A couple of days ago I heard from Guy Budziak, who was a friend of the great and under-appreciated photographer Nicky Wright, who shot the covers of the Rolling Stones’ first albums (they’re often mis-attributed to Gered Mankowitz). It turns out Guy was also a Stooges fan. Hospitalized after consuming too much “particularly potent Vietnamese weed” back in December 1970, Guy spent much of his time listening to Fun House (which must have helped a lot). In December 1973 he was released from another hospital:
“In the fragile state that I was in I decided to see Iggy and the Stooges at the St. Clair Shores Civic Arena, this was right after Raw Power had come out. This was in July, a particularly hot day, I recall humidity running down the walls of the arena, and there was a triple bill, Catfish Hodge opening, Bob Seger second, and our boys as the headliners.
“I made the mistake of smoking a little pot between Bob and Iggy, and that was a mistake. Iggy and the boys scared the shit out of me. I recall Iggy in a pair of bikini briefs with cherries crocheted on the crotch, looking powder-white, although it could've been metallic platinum, wearing knee-high platform boots. There were a lot of bikers in the crowd, which heightened the scariness of the moment, and I think Ron and James were wearing nazi SS uniforms, with makeup on their faces making them look like extras from The Night of the Living Dead. I looked around at the crowd and noticed a lot of young shirtless males, which had me thinking that maybe the world had gone gay while I was hospitalized. And then Iggy sang the song Head On, which had a line in it about the "buttfuckers trying to run my life", and that clinched it for me. That particular word, the one that begins with a "b", had me convinced I was hearing aural hallucinations, and that was when I had to leave, I had to hightail it out of there. A few years later i heard Metallic KO and realized I wasn't hearing things after all. But you know what? I still loved that band to pieces, and when Iggy went solo a few years later I was right there buying his albums and seeing his shows.”
(That show was also the debut performance for new boy Scott Thurston, a surreal baptism of fire. More on that in OU&B.)