“Very important”: Iggy Pop on the artist who captures New York better than anyone
Despite being raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Iggy Pop seems to have always had New York in his blood. Which is fitting, as there’s barely a corner of The Big Apple that doesn’t have the man born James Osterberg’s blood in it somewhere. It’s true, the man is, like most New Yorkers, an adopted son of the city. If anything though, there’s two reasons that suits both parties. Firstly, because NYC is a culture and a city arguably made by immigration. Secondly, New York’s celebrated punk scene comes from a whole lot of people trying to rip off Iggy Pop.
What else are the New York Dolls other than someone trying to Ziggify Raw Power? The Ramones? The Stooges doing The Supremes. Blondie, Television and post-punk as a whole? All bands who listened to The Idiot and thought, “We can do that too”. Iggy himself was there to see all of it too. Ever since John Cale of The Velvet Underground produced the first Stooges album, Iggy had called New York home, and would do so until he and Bowie left the US for West Berlin to kick their serious drug habits.
It’s for this reason that, in a recent episode of his BBC 6 Music radio show, Pop wanted to pay tribute to a man he called the heart of the New York City punk scene. Now, there are a multitude of people the Godfather of Punk could have been talking about. Joey Ramone, Tom Verlaine, and the dearly departed David Johansen, but Pop went with someone a little more under the radar than any of them. He talked about singer-songwriter and former D Generation frontman Jesse Malin, but not for the reason that you might think.
You see, Malin is a musician and a damn fine one. You don’t work with everyone from Billie Joe Armstrong to actual Bruce Springsteen without being one. That’s not actually why Pop pays tribute to him, though. In his show, Pop says, “Jesse Malin was and is a very, very important guy for New York City culture. He ran and still runs important, street level bars and clubs where music is important. I played one of his clubs once, everybody has.”
He does have kind words for Malin’s music, saying that “His approach to writing reflects the people of New York maybe more than The New York Dolls or even The Ramones, all of whom are great but not as tied to what the everyday people listen to.” However, grassroots venues are under threat. It won’t have escaped the notice of a guy as smart as Iggy Pop that the likes of The Last Dinner Party are using their platform to raise awareness for their plight.
I think it’s no accident that Pop uses his platform to pay tribute to a man who has done more than most for venues that are the lifeblood of the New York rock scene. Especially when Malin himself needs all the support he can get after a spinal stroke left him paralyzed from the waist down in June 2023. As of September 2024, the financial aid and medical treatment Malin received has meant that he’s able to walk with the assistance of a frame, and he’s even playing shows in the UK in May 2025.
Let’s be real here: if that kind of support can help a man walk again, then preventing small venues from closing should be a doddle, right?
