Simple Blues

The last one dropped before I was even born, and I spent most of my adult life resigning myself to new Iggy Pop records, hopefully catching him performing one of the classics.

Sure…by now, everybody and their Grandmother (who, if one is lucky, actually dug ‘em) has heard “I Wanna Be Your Dog” or “No Fun”, either in its original, or covered by the Grandmas who heard ‘em back in the day. For those of us in S.E. Indiana suffering cornpone dt’s, the name “The Stooges” was a whispered, reverant, and secret code for “yer cool…”.

It’s not just that they were punk before there really was such a thing, though to the same twitching aliens finding themselves slogging it out, day after day, in a small town high school that was not really small, feeding the collective egos of “the country” that was, in fact, sprawl waiting to happen. No it wasn’t that.

What it is: The Stooges ARE punk.

Sure, there are others who either defined a form of the above, or just transcended it, and those are the ones who really last, who really become legendary: The Clash, Television, The Ramones, Black Flag, The Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Flipper, The Germs and Bad Brains are all worthy of this taxonomy because, simply, they didn’t really believe in the rules of PUNK RAWK in the first place. To the uniniated, or the young, here are the rules of punk rock:

• Three Chords or less, played very fast.
• Loud, simple songs with lots of shouting.
• Bad Attitude with a heavy dose of hating everything.
• Clothes that you used to have to travel to a bad part of town to buy, probably near a university.

Now, the above bands, to one degree or another, followed these “rules”, especially early in their careers. However, these bands also violated the rules of Punk Rock regularly; The Clash started out being doctrinaire about the rules, down to the clothes and the pose, except they also played Reggae, and from that point, figured out they could do anything.

Television didn’t even sound like a “punk band”, they sounded like the Velvet Underground crossed with Rimbaud and a jam band. They also looked the part. The Ramones perfected the form, sounding like the Raspberries on crank,

While Black Flag practically invented Hardcore, anyone paying attention to the lyrics, both those of Keith Morris and Henry Rollins knows that underneath all that noise and machismo, was some seriously heavy, nuanced lyrics. The same is true of the Germs, and the Dead Kennedys, while sometimes conforming, actually wrote in any style that fit Jello’s prescient world view. Flipper played Sabbath slow, and Fugazi became real musicians, and were able to do what ever the fuck they wanted.

More similar in style to Black Flag than the Clash, Bad Brains also played Reggae, thus violating the rules. Not to mention that the band was all Black and all Rasta, violating an unspoken rule of punk rock (at least if you ask Waddie from the Exploited): Punk Rawk is a white art form, but I digress.

The Stooges were not subject to rules because they made them up as they went, taking the hippie ethic to its logical conclusion: No longer about “freak flags”, it was about real freaks from Detroit, growing up in a trailer park, writing, as Iggy once put it, their “own simple blues” about things they knew. This was no masturbatory Clapton cum Freddie King pastiche: This was real, and because it was real, it was authentic. 8 Mile is the story of these crash street kids as much as it is the story of Marshall Mathers, and for the above reason.

So, all these years later, with a close to proper amount of context give, let us actually marvel at the fact we have lived long enough (because if its an endurance contest, and Iggy’s in it, we’re screwed) to see a new Stooges record, The Weirdness. It looks cool: inky black cover bordered in metallic silver, the word “The Stooges” in the same metallic silver, with the title “The Weirdness” in a white, hand written font.

The back has a black and white live shot of the band, probably from the Detroit Show (!), and inside, more black and white photos; First a shot of surviving band members, The Ashtons finally look like the hitmen they sounded like on the first two records, and Iggy looks like a man that life has tried to kill countless times, yet could never pull it off. The center has another black and white pic of a stage PACKED with people, and in the midst of the maelstrom of pathos that is Stooges particular brand of thunder, stands Iggy-lightning rod, his posture is that of Merseault, waiting to be torn to pieces, surrounded by people, originals and new fans, waiting for the lighting to strike.

With such ostensible ferocity, one has to ask: How does it sound?

The answer to that is simple, if you can dispel history: By this, I mean if you would be able to conceive that this band, or any band, cannot and should not sound like they did, in this case, 37 years later. If you can dispel this mythology, then it becomes clear: This thing fucking rocks.

Steve Albini was smart enough to mike The Stooges (with Mike Watt on bass), and get the hell out of the way. This is his modus operandi, from his work with Big Black to the production of In Utero. Thus, the mix is murky, almost claustrophobic, with thick slabs of riff seeping out of Ron Ashton’s guitar, only to lock on to brother Scott’s rock solid beat. Loose, but with the precision of a steel press. Mike Watt is able to summon the ghost of the long dead Dave Alexander, keeping it loose and simple. Watt, a musician of considerable chops, does not go off into his patented jazz freak out explorations, instead, in an incredible simpatico, decides to stay in the pocket, reveling in the simple blues of the Stooges.

Iggy Pop. Icon. Rockstar.does not make this a star trip, and does not treat this as anything other than his band. Not hired guns or session pros. His band. His voice in actually back in the mix, weaving in and out of the primal chaos created around him. His voice is his instrument in this. Repeat: This is not a solo Iggy record.

Certainly, the songs are there: “You Can’t Have Friends”, “The Weirdness” and “She Took My Money” have all the hallmarks of classic Stooges, but with an extra edge: The “boredom” of the 70’s gives way to the “weariness” of the new millennium, but do not take this for tired, because it couldn’t be farther from it. This “weariness” is that of an existential hero, fed up with the stupidity of his fellow creature, and angry at those who take advantage. The Stooges were never a “political band”, (though the personal politics they describe can certainly be extrapolated), yet here we are with Iggy taking on BushCo in the destined to be classic “My Idea of Fun”, and America in general on “The End of Christianity”. Yet here we are, listening to the forever freaks rail against the system in a manner so primal, so visceral as to make all other critiques of this insanity seem apologetic by comparison, and certainly, making what constitutes “Punk” now, with all its empty pose and REO Speedwagon self congratulatory irony, seem, well, like REO Speedwagon.

The Stooges, writing their “own simple blues” about their fucked up lives spawned the legend that the multitudes have appropriated, but more often than not, have gotten all wrong. The thing about The Stooges, man, is that they were never about rules or fashion, and ever the rule breakers, they broke another unspoken rule of Punk, and Rock in general; It’s a young person’s game. The Stooges, now thirty eight years old as band and its members staring down 60, prove on The Weirdness that if you have a breath left in you, you might as well use it for the purposes of arson, and this record, worthy of the catalog, will burn down any building.

Those who prefer their bondage pants smelling like Bounce©, however, may wanna look else where.
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"ATM" from The Weirdness