A long and detailed interview with Gary Lachman Valentine, a one-time MOJO contributor who was a founder member of Blondie (he wrote I’m Always Touched by your Presence Dear) and played with Iggy in 1983, during a bout of hard, crazed touring which preceded Iggy’s semi retirement. I’ve interviewed bassist Mike Page and guitarist Rob DuPrey about this period; Gary was less close to Iggy, which makes him a more dispassionate observer.

 

“Jim was actually a bit nerdy, with thick glasses and his hair unkempt.  I don’t know whether he wore those glasses as camouflage, to be not recognised.  He looked like an anorak or something.  Then Iggy would be this slightly deranged [creature], but certainly the potential for some sort of threat or danger. Almost like a very articulate psychotic.  He could hold his own in good conversation, but he could leap at you at any moment.  What I noticed a lot was how he would play on all the people who would come back stage and the local hipsters who would try to ingratiate themselves with him and come out with their little bag of whatever it was and show how cool they were and he would just eat them up.  He’d just take and keep on taking whatever they had and they’d get maybe three minutes of conversation out of him and that was it.  Then they were standing there empty handed and looking like, ‘What was that all about?’