TOTAL CHAOS: The Story of the Stooges / As Told by Iggy Pop

“Gasp at the awe-inspiring memorabilia and frank talk in Total Chaos…remarkable” —Mojo Magazine

TOTAL CHAOS: The Story of The Stooges / As Told by Iggy Pop is the first time the story of this seminal band has been told entirely in Pop’s own words. 

Author Jeff Gold and contributor Johan Kugelberg, noted music historians and collectors, spent two days with Pop at his Miami home, sharing with him their extensive Stooges collection and interviewing the legendary singer. Pop’s candid, bare-all responses left them with the almost unbelievable tale of the band he founded-the alternately tragic and triumphant story of a group who rose from youth, fell prey to drugs, alcohol, and music biz realities, collapsed and nearly 30 years later reformed, recording and touring to great acclaim. In 2010 The Stooges, credited with having invented punk rock, were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Their continuing influence can be felt today in the shape and sound of rock-n-roll music.

Jeff Gold, Johan Kugelberg and editor/contributor Jon Savage are among the most respected music authors and historians working today. Their efforts include numerous acclaimed and best-selling books and a Grammy Award. TOTAL CHAOS stands as a work for all fans of the band and rock music to draw inspiration. Including an absolute treasure-trove of rare and unseen photographs, TOTAL CHAOS is a book that shows AND tells the story of The Stooges. A metallic k.o. of only the best kind.

“Chaos Reigns: Iggy Pop Spills His Guts in This Definitive Stooges Book”—Noisey

“Iggy Pop’s leather jacket and biker boot clad, fuck-the-world nonchalance belies the obsessive, meticulous genius that bolstered the punk rocker to international acclaim as one of the first- and best- to spit squarely in the eye of the mainstream and live to tell the tale.” —Elmore Magazine

“TOTAL CHAOS is phenomenal—a must-have for all fans of the group.”—Dangerous Minds

“It was a rare privilege to sit with Iggy as he downloaded the story of The Stooges. He’s an incredible storyteller with a fantastic memory and a great sense of humor, and he held nothing back. The Stooges were pioneers in sound, look, and live presentation, and along the way invented a genre-punk rock-and influenced countless others that followed. There was no precedent in rock music for what they did. They’re definitely the only group in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who started out playing an amplified Waring blender, a vacuum cleaner, spring water bottles and a 200 gallon oil drum.” - Jeff Gold, Author of 101 Essential Rock Records

“Iggy and The Stooges have to be one of the greatest American rock bands that has ever been.” - Joan Jett

“What does it mean to be Iggy Pop, five decades of being ‘the wildest man in rock’? Iggy Pop is many things. Rock Star. Singer, Rebel. Primitive. Stooge. The Jean Genie, Passenger. Legend."- Johnny Marr

“Iggy Pop has turned the interview into an art form. In this book he tells the history of The Stooges with a mixture of wit, candor and spontaneity: from their early beginnings to their full flaming flare over three groundbreaking albums before the crash and the triumphant return that no-one could have predicted. Profusely illustrated with dozens of unseen images, this is the story of The Stooges like you’ve never read it before.” - Jon Savage, Author of England’s Dreaming.

ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:

• Ben Blackwell

• Dave Grohl

• Josh Homme

• Joan Jett

• Johnny Marr

• Jack White

& more. (TOTAL CHAOS COVER PHOTO BY DUSTIN PITTMAN)

Author:

 

Jeff Gold

Recordmecca’s Jeff Gold has been buying and selling collectible records and music memorabilia for 44 years. Profiled by Rolling Stone as one of the five “top collectors of high-end music memorabilia,” he travels the world to search out the finest music collectibles. An internationally recognized expert in the field, he is a frequent consultant to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Experience Music Project, and record labels and cultural institutions.

Gold’s book, 101 Essential Rock Records: The Golden Age of Vinyl, From The Beatles to the Sex Pistols was one of eight selected in 2012 by Rolling Stone as “The year’s best reading material.” 

Gold is the former Executive Vice President/General Manager of Warner Bros. Records where he worked with Prince, REM, Madonna and The Red Hot Chili Peppers and oversaw the Jimi Hendrix catalog. As VP/Marketing and Creative Services at A&M Records, Gold worked with The Police, Cat Stevens, Soundgarden, and Janet Jackson. He was editor of the book “A&M Records: The First 25 Years.” A four time Grammy nominated art director, he won a Grammy for Suzanne Vega’s album “Day’s of Open Hand.”

A music historian and researcher, Gold has discovered a number of previously unknown tapes later released by major labels, including “Bob Dylan at Brandeis University 1963” and unreleased performances by the Velvet Underground and The Stooges. He was a producer of the album “Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix” (with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Seal, and The Cure) and has worked on archival projects for Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and Gram Parsons. His discovery of 149 previously unknown Bob Dylan acetate records received extensive media attention including articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In 2015/2016 Gold and Laura Woolley appraised The Bob Dylan Archive for Dylan’s management.

Gold helped curate museum exhibitions including the Experience Music Project’s “Beatlemania!” and the traveling exhibit “Bob Dylan’s American Journey”. He appeared as an expert authenticator/appraiser on PBS’s History Detectives and VH1’s television show Rock Collectors, and is profiled in the books “Vinyl Junkies” by Brett Milano and “Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction To Its Own Past” by Simon Reynolds.