I feel the sick desire to add an unnecessary autobiographical note to this… this great song, but here it goes: When I was in high school, like a lot of people, I dabbled in the music game, playing guitar haphazardly in a few bands here and there. Mostly really shitty bands, I should say. But anyways, I went to two different high schools during my four years of terror, and when I got to the second one, which was on the other side of the country from the first one, I didn’t know anyone, I was very depressed and anti social, but I figured maybe I could meet people through music. So I went and auditioned in some dude’s sister’s garage to be in this one band and the only thing that got me the gig was that the other guy didn’t know how to play this song, and I did. Well, sorta did. But they didn’t know that. So they had some “big show” coming up the next day and wanted me to play with them. “Sure,” I said. “Fuck yeah,” I said, because I was stupid. Anyways, I get there, and it’s like… a yard sale or something equally ridiculous. Total waste of everyone’s time and they inform me that we’re gonna kick it off with the Stooge’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” A little bizarre, but I thought, Why not? Also, they had the same misconception about Ian Curtis that Mr. Aziz brings up below. Anyways, so we start playing this song and I don’t think I need to tell you that we played it badly, because you can probably guess, but yeah, it was horseshit quality. But I also didn’t know that they had a keyboard player going on, so in the beginning there, as the song’s building and building and getting more fierce and ferocious and wild and raw and crazy, all of sudden, this bizarre synthy, almost trance thing starts happening all around us. The song was being played beyond bad but all of a sudden it was synth bad, like something you’d hear in a gym. It was wild. And that’s my story. Go away now, please.
The Stooges - “I Wanna Be Your Dog”
I remember in high school among the cool nerds it was commonly believed that Ian Curtis hung himself to this song (it was actually Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot).
(audio via snuh)
