THE STOOGES

My only regret with the Stooges is the fact that I can't do it over again. Only once do you get the chance to take your sparkly new copy of Raw Power back from the shops, slip in the CD and press play. What happens thereafter - what your ears, mind and soul are exposed to - is a once in a lifetime experience. Sure, there are other bands that rock almost as hard, and having to spend the rest of your life refamiliarising yourself with the Stooges' brief but explosive career is hardly a chore, but the line between your pre-Stooges listening life and your post-Stooges is a thin but unforgettable one. What this boils down to is the fact that there is simply nothing to 'get' about the Stooges, as opposed to, say, the Velvet Underground or particularly someone like Captain Beefheart. You don't need to sit through five sittings before it starts making sense. One chord, one grunt from Iggy, and it all makes perfect sense. The Stooges were the simplest, most primal band conceivable. Like most rock'n'roll bands at the time they really only wanted to be a bunch of Rolling Stones imitators but they were the worst, most inept bunch of clowns out of the whole lot. And because of this they became the best. Steven Tyler might have performed the best 'Stars in Your Eyes' version of Mick Jagger and the irrepressible Johnny Thunders might have passed for Keith Richards's younger, even more irresponsible, brother but it was Iggy's tuneless wails and unhinged drawling, backed by his band's sheer inability to progress beyond three chords and relentless struggle to maintain a 4:4 rhythm, that saw them reach a level of wasted brilliance and incalculable influence that even the Stones themselves would have trouble arguing with.

The Stooges were, in effect, the first band to posit the idea that one could be absolutely great by being, actually, completely rubbish. It does not take a genius to transfer this idea to a later scene and recognise within it the philosophy and basic aesthetics of punk music. The Stooges were (rightly) hailed as the Godfathers of punk a decade after they formed, with the Sex Pistols covering "No Fun", and Iggy Pop finally had people wanting to shake his hand, rather than have him committed. Of course, if an idea takes ten years to catch on one is inevitably going to struggle to make much of it at the time. The Stooges were not just ignored, they were vilified, as self-indulgent prog noodlers and pompous hard rock morons cast their disdain, regarding their own worthless art as the pinnacle of musical genius. It is a wonder they got signed at all and it was thanks mainly to the kind words of their pals in the MC5 (marginally more palatable then, but less influential over time). However, they were shortly dropped after two albums predictably flopped, with the latter now regarded as one of the greatest rock'n'roll albums of all time (imagine telling that to the Electra bosses at the time). David Bowie tried to rescue the career of one of his heroes, as he had done with Lou Reed, and the Stooges briefly reformed with a new guitarist in the early seventies. Bowie's Midas trick failed second time around, though, and his glammy mix of Raw Power has since been replaced by a far better revisionist effort from Iggy. The Stooges soon fell apart for good, though, and from then it took a long, long time for the remarkable transformation in perception to occur, with them going from being rock's worst ever band to one of its very best. Perhaps it is a cliche but if anyone comes along claiming to be a rock'n'roll band you will know from the start they won't even be worth listening to unless they love the Stooges. Indeed, it wasn't so much a case of the Stooges capturing the spirit of rock'n'roll as rock'n'roll capturing them. There have been many great bands over the years but none have embodied the raw power of rock'n'roll like the Stooges.

