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With a casual gesture he raised a sea of hands; with a campy sneer he drew rapturous cheers; with a twitchy contortion he pulled a packed Festival Hall to its feet.

Iggy Pop’s battered but buff physique shows every one of his 65 years. But your grandad never commanded a crowd like this Pop does. Anyone brave enough to open for The Stooges?

… James Williamson made enough guitar racket for any three mere mortals. Minutemen legend Mike Watt crouched over his bass, intent and focused. Toby Dammit was rolling thunder behind the drums.

Iggy, overshadowing his band, a comically hyperactive frontman, was a straight up menace for the entire show. Security was aghast when he invited a couple of dozen people to join him on stage to dance through Fun House.

Read more at The Age.

The reviews are in from SXSW! Here’s what some of the critics are saying:

It hardly seemed fair that Iggy and the Stooges should perform so early last night at South by Southwest in Austin. All they left behind was a smoldering pile of rubble for the other acts to pick through at the House of Vans showcase at Mohawk. … Iggy Pop is a human blowtorch, and the Stooges have to run at a high temperature just to keep pace. … The band thundered through more than an hour of songs split between new tunes and Stooges classics, starting with a ferocious version of “Raw Power” that was full of serrated guitar and Iggy’s inimitable sneer, which has inspired punk rockers for nearly 45 years. He’s still a dynamo onstage, dancing and jumping around with abandon while Williamson and bassist Mike Watt locked into one bludgeoning groove after another.
– Rolling Stone

The Ready To Die material, due April 30, was as molten and Cro-Magnon as the rest of the group’s catalog, though it had more in common with the more sophisticated arrangements and textures of Raw Power than it did with the Stooges’ reputation-making first two releases. …Exulting that “we made a fuckin’ record!,” Pop introduced the first single “Burn,” a frenetic rocker showcasing Steve Mackay’s saxophone, as a song “about scary shit like flaming assholes of life in the world and death and that shit.” “Gun” addressed one of today’s prevalent social issues, while “Beat That Guy” featured an extended solo by Williamson. “Sex and Money,” “Job,” “Dirty Deal,” “Double Ds” (about, yes, women’s breasts) and the album’s title track kept the throttle up full, while “The Departed,” a requiem for late Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton was a quiet and emotional change-up with guest Bob Hofner playing pedal steel. – Billboard

You can all go home now. The conference is over. The world’s greatest rock & roll band has played. No one else matters. Iggy Pop wanted to debut material from the 40-years-overdue follow-up to Raw Power at SXSW. He got his wish, even forcing bassist Mike Watt to come home from his own European tour. And with hardly a fuss, they’re off: “Raw Power,” bam, James Williamson riffing like a hyperthyroid Dave Davies, with Watt and drummer Toby Dammit deputized for brotherly rhythm section Scott and the late Ron Asheton. Funhouse saxman Steve Mackay, now a full Stooge, honks and drones à la Coltrane beside Williamson, Iggy charging hard at the mic, a Tasmanian devil uncaged and unleashed. – The Austin Chronicle

Photo credit: LifeWithoutAndy.com via Red Bull Surfing

A great insight as to “Iggy – the music lover.” It’s a sheer pleasure to listen to his take on music. Check it out at triple j.

Iggy and the Stooges’ Australian shows are here! Iggy took some time to chat:

Read more at ABC News 24.

Listen to the new Iggy and the Stooges song, “Burn,” from their upcoming album Ready To Die in stores April 30th.

Live Webcast Also Serving Japandroids, Middle Class Rut and Sky Ferreira in a Heaping Portion of Eclectic Music Live from the House of Vans at SXSW 2013

Cypress, CA (March 4, 2013) – Legends Iggy and the Stooges, Ghostface Killah, The Specials and rising stars Japandroids join Middle Class Rut and Sky Ferreira in a raucous riot of hip hop, ska, punk rock, indie and synth-pop that is the must-see SXSW Music Festival lineup and coming live from House of Vans at the Mohawk on March 13. Iggy and the Stooges will play some of the new material from their upcoming album, Ready To Die, scheduled to be released on April 30.

Won’t be in Austin for Vans’ SXSW Showcase presented by Fat Possum Records or the four full days of music at House of Vans from March 13-16? Be right there amongst the crowd at the Mohawk through the live webcast powered by Seagate at vans.com/sxsw.

Reflecting an Off the Wall mix of acts that define the original House of Vans in Brooklyn, NY, House of Vans at the Mohawk brings genre-defining artists and anticipated emerging bands for four packed days at one of Austin’s most beloved and eclectic music venues – the Mohawk at 912 Red River St. (at 10th Ave.) With daily afternoon and evening sessions, music fans will experience a range of acts from indie to metal to both throwback and underground hip hop from presenters Pitchfork, Anticon, Fat Possum Records, IAMSOUND/MFG, Paradigm, The Windish Agency, Ground Control Touring, A.V. Club & Flowerbooking and True Panther x Terrible Records. The full schedule follows below.

All day-time House of Vans at the Mohawk parties are FREE. For evening events, SXSW badge-holders get priority access, then wristband holders (tickets purchased in advance from the House of Vans at the Mohawk), then general admission guests. Shows will be webcast live at vans.com/sxsw, powered by Seagate or by downloading the Vans Live 2.0 app giving you access to a full menu of Vans events live on your mobile device.

House of Vans at the Mohawk is made possible in part by truth®, the nation’s largest youth smoking prevention campaign, and Seagate storage products, a canvas for today’s creatives.

For updates, continue to visit vans.com/sxsw.

