BY JUD COST

The appearance this week of the hairdryer-in-the-bath-tub remastered/expanded edition of Raw Power by Iggy & the Stooges (Columbia/Legacy; reviewed at Blurt here) releases a flood of memories from what seemed at the time like a rock 'n' roll nuclear winter. The post-Altamont collapse of a fertile late-'60s scene spearheaded by the Beatles, Stones, Doors and Airplane made it clear that if you were going to find thrilling music in the new decade it was up to you to do the legwork.

By the time the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Blondie, the Clash, Talking Heads, the Jam and the Damned crashed the party in 1976-77, the choices were, pardon the expression, no-brainers. But finding new rock 'n' roll saviors between 1970 and 1975, while the musical landscape was being carpet-bombed by earnest young troubadours, felt something like looking for a good picnic spot nowadays in downtown Baghdad. Fortunately, epic U.K. acts Mott the Hoople and Slade helped fill this vast void until the phoenix-like arrival of a pair of heroic American combos: Iggy and the Stooges and the New York Dolls. In a short four-month window spanning late-'73/early-'74, both played San Francisco. And I was there.

The New York Dolls seemed truly dangerous when they blitzed the national scene in 1973. Decked out in trashy women's outfits with plenty of lipstick, rouge and mascara, they were the poster boys for what every fundamentalist preacher had predicted for "Satan's music" 15 years earlier. They were the band that made parents of teenagers think that maybe those Rolling Stones weren't so bad, after all.

In September of 1973, Dolls frontman David Johansen, guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain, drummer Jerry Nolan and a temporary replacement bassist for Arthur "Killer" Kane, ripped through the tunes from their self-titled debut album at a short-lived North Beach club called the New Matrix. The cozy nitery was located on Broadway, directly across the street from what was once the Jazz Workshop, former San Fran venue for improvisational titans such as John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. (Regular bassist Kane wore a plaster cast over one arm that night that reduced him to being an onstage spectator.)

No one could have topped the New Yorkers for sheer audacity in those days, but opening act the Tubes came close. Fresh out of Phoenix, Ariz., the band formerly known as the Beans began their set with a long, spacey jam while flanking a card table set in the center of the stage and draped with a table cloth. Perched on the table was a platter covered with a rounded silver turkey warmer. At just the right moment, guitarist Bill "Sputnik" Spooner, lifted the roaster top straight up, revealing the head of singer Fee Waybill, poked through the platter and already in full vocal flight.

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In January of 1974, Iggy and the Stooges, featuring concrete-melting guitarist James Williamson, Scott Thurston on piano and Ron and Scott Asheton on bass and drums, respectively, hit town to rearrange the DNA of patrons at another North Beach hot spot, Bimbo's 365 Club. The joint had been long dark, maybe since the days in the early '60s when my mom and dad went there to see groundbreaking comedian Lenny Bruce, back in the day when he was still doing "bits" instead of lecturing on jurisprudence. 

The original rubber-legged boy, Iggy Pop was part genial host/part shit-disturbing antagonist in front of about half a house full of devotees and the curious. I don't recall any San Franciscans, a fairly peaceful lot, throwing bottles (or eggs) at the Ig like they did elsewhere. The band blitzed through the entire Raw Power album at a volume that had the vintage 1940s-era oil painting of a nude girl in a fish bowl all but bouncing off the wall, then added incendiary versions of non-LP songs "I've Got My Cock In My Pocket" and "Rich Bitch."

By the end of the set, a girl climbed onstage, unzipped the pants of the "world's forgotten boy" and began polishing his knob. The next day, one of the local newspapers ran a piece which revealed that last night's lewd act had really been performed by a guy in drag. That wouldn't even have caused a flutter on TMZ these days, even on a slow news day.