Surprisingly, for a band that reached the outer limits of both rock'n'roll debauchery and amphetamine-fuelled intensity with just two albums they actually started out in surprisingly restrained form. That is not to say they were sipping mugs of tea and playing delicate acoustic folk, of course, but on their debut they never look nor sound anywhere near as mouth-foaming insane as on the follow up album. The chaotic bloody carnage of Fun House was the natural conclusion of what to do with a band that can't play with a singer who can't sing but who know how to have one hell of a good time. For the first album Electra had misguided ambitions that they would actually turn them into an acceptable rock'n'roll band and hired John Cale to mentor the band in his role as producer. Unfortunately, despite Iggy's literary pretensions, the musical ambitions of the band fell well below Cale's art-school posteuring. He did, in fairness, do a very good job behind the controls, with the sound crisp and dynamic. Unfortunately, a band as inept as the Stooges needed muddy production, to disguise their mistakes, rather than having their deficiences drastically exposed. In fairness, they were not that bad musicians and Ron Asheton is able to cover his back with basic mastery of the wah-wah pedal, whilst his brother and Alexander succeed in rocking on enthusiastically. Iggy, though, is a shadow of what he would become, sounding like a petulant child who wants to go home, rather than the unhinged beast with drugs for blood he later became. He does break out into a satisfying scream at the end of "1969" and "No Fun" but it still represents only the first few droplets of an almighty downpour that was to follow. Regardless of ability the band had their heart in the right place from the start, which, in a way, is kinda what proved so enduring, and their primitive songwriting efforts are almost entirely attempts to write another "Louie Louie". To their probable surprise and eternal credit they actually succeeded. Two of the tracks on here have come to be regarded as proto-punk classics and surely rank as two of the most covered songs in rock'n'roll, at least by bands that mattered. "No Fun" is a fuzzed-up party tune, hell bent in its simplicity, but no-one could ever accuse it of not getting its message across. At a time when the kids were forced to listen to twenty minute suites about armadillo tanks and mutant enemies it must have stood out as a beacon of appealingly authentic rock'n'roll. "I Wanna Be Your Dog", in turn, contains perhaps the most famous chord sequence behind "Louie Louie" and Iggy's lascivious drawl is a perfect match for the reassuringly simple lyrical premise of sexual lust and frustration. The repetitive groove of "1969" (taken to its extreme on the unhinged "1970") is similarly relied upon to frame the most universal of sentiments, with Iggy expressing his dissatisfaction with teenage life in crappy American towns. Indeed, it is often claimed that the term 'punk' as applied to music originated from a disdainful review of this album and the mindless oiks it appealed to. The main problem with this album is that the Stooges were simply not very prolific songwriters. After the three classics, and bar the sinister "Ann", the other songs are simply basic teenage rock'n'roll rip-offs. All are pretty fun and would add up to an excellent little party album if it weren't for the ten minute monstrosity that casts a large shadow over the experience and blights the overall success of the album. With a deadline looming and only seven short(ish) songs written the Stooges and Cale decided to revisit the latter's avant-garde experiments with the Velvet Underground and therefore recorded a ten minute boreathon with Iggy reciting meaningless stream of consciousness lyrics over Cale's droning viola and eerie chanted mantras from the other members of the band. Even if it was supposed to be a magnificently sincere artistic gesture I would have trouble appreciating it but, in any event, it is obviously a result of sheer laziness from the band as they had shown on the rest of the album that they were really only a good time party band (and an excellent one at that). One cannot help but feel they would have been much better off just covering "Louie Louie" and "Gloria" and been done with it. Sure, it still would have been filler but at least it would not have contradicted the vibe of the album or completely ruined the flow of the set. I usually never skip tracks on albums but it is a truly rare occurrence for me to sit through it. It is just so pointless, so incongruous and so bloody long that it achieves no positive purpose whatsoever. It is a real shame as a seven song mini-album it becomes an irrepressible showcase of unsophisticated good time rock'n'roll with enough glimpses of both the character of the band and their approach to songwriting that would make them so unique and influential. Indeed, due to its wonderfully boneheaded simplicity it presents a decent case for being classed as the first ever punk album. And that ain't bad for a band whose two real classic albums have yet to come and spit their insolent fury into the bloated, smug face of seventies rock music.

There are plenty of wrong ways for a band with no musical talent to make an album. There is only one right way and, as it turned out, Iggy and the Stooges got it so right that it took half a decade before anyone even realised it. The band struggled to write traditional pop songs, with little grasp of the structure and melody required, so they simply gave up the ghost. Like their debut, but taken to its gruesome extreme, the 'songs' on here rely on the most primitive of riffing, with them rarely bothering to utilise something as basic as a chorus, whilst the lyrics veer between incomplete to insane. The band still cannot play their instruments very well so Alexander and Asheton, S thump away as quickly and as savagely as possible and Asheton, R rips through as many rip-off riffs as he can remember whilst occasionally leaving the groove for a bludgeoning burst of chaotic soloing. Just for good measure a saxophonist wanders in half-way through the set and contributes his best drunken Albert Ayler impression. All this would probably make for a great album in itself but what takes this sonic rampage to its legendary status is the contribution of some local nut who had managed to wander from his asylum into the recording studio. It is often noted that Iggy grew up a lot in a short space of time and there are few vocalists that have been through such an uplift in ability between two albums. That said, it is not as if Iggy has learnt to sing properly, more than he has discovered how best to compensate for not being able to sing properly. Where he just sounded like a bored teenager on the debut on here he absolutely destroys the material. He grunts, growls, whoops, drawls, screams his way through the set as if the suggestion of actually singing would be a heinous insult. This remains without doubt, twenty five years on, the best, most incredible performance by a frontman ever put to tape. Hundreds of imitators have had their stab at mimicry, with varying degrees of success, but no-one has ever beaten the master. And, of course, if Iggy's performance sounds utterly mindblowing in this day and age one cannot even begin to imagine what it sounded like when it came out. People were no doubt throwing this record away in disgust at the sound of an unhinged personified drug overdose defiling the very concept of what a vocalist should sound like. It is common knowledge that soon after recording the debut Iggy discovered the delights of being a rock'n'roll star and all-but-incinerated his conscious mental state through copious quantities of any drug he could get his hands on. Such gargantuan irresponsibility made for inconsistent live shows and no doubt contributed to the band's downfall but, for one moment, Iggy burnt up the tape in a blaze of glorious debauchery. The album starts out in similar, albeit superior, form to the debut, with three shortish garage rock gems all taken to the next level by Iggy's chaotic vocal assaults. "Down on the Street" could only have been the opener to Fun House with Iggy dropping into Asheton's groove with a plethora of hoots before drawling his way through to the explosive chorus. The vicious "Loose" (built around Iggy's threat to 'stick it deep inside') is a scorched earth rampage of a track, whilst "T.V. Eye" is essentially a physical beating in song form opening with Iggy's other-wordly scream. Although no doubt evidence of a new low in rock nerdiness, when rating great rock screams it is often compared with Roger Daltrey's testosterone war cry on the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" but you can smell the danger with Iggy's 'LOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD!' and almost see the blood frothing at his mouth. The album lets up for the dank and dirty blues of "Dirt" before the entire set degenerates into an aural bloodbath with the unhinged glory of "1970" and the squealing title track. It ends up sounding like a party in a nuthouse and the album appropriately, if disappointingly, crawls to a close with the instrumental breakdown of "L.A. Blues" which really is just a noisy mess. It should not distort the fact, however, that the previous six songs and half an hour of sonic carnage is one of the most unforgettable listening experiences available. It perfectly captures the blood and sweat of rock'n'roll in a way no other band dared to before and no band has succeeded with to such a degree since. Perhaps not the greatest rock'n'roll album ever (perhaps) but certainly the most fucking insane.

After Fun House was not so much ignored as manhandled out the door by disgusted record buyers the Stooges decided to call it a day in the face of such widespread derision. Suddenly, though, flying through the air with his cape billowing behind him David Bowie was spotted and this most benevolent of superheroes decided to dedicate his career-saving talents to a certain Mr. Iggy Pop. Originally the plan was to make Iggy's first solo album and he teamed up with old school friend James Williamson to help with the musical side of things. The duo were whisked across to London by King Midas but when it came to put the rest of the band together Iggy could think of no better drummer than his old pal Scott Asheton. Obviously, one can hardly ask one brother to play and snub the other so Ron joined him on the plane on the condition he fill out on bass instead, given his rudimentary guitar ability. I don't think anyone really knows what happened to Dave Alexander but I'm fairly sure he is long dead now (hence his absence on the Stooges reunion gigs). An album was recorded and Bowie produced. Bowie, however, did not produce very well and the glam rock angle he opted for (in fairness, all the rage at the time) did the songs rough justice and the album again flopped - it wasn't even released for a year after recording finished - and the modified Stooges again and finally (for thirty years) went their separate ways. The chapter did not close on Raw Power there, though, because, as is surely common knowledge, Iggy was invited to remix the album in the late nineties and did so with such gleeful irresponsibility, with such adherence to the ethos of the Stooges, that the results produced one of the most incendiary rock'n'roll albums ever released. To a professional the remix is horribly amateurish but, of course, that fits perfectly with the very essence of the Stooges. As if to prove his point the master volume is turned ridiculously high, making this album at least twice as loud as any other CD in circulation. What this of course means, and as my introduction suggests, is that no-one forgets the first time one presses play. Williamson was a far more competent guitarist than Asheton, one might even say excellent, and as a result this sounds less like the mindless carnage of Fun House and far more like a furious but nonetheless focused blast of long haired, amphetamine fuelled rock'n'roll. It is entirely predictable, in retrospect, that Lemmy attributes the very existence of Motorhead to this album, given they spent their entire career trying to rip it off. What with the ear-bleeding remix and wild-eyed rush it can take a while for one to realise that, unfortunately, the band didn't quite manage to write enough content to match the finish. With Williamson on board the focus is forced to switched back to the songs as the band can no longer get away with the delirious spontaneity of Fun House. The majority of this material is undoubtedly monumental, and the opening two songs are close to being as perfect as rock'n'roll gets, but "Penetration", for instance, is too pre-occupied with its incongruous celeste to notice the song went missing. Still, one is carried along by the rush of the set to really notice that much. The first two songs alone carry you through to the end of the album with their blistering violence and aggression. The opening fury of "Search and Destroy" is a punch in a gut and the clatter of the guitars combined with Iggy's hollering makes for one of the most explosive openings to any album ever. The following "Gimme Danger" even adds some actual intelligence to a Stooges album with it starting out as an ominous ballad before finally exploding into such a ferocious climax that one is simply left reeling. There is no let up either as "You're Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" is just a fireball of pure fury. Things do perhaps ease down a gear from then on but the title track is a vicious, snarling beast of a song (and one of the most imitated in rock history) whilst the closing "Death Trip" is indeed a six minute joy-ride of breathless intensity. Indeed, one wonders what the kids at the time would have made of it with Iggy's remix, rather than Bowie's thinner, tamer version, but it is perhaps for everyone's good that it was kept caged for a while. It might not be flawless but it all adds up to a listening experience no-one will forget in a while.

From: BackroomOtto@aol.com 

Why do you think Funhouse is better than Raw Power? Actually, why do you think Iggy's horrible remix is better than Bowie's original? ACK! LoL

From: DavisChapulin@aol.com

fuck you --raw power baby and nothin' else asshole!

Due to the period at which the Stooges were active and the fact that their commercial impact at the time was neglible there are no pristine recordings of the Stooges in all their live and unleashed glory. Like the MC5 the best you can hope for is recordings where you can actually make out a semblance of what is going on. As far as I know, despite the fact the sound quality is merely passable, this is the best Stooges' live recording on the market. On the other hand, the sound quality is of only secondary importance compared to the events that surround the gig on the first CD of this compilation. Recorded in Detroit in February 1974, as the CD proudly proclaims, this is a recording of the last ever Iggy and the Stooges show. Furthermore, this ain't just some half-arsed kiss-off to the dwindling fan-base but the most bitter, violent and confrontational show perhaps in the history of rock'n'roll. As the sleeve-notes recount, over live radio Iggy taunted the local Hells Angels into coming down to his gig and 'doing their worst' which, as the recording documents, they clearly did. Throughout the gig the sound of smashing glass and crashing projectiles can be heard before, right at the end, a bottle knocks Iggy out cold. The performance itself is perfunctory without perhaps being their greatest ever but what makes the gig is Iggy's disillusioned and bitter outbursts at the uninterested 'fans' and the marauding biker thugs. Iggy introduces the opus "Rich Bitch" by spitting out 'I don't care if throw all the ice in the world - you're paying five bucks and I'm making ten thousand, baby - SO SCREW YA' and, later in the same song, 'you pricks can throw every goddamn thing in the world... and your girlfriend will still love me - ya jealous cocksuckers'. And if you could choose the most appropriate end for the Stooges you'd be hard pushed to find a better one than what proved to be the reality - a debauched cover of "Louie Louie" and then Iggy being knocked out by a hurled bottle from the audience. As the instantly distinctive opening chords to "Louie Louie" start up from Williamson Iggy crys out 'I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD COME TO THIS BABY!' as he realises the circle is complete and they have ended as they begun - a garage band playing "Louie Louie" to an entirely uninterested and unreceptive audience. As a historical document the record probably isn't as important as Dylan's similarly confrontational 1966 electric gig but, if anything, this is even more fascinating, spurred on by Iggy's bitter disillusionment. With regards to the music the sound levels occasionally fluctuate even within songs, which is disappointing, and Iggy is mixed much louder than the rest of the band, although that's probably a good thing as it means you don't miss a word of his angry diatribes and obviously he was always the key performer in the band. Also, the pre-Raw Power days are completely ignored, no doubt due to James Williamson's presence, and a pianist (Scott Thurston presumably) is present throughout. Only "Gimme Danger" is an album track, though, as the band instead choose to perform outtakes from Raw Power and material for a potential fourth album. Even ignoring the confrontational nature of the gig the recording is interesting as an indication of what the follow-up to Raw Power might have sounded like. And it is a real shame that it never came to be as the songs are brilliant. "Cock in My Pocket" is hilariously crude ('I co-wrote this song with my mother'), "I Got Nothin'" is a ballad of extraordinary quality, aided by superlative backing vocals, and the cutting "Rich Bitch" is perhaps the single most enjoyable piece in the whole package. As well as Iggy's hilarious bitter jibes the song rambles on for upwards of eleven minutes with great lyrics about spoilt American women ("the hebrew ladies" as Iggy offensively puts it) and a superb middle-section where the band break down and Iggy embarks on more of his bitter ramblings. The second CD is a recording of a gig a few months earlier, in October 1973, with no particular historical importance although Iggy seems equally as pissed off. 'We're the hardest-working band in the business', he tells the equally uninterested crowd, 'I don't care if we're the best'. The sound quality fluctuates less and more Raw Power material is played including the title track, "Search and Destroy" (which suffers from muted recording quality) and an epic rendition of "Gimme Danger" which makes its misogynist lyrics more obvious ('I swear you're gonna feel my hand'). Again no pre-Williamson material is played (Iggy refuses continuous requests from the audience for "I Wanna Be Your Dog") and there is more new material. "Heavy Liquid" is also on the first CD but the sound quality doesn't hamper it this time whilst "Head On", like "Rich Bitch", is stretched out to allow Iggy a rant about 'buttfuckers trying to run my world'. The album closes with "Open Up and Bleed" which seriously sounds like it could have been the Stooges' greatest ever song. It is a distinctly Stones-esque ballad with a wailing harmonica intro and a fantastic vocal performance from Iggy, spitting out lyrics about the trials of being a Stooge. All in all, though, the second CD is more a bonus and complement to the first than an astonishing independent performance. So long as you can handle the slightly sub-standard sound quality then there is no conceivable reason for a Stooges fan not to own this album. Certainly the first CD is one of the most fascinating rock'n'roll documents in existence.

With just three albums to their name (really two and a half if you discount "We Will Fall") one gets rather desperate to hear some new Stooges material. Like the MC5, there are shitloads of cheap compilations flooding the marketplace which all contain various samples of the same material from the same source. I have not investigated it myself in enough detail to verify or deny the claims made on this 2CD compilation but, apparently, this material originates from left-overs of the Raw Power sessions, studio rehearsals in 1973 (around the time they were playing the gigs that Metallic KO samples), and three tracks from a performance at a casino in Baltimore in 1973. The sound quality of the live recording is useless and one is much better served going to Metallic KO to hear "Rich Bitch" and "I Got Nothing", even if the vulgar "Wet My Bed" is a new exclusive. If we are to take the word of the compilers of this collection then we should be shocked at the quality of the material they left off Raw Power. The hilariously vulgar "Cock in My Pocket" is pure dynamite, as is the full-tilt run-through of "Rubber Legs", whilst "Open Up and Bleed" is a superb cynical ballad (a la "Gimme Danger") and the groove-based "Head On" and "Johanna" could probably match the similarly inclined material from Fun House. That material of that quality should have been excluded in favour of the rather more mundane "I Need Somebody" or "Shake Appeal" seems, at best, misguided. However, I have my doubts as to whether this material really did originate from the same sessions given Scott Thurston is conspicuously ever-present on the piano and he did not join the band until they returned to their native Detroit. On the other hand, the material on the first CD is far more fleshed-out and complete than the songs gleaned from the rehearsal tapes on CD2 which, "She Creatures of the Hollywood Hills" apart, are glaringly embryonic. Most are obviously just ideas that the band are jamming with, trying to draw something more concrete out, and you can even hear Iggy talk the band through the arrangement on "Born in a Trailer". Furthermore, the wonderfully named "Jesus Loves the Stooges" is just Thurston goofing around on the piano. Disc One also includes radio performances of "Hard to Beat" (which is excellent) and "Raw Power" and the single release "I Got a Right". The latter is quite a gem and the ferocious speed and intensity of it brilliantly pre-empts the hardcore punk-thrash of Motorhead. Given the package includes twenty songs the material can get pretty patchy at times but it does essentially the job of unearthing the material that could have gone on to form the Stooges' fourth album. The likes of "Open Up and Bleed", "Rubber Legs", and "I Got a Right" suggest that, with some meaty production (akin to the Raw Power remix), the Stooges could have released another rock'n'roll masterpiece. It all seems rather a shame they had no fans, critics hated them, other rock bands spat at them, and Iggy was near-murdered by bikers. Otherwise, who knows...

• Return to the main page

Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk