In May 2020 a test pressing of Raw Power went up for auction on eBay, the price eventually going beyond the few shillings I had saved, but I kept the images that were posted

Dated December 8, 1972, two months before its US release on February 7, 1973. it should be in a museum or even better in my collection, it’s a one-off (or one of a very few). It would be the jewel in any collector’s crown. – a fetish item for the ages. But, you know, it is just a white label pressing of a stock copy, I’ve got a couple of those and, having not won the auction, I’ve still got the coin in my pocket.

But take a closer look. The timings suggest side one and two were flipped, which adds to the uniqueness. Then look again, side 1 has five tracks, not the four on the release version, and side 2 has only three.

So what was the running order? Dave Marsh’s hyper-enthusiastic review in Creem’s March 1973 edition gives a couple of clues.

He lists the title track as the second band on the top side, so my guess is it still kicks off with ‘Search & Destroy’, but which mix I wonder? Iggy’s? Or Bowie’s as found uniquely on the original UK release? Whatever, ‘Gimme Danger’ is the third track. After that no more clues from DM.

Working with the timings given on the white labels, and some some addition and subtraction on my part, Side 2 must be:

Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell

I Need Somebody

Death Trip

Side 1 then would look something like this:

Search and Destroy

Raw Power

Gimme Danger

Shake Appeal

Penetration

How’s that play in your head? While you’re pondering over this sequence and whether it rolls better this way than it does following Tony Defries’ edict that the songs needed to go fast one, slow one, fast one , as was eventually released, Dave Marsh wrote that their are ‘nine songs’ on the album, not the eight we have and love, perhaps he was shit at counting or adding up . . . or he had a different review copy. Think on that dear collector.

For those Raw Power devotees out there, here’s Mick Rock’s little known review of the album in the UK skin mag Club International (July 1973). More of this kinda thing is buried deep in Pin-Ups 1972: Third Generation Rock ‘n’ Roll. Available to preorder or in the shops early next month . . . Get Some!

MICK ROCK WAS NOT ALONE . . .

Much of the research for Pin-Ups 1972: Third Generation Rock ‘n’ Roll was with the magazines and newspapers of the era. Not just NME, but now forgotten journals like Strange Days and Cream. The latter had nothing to do with the more infamous American monthly Creem. Quite why it chose such a banal name is anyone’s guess; it ran from May 1971 until October 1973 and published some outstanding pieces by Nik Cohn and early reports by Ian MacDonald and Charles Shaar Murray. Nick Kent’s fulsome tribute to his hero, Iggy Pop, ‘Punk Messiah of the Teenage Wasteland’ appeared in the October 1972 edition. The two images that accompanied his piece, both shot at the King’s Cross gig in July, were credited to Pennie Smith and Byron.

The November issue of Cream had Alice Cooper on the cover and a report on Fear and Loathing in the Top 20, it was illustrated by another image of Iggy at King Sound credited to Pennie Smith. Her work at Frendz and later at the NME would leave a photographic legacy every bit the equal of Mick Rock, but unlike him, her Iggy and the Stooges images have not much featured in her portfolio. I sometimes think, though, we may have been looking at them all the time and taking it as a given they were the work of Mick Rock.

Byron was a new name to me and it took awhile to find out his surname was Newman. With that information he is not so hard to Google. He photographed Bowie in 1972 alongside work for soft porn magazine Men Only and, later, Game. He would eventually make his career (and I guess fortune) with Playboy. Other than the onstage shots at King’s Cross, he also photographed James Williamson in a London cemetery and, in some places, is credited with the only known picture of the Iggy and James working in a London studio during the recording of Raw Power

from the booklet for the deluxe reissue of *Raw Power.* The Stooges Unofficial Facebook page has posted four more Byron Newman pix from the recording session

One more from Byron, this is from a 1972 edition of the French magazine *Actuel.* I found this on Deadnest’s facebook page [**here**]

A fourth photographer at King Sound was Alec Byrne. I’ve not found any contemporary use of his pictures, at least not with his credit, but two are beautifully reproduced in his collection London Rock: The Unseen Archive (2017)

Mojo #346 (Sept. ‘22) plugs Bryne’s book and looks through his archive of images from the gig but only reproduces the one. The outside possibility of a slim dedicated volume is raised and an exhibition in LA this summer . . . O Blessed we would be . . .

additional images have been posted on Alec Byrne’s Instagram: [HERE]

Patrice Kindl was the fifth photographer on the scene, so to speak. His images are known through their use on a couple of live albums, featuring performances from the Whiskey Ago-Go, which were released in France by Revenge in the late 1980s. Cropping and reversing of images might suggest otherwise, but there’s a good amount of duplication across the two sleeves and on the CD Search and Destroy: Raw Mixes Vol. 3 (Curtiss). Getting his subject in focus wasn’t Kindl’s strong point.

Unheard by all but the few hundred in attendance, the images from the gig, however, have left an indelible mark; a set of traces that the next generation, using Mick Rock’s sleeve design for Raw Power as their north star, would follow.

After London, Iggy got high in the Hollywood Hills and it would not be until 1976 that he climbed down. Nick Kent would remain a true believer, sending back a report from around the time Iggy and Williamson were demoing the tracks that would eventually be released as Kill City. A little earlier Sounds put Iggy on their cover with a report on his Toronto gigs. Inevitiably it was illiustrated with photographs from King’s Cross, uncredited again, but my guess is these are also a mix of Byron and Pennie Smith.

In April 1974 the NME carried a news item announcing an impending UK tour, nine venues had confirmed, among them the Rainbow Rooms at Biba where the New York Dolls had played. Iggy would also make an Old Grey Whistle Test appearance. Another Pennie Smith (?) image from the London show was used to illustrate the hype. The gigs of course never happened and the King Sound, King’s Cross pictures were left alone to reverberate in splendid isolation until next needed to confirm the image of the World’s Forgotten Boy.

The above was run in the January/February 1975 issue of Edinburgh’s Hot Wacks fanzine (#5) to fill a gap left by the non-arrival of advertising copy from Camden’s Rock On shop. To my radar eye these are not from Mick Rock’s archive, but if not who took them?

Sounds (September 18, 1976) Pennie Smith

*Disc* (March 3, 1973) . . . Iggy to make film . . . now there’s a thought. Pic is Mick Rock (heavily cropped)

Per Nilsen and Carlton P. Sandercock’s coffee table assemblage of Stooges performances and recording sessions, 1967-74 is as essential as it comes . . . Features a good few previously unpublished Byron Newman images, same for Pennie Smith. Patrice Kindle are mostly familiar but in much better quality . . . Mick Rock and Alec Bryne are not present, too expensive to license I’d guess. Get your copy here