blackleatherbookshelf | Entries tagged with the stooges

The World's Forgotten Boy
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Loud, Rude and crude, "Raw Power" was Iggy and The Stooges at their aggressive best. If any album could be called the birth of punk rock, this is one of the finalists for that decree. Pushed into the maximum volume in this remix by Iggy himself, everything pummels like a series of body blows. It also includes the Stooges' classics "Gimme Danger" and "Search and Destroy." David Bowie had made it his personal mission to save the band (they were without a record deal at the time and were having personnel problems), so he carted the entire crew over to England to record "Raw Power."

The title is apt. The Stooges flail away at hard rockers like "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell" and "Search and Destroy" while finessing the psychedelic songs like "Penetration" or the mix-up of "Gimme Danger." The real hero is Iggy himself, wailing away like a man possessed. Yet at the same time, he bellows under control of his yowling and howling, bringing "Raw Power" controlled chaos that the other Stooges albums lacked. Not for the faint of heart or folks who run away from distorted guitars turned up to 11, "Raw Power" is the most explosive of The Stooges' original trio of albums.

Note: The album has been re-issued with the David Bowie mixes.

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Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "Search and Destroy" The Stooges

Funhouse Mirrors,
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Given the raw and visceral sound of their debut, The Stooges had nowhere to go but up. Which is just what they did on their second album, "Fun House." Suddenly The Stooges were showing that they were capable of playing more than just fuzz-toned psychedelic punks and were proving that they could handle their instruments. It's like they wanted the album to have a sound, even if the band still sounded wound up and frantic to get their point across. Given the rage that fueled the debut, this is quite the coming out party.

It's not that The Stooges were in danger of being mistaken for a folk act. Iggy still howled, barked and grumbled like the wild child he was in those days, and the band wasn't beyond making an incoherent racket (the screamfest "LA Blues"). Here were riffs that were ready made to scream over, or as the liner notes describe, create instant mayhem. The opening cry of "TV Eye" (still an Iggy best of) is followed by a riff so primal that it makes you guess that Johnny Ramone got some of his earliest lessons from this album. Same with "1970," the year after "1969" appeared on the first album.

It was obvious that The Stooges were aiming higher, complete with a sax on the title track, another lengthy psych-out that has Iggy mirroring Jim Morrison. (The whole original side two is akin to the acid drenched rock of the time, less punky and more freaky.) For an album this manic, it's remarkably well produced by Don Gallucci. For comparison, listen to the into-the-red recording of "Raw Power." Ron Ashton's guitar tears through the clutter with razor like clarity, and Iggy, who recorded his vocals live with a handheld microphone so he could make the livest recording possible, is all coiled energy, improvised shouts and hand claps.

Nothing sounded like it then, and there's still little that matches it today. The debut may win the battle for better album just for its sheer audacity, but on "Fun House," The Stooges - as Iggy sang on the title track - came to play.

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Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "TV Eye" The Stooges

Three stars for the music plus a bonus star for the influence
4 Out Of 5 Stars

"So it's 1969, Okaaaaaay?" howls Iggy Pop in the first song on one of the most notorious albums ever released. The Stooges were the anti-band, the angry answer to hippie-lovefests and Woodstock. There was no peace and love vibe to be found here. The result was, to underplay the influence somewhat, a revolution. Other than fellow underground types, "The Stooges" was either ignored or derided.

Personally, I didn't discover them until I was in college. It's easy to see why 1969 listeners blew their noses all over this album. John Cale treated The Stooges as if were arty like the Velvet Underground, but no-one in The Stooges was that sophisticated. Ron Ashton wields a primal guitar, heavy of fuzz and wah-wah, long of unruly solos. Iggy sneers and snarls like a million bored and angry teenagers; both "1969" and "No Fun" are as basic an Eff-You to the world as it gets. It would take The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash to pull Iggy and The Stooges after them in their wake, but for good reason. Nobody was making records like this then. The hypnotic sleigh-bells that drive "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" finds drummer Scott Asheton and bassist Dave Alexander pounding out some kind of mutant Bo Diddly beat while Iggy barks

"So messed up, I want you here
In my room, I want you here
Now we're gonna be Face-to-face
And I'll lay right down
In my favorite place.
And now I wanna Be your dog."

I always wondered if the Ramones swiped "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" from "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" (which Joan Jett dug enough to cover). The fact that it's taken almost 40 years to get the full Stooges discography updated and re-issued tells you how long their influence gestated among the Punks in the late 70's You still have to listen to some really off the wall tracks even by The Stooges standards, like the ten minute psychedelic drone of "We Will Fall" to get to the good stuff, but the best of what's here shows just how far ahead of their time "The Stooges" is.