Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107266 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Review
*'Paul Trynka gets under Iggy Pop's skin to reveal the real Jim Osterberg. OPEN UP AND BLEED is a hugely impressive feat of research and insights, packed full of yarns that'll make your hair stand on end' Barney Hoskyns, author of HOTEL CALIFORNIA 'With its recurring themes of drug addiction, public masochism and self-sabotage, Iggy's story effectively tells itself, but Trynka captures the essential duality of a man as well-versed in Greek art as he is in panhandling for heroin on Sunset Boulevard ... [an] entertaining and insightful study of one of rock's most enduringly remarkable characters' Q 'Iggy Pop has all the rock 'n' roll bases covered: drugs, long hair, funny body, formerly straight-A student. Lie back and think of California' TATLER 'Former MOJO editor Paul Trynka has put in impeccable research to tell the story of how the shy, studious Jim Osterberg transformed into the force of nature that is Iggy Pop' IRISH EVENING HERALD 'For those who like their rock biogs thick with tales of heroic over-indulgence, OPEN UP AND BLEED is hard to beat ' SUNDAY TIMES ' Compelling. Trynka paints an artful portrait of a rock star who is "decadent right through to his sweet, Midwestern heart"' OBSERVER 'Incorporates just about every depravity you could wish for in a rock biography: indecent exposure, under-age sex, self-mutilation, psychiatric disorder, drug abuse, infidelity, betrayal, violence, death and David Bowie ... When you strip away all the nonsense, Iggy is a pro. Trynka too' GUARDIAN 'Trynka's well-researched biography offers not only a small army of previously unseen photos, but the truth behind Iggy's rise from smalltown nobody to internationally recognised bad boy of rock. It offers insights also into some of his high-profile relationships, notably with David Bowie' HERALD 'Paul Trynka has put impeccable research to tell the story of how the shy, studious Jim Osterberg transformed into the force of nature that is Iggy Pop, creating mayhem and immoral music with The Stooges and throwing himself headlong into every vice put before him' IRISH EVENING HERALD 'Definitive ... Trynka's lively first-hand account of the insanity wrought by Pop and the hordes of deeply damaged human detritus that surround him makes for a highly entertaining read' WORD 'Former MOJO editor Paul Trynka separates Osterberg's Jekyll from Hyde with forensic skill ... Open Up and Bleed is as serpentine and compelling as Iggy's own warped mind and addled physique' RTE GUIDE

Q
'[An] entertaining and insightful study of one of rock's most
enduringly remarkable characters'

DAILY TELEGRAPH
'[The] first authoritative biography of rock's extremo supremo . .
. [Trynka] drags you magnificently along on the Iggy rollercoaster'

Customer Reviews

Sex, blood, drugs and rock'n'roll

Some rock stars fade away. Some self-destruct at a young age. Some kept on chugging away despite it all, and are still going today (see: David Bowie and Mick Jagger).

But a few seem to be truly indestructible -- they bounce back from anything, whether it's drugs, madness, or their own genius. And in Paul Trynka's "Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed" is a pretty brilliant look into the chaotic life, influence, and constant ups and downs of one such rocker.

Pop was born Jim Osterberg, to some slightly quirky parents in 1950s Michigan. And Ann Arbor turned out to be the perfect place for him to bloom into a musician -- he became part of the Stooges, a fledgling band that gained and lost contracts like underwear. And they soon developed a reputation for two things: raw, wild, powerful punk, and a tendency to have really wild'n'violent concerts.

And Iggy's own life was just as volatile -- a cocktail of drugs, sex, creative eruptions, and extremely volatile personal life. But as the Stooges fragmented over time, Iggy's own life began seesawing between order and chaos, the bottom of the barrel with the rock'n'roll heights. And even now, as the godfather of punk rock, he spills over with wild energy and creativity.

The core of "Open Up and Bleed" is that Jim Osterberg and Iggy Pop are almost like two different people, like a demon possessing someone's body and making him wreck his life. As Trynka -- and many people he interviewed -- put it, Osterberg is intellectual, polite, clever man, while Pop is a force of self-mutilating destructive chaos.

It actually makes a lot of sense. And Trynka's detailed, intricate recountings get a lot of information from many people who knew Pop -- some fondly, some angrily, and thankfully there's no whitewashing of his personal flaws. But the author really makes you feel and see why Pop/Osterberg is such a powerful presence in rock'n'roll, since he poured his body and soul into his work.

And Trynka strikes a nice balance between his work and personal life, outlining marriages, drug problems, possible mental issues (is he or is he not bipolar?), and his repeated rises from the ashes. Despite all the chaos, he also focuses on the quieter parts of Pop's life, such as domestic bliss with Wife No. 2. And occasionally we even get a funny story, such as the "peanut butter sandwich on Iggy's chest anecdote.

