IGGY & Corel, '73

In September ’73 I was still living at the Chateau Marmont when I went to watch Iggy & the Stooges at the Whisky, driving down Sunset in my newly rented red Ford Pinto and leaving it with the car hop to park in the lot at the back. After Iggy’s set I bluffed my way backstage and asked him for an interview. He was game so we arranged that I’d drop by his hotel, the Sunset Marquis, the next day around noon. The car hop wasn’t around when I left so I went round the back, found my car and drove back to the Chateau. Next day in the car I noticed something was wrong. It was the same car, same make, same model, same colour, same rental company, but stuff was missing and there were someone else’s jeans in the back. When I got to Iggy’s hotel I checked the jeans and found a hotel room key in a pocket. I called the hotel on Iggy’s room phone and asked this guy if he’d lost his jeans. “Yeah, and I lost my fucking car n’all!” It was only then I realised what I’d done. I’d driven the wrong car home. Turned out he’d taken mine too, probably after I’d swiped his.

     Iggy was with his LA squeeze Corel Shields so the three of us went to this guy’s hotel where we swapped cars. He was amiable about it. Iggy just accepted this strange business as if it were commonplace. I guess he was used to weird shit happening around him.

     Ig suggested that we head to a beach to do the interview, a great idea as it was a warm and sunny and I had nothing else to do that day. So we picked up some takeaways and I drove the two of them to a deserted beach south of LA, near where Corel lived, and we had a picnic on the sand. Iggy had brought with him a couple of golf clubs and some old balls and during the interview he stopped every now and then to hit balls into the sea. He had a fabulous golf swing, really professional, and he whacked these golf balls way out into the ocean, looking well pleased with himself. I was amazed that Iggy, wildman of rock, played golf which is a bit of a pedestrian sport, but he told me about his PE teacher dad and how he was a sports freak and how he'd been brought up real healthy. He went in the water too, swimming way out until we could barely see him. Corel was unconcerned. She knew he was a strong swimmer. She was incredibly beautiful with hair down to her waist, sunbathing in her spray-on jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt, and in the piece I wrote I called her a mermaid. It was lovely afternoon. You can find the interview on Rock’s Back Pages.