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• The Stooges (1969)
• Fun House (1970)
• Raw Power (1973) - by Iggy and The Stooges

The Stooges ( 1969 )

8

1969 / I Wanna Be Your Dog / We Will Fall / No Fun / Real Cool Time / Ann / Not Right / Little Doll

This must be one of 1969’s dirtiest releases. Maybe not the heaviest album from the era (Blue Cheer’s Vincebus Eruptum (1968) or Led Zeppelin’s debut?), but you can’t deny that large parts of this album are downright weird to have been released in the year that also brought us Let It Bleed, Tommy, Arthur and The Soft Parade. Yeah, I mentioned those albums on purpose, because I’m convinced that they were made by bands who must have influenced The Stooges (in)directly. These bands, and the Velvet Underground of course. They took The Who’s primal power, added The Kinks’ early simplicity, The Stones’ sleaze, The Doors’ theatrics, and finally a VU-obsession with distortion and drones.The music on this album sounds exactly how those four guys on the front and back cover look: ugly, primitive, and scruffy. Not yet dangerous, but definitely more perverted than The Rolling Stones would ever look or sound. Still, John Cale (who also produced other classic proto-punk debuts The Modern Lovers (released in 1976, recorded in 1973) and Patti Smith’s Horses (1975)) could have done a better job, since some of the songs have a flat production that makes different song parts almost undistinguishable. Well, they weren’t exactly great songwriters at the time, of course, but that doesn’t imply that each song should be treated as monotonous drone, right?

“1969” starts off really good, though, with a dirty wah-wah sound, and a typically repeated drum pattern (Scott Asheton never proved he could provide more than some basic drumming, but that’s exactly what he did like no one else before or after him) over which Ron Asheton’s grinding distortion and fuzzed guitars and Iggy Pop’s snarly vocals sound really cool. A track that today still rocks like hell. Something which is also true of “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” a primitive slab of raw and menacing rock ‘n roll that makes good use of sleigh bells and a fuzzy guitar solo. I’d better delete that last part, since all the songs here have savagely unsubtle guitar solos. Except for “We Will Fall,” a lengthy ‘song’ that almost succeeds in ruining the album’s appeal. Droning along for more than ten minutes, and obviously VU-inspired (Cale provides some viola in the background), it has some awkward hypnotic chanting (is that English?), while Iggy utters some silly lines. It is obvious on this track, though, that Iggy was at this stage very much influenced by Jim Morrison’s equally bombastic stage presence; just listen how he seems to imitate the Lizard King’s sleazy pronunciation (an insightful book to check out more of the Morrison-Pop link is definitely Danny Sugerman’s tale of ‘glamour and excess’, Wonderland Avenue).

The second side of the album contains some more good stuff: “No Fun” is another raw and lengthy track, with Iggy really freaking out this time (“Well, come oooooohhhhnn!!”), and Asheton churning out another fucked up solo. An example of a song almost ruined by the production is “Real Cool Time,” a short and monotonous but sinister-sounding track that suggests our gentleman caller isn’t out for a dance at the local ball (and 22 years later, The Feelies would put a definitive version of this song on their masterpiece Time For A Witness). “Ann” has more primitive drums and more Morrison-inflected crooning along with another distorted solo, but is the second side’s weakest track. The following track, “Not Right,” isn’t especially impressive, either, but this time it has a guitar solo that sounds really cool and not over-fuzzed; this sound would reappear on albums by The Butthole Surfers (really, Paul Leary must have been directly influenced by stuff like this). “Little Doll,” the album closer, is an unashamed rehashing of “1969” (with a few more cymbal crashes added), but that’s a good thing I guess.

The Stooges is a bit of a one-dimensional album that doesn’t have much to offer in the songwriting and accomplished musicianship-department. On the other hand, that’s exactly a part of their appeal, as the band proved that basic instrumentation, an oversized attitude, and a willingness to try new things (they weren’t just copycats, but innovators) could get them a record contract and a fine debut album. Taking rock ‘n roll further back to its liberating core as a means of expression, The Stooges would further ‘refine’ on their attack on their second album, which would prove to be the band’s masterpiece.

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Fun House ( 1970 )

10

Down On the Street / Loose / T.V. Eye / Dirt / 1970 / Fun House / L.A. Blues

Fun House, released merely a year later than their debut, is an insult to good taste and conventional expectations about rock music. The Stooges had already made it clear that these kids weren’t playing the game by the proper rules and preferred their own chaotic pamphlet instead. Nothing could have prepared the public for this however, since we’re dealing with one of the heaviest, most uncompromising and intense albums I’ve ever heard (imagine how it must have sounded in 1970). It sounds raw, primal, and at times even demented and downright chaotic. The drums are still as rudimentary as before (in each song), so it’s no use giving a detailed description. Similarly, the bass playing is limited to some simple figures employing just a few notes. Ron Asheton’s guitar sounds even dirtier than on the debut, although it’s less fuzzy now. The greatest improvement over the debut is Iggy Pop’s singing, though. His performances sound confidently possessed as he moans, snarls, screams, and grunts his way through this glorious 36-minutes mess of a record, the ultimate shot of adrenaline.

