Suzi Moon Howls with the Stooges

Suzi Moon Howls with the Stooges: L.A. punk Suzi Moon (Civet, Turbulent Hearts, L.A. Machina) has a solo EP out called Call the Shots. She sat down to tell us about her Stooges experience.

Suzi Moon: Growing up in Los Angeles will spoil you. It is the best city on Earth for music lovers. Every major artist is going to cruise through L.A. at some point, and there is no shortage of stellar local talent to keep you satiated every night of the week. So why did it take me until 2017 to see Iggy Pop live for the first time? I had been listening to the Stooges since I was 16, when Patrick Boissel of Bomp! Records handed me Year of the Iguana during a tour of their warehouse. My life was never the same. They say timing is everything, and when I saw that Iggy & The Stooges would be performing at my favorite festival, Punk Rock Bowling, in Vegas, I booked a hotel immediately and enlisted my two roommates for the road trip. The time had finally come for me to see the undisputed Godfather of Punk in all his flesh and glory.

Pushing through the crowd at PRB, I felt anxious, like I was going on a date. Would he like me? Notice me? Just to be near him made my palms sweat. You could feel the crowd buzzing with excitement; this was a big fucking deal and we all knew it. When the opening bars of “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” started playing, everyone lost their shit. We moved, swayed, pogo’d as one – all eyes on Iggy. I inched my way closer and closer to the stage, smiling and singing all the way. I finally got up to the front of the barricade and asked the guy next to me if he could lift me up to crowd surf. He obliged, and the next thing I knew I was floating merrily along to “Lust For Life.”

A security guard grabbed my foot & tried to pull me out of the pit but I kicked away from him and rolled back onto the crowd. I was in complete ecstasy, screaming along to “No Fun.” It was then that the security guard finally got a hold of me and scooped me up into his arms, spun me around, and held me up like a sacrificial offering to Iggy, who had just made his way to the edge of the stage. I reached out my hand to him. We locked eyes and he reached back to me, no more than an inch between our fingertips. For a moment time stood still as we became the modern day punk rock version of Michaelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”.

I felt an electric charge surge through my body as I dropped to the ground and the moment was over. Did that really just happen? Have I been blessed? It sure felt that way. I ran past the barricade and around to the back of the crowd, which was massive. The band was still playing and I had more dancing to do. Shoving my way back into the crowd I felt different. Something changed. The spirit of punk rock consumed me, and when the band began to play “Real Wild Child” I vowed to the heavens above that I would never let them down. In the name of Iggy Christ, that was the best gig I ever saw. Oi-men!

Suzi Moon Howls with the Stooges: The Call the Shots EP is out now.