“IFELT up to the task of producing Raw Power while we were making the music,” Iggy recalls. “But as soon as we finished I became drained and unsound. So it was going to be impossible for me to mix that thing correctly. I was carrying these two giant boxes of 24-track tapes around London. Later, I c arried them to America. I became obsessed. The treble couldn’t be trebly enough. The bass couldn’t be low enough.”
Instead, Bowie took the helm in a rushed, violently treble-heavy mix which left the Ashetons almost inaudible. This became Raw Power’s most distinctive feature. “That toppy, screechy sound with hardly any bottom end was what punk was all about,” argues Jim Reid. “A lot of weird things going on in it sonically are accidental – because everything’s in the same clangy, top-end area, so everything’s crashing into everything else. But punk rock was born that day.”