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Stooges: Punk legends after 34 years off

Stooges: Punk legends after 34 years off
Steven Bridge  |  by www.newstimeslive.com. All rights reserved. 9.03 | 1:04

The Stooges once made groundbreaking, life-altering music, and they paid dearly for it. Now more than three decades after they came and went, the Stooges have returned, acknowledged as legends and basking in unprecedented respect, adulation and cash.

But old reputations die hard, as Stooges singer Iggy Pop found while recording "O Solo Mio" in Chicago last October, one of about 40 songs he co-wrote to be considered for inclusion on "The Weirdness" (Virgin), the first Stooges album in 34 years, out this week. Pop describes the song with a hearty laugh: "It's very, very difficult, very long and almost monotonous. It's the story of my miserable life.

" After the band recorded it with Steve Albini at his studio, Albini argued that "O Solo Mio" should lead off the album, in part because of its abrasiveness, the way it would separate the true Stooges fans from the latecomers. "Steve said something like, 'It'll make the Stooges fan feel like he's the only person in the world who likes this group.' And I wanted to cry," Pop says with mock exasperation.

"You mean I can't pay my rent and make a living? C'mon, it's 40 years now since I tried to start this band. Can't we be popular?

"

Pop won the argument. "O Solo Mio" won't appear on the CD version of the album, though it will be appended to the vinyl incarnation. But the tale cuts to a deeper truth about a band that never defined its worth by popularity.

In the band's brief life, 1967-74, the Stooges made three albums now considered proto-punk classics: "The Stooges,""Fun House" and "Raw Power." For their trouble, they got booed, bottled and cursed by a hostile audience at their final gig. They broke up in a pool of ill will, drugs and neglect.

Now, the three surviving original members -- Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton and his younger brother drummer, Scott Asheton -- are back with "The Weirdness," a national tour and a reputation as one of the most influential bands in rock history. Though their albums were virtually ignored when they were originally released decades ago, they are now regarded as blueprints for punk, postpunk and alternative rock. Pop, born Jim Osterberg 59 years ago in Ypsilanti, Mich.

, approached his music with absolute certainty. But he had his doubts whether it would ever be appreciated. And to an extent, he still does.

At the height of the hippie era and its claims to youth solidarity, the Stooges sought to provoke. They loudly testified to their dissatisfaction with just about everything and everyone, including the hippies. They were not about peace, love and wearing flowers in their hair.

Pop wore dog collars and dresses, while singing about boredom, anger and sex, sometimes all in the same song. He, Alexander and the Ashetons were Midwestern blue-collar kids who weren't cool enough to belong to anyone's club. Their music was hard, minimal and direct, lubricated by a groove that was rock's answer to James Brown's funk and animated by the spirit of John Coltrane's free jazz.

It was a sound that spawned imitators and acolytes, from the Sex Pistols to Nirvana. But none of them quite matched what the Stooges had: Godzilla-size guitar riffs, a loose, spacious sense of swing, and Pop's wicked wordplay and showmanship. "Throughout the punk scene in the '70s and '80s, everyone leaned on the Stooges' music really heavy," says Mike Watt, co-founder of the California punk band the Minutemen who is now playing bass with the Stooges.

"I was 16 when I first heard 'Fun House,' and it still sounds like it could've been recorded last week. At first it seemed crude, but there are so many nuances in there, it's practically symphonic. At first we thought anyone can do this, but we couldn't really ever do it right.

It was like the Stooges had invented their own music ...

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Keywords: o Solo Mio, o Solo, Solo Mio, Fun House
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