Sometimes no matter how much rubbish comes along in your life to take up valuable brain space, certain moments from years ago remain as clear and fresh as if they’d occurred just yesterday. One such instance for this admittedly punk-lusted writer was what could only be described as the invasion of Countdown by this guy named Iggy Pop. He jumped about like a man possessed, he wailed “I’m bored, I’m the chairman of the bored� in strange keys as he writhed about the brightly lit stage like a crazed and possessed possessy thing, with the usually desperate-to-touch-the-stars Sharons and Michelles recoiling in abject horror at every fitful lunge. He also called Molly “Dogface� – you’ve gotta love the guy!

Whilst this French documentary, complete with an Aussie-ised voiceover and retitled Jesus?.. This is Iggy from its simpler Gallic origins as Le Rage de Vivre (or “Lust For Life�), features many TV appearances by the Iggster, sadly that particular Countdown experience is missing. But there’s plenty of other stuff to make up for it – including a more subdued, but easily as peculiar visitation and striptease taken from French TV.

For those keen to find out a little more about this Detroit lad who is known to his folks as James Jewel Osterberg, this release offers a mighty fine place to plop down in front of and lap up the history. From the inception of The Stooges in the ‘60s, through New York and hooking up with the Velvet Underground, subsequent albums, increasingly OTT stage antics that led to a Total Iggy Ban when it came to playing live in the US, drugs then psych hospital (deep breath)... to teaming up with he who some may call Iggy’s saviour in David Bowie, being hailed the Godfather of Punk when the UK went all safety pins’n’gob in 1977, to accepting MTV Awards to an abundance of solo releases to now (well, 1998 kind of now at any rate), it’s all here in a series of remarkably frank interviews with the man himself taken from throughout his career. And with songs often of such lyrical austerity, who would have thought that he’d be so eloquent? Nobody drops the “F� word quite like Mr Pop, and who else could compare Johnny Rotten to Sigmund Freud? Iggy rocks!

Sandwiched between all the interview stuff are a number of sadly brief live clips. Many of the “big ones� are here in snippet form, including TV Eye, Search and Destroy, Nightclubbing, China Girl and, of course, the song that Trainspotting super-glued into every indie kid’s synapses, Lust For Life (here in no fewer than three incarnations). If you’re quick you’ll also witness some classic Pistols in action (their cover of No Fun) and a few classic bits and pieces from Monsieur David Bowie.

The new interview footage recorded for this full frame feature all looks as fresh as it should, offering up no problems worthy of mention. Meanwhile, the archival footage varies wildly, from surprisingly clear and glitch-free, to horrendously damaged or, in one instance, so blurry and colour-bleeding that it’s hard to discern whether we’re watching a band at play or somebody’s recycled breakfast. In other words, this is par for the course for a documentary – just remember that this isn’t the latest feature film blockbuster and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Popping over to the sound window, we see that the soundtrack afforded this release is a fairly standard Dolby Digital stereo one. The music comes through crystal clear, as does the majority of the dialogue, and in all honesty any sort of 5.1 remix wouldn’t quite seem right for such raw material. Synch varies – some of the archive stuff is just out enough to make you wonder if somebody slipped something dodgy into your dinner, and subtitles are provided for the French bits, which is good for those of us who gave up the language halfway through high school because all our teacher ever did was make us sing songs. All together now, “Sur le pont, d’avignon...� – AGH!!!

Extras. You want extras? Well it’s pretty much a case of tough, as those which are here are pretty lousy. There’s a 15 page selected discography sans album artwork and an image gallery featuring 37 pages of piccies vying to be seen amongst all the disc design elements polluting the place. As we’ve become accustomed to, there’s Umbrella Propaganda, this time in the form of trailers for the Sunbury and Jimi Hendrix Rainbow Bridge releases. We can only wonder as to the perceived relevance – “Uh, Sunbury’s got nude bits!�, or “Well, they were both christened James!� – then again, how about “Umm, Iggy *should* be dead considering all the shit he’s been through in his life...�?

Iggy Pop – Godfather of Punk, remarkably skinny dude, amazing showman, eater of Nico’s cat, bloke who called Molly “Dogface�, hamburger bun. As documentaries go this disc offers up pretty much all you could ever have wanted to see (except full music clips) and quite a bit more – especially if for some odd reason you’ve always had a hankering to check out the Pop willy...