the beat out.

And then I would know what the beat was

and then I'd finish the song.

And he did that with every single song.

And the crowd's throwing bottles at him

and they're saying, "Come on, Iggy

"let's see you puke, motherf***er!

Ah, f*** you, f*** you."

And, like, you know,

givin' him all the abuse.

(Iggy) Thank you very much to the person

who threw this glass bottle at my head.

Nearly killed me, but you missed again

so you have to keep trying next week.

[glass shattering]

(James) Leading up to

the Michigan Palace job

was, was, what I referred

to it as a death march.

So they decided to book us

in a little club outside of Detroit

uh, called The Rock and Roll Farm.

Turns out it's a biker bar.

Here comes Iggy, out in the audience

confronting people in-the,

uh-as only Iggy can do.

And he comes up to one guy

and the guy just hauls off

and just cold-c*cks him.

Just, kaboom!

[audience cheering]

(Iggy)

I don't know how many of you

saw us back in 1967

when we first started, you know

but it isn't too,

it isn't too easy being

"The Stooges" sometimes, you know?

(male #2)

Yeah!

(James)

You know, after that gig

nobody had to say anything.

It was just, like, everybody had had it.

I mean, we couldn't make a living.

People were throwing sh*t at us

all the time

and everybody was just tired of it.

And so, so, uh..

The-the brothers

moved back to Detroit.

(Scott) Jim never came to

me and said it's over.

I just figured it out myself.

Well, here I am sleepin' on the floor

I guess it's over.

I was basically homeless.

I had a drum set.

I sold it and bought

a one way ticket to Detroit.

Ended up going over to mom's house

and said, "Mom, I'm homeless

I'm broke, I'm hungry."

(Kathy) When the demise

of "The Stooges" occurred

it wasn't really a surprise.

And it goes back

to that full circle of, like

go home, you know, to mom.

After my brothers came home

I remember feeling relieved

and glad.

It was like, phew. You know?

They're safe.

That was the main thing.

That they came home safe

and they were still alive, you know?

(Iggy) That's when I went

home to my parents' trailer.

I was 24.

And, um..

The group had a... uh

a-sp, a sort of

a sputtering demise.

[indistinct chattering]

"Gimme Danger, Little Stranger."

[instrumental music]

Oh give me danger little stranger

And I'll give you a piece

Gimme danger little stranger

And I'll feel your disease

There's nothing in my dreams

Just some ugly memories

Kiss me like the ocean breeze

Hey

Oh

[indistinct singing]

[music continues]

Now if you will be my lover

Well I will shiver insane

[crowd cheering]

[children singing]

(Iggy)

When I was about five

we got a TV,

and I'd watch "Howdy Doody."

Buffalo Bob was basically like

uh, Timothy Leary for little kids on TV.

How do you feel long about the middle

of the morning, Clarabell?

Not so good, little dragged down, huh?

Well, then, Clarabell

what you should have is Ovaltine!

(Iggy) And I remember the

sound of the peanut gallery.

[laughter]

[yelling]

Wa-a-ah!

They had, uh, characters

like Clarabell the Clown, you know

and Clarabell the Clown

might do anything.

You didn't know what he was gonna do

and that just fascinated me.

But the big-big one,

it was "Soupy Sales."

[instrumental music]

It was called

"Lunchtime With Soupy."

He encouraged kids to write to him

but he said, "Always

when you write the letter

please, twenty-five words or less."

...where'd you learn

to sing like that?

At my speech class.

- At your sh.. At your...

- That's right, Bobby.

At your spee..

Who is your teacher?

(Iggy)

And that always stuck with me.

And when I wanted to start

writing songs for our group

I thought, "This is the way to go

"try to make it

twenty-five words

different words or less."

I didn't feel like I was Bob Dylan

blah-blah-blah-blah-blah,

you know?

And, uh, I thought

"Keep it really short,

and none of it will be

the wrong thing."

But no fun

My babe

No fun

[instrumental music]

(Iggy) Yeah, heh, I saw the

movie with my parents.

And it felt great

that we had the same trailer.

Inside, most of the lighting fixtures

and part of the furnishings

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