Emha Ainun Nadjib…and Iggy Pop

This text was written following the Melbourne Writer’s Festival in 2006.

During a couple of hours of spare time, Emha and I idly visited one of Melbourne’s CD shops. There was a selection of cut price CDs and when I showed Emha a compilation of Cat Stevens songs he bought it. Kiai Kanjeng had often played his ‘Wild World’ and Emha was enthusiastic about Yusuf Islam in general, perhaps seeing in him a kindred spirt with regard to Islam and music.

Perhaps you would not expect Emha to consider veteran American punk singer Iggy Pop a ‘kindred spiirt’, but if you were to learn anything from working with Emha Ainun Nadjib it would be that he will always surprise you. I have been a big fan of Iggy Pop for decades and in the CD shop they had a couple of DVDs on offer at sale prices. One of them was a live performance DVD recorded in Europe, August 2005 entitled “Iggy and the Stooges – Live at the Lokerse Festival”. The Stooges had been Iggy’s legendary band in the 1960s. They all had a reputation for wild living and excess. Iggy often appeared semi-nude on stage and acted violently. His concerts were generally considered excessive. Would this be compatible at all with the work and thought of Emha Ainun Nadjib? If so how?

I could not resist adding this DVD to my collection, though I did not at the time expect that Emha would be very interested. Back at the hotel, with a little time to spare, I explained to him the background to punk, its roots and development, about Iggy Pop and his life, about the Stooges and their music. I said that in my opinion it was not easy to reconcile the sound of Iggy Pop’s music, the values he espoused and the life he had led with Islamic values. Emha asked me to play the DVD on the hotel room DVD player. We watched and listened to Iggy and the newly reformed Stooges playing their old songs. There was Loose, Down on the Street, I969, Dirt, Real Cool Time, 1970, No Fun and many more.

Emha liked it. Not only did he like it; he almost instantly appreciated the sound and energy of the music and the performance. I had talked about the seminal 1973 Stooges album Raw Power, and we discussed how that could be translated, interpreted and applied to an Indonesian, and to an Islamic, context. Raw Power became a common phrase for Emha in the months to come. Emha particularly liked the song which closed the Live at the Lokerse Festival DVD and which was often used to close Iggy’s concerts, “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. From that point on, the idea of animals, wildness and raw power became persistent, provocative and powerful themes. We returned to the CD shop and bought another Iggy Pop DVD, this time for Emha, “Jesus, This Is Iggy” a French production compiling interviews, performance clips, biographical material and a narration by the Grand Old Man of Punk himself, Iggy Pop.

Upon return to Indonesia Emha almost immediately gathered Kiai Kanjeng and told them about the exciting new sound and energy he had discovered. They all watched the “Jesus, This Is Iggy” DVD. Then, a generous dose of Raw Power was injected into Kiai Kanjeng’s rehearsals and performances. I went to Yogyakarta with a presentation I had put together in bahasa Indonesia about Iggy and the Stooges. It took Kiai Kanjeng through Iggy’s life and career: The Stooges years, working with David Bowie, reviewing the troughs and peaks of Iggy’s long career, listening to excerpts and then having a long discussion about it. Soon after, back in Jakarta, I began to receive reports of wild punk-style performances by Kiai Kanjeng. I couldn’t believe it. But one night, at Padhang mBulan, I was there to witness it myself as Kiai Kanjeng rocked Iggy style and Islamiyanto, the vocalist, needed no second prompting from Emha to get up and do his Iggy shuffle.

From then on, the essence of Raw Power became a staple component of dialogues at Maiyah gatherings around Indonesia. On September 17th, following a Mocopat Syafaat gathering in Yogyakarta just two weeks after Emha had returned to Indonesia from Melbourne, there was a write-up on the padhangmbulan.com website entiited “It’s Fuckin’ Punk” in which Emha was quoted as telling the gathered audience to “release the animal inside of you – let the wildness out!” Kiai Kanjeng had also composed a punk-style song that they were performing with lyrics attacking corruption.

Emha explained that the spirit and energy of Iggy work was not inconsistent with Islamic values; that Raw Power, seemingly wild and untamed, was not something to shy away from; that it could and should energise what we do. For months to come, Emha would constantly refer to the concept of wildness and its intrinsic value at gatherings and events. Another important ingredient had been added to the Kiai Kanjeng fusion mix.

Emha is now listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Where, I wonder, will that take us…?