Americans awoke this morning to news that the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union is over, which makes today not unlike Wednesday, when Americans awoke to news that Iggy and The Stooges were “over.” Guitarist James Williamson explained: “Basically, everybody’s dead except for Iggy and I, so it would be sort of ludicrous to try to tour as Iggy And The Stooges.” There’s some logic there, which rarely is the case when it comes to Iggy Pop, who continues to tour the world with his solo band: the Asheton brothers and Dave Alexander, the founding members of The Stooges, indeed have been dead for at least a few years. In fact, many casual fans may have been surprised to learn that The Stooges still were a thing in 2016.

Steve Miller (not that one) has an oral history of the Detroit rock scene beginning in the 1960s, when Iggy and The Stooges were coming up along with other Ann Arbor/Flint/Detroit acts such as Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, the MC5, and many, many others who never made it out, chronicled, in the early 70s, by noted critic Lester Bangs and Creem magazine. Miller’s book paints a fairly dark, violent, angry, and desperate picture of the music scene in Southeast Michigan, including the blend of hard rock and punk that developed there. Iggy’s picture adorns the cover of that book.

Interestingly, Pop also developed a working partnership with David Bowie, who undoubtedly was drawn to and encouraged elements of Pop’s stage performances. Decades later, a new generation would discover the music of both when an Iggy and The Stooges song, “Search and Destroy,” appeared on the Bowie-heavy soundtrack to the Wes Anderson movie The Life Aquatic. Among his most popular songs, “Lust for Life,” a solo effort, is the most upbeat, but for this space, “Search and Destroy,” from The Stooges’ 1973 Raw Power album, is the selection: