STOOGES APPRECIATION
Cosmo
9,768 Posts
I'll be honest with you. I'm just not hip. I never really was... at least to The Stooges I wasn't.Shit, back in the early/mid 80s I remember my mom going out for the evening. "Where you going Mom?""Iggy Pop is playing at Club Memphis around the corner.""Okay" and I went back to drawing or playing with fucking G.I. Joe.Many years later in 1994 (I was 20) I was living in Brooklyn and posted at my man Robbie's house. He pulled out a record and put a song on as we were getting ready to go out. The song was "The Passenger" and I've been connected to that record ever since. 5 years after that, I had my first menage-a-trois and the song that sparked it was "Some Weird Sin" off that album. Yeah, it continued through both Blondie and Madonna's Greatest Hits... but I know that it started deep in the belly of some dark rumbling beast.Right now, iTunes is doing the random thing and "Search And Destroy" came on and as wifey is sleeping in the other room and I'm composing emails, all those fucking feelings rushed back to me JUST LIKE THAT. Raw fucking power to the nth degree and that is no joke. So anyway, yeah. This is one of the greatest songs in the world. And I am not hip, I just play like I am on the internet.
Fuck what you fucking think. This dude is rock and roll.
Fuck what you fucking think. This dude is rock and roll.
Comments
Gross.
That's powerful music.
It's funny how so many people I know get all purist when you mention the "remastered" version, that it's somehow a betrayal of the spirit of the o.g. version. Personally, I'm just happy to hear a version of that record where it doesn't sound like the rhythm section's playing in a different postal district from the guitars and vocals. To me, it sounds closer to how it was probably meant to sound in the first place. "Gimme Danger" is incredible, and "Shake Appeal" is one of the funkiest punk-rock songs ever.
I might have read somewhere recently that the CD reissue isn't a true remastered mix, but is just re-EQ'ed, because the o.g. masters got either damaged or lost.
Raw Power Stooges
Vs.
The OG Stooges
Funhouse is their finest moment overall, but Raw Power is right there with it. By that time though, too many cooks in the kitchen to keep it moving.
A nurse at the hospital I work weekends at is like a total Iggy fanatic, like Fan Club archiver type stuff, travels all over to catch the Ig and now the re-united Stooges. She said that James Williamson(the Raw Power guitarist and fellow former junkie cohort of Iggy's) is currently straight and a computer programmer in So Cal.
Then there's Scotty Thurston, the Stooges keyboardist, who for a while was a journeyman player with all kinds of touring outfits, including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Also check for:
Ron Ashton's Destroy All Monsters
Rona Ashton and Dennis Thompson (MC5 drummer) combine forces with 3/5s of Radio Birdman in a 1 off group called New Race
Iggy and James Williamson's Kill City(post rehab, still jonesin', post Raw Power)
Personally, I think that the trebly sound of it adds to it's over the top charm, I mean those Williamson solos just ride over the top like there is no logic to them, but they really come across! You know me, tho, Francis, I have a teribble ear for that kind of detail in general. I have a 3rd version, the Ashton bros 'Rough Power' mix on Bomp, and it just sounds even more demo-y.
-k
I saw Beck at Roseland in NYC years ago and Iggy Pop (tiny little fella) sat down righ next to me and proceeded to come on to a 15 year old girl (maybe younger). Make of that what you will.
And if you're not adverse to digital, the Rhino Handmade CD box set of the 'Funhouse' sessions - unadulterated Stooges glory warts and all in the studio... It's out-of-print, but well worth the search/lookout...
Yeah...that is certainly not for the casual fan. A friend of mine has it, and loves to talk to me about the alternate take of LA Blues, at which point I just kinda glaze over. I mean I am a huge Stooges fan, but I guess at a certain point enough is enough. The box is certainly done right and with a lotta love!
When I last spoke to Deniz he was relocating his family to Australia, and finalizing his job offer at some hospital dwon there. It sounds like Birdman is still flying occasionally, enough that he wanted to be closer to the home base. His wife Angie Pepper also was also rumored to be reuniting her old group, the Passengers, which featured guys that would go on to play in the Barracuda and also in Deniz's solo bands.
Anyone interested in Birdman should get a copy of this book for the full unbridled account:
Angie was w/ him at that gig (close to some 10 years ago now - he was still @ the clinic he was runnin' in MT at the time)... He's quite the renaissance man - recognize!
That indeed is a sublime read - pretty much the definitive Birdman account...
Though I will admit that back in the day (circa '86-'88) my man would correctly point out that when somebody slapped The Stooges on the turntable at punk/hipster houseparties, it usually meant the party was about to die. So we'd make sure to be out of there well before "I Wanna Be Your Dog" got cranking to avoid the "sitting on the sofa smoking while watching bad latenight TV" syndrome.
Then again, the DJ (and bandmate) team of Mike & Anja Stax played that tune at ModChicago and it was rather invigorating to hear.
Priorities in order.
but the remastered raw power is hotter than hot.
the liner notes are pretty funny too.. iggy talking about how if he'd have had his way the record would have come out like some 80's hardcore mix.. all treble and no lo end everything slammed into the red.
i think his mix for the remaster is totally incredible though... there's a point in search and destroy where the already massivley loud ass guitars just DOUBLE up for the final rock out at the end.. insanity... that guitar tone is just mental.
Sonic and Iggy aka "WHEN GODS UNITE":
there desperately needs to be a solid Stooges documentary ala A True Testimonial. there's so much exciting drama there that needs to be told in the film medium. it is so hard to find quality live footage of them. Open Mind Records here sold a bootleg of some early performances but the quality was shite.
Good? Gooder than good?
God bless the Stooges. I first heard them when I was a senior in high school and they definitely changed my musical life. Its funny how many people dont "get them". Here in Memphis there are so many bands who worship them, emulate them, play sloppy like them, but they still dont get "it". You can sound like the Stooges, but at the end of the day, you arent dangerous like the Stooges, and that is so much what the Stooges were about. You can hear it in Iggy's voice, the guitars and everything, it was/is dangerous music and no one will ever be able to re-create that. So, if you are in a Stooges-like band and are reading this, please stop, you are never going to get there.
GIMME DANGER
indeed!
way too many hilarious stories of the iggster
one of my faves is when he was drafted....
he reported for duty.. they all strip down for the medical inspection and iggy has made sure that he's popped a nice big wood!
talk about a ballsy way to get out of the army!