TRIBUTE TO RON ASHETON WITH IGGY AND THE STOOGES, ANN ARBOR MI 4.19.11: Open Up and Blood, Sweat, Tears and 'Fanecdotes'
"This is one of the best photos of Iggy today...very cool and sexy~" "Classic Iggy in-the-crowd shots, like those pictures in Surfing Magazine that they take inside the curl" "This is the baddest Iggy has looked in years!" (Facebook music enthusiasts admiring the few photographs I'd leaked of the gig.) And why not? (not the compliments to me, the ones to the singer.) For festival band gigs, Iggy Pop rarely encounters neither Stooges purists en masse nor unbarricaded crowd adulation within which to foist his famous contortionist, still shirtless, utterly feral, fearless and buff at 64, mega-physicality. The ritual crowd stage invasion (despised by security everywhere) usually has to suffice in place of his wildly extreme audience interactions of yore. The payoff at this intimate gig was his prolonged crowd surfing and his surprising demeanor. He grinned often and warmly espying his hometown people cheering on one of their own. Another payoff: no matter how familiar the wondrous music to its cogniscenti who've heard all the new shows on myriad formats, they were still are in for surprises galore live.
You can read about thoroughbred racing, you can study bloodlines and pedigrees, you can think you know it all as a racing fan. But you don't, not until you experience racing in person and actually hear the thundering hooves louder than you ever thought possible and witness the horses even more magnificent in their extreme and sweaty power than you ever imagined. Same with Top Fuel Drag Racing. Or Iggy and The Stooges.
I'm an
advocate of all senses firing on all cylinders, and the Ann Arbor show
had it all amongst bizarre
happenstances you don't get on the aural stuff-- Iggy crawling into
the audience to stare at people, lungs heaving and dripping gallons of
sweat on all around him (fun olfactory too I'll bet; a report on touch
upcoming,) prolonged crowd surfing by him, constant smiles to the crowd
of despite the requisite fearsome expressions donned for such hardcore,
kickass material, far more band
interaction than one might suspect and of course, that selfsame band
making all the
complicated, breakneck speed music seem... easy. I've also heard new
converts espouse this as the best live reunion band around, bar
none. Gasped another FB proclaimer to me, "I actually was SHOCKED at
the intensity of this band."
When she got home, tests
proved she was good to go for a very long time. Mlle. Prof explained,
"When my surgery and prognosis turned out so well, I kind of wondered
how I was going to fill up the next thirty years of life. Now I know.
I'll be a Stooges' fan."
"It's a bit strange turning into a fan as an adult. I feel as if I'm growing up in reverse, having spent my teenaged years studying Latin and doing homework, etc. I had no idea it was coming, but I know that Iggy changed my life."
She wrote "I'm interested in some high-level discussions of what these kinds of performance 'do' for people." My own take was that it represented high-octane happiness (as opposed to daily low-grade happinesses) insofar as this was by its very nature fleeting, like having sex. She countered "So one gives oneself over to these moments, knowing they cannot last. The madness can't last forever. Your basic Dionysian cult of the Mysteries!" As for a seemingly reserved university professor embracing the fearsome rep of the world's most pro-active, wild band, she notes "I sometimes tell my students that if no one is pissed off at you, you're not doing your job."
Very first month online, I wanted to
research what was the adult version of fandom, to better hone the
appeal of my own photo-taking and writing, settling on Alan Rickman
(pre-Harry Potter) sites to view what grownups wrote about grownup stars
without the kiddie spamming. The actor seemed like an intelligent guy
who put a lot into his roles and worked continually, fomenting fan
discussions anew. I learned about slash and fanfiction from this foray.
Seguing back to the Stooges, Mlle. Prof embodies the best of this adult
version, letting something in the arts be a force for good in her own
life.
Ardent advocate of Flarf (distant cousin to the aforementioned outsider literary pursuits within fandom,) Mlle. Prof alone has been elected Stooge For A Day online by Williamson who commanded "Go forth and have no fun." She countered privately, "I'm blown away by James' level of attention to someone he hadn't met, who it doesn't profit him in any way to cultivate, etc. I'm even more impressed than I was before. He has an inspired and focused work ethic for things he really cares about."
It
should be noted (as in Dire McCain's extensive 30 pp. interview with
him in Paraphilia # 5) that for the next three and a half decades after
Iggy and The Stooges swan song, audience-battery implosion onstage in Michigan circa 1974,
Williamson had walked away from the idiots in the music business who
couldn't fathom his having changed all hard rock genres forever. (All
are based upon his at the time, sui generis style of 1,000 mph
guitar-playing while retaining both precision and emotion. Fast songs
used to be propelled by its drummers alone.) After a university degree
he got in on the ground floor of (according to those in the know) the
fun 'Wild West' days of total creativity in the beginning of the
computer revolution, which must have reminded him of his former passions
in music and paralleled same. Raising his own happy family in Silicon
Valley, rising to Vice-President of Technology
Standards in the Sony
Corporation, taking early retirement to rejoin
his old band with his first Stooge gig in 38 years to a throng of 40,000
attractive young Brazilians in Sao Paulo,
his Stooges finally garnering induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 2010 after seven previous rejections, and rediscovering the joy
of playing guitar as one of its best practitioners ever, all this has
given Williamson's life story a happy-ending piquancy of sorts, rare in
the annals of rock.
And yet... the highlight of the show sprang from an odd new instrument in the Stoogean arsenal with the heretofore unheard acoustic ballad "Ron's Tune" which began:
"This is a requiem
For a heavyweight
Another testimonial from a fan at the Michigan Theatre
Deniz
Tek's portion of the show found him sporting one of Ron Asheton's
guitars to play the latter's material from 1969 debut "The Stooges" and
1970's "Funhouse." "Dirt" remained the standout, Tek snaking its slower
tempo quite sinuously. Channeling Ron was no mean feat, insofar as the
still movie-star handsome Dr. Tek has forged his own strong persona via
his Australian band Radio Birdman (the name itself a mishearing of a
Stooges' lyric in "1970") during the original '70s punk era, solo work
and multiple bands since (including the New Race with Ron Asheton and
the MC5's Machine Gun Thompson,
both fresh from their prior the New Order collaboration)
within his multiple careers.
Far in her distant past, she'd turned down blitzed-to-the-gills advances from one of them, who was projectile-vomiting profusely as well as repeatedly falling over in the gutter outside the Whisky A Gogo. (Luckily the proverbial moment of clarity to seek help soon occurred for him. She later was ashamed it hadn't for her to help what was obviously a dude in severe distress.) In darkened rooms she had listened over and over to "Kill City" when it finally was unleashed years after the band's breakup. With its languid but forceful musicality reminiscent of The Bigs in the music world, ("Exile on Stooge Street" some termed it,) "Kill City" seemed to mirror the unlikely combo of arrogance and despair in her own quest to get the art out and the love in. Luckily as well, the latter ensued via her still ongoing relationship with her better half, a onetime proto-punk lead singer in the early 1970s himself. Once there had been a few very late night phone calls from Ron Asheton (a smart and funny guy but inveterate night owl) that annoyed her better half, who now had to arise at 5 a.m. for work. She genuinely regretted never being able to get the two of them together to talk guns, assorted weaponry and military history knowledgeably from similarly well-informed, warped, witty rock and rollers' P.O.V.s
Set List (as held by Deniz Tek in the photo): Space
Age Toasters perform/Orchestra overture/I Got A Right (Henry Rollins
with Scott Asheton, James Williamson, Mike Watt, Steve Mackay)/(Iggy
joins for full Iggy and The Stooges set: Raw Power/Search And
Destroy/Gimme Danger/Shake Appeal/1970/Night Theme/Beyond The Law/Fun
House/Open Up And Bleed/Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell/I Wanna Be
Your Dog (with orchestra)/(with Deniz Tek and orchestra) TV
Eye/Loose/Dirt/Real Cool Time/Ron's Tune (Iggy Pop, James Williamson
alone)/No Fun (everyone back onstage performing all together like oldskool Rock televised extravaganzas
by Heather Harris
all photography © 2011 Heather Harris
all photography © 2011 Heather Harris
FAQS: April
19, 2011, Ann Arbor, MI, Tribute to Ron Asheton with Iggy and The
Stooges and friends Deniz Tek, Henry Rollins MC-ing and hilariously
monologuing, young band The Space Age Toasters who opened with Stooge
covers, and a small symphonic orchestra that backed the Deniz Tek on
guitar portion of Stooge songs after the actual band's set. The
Michigan Theatre, sold out venue capacity: 1,700 rapid all-ages, mobbing, throbbing fans. The band: co-founders Iggy Pop vocals/subversion +
Scott "Rock Action" Asheton drums, James Williamson ("Raw Power" and
"Kill City" releases co-writer) on guitar, Mike Watt (the Minutemen,
Hypenated-Men,
fireHOSE, Hellride, the Secondmen and at least four other bands) bass,
Steve MacKay ("Funhouse") saxophone. Organizer: Kathy Asheton with all
proceeds benefiting the Ron Asheton
Foundation, (http://www.ronashetonfoundation.org/) its mission to fund
veterinary care for needy animals, subsidize public school music
education plus
promote
animal welfare
and assist all aspiring young musicians. (You see where the young band
and orchestra fit in now.) Cinematic documentation: famed American auteur director Jim Jarmusch. Bizarre factoid: a sturdily built male security guard passed
out from the massive body heat of the animated crowd (despite it snowing
outside some 24 hours earlier) and had to be revived with ice. Not
exaggerated apocrypha at all: he was treated right next to your humble
Paraphilia photojournalist.