The pounding “Down On the Street” (probably the album’s most conventional song) immediately shows it’s getting serious now, with a vicious guitar attack (with two layers over each other during the chorus) that prepares for what is to come. It’s a song reduced to the very basics, taking rock almost back to avant-garde, and sounds wild and reckless. Even more violent (and fast) is the highly energetic “Loose,” and a notable thing about this song is the experimentation going on with the (dis)advantage of stereo sound, as a fuzzy guitar comes through the first channel, and a ‘cleaner’, wailing guitar through the other. The lyrics are really rudimentary (“I’ll stick it deep inside, cause I’m loose, I feel fine to be dancin’”) and Pop sounds positively out of his mind. The scream (“Looooooooooord”) that sets off “T.V. Eye” is followed by crunching guitar and then loud pumping bass (filling up an entire channel, sending the guitar back to the other one) and drums. Again, the lyrics (“See that cat, yeah I do mean you, she got a T.V. eye on me” etc) don’t seem very meaningful, but they weren’t interesting in the first place, Pop applying all his energy to his demented howling (later even ‘coughing’ and mumbling in a deep baritone which he would use more and more, also on his solo efforts). A highlight section in the song is the repeated “brother,” after which the music stops for a second and is reprised by the guitar and drums that finish the song. “Dirt” begins with a 6-note bass line and meanders slowly along while the interplay between Pop and Asheton’s guitar takes center stage, the guitar accentuating the lyrics “I’ve been HURT” with short bursts of wailing noise.

A blistering start to what used to be side B is given by the classic “1970” (a reference to “1969,” of course, and using the same bass line), as fast and belligerent as “Loose.” “I feel allright” is what Pop yells over and over again, but the way in which he pronounces it, in combination with the music, suggests he’s in a quite different mood/state (he may as well plant a knife in your back). The song also introduces sax player Steve Mackay, whose playing gets increasingly wild and chaotic, matching Pop’s outrageous yelps. “Fun House,” the album’s longest song (7:46), boasts another classic bass intro, and an exciting guitar/sax-battle, with both maniacally performing and trying to top each other, after which Pop starts ‘singing’ or bringing a psychotic imitation of James Brown, depending on your point of view. Both guitar and sax move to the background, but return to propel the song to a mad intensity only matched by the free jazz-interplay of Peter Brötzmann and Sonny Sharrock in Last Exit. The album closes with “L.A. Blues,” a culmination of all previous things, a chaotic wankfest of the highest order, with steadily rolling drums, screeching saxophone and wailing guitar. Rawer than anything before, it is a statement that can’t be ignored and a final chapter to an album that pushed rock ‘ roll to its outer limits. Some might argue that The Velvet Underground were first with their deconstructionist first two albums, but whereas the former were consciously turning excessive feedback into a heady art form, these thugs – spearheaded by rock’s foremost raving lunatic - were possessed by a hereto unmatched primal energy and wildness. The result is an astonishing blast of rock ‘n roll no self-proclaimed music fan should be without.

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Raw Power (1973)

8.5

Search and Destroy / Gimme Danger / Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell / Penetration / Raw Power / I Need Somebody / Shake Appeal / Death Trip

For me, it all started with Henry Rollins. When I first witnessed (I must’ve been 15 or so) one of his shows, I was totally baffled by the guy’s stage behaviour, wasting no time on superfluous banter, just prowling there bended over, screaming his lungs out. Wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, that huge tattoo on his back caught my (and everyone else’s) attention: a huge sun that looked as if it announced the apocalypse and above it the words “SEARCH & DESTROY.” It certainly fitted the man (during those days he must have been one of the most intense performers on this planet) and it didn’t take me long to discover where he got it from. It was his own tribute to the wild Stooges-song bearing the same title, a song that conveyed the same sense of undiluted psychotic violence as Rollins’ performance on that day. It was also his tribute to Iggy Pop, the ultimate stage freak, who wasn't hesitant to take risks, and while it wasn’t Rollins’ shtick to provoke an audience, they shared the same dedication and primal approach. At the time, “Search and Destroy” must’ve sounded truly insane (I mean … Jackson Browne and James Taylor had replaced the psychedelic sounds in the charts, right?), and it does even now. By choosing that particular song, Rollins paid respect to the essence of rock ‘n roll, to not following the rules, to an outcast essence.

