to Ann Arbor with sister Kathy and their mother, Ann, soon after the death of their father on 31 December 1963. Today, Iggy still recalls Scott Asheton looking ‘magnetic, like a cross between a young Sonny Liston and Elvis Presley’. Many years after their first meeting, he commemorated that first sighting in his song ‘The Dum Dum Boys’, remembering the way ‘they used to stare at the ground’. But over the next few months their conversations would be limited to muttered hellos in the corridors of Ann Arbor High.
It was with by now typical Osterberg bluster that the lead Iguana described himself as a ‘professional drummer’ in flyers for his unsuccessful presidential campaign of 1965 - his instinct for self aggrandisement had reached new heights. Literally - in that spring’s talent contest he overshadowed his fellow Iguanas by appearing on top of a ludicrous, seven-foot-tall drum riser. (Fellow student and fan, Dale Withers, one of the school’s taller pupils, pondered if this was a classic ‘Napoleon complex’.) But in July 1965, after Osterberg, Swisher and McLaughlin’s graduation from high school, that exalted ‘professional’ claim became true, when the band secured a residency at Harbor Spring’s Club Ponytail, in what several of them would recall as the most idyllic summer of their lives.
An elegant resort nestling close to Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan, Harbor Springs was studded with beautiful, sprawling Victorian mansions that were owned or rented as summer homes by the Midwest’s wealthiest industrial magnates - many of whom had daughters who were keen to party the night away. Recognising the opportunity, local businessman Jim Douglas opened a teenage nightclub at the Club Ponytail, a Victorian mansion that had reputedly once served as a base for Detroit bootleggers during Prohibition. The Iguanas would be the bait for these society debutantes - and before long, it became obvious that Jim Osterberg was their biggest attraction. Located down a two-lane road, and advertised by a huge wooden cut-out of a blonde with a pert turned-up nose and a ponytail, the Club Ponytail’s two dance floors soon became the hottest spot in town.
For five nights a week, the Iguanas would belt out a set that included several Beatles songs - ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Eight Days A Week’, ‘Slow Down’ and more - plus the Stones’ ‘Tell Me’, Bo Diddley’s ‘Mona’ and, several times a night, that summer’s smash hit, ‘Satisfaction’, most of the numbers sung by McLaughlin or Kolokithas. By now, Osterberg had decreed that Sam Swisher’s saxophone was superfluous, and the real-estate agent’s son was relegated to bashing on a tambourine (invariably on the on-beat) and looking after the band’s money. According to Sam’s girlfriend, Mim Streiff, Sam compensated for his humiliation by exerting financial control over his bandmates, advancing them money from the next week’s earnings and deducting a lucrative 20 per cent. Naturally this earned the further resentment of his drummer, who glowers at the mention of his name to this day.
Honed by their two-sets-a-night, five-nights-a-week routine, the Iguanas became a tough little outfit, their voices roughened and funky from constant wear. Cub Koda, later the leader of Brownsville Station, saw the Iguanas many times over that summer, and describes them as ‘a great, greasy little rock ’n’ roll band’. Jim was a good drummer, who’d lie back on the beat and slash away at his ride cymbal, which was studded with rivets for a sleazier sound. ‘And, man, you’d watch those rivets dance,’ says Koda, who was also struck by the Iguanas’ low-down versions of ‘Wild Weekend’ and ‘Louie Louie’; Osterberg would customise them with his own dirty lyrics, which Detroit bands loved trading with each other. Michigan teen band the Fugitives claimed to have introduced the word ‘fuck’ to Richard Berry’s garage-band classic ‘Louie Louie’
It was with by now typical Osterberg bluster that the lead Iguana described himself as a ‘professional drummer’ in flyers for his unsuccessful presidential campaign of 1965 - his instinct for self aggrandisement had reached new heights. Literally - in that spring’s talent contest he overshadowed his fellow Iguanas by appearing on top of a ludicrous, seven-foot-tall drum riser. (Fellow student and fan, Dale Withers, one of the school’s taller pupils, pondered if this was a classic ‘Napoleon complex’.) But in July 1965, after Osterberg, Swisher and McLaughlin’s graduation from high school, that exalted ‘professional’ claim became true, when the band secured a residency at Harbor Spring’s Club Ponytail, in what several of them would recall as the most idyllic summer of their lives.
An elegant resort nestling close to Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan, Harbor Springs was studded with beautiful, sprawling Victorian mansions that were owned or rented as summer homes by the Midwest’s wealthiest industrial magnates - many of whom had daughters who were keen to party the night away. Recognising the opportunity, local businessman Jim Douglas opened a teenage nightclub at the Club Ponytail, a Victorian mansion that had reputedly once served as a base for Detroit bootleggers during Prohibition. The Iguanas would be the bait for these society debutantes - and before long, it became obvious that Jim Osterberg was their biggest attraction. Located down a two-lane road, and advertised by a huge wooden cut-out of a blonde with a pert turned-up nose and a ponytail, the Club Ponytail’s two dance floors soon became the hottest spot in town.
For five nights a week, the Iguanas would belt out a set that included several Beatles songs - ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Eight Days A Week’, ‘Slow Down’ and more - plus the Stones’ ‘Tell Me’, Bo Diddley’s ‘Mona’ and, several times a night, that summer’s smash hit, ‘Satisfaction’, most of the numbers sung by McLaughlin or Kolokithas. By now, Osterberg had decreed that Sam Swisher’s saxophone was superfluous, and the real-estate agent’s son was relegated to bashing on a tambourine (invariably on the on-beat) and looking after the band’s money. According to Sam’s girlfriend, Mim Streiff, Sam compensated for his humiliation by exerting financial control over his bandmates, advancing them money from the next week’s earnings and deducting a lucrative 20 per cent. Naturally this earned the further resentment of his drummer, who glowers at the mention of his name to this day.
Honed by their two-sets-a-night, five-nights-a-week routine, the Iguanas became a tough little outfit, their voices roughened and funky from constant wear. Cub Koda, later the leader of Brownsville Station, saw the Iguanas many times over that summer, and describes them as ‘a great, greasy little rock ’n’ roll band’. Jim was a good drummer, who’d lie back on the beat and slash away at his ride cymbal, which was studded with rivets for a sleazier sound. ‘And, man, you’d watch those rivets dance,’ says Koda, who was also struck by the Iguanas’ low-down versions of ‘Wild Weekend’ and ‘Louie Louie’; Osterberg would customise them with his own dirty lyrics, which Detroit bands loved trading with each other. Michigan teen band the Fugitives claimed to have introduced the word ‘fuck’ to Richard Berry’s garage-band classic ‘Louie Louie’
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