I met Iggy Pop once when I was in college. I was working at a hotel off a major interstate and his tour bus was having troubles so they stayed the night with us. Not sure if “The Stooges” were with him. It was during his mid 80s “Candy Candy Candy I can’t let you gooooooooooooouuuuoooo…” phase. Sad really.
But that aside, he was a sweet, charming, funny guy. Not at all like the time Michael Bolton’s brother stayed with us and completely let the staff think he was really Michael. They look alike, and he played right along…chump.
Anyhoo…check out some of the requests he has for his concerts. Funny shit.
“Double chained drum pedal with a footplate and a little blue placque that says ‘William Shakespeare slepy here for six months in 1568 shagging the arse off Ann Hathaway’”…
ummm, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t bands like travel with their own equipment? You know, the drummer brings his own cymbals and doesn’t expect the masonic lodge or where ever they happen to be gigging will have 11.3cm tibetan drums made from circumcized yak’s and reincarnate lama femurs?
Money. I assume if they use rented equipment, they get the promoters/venue to pay for it, they don’t have to transport and otherwise risk/beat up their own idrums and amps and can travel lighter or even fly in to gigs. I think the Stooges’ sound is not that hard to reproduce with rentals…also, while they’re pretty exacting in their requirements, they’re also playing fairly established venues that can handle that sort of thing.
There used to be a website (I think it’s been taken down) that had actual scanned copies of riders for acts both large and small. The images were captioned by the website owners. One that I remembered was Mariah Carey’s, where it was pointed out that her rider called for Cristal champagne as well as bendy straws. The caption pointed this out, remarking, “Cristal and bendy straws?!? You can take the girl out of Yonkers, but…”
I don’t know what other websites may have done it, but the Smoking Gun (which is where the Iggy Pop rider is posted) still has over two hundred of them.
One interesting one is the Beatles’ one from 1965. The only dressing room items they asked for was “four cots, mirrors, an ice cooler, portable TV set and clean towels.” Their stage requirements were similarly modest. But they did have one demand: they refused to play before any racially segregated audiences.
Dude, “Candy” was on Brick By Brick. [Alf] Look it up. [/Alf] Presumably, this so-called “great stuff” didn’t include “Butt Town”, “Candy” or “Living On The Edge Of The Night”. YMMV.