House of Vans at the Mohawk
912 Red River Street (at 10th Ave) · March 13 – 16

Official Vans SXSW Showcase presented by Fat Possum Records – doors open at 6:30 pm

Outdoor Stage: Ghostface Killah, The Specials, Iggy and the Stooges, Japandroids, Middle Class Rut, Sky Ferreira

** RSVP does not guarantee admittance. Please arrive early. All acts are tentative and subject to change.

Iggy and the Stooges will play the Free Press Summer Festival in Houston, Texas, this June! The festival runs from June 1st to June 2nd at Eleanor Tinsley Park, and the daily artist schedule will be disclosed at a later date. Passes are on sale now at FPSF.com.

IGGY AND THE STOOGES?
READY TO DIE?
NEW ALBUM OUT APRIL 30 ON FAT POSSUM RECORDS??

“a real fucking group… they also make fucking records. They don’t just go and twiddle around on stage to make a bunch of fucking money” Iggy Pop??

Better 40 years later than never: The follow-up to the first record ever to bear the Iggy and the Stooges logo – the immortal proto-punk masterpiece Raw Power – will finally be out April 30, when Fat Possum Records releases the all-new Iggy and the Stooges studio album, Ready To Die.??

Ready To Die finds Iggy Pop, guitarist James Williamson and drummer Scott “Rock Action” Asheton reunited for a full album of all-new material for the first time since the legendary Raw Power sessions, with Mike Watt filling in for the late Ron Asheton on bass. The results are the closest thing to a time capsule to 1973 – or at least to Iggy’s subsequent efforts with Williamson, including 1977’s Kill City and 1979’s New Values – that rock ‘n’ roll is likely to proffer in this millennium. The new album’s opening one-two of ‘Burn’ and ‘Sex & Money’ pair sublimely blunt and self-explanatory subject matter with back alley razor-blade guitars and a troglodytic rhythmic stomp as intensely single-minded as Iggy’s lyrical statements of intent. Elsewhere on the album, anthems abound in the form of the most dead-on rallying cry for the lower-working-class dispossessed to date–the succinctly and aptly titled ‘Job’ – as well as a title track that mixes a signature Iggy Pop mission statement of angry desperation with guitar pyrotechnics that recall those halcyon opening salvos of ‘Search & Destroy’.

Just as Iggy exhumed the original Stooges name when he reunited in 2003 with the Asheton brothers, the revival of the Iggy and the Stooges moniker that first appeared on the cover of Raw Power heralded the return of guitarist James Williamson to the fold in 2009, or as Iggy put it then “although ‘the Stooges’ died with Ron Asheton, there is still ‘Iggy and the Stooges’.” As far as the decision to record and release a new Iggy and the Stooges album for the first time since 1973, Iggy recently commented:

“My motivation in making any record with the group at this point is no longer personal. It’s just a pig-headed fucking thing I have that a real fucking group when they’re an older group they also make fucking records. They don’t just go and twiddle around on stage to make a bunch of fucking money…”

Iggy and the Stooges will begin the Ready To Die live assault shortly. Stay tuned for coordinates.??

Available For Pre-Order At http://fatpossum.com/products/ready-to-die.

Iggy and the Stooges Scarecrow from Fat Possum Records on Vimeo.

It’s not too alien, looking back. I’m only now losing a little bit of the kamikaze sense of mission that that person had. – Iggy Pop, 2013

Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of The Stooges’ seminal album Raw Power. Although not initially commercially successful, it gained a cult following in the years following its release and is widely considered an influential forerunner of punk rock. The iconic album sleeve featured a Mick Rock photograph of Iggy that has since become synonymous with the period.

In celebration of the anniversary, Foruli is proud to publish six strictly limited edition art prints created in collaboration with Iggy and Mick, and individually hand signed by them both.

Mick has identified a series of rare photographs from his archive, and the images have been reproduced on metallic paper as archival quality giclee prints overlaid with hand-printed extracts from lyric sheets for the songs “Raw Power” and “Death Trip.” The lyric sheets have been especially prepared by Iggy exclusively for Foruli.

The prints are available in two sizes: Editions of only 10 of each design are available as large format prints and editions of 60 are available as standard format prints.

More information about the Iggy Pop prints can be found by visiting www.foruli.co.uk/artprints.

This is awesome! So many of you kept asking and finally we know the date:
DVD with the Tribute to Ron Asheton show from 2011 will be coming out on April 9, 2013!
It was an amazing and very emotional night for all involved and we all hope you will like the result.
Ron, you are missed by so many.

The DVD is available for pre-order now at MVD Entertainment.

Ron Asheton – Tribute Concert With Iggy & The Stooges And Special Guests

• I Got a Right (with Henry Rollins)
• Raw Power
• Search and Destroy
• Gimme Danger
• Shake Appeal
• 1970
• L.A. Blues
• Night Theme
• Beyond the Law
• Fun House
• Open Up And Bleed
• Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell
• I Wanna Be Your Dog
• TV Eye
• Loose
• Dirt
• Real Cool Time
• Iggy’s Speech
• Ron’s Tune
• No Fun

Iggy and the Stooges have announced two additional concert dates this summer! The band will headline the Ink-N-Iron Festival in Long Beach, CA on June 8th, with ticket information available at Ink-N-Iron.com. The band also will perform at Parc de Valmy in Argelès-Sur-Mer, France on July 9th! Ticket information is available at Fnac.com.

Celebrations are starting early! Foruli is publishing limited edition Raw Power art prints signed by Iggy Pop and photographer Mick Rock, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the album release. They’re available to order at Foruli.co.uk.