Gimme Danger

Writer/Director Jim Jarmusch chronicles the protopunk pioneers with clips and interviews to "penetrate the tangled web of their career" in the energetic, quirky, irreverent "Gimme Danger: Story of the Stooges."

Born and raised in a trailer park (and inspired by Soupy Sales to create narratives in 25 words or less), Iggy Pop (the blue-eyed, animated muscle n�e James Newell Osterberg, Jr.) assembled his Ann Arbor band mates Dave Alexander (bass), James Williamson (guitar), and brothers Scott (drums) and Ron (guitar) Asheton, into the Stooges to crowd surf and lead the counterculture with an amalgam of aggressive, yet free-form, rock.

In the late 1960s, they joined band MC5 in a nihilist communist commune, then signed a record deal with Electra. The Stooges moved to NYC's Chelsea Hotel to write an album and open for acts like Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart and the Faces, and the Mothers of Invention.

They moved to LA in 1970 to play the Whiskey a Go Go (where Iggy adopted his signature "I Wanna Be Your Dog" collar and invented the stage dive), with stints at San Francisco's Fillmore as well.

Heroin entered the picture, and Dave succumbed to alcohol in 1975 (after being fired from the band for drunkenness in 1970). When their label dropped them, Iggy said, "I didn't hear a thing."

He put the band on hold, then went home to get clean with illegally obtained methadone. Iggy returned to NYC in 1972, where he was introduced to David Bowie, who brought him (and eventually his band mates) to England to record (and would cover "Dog" during his career).

After the Stooges collapsed, Williamson and Pop eventually morphed into Kill City, and the other members also moved into several other groups. The band eventually reunited after 1998's "Velvet Goldmine" movie, based on Iggy's persona, for Coachella in 2003. The three surviving Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 (Ron died in 2009, Scott in 2014 and saxophonist Steve Mackay, who played on the Stooges second album "Fun House," died in 2015).

"The Stooges reinvented music as we know it," says an interviewee, and the film acknowledges their deep influence on fashion, fine art and film too.

Plus, "I think I helped wipe out the 60s," Iggy adds in an archival interview.

"Gimme Danger: Story of the Stooges"
DVD (no extras)
$22.99
http://www.gimmedangerfilm.com