I mean, get your hands on a copy of Raw Power and listen. There are several versions around of the album, and all of them will do, but if you get the original Bowie mix, we’re dealing with the same album. There’s also the (rare) version that has the recordings before Bowie got his hands on the mix (which I never heard), and the late ‘90’s version (see cover photo above), produced by the Popster himself. What got into those guys when they recorded it during the summer of ’72, I don’t know, but the album sounds so incredibly fucked up and perverted at the same time. Play “Search and Destroy” and crank up the volume: objectively speaking, the mix is horrible – where’s the bass, where’s the drums? – but wait ‘till that guitar kicks in and Pop gets to that “Somebody’s gotta save my soul”-line and it falls into place. Everything about this song is grotesque, from the lyrics (“I’m streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm, I’m a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb”), to Pop’s focused insanity, to the almost ridiculously blunt performance of the band, to, finally, that guitar sound that suggest Williamson’s going to slit your throat right after the song’s finished. Despite its “shortcomings”, “Search and Destroy” appealed to me like few songs did before. It was blood-raw, it was crass, extreme, threatening, it was a song that somehow seemed to have touched upon the essential core of rock music, or one that – like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “God Only Knows,” “Respect” or “The Great Valerio” – was possessed by some über-force, one that transcended 99% of all other attempts. This one was the exact opposite of, say, Brain Salad Surgery: a gigantic vital cry (despite the less confident message of the song – “I’m the world’s forgotten boy”), a life-confirming blast and a colossal kick under the butt. Pretty ironic, considering the fact it sounded like this because of some technical problems (or perhaps no one was capable of handling the equipment).

However, despite the magnitude of the opening song, the remainder of the album can’t really live up to that high standard. Whereas Fun House was about getting your face smeared on the pavement for 35 minutes, Raw Power starts off with one huge beating that’s followed by seven kicks in the groin, some being harder than others. There’s nothing here to suggest Pop and Williamson were a great team of songwriters, but there are some tracks that could be seen as ancestors of the songs and albums that would have a large impact on the rock scene a few years later. “Raw Power,” for instance, is a blueprint for lots of simple, rock ‘n roll-based punk rock, sounding blunt and wild, and that one-note piano thing would be recycled by literally hundreds of bands. The sludge and chaos of Fun House has largely been replaced by more accessible garage rock and – blasphemy! – the use of acoustic guitars during “Gimme Danger.” It doesn’t seem that interesting in the beginning, but the steadily intensifying nature of the song, Pop’s deranged howling and some great guitar parts make it pretty damn convincing. “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell” (originally titled “Hard to beat”) sounds like a demo recording and is basically another old-fashioned rock ‘n roll song played by a few madmen, but it also goes to show that the band’s sound wasn't that far removed from the Stones' sound, as Williamson’s riffs could’ve been Richards’ if the latter drunk kerosene instead of booze and played with iron nails instead of a pick. Album closer “Death Trip” probably sounds the worst of all, with the guitar sound just disappearing completely now and then, but it’s again Pop’s deranged vocals and Williamson’s equally demented solo near the end that’ll have you raise your eyebrows and mutter “What the fuck?”.

Some people will probably try to convince you the entire album is manna from heaven, but that’s not how I hear it: “Penetration” has a nice swampy sound, the slow and bluesy “I Need Somebody” is something of a surprise (a concession?), and the primitive “Shake Appeal” sounds like the Flamin’ Groovies on speed. As suggested repeatedly, these songs are good, but nowhere near as invigorating as the track that kicks the album off. How could it be? Most artists never make/write/record such a great song in their entire multi-decade career. Again, it’s quite ironic that such an uncontrolled bunch of guys was capable of that. They went further than any other act at the time: The Velvet Underground regarded conventions with disdain and sang about cough syrup and other illegal substances, The MC5 kicked more ass than a premier league rugby team, and The Stones were supposed to deliver the ultimate rock ‘n roll experience, but not one band took it as far as Iggy and The Stooges. This band should be considered as nothing less than an essential band in the (d)evolution of rock – music as we know it today wouldn’t have existed without these guys – a band that took risks, didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything and made one undisputed all-time classic (in my book) and a final studio album that’s “graced” by one of the greatest songs of all time, to which the rest is a first-class bonus. OK, that last remark didn’t make sense and this ‘review’ was one long incoherent rambling, but don’t forget I’m not the one who’s getting paid to do this kind of stuff. Chuck Eddy is.

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Read album reviews of similar or related artists: Henry Rollins (Solo) - Rollins Band - Henry Rollins Live - Iggy Pop - The Hives

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