RO: And people still say that music sucks now...

HR: Well then they suck! Those people are the problem. Music is fine. What, music is boring now? No, you are boring now. And now you are making me boring. You have to get away from these people who are so dismissive. Check out what Mike Patton is doing with Ipecac or what Ian still does with Dischord. Look at all the noise bands all over the world with so many cassette labels, so many bedroom bands, garage band, bands that only tour basements. The underground is happening.

I have gray hair and I will go to some youth show and they look at me like,"Oh, look at the NARC." Its fine, they can make fun of me. When I buy the records they are like "Are you sure, dude? You may break your hip."

RO: What is it like being recognized out and about now?

HR: People will make a big deal out of ignoring me. I got it, you don't care. I think it's cool. I'm the old guard now. I'm the fuzz. They don't have to put too many calories into it. It's not hard to meet me since I wait by the bus until everybody leaves. Everyone gets to meet me. It's funny to see people make the recognition and then walk by like they didn't see me. They will figure it out later and go "Man, I shouldn't have been such a turd."

RO: What's your involvement with the Stooges' Raw Power reissue coming in April?

HR: The box set is coming out soon, and I did some of the liner notes. I just filmed an interview for the documentary as well. They are remastering the David Bowie mix and someone from Creem magazine told me that it will blow your mind. You will see more what Bowie was going for.

RO: The Bowie mix is insane...

There are two mixes: The Iggy mix from 1997 that I am sort of partially responsible for and that Bowie mix. Having heard Iggy's bootlegs mixes from the years before, I know there are more guitars, backing vocals and handclaps that Bowie left off for whatever reason.

They found three real outtakes for the box set that I had never heard, but heard rumor of in England many years ago. There are so many bootlegs out there that are basically the same, and Ron Asheton taped all the rehearsals. Some of them are really good-sounding. He released them in different ways on little labels, with copyright law being looser in Europe. I buy them all because the sound quality may be better on some and there is one song I have maybe never heard before.

Years ago when I was younger I would bug the Stooges and MC5 guys like "Where are the tapes, man?" and they would say they were too high and didn't record anything. I actually asked Iggy once where the stash was and he said, "Well, there is one multi-track live thing in my closet."

I think it's from this New York show at the Kennedy Center where he is out of it and he sings the lyrics to "Rich Bitch" on the song "Head On." It was a bad show, the band was falling over and Iggy was kind of unconscious. Sony rolled multi-track tape that night.

7 p.m. at House of Blues, 1204 Caroline, 888-402-5837 or www.hob.com/houston.