The Stooges

All Music Guide:

During the psychedelic haze of the late '60s, the grimy, noisy and relentlessly bleak rock & roll of the Stooges was conspicuously out of time. Like the Velvet Underground, the Stooges revealed the underside of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, showing all of the grime beneath the myth. The Stooges, however, weren't nearly as cerebral as the Velvets. Taking their cue from the over-amplified pounding of British blues, the primal raunch of American garage rock, and the psychedelic rock (as well as the audience-baiting) of the Doors, the Stooges were raw, immediate, and vulgar. Iggy Pop became notorious for performing smeared in blood or peanut butter and diving into the audience. Ron and Scott Asheton formed a ridiculously primitive rhythm section, pounding out chords with no finesse -- in essence, the Stooges were the first rock & roll band completely stripped of the swinging beat that epitomized R&B and early rock & roll. During the late '60s and early '70s, the group was an underground sensation, yet the band was too weird, too dangerous to break into the mainstream. Following three albums, the Stooges disbanded, but the group's legacy grew over the next two decades, as legions of underground bands used their sludgy grind as a foundation for a variety of indie rock styles, and as Iggy Pop became a pop culture icon.

After playing in several local bands in Ann Arbor, MI, including the blues band the Prime Movers and the Iguanas, Iggy Pop (born James Osterberg) formed the Stooges in 1967 after witnessing a Doors concert in Chicago. Adopting the name Iggy Stooge, he rounded up brothers Ron and Scott Asheton (guitar and drums, respectively) and bassist Dave Alexander, and the group debuted at a Halloween concert at the University of Michigan student union in 1967. For the next year, the group played the Midwest relentlessly, earning a reputation for their wild, primitive performances, which were largely reviled. In particular, Iggy gained attention for his bizarre on-stage behavior. Performing shirtless, he would smear steaks and peanut butter on his body, cut himself with glass, and dive into the audience. The Stooges were infamous, not famous -- while they had a rabidly devoted core audience, even more people detested their shock tactics. Nevertheless, the group lucked into a major-label record contract in 1968 when an Elektra talent scout went to Detroit to see the MC5 and wound up signing their opening act, the Stooges, as well.

Produced by John Cale, the Stooges' primitive eponymous debut was released in 1969, and while it generated some attention in the underground press, it barely sold any copies. As the band prepared to record their second album, every member sank deeper into substance abuse, and their excess eventually surfaced in their concerts, not only through Iggy's antics, but also in the fact that the band could barely keep a simple, two-chord riff afloat. Fun House, an atonal barrage of avant-noise, appeared in 1970 and, if it was even noticed, it earned generally negative reviews and sold even fewer copies than the debut. Following the release of Fun House, the Stooges essentially disintegrated, as Iggy sank into heroin addiction. At first, he did try to keep the Stooges afloat. Dave Alexander left the band and after a spell in which Zeke Zettner and then James Recca took his place, Ron Asheton moved to bass as James Williamson joined as guitarist, but this incarnation wasn't able to land a record deal, despite recording a handful of demos. For the next two years, the band remained in limbo as Iggy weaned himself off heroin and worked various odd jobs.

Early in 1972, Pop happened to run into David Bowie, then at the height of his Ziggy Stardust popularity. Bowie made it his mission to resuscitate Iggy & the Stooges, as the band was now billed. With Bowie's help, the Stooges landed a management deal and a contract with Columbia, and he took control of the production of the group's third album, Raw Power. Released in 1973 to surprisingly strong reviews, Raw Power had a weird, thin mix due to various technical problems. Although this would be the cause of much controversy later on -- many Stooges purists blamed Bowie for the brittle mix -- its razor-thin sound helped kick-start the punk revolution. At the time, however, Raw Power flopped, essentially bringing the Stooges' career to a halt, with the band's disastrous final gig captured on the live album Metallic K.O.

In 1976, Bowie once again came to Iggy's rescue, helping him establish himself as a solo act by producing the albums The Idiot and Lust for Life and playing keyboards in Iggy's road band. In time, Iggy established an international following as one of rock's great renegades, but the other Stooges didn't fare quite as well. Dave Alexander died of pneumonia in 1975, aggravated by an inflamed pancreas. James Williamson returned to Iggy's circle as a songwriter and producer on the albums New Values (1979) and Soldier (1980), but in the 1980s he dropped out of music and began a successful career in electronics. Ron Asheton and Scott Asheton launched a band called the New Order (no relation to the successful British group), but it didn't fare well and soon split up. In 1981, Ron Asheton was recruited to join New Race, a short-lived side project formed by Radio Birdman guitarist Deniz Tek which also featured MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson and Radio Birdman alumni Rob Younger and Warwick Gilbert. However, the group (as intended) split after a single Australian tour and album. After returning to Michigan, Ron gigged periodically with Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival, acted in a handful of low-budget films, and in 1998 he recorded with the ad hoc band Wylde Ratttz, featuring Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Mark Arm from Mudhoney, and Mike Watt, ex-Minutemen and fIREHOSE. Wylde Ratttz's cover of "TV Eye" appeared on the soundtrack of the film Velvet Goldmine, but the group's album remains unreleased. Following the Stooges breakup, Scott Asheton played with a few local groups in Detroit before joining Sonic's Rendezvous Band in 1974, with Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5, Scott Morgan of the Rationals, and Gary Rasmussen of the Up; the band earned a potent reputation as a live act, but record labels were wary and the group slowly faded out by the end of the decade.

In 2002, Ron Asheton and Scott Asheton joined J Mascis + the Fog for a tour in which they performed a handful of Stooges classics from the group's first two albums. The show's were enthusiastically received, especially in Europe, and word got back to Iggy Pop, who had been talking with Ron Asheton on and off for several years about a possible Stooges reunion. In 2003, Iggy was recording the album Skull Ring, which featured contributions from a number of noteworthy bands, and he decided to add the Stooges to the roster; the Asheton brothers backed Iggy on four cuts (with Ron handling both guitar and bass), and on April 27, 2003, the Stooges played their first concert in 30 years at California's Coachella festival, with Mike Watt sitting in for the late Dave Alexander. The reunited Stooges began hitting the road on a semi-regular basis for the next three years, playing major festivals in Europe and the United States, and in the fall of 2006 the group entered Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago, IL, with engineer Steve Albini to record The Weirdness, an album culled from 22 new songs written by Pop and the Ashetons. The Weirdness was released in March 2007, followed by a major world tour.

Wikipedia:

The Stooges (also known as Iggy and The Stooges) are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan, first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003. Although they sold few records in their original incarnation, and often performed for indifferent or hostile audiences, the Stooges are widely regarded as instrumental in the rise of punk rock, as well as influential to alternative rock, heavy metal and rock music at large. The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked them 78th on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

History [edit]

Formation (1967–1968) [edit]

Iggy Pop (born James Newell Osterberg) played drums in several Ann Arbor-area bands as a teenager, including The Iguanas and, later, The Prime Movers. The Prime Movers nicknamed Osterberg "Iggy" in reference to his earlier band.

Osterberg was first inspired to form the Stooges after meeting blues drummer Sam Lay during a visit to Chicago. He returned to Detroit with the idea that simply copying established blues performers was not enough – he wanted to create a whole new form of blues music. Brothers Ron (guitar) and Scott Asheton (drums) and their friend Dave Alexander (bass guitar) rounded out the rest of the band, with Osterberg taking vocal duties. Osterberg was drawn to Ron Asheton after seeing him perform in a covers band, The Chosen Few, believing "I’ve never met a convincing musician that didn’t look kind of ill and kind of dirty, and Ron had those two things covered!" The three nicknamed Osterberg "Pop" after a local character whom Osterberg resembled. Shortly after witnessing an MC5 concert in Ann Arbor, Osterberg began using the stage name Iggy Pop, a name that he has used ever since.

The band's début was at a Halloween concert at their house in State Street in 1967. They did not play live again until January 1968. During this early period, the Stooges were originally billed as the "Psychedelic Stooges" at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan, and other venues, where they played with the MC5 and others. At one of their early Grande Ballroom performances, Asheton's guitar neck separated from the body and forced the band to shut down during the opening song, "I Wanna Be Your Dog".

The group's early sound was very different from their later music; critic Edwin Pouncey writes:

Commercial struggles, the self-titled album and Fun House (1968–1971) [edit]

The Stooges soon gained a reputation for their wild, primitive live performances. Pop, especially, won fame for his outrageous onstage behaviour—smearing his bare chest with hamburger meat and peanut butter, cutting himself with shards of glass, and flashing his genitalia to the audience. Pop is also sometimes credited with the invention or popularization of stage diving.

In 1968, the Stooges were signed by Elektra Records, who had sent a scout named Danny Fields to see the MC5. He wound up signing both acts. The following year, the band released their self-titled debut album, The Stooges, but it did not sell very well, nor was it well received by critics at the time. Legend has it that half of the album, which was produced by former Velvet Underground bassist John Cale, was written the night before the first session.

A second album, Fun House, followed in 1970, which featured the addition of saxophonist Steve Mackay. Many consider Fun House to be the best representation of the Stooges, as the main goal of the album was to capture the manic energy of their live performances. On June 13 of that year, television captured footage of the band at the Cincinnati Pop Festival. While performing the songs "T.V. Eye" and "1970", Pop leapt into the crowd, where he was hoisted up on people's hands, and proceeded to smear peanut butter all over his chest. In a broadcast interview at WNUR Northwestern University radio station in Evanston, IL in 1984, Stiv Bators of the Lords of the New Church and the Dead Boys confirmed the long-standing rumor that it was he who had provided the peanut butter, having carried a large tub from his home in Youngstown, OH and handing it up to Iggy from the audience. It has since become an iconic rock image.

Fun House, like the debut album, was poorly received by both the general public and the critics. Alexander was fired from the band in August 1970 after showing up at the Goose Lake International Music Festival too drunk to play. He was replaced by a succession of new bass players: Zeke Zettner and James Recca. Around this time, the band expanded their line-up by adding a second guitar player, roadie Billy Cheatham, who was replaced by James Williamson.

At this point, the Stooges, with the notable exception of Ron Asheton, had all become serious heroin users. The drug was introduced to the band by new manager John Adams. Their performances became even more unpredictable, and Pop often had trouble standing up on stage due to his extreme drug abuse. Elektra soon dropped the Stooges from its roster, and the band went on hiatus for several months. The final line-up was Pop, the Asheton brothers, Recca and Williamson.

Raw Power and breakup (1972–1974) [edit]

With the band in limbo, Pop met David Bowie in September 1971, and the pair became good friends. Bowie, then at the height of his Ziggy Stardust-era fame, brought Pop and Williamson to the UK and got them a deal with Columbia Records. The pair attempted to reconstitute the Stooges with British musicians, but finding no suitable additions, brought the Asheton brothers back into the band (this "second choice" decision rankled Ron Asheton, as did his change from guitar to bass). This line-up, billed as Iggy & The Stooges, recorded their third album, the influential Raw Power (1973). At the time, the album was criticized by diehard fans who said that Bowie had mixed it poorly (in subsequent years, various pirate fan recordings were assembled and released as the album Rough Power. In 1997, Raw Power was re-mixed by Iggy Pop and re-released). Raw Power would go on to become one of the cornerstones of early punk rock, although the album sold rather poorly, and was regarded as a commercial failure at the time of its release.

With the addition of a piano player (briefly Bob Sheff and then Scott Thurston), the Stooges toured for several months, starting in February 1973. Around this time they also made a number of recordings that became known as the Detroit Rehearsal Tapes, including a number of new songs that might have been included on a fourth studio album had the band not been dropped by Columbia shortly after the release of Raw Power. In early 1973, James Williamson was briefly fired due to pressure from the band's management company; guitarist Tornado Turner replaced him for a single gig, but Williamson soon returned to the group. The Stooges disbanded in February 1974 as a result of Pop's ever-present heroin addiction and erratic behavior (at least off stage, as many people around the band acknowledged that while performing or rehearsing, Iggy had more focus). The band's last performance of this era was captured on the live album Metallic K.O..

Post-breakup (1975–2003) [edit]

After going through rehab, Pop embarked upon a successful solo career in 1976, beginning with the albums The Idiot and Lust for Life. Relocated to Los Angeles, California, Ron Asheton formed the short-lived band The New Order (not to be confused with the UK band New Order), with Stooges alumni Recca and Thurston. Ron Asheton later joined Destroy All Monsters. Williamson worked with Pop as a producer and engineer during his early solo career – the Kill City and New Values albums are a product of this collaboration – but began a long break from the music industry in 1980. Scott Asheton performed with Sonic's Rendezvous Band and the Scott Morgan Group. Dave Alexander died of pulmonary edema related to his pancreatitis in 1975.

In 1997 a reissue of Raw Power remixed by Pop was released, with a far more aggressive mix than the original release. In 1999, re-issue label Rhino Handmade released the seven disc box set 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions, composed of the entire recording sessions surrounding the Fun House album. 3,000 copies were pressed, selling out in less than a year.

In 2000, indie rock veterans J Mascis (of Dinosaur Jr) and Mike Watt (of the Minutemen and Firehose) teamed up with Ron Asheton and drummer George Watt to perform Stooges covers (and other material) live. Billed as J. Mascis and the Fog, the band performed sporadically before catching Pop's attention in 2003.

Reunion, The Weirdness and Ron Asheton's death (2003–2009) [edit]

Pop and the Ashetons first reunited that year, appearing on four songs on the Skull Ring album with Pop on vocals, Scott Asheton on drums, and Ron Asheton on both guitar and bass. Shortly thereafter, the Stooges officially reunited, performing a series of live shows in the United States and Europe, with Watt on bass at Ron Asheton's request, and Fun House-era saxophonist Steve Mackay. Their Detroit homecoming show, postponed by the 2003 North America blackout, was released as the DVD Live in Detroit.

On August 16, 2005, Elektra Records and Rhino Records issued newly remastered 2-CD editions of the first two Stooges albums, featuring the original album on disc one and outtakes (including alternate mixes, single versions, etc.) on disc two. Unlike the 1997 Raw Power reissue, which was a total remix from the original multitracks, these remasters are faithful to the original mixes.

In 2007, the band released an album of all-new material, The Weirdness, with Steve Albini recording, and mastering done at Abbey Road Studios in London, England. The album received mixed to negative reviews from the press. The band also contributed a cover of Junior Kimbrough's "You Better Run" to a tribute album for the late blues artist.

The Stooges spent the years between 2003 and 2008 touring extensively, playing shows on five different continents. Highlights included performances at several events involved with the All Tomorrow's Parties concert series, Pop's 60th birthday on the stage of San Francisco's Warfield Theater, touring with the Lollapalooza festival, and a performance of two Madonna covers at the Michigan-born singer's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in protest of the Stooges' failure to receive an induction into said institution despite six nominations. (Two years later, the band was successfully inducted.) A low of this touring era occurred in the August 2008 when the band's equipment was stolen in Montreal, Quebec. Initially, the reunited band's sets consisted solely of material from The Stooges, Fun House, Skull Ring, and The Weirdness. By 2008, the band had added "Search and Destroy", "I Got a Right" and "Raw Power" to their set lists. The band's final show with Ron Asheton was on September 29, 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

On January 6, 2009, Ron Asheton was found dead in his home, having reportedly suffered a heart attack several days earlier. He was 60 years old. In their official statement, the group called Asheton "irreplaceable".

On October 1, 2009, The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story by Robert Matheu and authorized Alice Cooper biographer Jeffrey Morgan was published in hardcover by Abrams.

Return of James Williamson (2009–present) [edit]

In a May 2009 interview, Pop announced the band's plans to continue performing with James Williamson returning as guitarist. Pop stated that "although 'the Stooges' died with Ron Asheton, there is still 'Iggy and the Stooges'". Their first concert occurred on November 7, 2009, in São Paulo, Brazil. The band added material from Raw Power and several of Pop's early solo albums to its repertoire.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the band through their Class of 2010. The band had previously been nominated for election seven times, each unsuccessful. Their performance for the event included a guest appearance by former keyboardist Scott Thurston. Performances with Williamson continued, including the 2010 All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Monticello, New York, where they performed Raw Power in its entirety. A re-release of Raw Power was released on April 10, 2010, including the first remastering of the David Bowie mix and a live 1973 performance. The following year, Detroit author Brett Callwood published The Stooges - Head On: A Journey Through The Michigan Underground, a book which focuses heavily on the Asheton brothers activities after the initial decline of The Stooges.

On February 25, 2013, Iggy Pop reunited with the Stooges to release Ready to Die. The album was released on April 30 on Fat Possum.

Influence [edit]

Videography [edit]

DVD [edit]

Equipment [edit]

Guitar rig and signal flow [edit]

A detailed gear diagram of James Williamson's 2011 Iggy & The Stooges guitar rig is well-documented:

References and footnotes [edit]