June 18, 2016
The Stooges - The Stooges (self-titled debut album)
I recently purchased The Stooges debut album on vinyl. What a classic. What a story.
*** 1969 ***
The Stooges self-titled album was released in 1969. Think back to that year ... man, these were great times for music.
Crosby, Stills, and Nash released their self-titled debut album as well. The Band released their self-titled album The Band. The Allman Brothers Band released their self-titled debut album. The Beatles released Abbey Road, both Led Zeppelin I and Led Zeppelin II were released in 1969. The The Who released Tommy. The Rolling Stones released Let It Bleed. King Crimson released In The Court Of The Crimson King. The Velvet Underground released their self-titled album The Velvet Underground. Blood, Sweat & Tears released their self-titled album Blood, Sweat & Tears. MC5 released Kick Out the Jams. Santana released their self-titled debut album Santana. David Bowie released his second album which was self-titled David Bowie (also released as Space Oddity). The Easy Rider soundtrack was released. Chicago releases its debut album, The Chicago Transit Authority. The Jackson 5 release their debut album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5.
On January 30 of 1969 The Beatles performed for the last time in public, on the roof of the Apple building at 3 Abbey Road, London. The performance, which was filmed for the Let It Be movie, is stopped early by police after neighbors complain about the noise. On February 24 Johnny Cash performed "A Boy Named Sue" at California's San Quentin State Prison. On March 1 during a performance at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium, Jim Morrison of the Doors is arrested for allegedly exposing himself during the show. Morrison is officially charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent behavior, open profanity and public drunkenness. ON March 12 Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman in London. On March 20 John Lennon married Yoko Ono. From August 15-17 The Woodstock Music and Art Festival is held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, near Woodstock, New York.
Ok ... you get the point ... an incredible year!
Th Stooges self-titled debut album was released one year before Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album and Kiss's self-titled debut album.
The album was reviewed by Edmund O. Ward of Rolling Stone Magazine in 1969 who described the band and album in this way: "The instrumentalists sound like they've been playing their axes for two months and playing together for one month at most, and they just love wah-wah and fuzz just like most rank amateur groups. The lyrics are sub-literate... Their music is loud, boring, tasteless, unimaginative and childish.
I kind of like it."
Ward goes on to write: "They emit a raw energy reminiscent of the very earliest British recordings — ever listen to the first two Kinks records? — and while there is ample reason to put them down, the fun is infectious, and that's more than you can say about most of the stuff coming out nowadays."
That's a pretty good summation. The album is raw, loud, powerful, explosive, and fun. It's simplicity is also quite a contrast to the complexity and musicianship being produced at the time by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Cream.
Their music is said to fall into the protopunk and garage band genres. The Stooges are no doubt one of the most significant early influences on the development of punk rock and certainly had an influence in hard rock and heavy metal as well. Iggy Pop has been dubbed by some "The Godfather of Punk."
In 2003, the album was ranked at number 185 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The same magazine included "1969" in their "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" list. Robert Dimery, writing in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, said that the album was "a collection of brilliant curios, which were neither full-on garage rock, nor out-and-out dirge." In March 2005, Q magazine placed "I Wanna Be Your Dog" at number 13 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote that The Stooges "didn't really sound like anyone else around when their first album hit the streets in 1969. Part of the fun of The Stooges is, then as now, the band managed the difficult feat of sounding ahead of their time and entirely out of their time, all at once."
Side One
1.1969
2.I Wanna Be Your Dog
3.We Will Fall
Side Two
4.No Fun
5.Real Cool Time
6.Ann 7.Not Right
8.Little Doll
I Wanna Be Your Dog
An awesome song! A driving beat made up for only three chords (G, F♯ and E) played nearly continuously throughout the song along with a single-note piano riff played by producer John Cale of The Velvet Underground. In 2004, the song was ranked number 438 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. A great song in the movies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The songs been covered by the likes of Jack White, Sonic Youth, Sid Vicious, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joan Jett, David Bowie, to name a few.
Scene from Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels movie
1969
I'm a big fan of this song too...
Real Cool Time
Prior to calling themselves The Stooges, the bands was called The Psychedelic Stooges and this song has the psychedelic sound to me.
We Will Fall
This song was a surprise to me when I first heard the album. I really liked it! How can I describe it? Sinister or a spiritual, tribal chant? Every worshipping. In the same vein as The Doors "The End" or The Animals - Hotel Hell.
It would also have been a great song for the movie "Apocalypse Now."
"Oh, gi, ran, ja, ran, ja, ja, ran
Oh, gi, ran, ja, ran, ja, ja, ran
Oh, gi, ran, ja, ran, ja, ja, ran
Tonight
I won't fight, I won't fight
Then I whisper to me..."
Being from the metro Detroit area myself, it's also great knowing Iggy and the Stooges were from this area. Iggy was born in Muskegon, Michigan, but then raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan. His dad was a high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. Iggy once told an incredible story about his parents:
"Once I hit junior high in Ann Arbor, I began going to school with the son of the president of Ford Motor Company, with kids of wealth and distinction. But I had a wealth that beat them all. I had the tremendous investment my parents made in me. I got a lot of care. They helped me explore anything I was interested in. This culminated in their evacuation from the master bedroom in the trailer, because that was the only room big enough for my drum kit. They gave me their bedroom."
Iggy's music career began as a drummer in various high school bands in Ann Arbor, Michigan, including the Iguanas. His later stage name, Iggy, is derived from the Iguanas. After exploring local blues-style bands, he eventually dropped out of the University of Michigan. and moved to Chicago to learn more about blues. He was inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like The Sonics, MC5 and The Doors. The first band he formed was the formed the Psychedelic Stooges who played their first show at a Halloween party at a house in Detroit, Michigan. Members of the MC5, who the Stooges shared a house with at one point, were also in attendance.
Iggy was known for outrageous and unpredictable stage antics which was influenced when he saw Jim Morrison and The Doors perform at the University of Michigan in 1967. Pop was the first performer to do a stage-dive, which he started at a concert in Detroit. Pop, who traditionally performs bare-chested, also performed such stage theatrics as rolling around in broken glass, exposing himself to the crowd, and vomiting on stage.
Dave Alexander was the original bassist in the band. His family relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan from Whitmore Lake, Michigan. He met brothers and fellow future Stooges band members Ron (guitar, vocals) and Scott Asheton (drums) while attending Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. Sadly, Dave was fired from the band in August 1970 after showing up at the Goose Lake International Music Festival, in the Jackson, MI area, too drunk to play and he died of pulmonary edema in 1975 at the age of 27 in Ann Arbor after being admitted to a hospital for pancreatitis.
Ron Asheton was once ranked as number 29 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time is currently (as of November 2014) ranked at number 60.
Iggy Pop and The Stooges - Cincinnati Festival - 1970
In an interview, Iggy says he wanted to create a new kind of music... "a complete break with the music that was going on now". And how do you do that... "drugs, attitude, young, and a record collection".
Iggy Pop - Behind the Music
The Stooges at Goose Lake International Music Festival in 1970
A rockin I Wanna Be Your Dog performance !!
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