One of the best parts of the book is his ongoing friendship with David Bowie. The past bond between these two men is the sweetest part of the book, especially when Bowie and Pop joined forces musically. It's a bit sad when they drift apart.

Trynka also paints a dark, gritty portrait the burgeoning punk scene of the time, as well as the proto-punk ferocity of the Stooges -- they were SO groundbreaking and raw that the record companies didn't know what to do with them. It took decades for them to be appreciated for what they truly were, and for Iggy Pop to be appreciated as a musical pioneer.

"Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed" is not just a biography of a brilliant musician, but a portrait of the rapidly-changing music scene that he first bloomed in. Definitely a must-read for rock'n'roll fans.

The godfather of punk - from riches to rags.
If you like your Biographies edgy and dangerous this is for you. Ok, so Iggy kept getting himself sorted but, everytime he did, he'd just as soon get screwed up again. His early days and the differnt image he likes to portray to how his childhood really was (safe, suburban and not at all dysfunctional) is in sharp contrast to his hell raising drugging, drinking and womaning. Where does he get all of these insecurities from?
The way he continuously fails to realise his recording potential until his is saved (albeit in a sanitised form) by Bowie. His on off Stooges relationship and love\hate with almost evey musician that he's ever worked with. Scary but compulsive stuff.

Missed opportunity
It's difficult to write a sufficiently detailed review of this biography without having it next to me - and unfortunately I threw my copy away in frustration before resolving to share my thoughts on Amazon.

There's an interesting and believable thesis at the heart of this book. This is that Iggy/Jim are as good as two separate people: the Iggy persona created by its author Jim as a way of creatively harnessing his inner demons and energies. The result was the revolutionary music for which the Stooges became famous. It also meant, in the longer term, personal chaos for Jim as the "Iggy" character took on a life of its own.

So far so good: so why only one star? The problem for me lies in the realisation of this theory on the page. Quite simply, the main (dual) character never comes alive. We see the high school star Jim grow into the Iggy role. We see the rise and fall of the Stooges and all that follows. But Trynka's Iggy/Jim never gets beyond being an extra in his own story, seemingly carried along by events rather than commanding them. At best he appears as a type, the wild man concealing a thinker - but we are never privileged with any access to those thoughts.

Instead we simply get a series of anecdotes. Rock and roll carnage is interesting and should of course be described: it's central to the story here. But Iggy/Jim seems to me too interesting a subject for such a bare description, which is more befitting a bozo heavy metal band who changed nothing. What of the real person at the centre of the maelstrom? Potentially life-defining episodes and encounters, like Jim's child or his shortlived first marriage, are dealt with in a few cursory paragraphs which don't penetrate beyond external facts. What did Jim actually think or feel? Has he never commented?

Not that my main grudge lies in the book's skipping over personal relationships. That's just one example. Even if one takes the (not very believable) line that, in this particular life, such things were nothing but a footnote to rock and roll chaos, then where is the intelligent reflection on chaos? Why did Jim choose it? Why choose heroin, why hurt yourself, why make such extreme noise? Was it a rational disordering of the senses a la Rimbaud, a confrontation with the squares of the day a la Lenny Bruce? There must be *something* of substance to say about such a radical life.

We repeatedly flip irrelevantly to the present day John Sinclair, or whatever other minor character - "today Sinclair is a ruddy gray-haired man", "he laughs and leans back in his chair", etc (so what?). One can't help but feel that these incidental commenters come alive, in the passing sketches, infinitely more convincingly than the person whose story they are supposed to be telling. Iggy/Jim is still living, but we never see him up close. Trynka seems to have elicited no meaningful insights from him - or has failed to translate them on to the page. The text deals with the whens and the wheres, sometimes the hows, but never the whys. Was Trynka too awed by his subject to say anything about him beyond the banal and obvious?

It's a terrible missed opportunity, because I'm convinced that Iggy/Jim is more interesting and has more to say than this book would suggest. Rock's most insightful critics, Lester Bangs and Nick Kent, have both been fascinated by him - as an enigma and a personality as well as a world-transforming act. So has David Bowie. There must be something there to fuel such intelligent admiration. Trynka simply doesn't communicate what this 'something' is. Instead we get a portrait of a wild rocker, with the glib assurance that somewhere beneath all the madness is a beating heart and thinking mind.

My copy is in a bin in Iggy's Berlin, where I took it to read before giving up and switching to browsing copies of Mojo in German, looking at the pictures.