Iggy Pop & James Williamson
Kill City (Alive Naturalsound)The Coba Seas
Unreformed (Norton)Everything Iggy Pop once touched flopped upon release. Released independently at punk’s ground zero – 1977 – Pop’s solo debut with Raw Power guitarist James Williamson remains the missing link between the Stooges’ animalistic proto-punk (the saxophone-fueled desperation of “Johanna”) and the nightclubbing decadence of the frontman’s later collaborations with David Bowie (moody stunner “I Got Nothin'”). Lacking bonus content, the remastering alone warrants a new appraisal of Kill City. “It’s a playground to the rich, but it’s a loaded gun to me,” Pop surveys in the title track. That industrial decay proves an ideal setting for the singer’s slum poetry and punk-blues sneer, both executed to perfection in the pusher/prostitute lament “Sell Your Love.” The Rolling Stones influence prevalent throughout Kill City (“Beyond the Law”) gets archival support in the reissue of Unreformed by the Coba Seas, Williamson’s boarding school combo with Chronicle reader Michael Adams. The sterling six-song set finds the then-16-year-old guitarist wood-shedding on garage rock instrumentals, most notably on the early Jagger/Richards single “Heart of Stone” and an 11-minute “Gloria” that teases the shape of punk to come.
(Kill City) 
(Unreformed)
This article appears in January 21 • 2011.