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There are few like Iggy Pop. More than four decades into his career, he is still a frantic ball of quivering, stage-diving energy whose Raw Power instantly turns his gig at Yoko Ono’s Meltdown Festival into the closest you’ll ever get to a 1970s East Village punk club with a royal box. …Punk is rooted in the primal powerhouses of Search and Destroy, 1970 and goth incubated beneath the skin of Open Up and Bleed, but Iggy is more concerned with lust than legacy, driving I Wanna Be Your Dog and No Fun to such frantic extremes that the crowd throw bras. “Rebels come and rebels go,” he yelps on Sex and Money, from the Stooges’ pessimistically titled new album, Ready to Die. There’ll be no replacing this one.

Read more at The Guardian.

Today’s show at Royal Festival Hall is sold out. How are we doing so far? Well, who can tell it better than Henry Rollins? Check out his review of the Long Beach show at LA Weekly.

A few minutes later, when the band is fiercely attacking “1970” from Fun House, I realize how physically hard the band is playing, and it hits me that the band makes music that is strong enough to withstand five maniacs trying to tear it to pieces and that it could also do the very same to them. I conclude that The Stooges are at war with music itself. This is so cool.

Iggy and the Stooges have been announced for Riot Fest Toronto and Denver! Stay tuned for more details.

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Hollywood Records will release a soundtrack album on July 2nd for The Lone Ranger featuring songs inspired by the fim, recorded by artists including Iggy Pop, Ben Kweller, Shane MacGowan, Lucinda Williams, The White Buffalo, The Rubens, John Grant, Sara Watkins, Pete Molinari and Gomez. The film will star Armie Hammer in the title role and Johnny Depp as Tonto.

Read more at FilmMusicReporter.com. Here’s the track listing for the album, available for pre-order now at Amazon.

1. Holy Water – Ben Kweller
2. Devil’s Train – Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
3. Poor Paddy on the Railway – Shane MacGowan
4. So Long Gone – Pete Molinari
5. Central and Union – Sara Watkins
6. The American Dream – The White Buffalo
7. Lonesome Whistle – Dave Alvin
8. Sweet Betsy from Pike – Iggy Pop
9. Rattling Bone – Iron & Wine
10. Cowboy – The Rubens
11. Everything but the Truth – Lucinda Williams
12. The Truth Lives On – The Aggrolites
13. Butch’s Ballad – Gomez
14. Saddle the Wind – John Grant

This incarnation of Iggy and the Stooges has nothing to lose. The proto-punk gawds have a new album they are touring, Ready To Die, and a lineup that is mashup of the Fun House one and the Raw Power platoon. Missing the late great Ron Asheton, the Stooges are now playing in tribute of their fallen guitarist.

Saturday’s set saw the first Houston appearance of Pop in decades, and the lusty crowd welcomed him with open sweat-laced arms. Pop, wearing skinny black jeans when men his age should be in sensible slacks and loafers, was vicious and playful. The band was in the pocket.

Read the complete review and a new interview with James Williamson at The Houston Chronicle.

Iggy and the Stooges will be performing at the Sentrum Scene in Oslo, Norway on June 28th. The date replaces their earlier scheduled performance at the Peace and Love Festival, a cool festival which unfortunately had to be canceled. So we’re afraid we won’t be seeing all you good people in Borlange. Tickets for the Oslo show will go on sale at Billetservice.no.

In addition, the band will be performing at the Hyundai Card Super Concert 19 City Break in Seoul, South Korea on August 17th. More details can be found at Superseries.kr.

Watch Iggy and the Stooges performing their full concert at Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on April 2, 2013, filmed exclusively by Moshcam. Full concert playlist here.

“Why don’t you come up here on stage and dance with the fucking Stooges!” Iggy Pop declared early on in the show. At his request, fans vaulted over barricades to join the Godfather and his merry men, The Stooges, on stage for the rowdy classic “Fun House.” This old-school punk party has truly begun.

