The Stooges (1969)

Think Velvet Underground with a grenade up their ass.

Kronomyth 1.0: The next great white hope.

Jim Morrison graduated from UCLA’s film school. Lou Reed graduated from Syracuse University. John Cale studied at Eastman Conservatory on a scholarship from Leonard Bernstein. Rebels with an intellect, you might call them. James Osterberg dropped out of college after six months. Which isn’t to say that Morrison or Reed were elitists. (You can make your own judgment about Cale.) Rather, they were artists with an axe to grind. Compared to them, James Osterberg was an axe murderer. That’s the difference between The Stooges and The Doors and Velvet Underground. They were artists posing as punks, and The Stooges were no posers. It would poetic to think that The Stooges had somehow hijacked a time machine and traveled back from the 21^st century to set the world on its ear, but it’s more likely that they traveled back from an MC5 show or from listening to Velvet Underground at a party, thought to themselves “we can do that” and then did it, only more darkly. Watching from the wings of this new motor city underground mayhem were John Cale and Jac Holzman, no strangers to the gravitational pull of V.U. and The Doors. The Stooges channel that same intense energy. “European Son to Delmore Schwarz,” “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Alabama Song,” The Stooges carry a secret torch for them in their music. The reason it’s taken me two paragraphs to set the stage for The Stooges is that, the first time you hear this music, you’ll swear it’s fake, that nobody could have possibly rocked this hard and heavy in 1969 or predicted punk rock a full decade before it happened. But The Stooges weren’t creating this music in a vacuum. They were taking the most extreme rock and roll from their age and adding their own exclamation point to it. All that said, when you hear 1969 and I Wanna Be Your Dog and Not Right, they’ll knock you on the floor. That opening pair of tracks alone would have cemented The Stooges’ place in history. The second side of music delivers more of the same explosive energy in tight parcels. Driving them are Iggy’s voice, violent and bored, Ron Asheton’s lurid hallucinations framed in hellfire fury, Scott Asheton’s unhinged drumming, and Dave Alexander’s bass facing the impossible task of trying to hold it all together. The album relents a little on We Will Fall, where the surreal shadow of the Velvet Underground is cast over the band for ten minutes. It’s my least favorite track on the album, a case of Cale overreaching. Believe it or not, this album really shines in the later remasters, so you should start there if you’re looking for a copy. Since it seems odd to end this on such a pedantic note, I’ll quote my original ending from progrography mk. I: “I’m listening to Ron Asheton’s guitar solo on Not Right right now and it’s like a giant, beautiful middle finger. The whole album is, really, but you were expecting maybe a handshake?”

Original elpee version

A1. 1969 (4:05)
A2. I Wanna Be Your Dog (3:10)
A3. We Will Fall (10:15)
B1. No Fun (5:15)
B2. Real Cool Time (2:29)
B3. Ann (3:00)
B4. Not Right (2:49)
B5. Little Doll (3:21)

All selections written by The Stooges.

Remastered 2CD Disc Two
B1. No Fun (original John Cale mix)
B2. 1969 (Original John Cale mix)
B3. I Wanna Be Your Dog (original John Cale mix)
B4. Little Doll (original John Cale mix)
B5. 1969 (alternate vocal)
B6. I Wanna Be Your Dog (alternate vocal)
B7. Not Right (alternate vocal)
B8. Real Cool Time (alternate mix)
B9. Ann (full version)
B10. No Fun (full version)

The Players

Dave Alexander (bass), Ron Asheton (guitar), Scott Asheton (drums), Iggy Stooge (vocals) with John Cale (viola on A3). Produced by John Cale; production supervised by Jac Holzman.

The Pictures

Photography by Joel Brodsky. Design by Robert I. Heimall. Art direction by William S. Harvey.

The Plastic

Released on elpee on August 5, 1969 in the US (Elektra, EKS-74051). Reached #105 on the US charts.

1. Re-issued on elpee in 1972 in the UK, France and Germany (Elektra, 42 032).
2. Re-issued on elpee picture disc in the UK (Elektra, 8122736741).
3. Re-issued on compact disc in March 1988 in the US (Elektra, CD 74051) and Europe (Elektra, 60667).
4. Re-issued on compact disc in Japan (Elektra, AMCY-2566).
5. Re-issued on 180g vinyl elpee in 2002 in the US (Sundazed, LP5149).
6. Re-issued on remastered 2CD in 2005 in the US (Elektra/Rhino, R2 73176).