April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iggy Pop, who turns 60 tomorrow, can look back on a life of hell-raising and rabble-rousing, including the night in 1974 when he tried to provoke a riot at Detroit's Michigan Palace.

It was Feb. 9, the crowd was jeering, and an almost naked Iggy was covered in sweat and blood, bellowing, ``I am the greatest!''

Bottles, eggs and lit cigarettes rained on the stage. ``You missed again, so better luck next time,'' Iggy sneered as the moronic inferno of his band, the Stooges, drowned out the mob at the concert shortly before the group broke up.

Paul Trynka, a former editor of music magazine Mojo, recounts that scene in his fast-paced biography, ``Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed,'' which comes as the Stooges are touring together to promote their first studio album in three decades.

Iggy's band mates thought him an indestructible star ``who hoovered up whatever drugs were placed in front of his nose,'' Trynka reports, recalling rock debauchery complete with orgies and parties with David Bowie. More than once, fellow band members found Iggy unconscious an hour before a concert; they revived him with injections of methamphetamine sulfate.

His behavior on stage was equally erratic: One insane concert dive left him with lacerations after he landed on a table of glasses. During his ``crowd walks'' over the heads of fans, crazed female fans tore off his clothes. More often than not, he would strip onstage and taunt the audience, on one occasion carving an X into his chest with a steak knife.

`Overachiever'

Yet perhaps the most surprising thing about Iggy -- apart from the fact that he's still alive -- is that he started out as James Newell Osterberg Jr., a straight-A student from a trailer park near the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Osterberg overcame his underprivileged origins by working hard. In 1962, his classmates voted him ``most likely to succeed.''

He was an ``overachiever,'' his teenage girlfriend, Jannie Densmore, told Trynka. ``I always thought he would do something larger than just grow up, marry, live and die in Ann Arbor.''

The pictures in the book tell the story. In 1965, he was still clean-cut, though drumming with the Iguanas. By 1969, he was already looking the worse for wear. He had met brothers Ron and Scott Asheton and formed the Stooges. Iggy admits he let them corrupt him. In almost every picture from then on, Iggy looks wrecked and has a different girlfriend.

The Stooges years are documented in a variety of naked photos from a time when Iggy was producing records that proved more influential than commercially successful. Albums such as ``Fun House'' and ``Raw Power'' earned him the nickname ``the Godfather of punk.''

Stolen Mattress

The nadir came in 1975. By then, Iggy had lost his record contract and his friends. Left with drug addiction and debts, he took to sleeping in a Hollywood garage on a stolen mattress.

After a spell in a psychiatric hospital, he was found by Bowie and toured with him in 1976. The two look like twins in a picture taken in Moscow's Red Square that year.

Iggy's solo albums produced by Bowie, ``The Idiot'' and ``Lust for Life,'' proved turning points. The final picture in the book shows Iggy, smiling and wearing an electric fuchsia suit alongside his black Rolls-Royce Corniche at his Miami retreat -- a success at last, on his own mad terms.

``How could one musician be so revered, yet so reviled?'' Trynka asks. ``And how could one man be so clever, and so stupid?''

Happy Birthday, Iggy.

``Iggy Pop'' is published by Broadway (384 pages, $23.95) in the U.S. and in a slightly different form by Sphere (18.99 pounds) in the U.K. The new Stooges album, ``The Weirdness,'' is from Virgin ($12.98, 8.99 pounds).

(Mark Beech writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this review: Mark Beech in London at mbeech@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 20, 2007 02:03 EDT