Engulfed by the crowd and chaos, the band brought the fun and the fury, setting the tone for an electrifying night out at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion. Along with cuts from latest album Ready To Die, the punk powerhouse tore through their coveted back catalog including defining moments like “No Fun,” “I Want To Be Your Dog” and “Search and Destroy.”

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Something to look forward to. This show will go out to you Friday.

Iggy Pop spoke to The Associated Press about getting better with age and the possibility of more Stooges in the 21st century:

AP: Do you think there will be more Stooges music down the road?

Pop: You know that’s a good question. By the time I got done with this one, I been in the mood like, ‘Oh, f—, am I glad that’s over with. Let’s get this thing out.’ But that’s also the tension of a modern marketing plan. They start rattling my cage and hassling me like two months before the thing comes out. … So right now I think there’s a very good chance we could.

AP: You had a reputation for high-energy shows during the first go-round with the Stooges. Is it more difficult to perform to that standard now?

Pop: My personal ability to project physical energy probably didn’t peak until only about six years ago, seven years ago. It was in my mid- to late 50s and that’s because when I was younger I didn’t work at it at all. Also the big difference was I was a little ahead of my time, seems to be the general rap on me, and so I didn’t get the audience feedback then. It’s really hard. You can come out and bust ass and keep that up for about three songs, but if a bunch of people are just giving you the cold stare, it gets hard to sort of not to wither. So it was kind of like fighting skirmishes. I would skirmish and regroup, skirmish and regroup. But later as people started to accept it more … I would go to bed early, take my nap, sleep all day, rehearse really hard, and really, really get ready for that moment on stage. And then I bust a move and go home that night, and go ouch!!

Read more at The Washington Post.

This track was fun and now it’s coming out. “Let’s Boot and Rally,” recorded by Iggy Pop and Bethany Cosentino, will be included on True Blood: Music From the HBO Original Series Volume 4, available May 28th. Full track listing:

1) “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” – Eric Burdon with Jenny Lewis
2) “Let’s Boot and Rally” – Iggy Pop with Bethany Cosentino
3) “What Makes a Good Man?” – the Heavy
4) “Smokestack Lightnin'” – Howlin’ Wolf
5) “Pocket Change” – Alabama Shakes
6) “Authority Song” – Bosco Delrey
7) “Turn Turn Turn” – My Morning Jacket
8) “Your Face Can Tell the Future” – the Flaming Lips
9) “The Sun” – the Naked and Famous
10) “Undertow” – Warpaint
11) “I Wanna Be Your Man” – Mobley
12) “(She’s a) Wanderer” – Deap Vally
13) “Whatever I Am, You Made Me” – Koko Taylor
14) “We’ll Meet Again” – Los Lobos

Iggy and the Stooges released their new album Ready to Die this week, and Iggy Pop recently spoke with NPR about living life over the edge, why so many fans come around to The Stooges late, and what happens when people disappear.

At this point, is it a point of pride that The Stooges won’t make money from the record?

“No, baby, here’s the way it works: We make an album; everybody complains for the first five years. And after about 10 years, people start saying, ‘Hey, you know, that’s pretty good.’ The money kicks in about 20 years later.

“In the mid-’90s, The Stooges and Fun House turned over into the black, and all the band members who survived started getting checks. And then a little later, the same happened to Raw Power. Little by little, that old band has defeated a lot of our shag-haired, frilly-vest-wearing crapola, corporate rock gods and goddesses of the ’60s and ’70s. The problem now, of course, is do I have 30 years to wait for royalties for this record? [Laughs.] See, because I’m 66. I think people need to hurry up and buy a record.”

Listen to the Iggy Pop interview at NPR.

Ready To Die available now: Amazon | iTunes | Fat Possum Records

In April 2011, Iggy Pop curated a massive concert to honor the late Stooges guitarist and bassist Ron Asheton in Asheton’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of the night’s highlights came when Henry Rollins joined the Stooges for “I Got a Right,” and the former Black Flag frontman filled in for Iggy Pop and lent his fury to the thrashing track. The Ron Asheton Tribute Concert will be released on DVD on June 4th.

Read more at Rolling Stone.