More than any prior performance of the reunited after 3 and a 3/4 decades Iggy and The Stooges, this gig celebrated fans as much as musical panegyrics to the beloved, late founding guitarist of The Stooges. You'll meet some of them in a moment. Both jet-setting Stooge enthusiasts and the locals alike scored an up close and personal concert in this deluxe oldskool, gilded movie palace ("Welcome home Iggy and The Stooges!" spangled on the theatre's marquee.) These Stooges, hometown once-underdogs-now-Rock and Roll Hall of Famers normally entertain rather larger capacity audiences, usually festivals of 10K to 40,000 strong.
More than any prior performance of the reunited after 3 and a 3/4 decades Iggy and The Stooges, this gig celebrated fans as much as musical panegyrics to the beloved, late founding guitarist of The Stooges. You'll meet some of them in a moment. Both jet-setting Stooge enthusiasts and the locals alike scored an up close and personal concert in this deluxe oldskool, gilded movie palace ("Welcome home Iggy and The Stooges!" spangled on the theatre's marquee.) These Stooges, hometown once-underdogs-now-Rock and Roll Hall of Famers normally entertain rather larger capacity audiences, usually festivals of 10K to 40,000 strong.
"This is one of the best photos of Iggy today...very cool and sexy~" "Classic Iggy in-the-crowd shots, like those pictures in Surfing Magazine that they take inside the curl" "This is the baddest Iggy has looked in years!" (Facebook music enthusiasts admiring the few photographs I'd leaked of the gig.) And why not? (not the compliments to me, the ones to the singer.) For festival band gigs, Iggy Pop rarely encounters neither Stooges purists en masse nor unbarricaded crowd adulation within which to foist his famous contortionist, still shirtless, utterly feral, fearless and buff at 64, mega-physicality. The ritual crowd stage invasion (despised by security everywhere) usually has to suffice in place of his wildly extreme audience interactions of yore. The payoff at this intimate gig was his prolonged crowd surfing and his surprising demeanor. He grinned often and warmly espying his hometown people cheering on one of their own. Another payoff: no matter how familiar the wondrous music to its cogniscenti who've heard all the new shows on myriad formats, they were still are in for surprises galore live.
You can read about thoroughbred racing, you can study bloodlines and pedigrees, you can think you know it all as a racing fan. But you don't, not until you experience racing in person and actually hear the thundering hooves louder than you ever thought possible and witness the horses even more magnificent in their extreme and sweaty power than you ever imagined. Same with Top Fuel Drag Racing. Or Iggy and The Stooges.
I'm an
advocate of all senses firing on all cylinders, and the Ann Arbor show
had it all amongst bizarre
happenstances you don't get on the aural stuff-- Iggy crawling into
the audience to stare at people, lungs heaving and dripping gallons of
sweat on all around him (fun olfactory too I'll bet; a report on touch
upcoming,) prolonged crowd surfing by him, constant smiles to the crowd
of despite the requisite fearsome expressions donned for such hardcore,
kickass material, far more band
interaction than one might suspect and of course, that selfsame band
making all the
complicated, breakneck speed music seem... easy. I've also heard new
converts espouse this as the best live reunion band around, bar
none. Gasped another FB proclaimer to me, "I actually was SHOCKED at
the intensity of this band."
Testimonial from a fan at the Michigan Theatre (abetted by social network addenda through her whimsical correspondence):
"Mademoiselle
Professoressa" teaches one of the more lyrical Liberal Arts at a
university level and had to be there. She indeed has been there for most
domestic Iggy and The Stooges shows since her revelatory initiation in
2010. She'd done the heavy lifting of Serious Illness but didn't know
the outcome after post-op recovery. Number One on her bucket list was
viewing Iggy and The Stooges live, which she immediately accomplished
5/2/10 at the Hammersmith Apollo in London for the band's first set of
all "Raw Power" material since 1974, by three of its four original
instigators (abetted by Watt and MacKay.) Unexpected bonus #1: with
dozens of
others she lept onstage in the ritual stage invasion to dance to "Shake
Appeal," and managed to paw Iggy (empirical evidence up on YouTube)
with the pronouncement that he may look Florida-tanned wrinkly, but his
skin is soft. Bonus #2: life imitated art and mimicked the lyrics as it
were: raw power had a healing hand.
When she got home, tests
proved she was good to go for a very long time. Mlle. Prof explained,
"When my surgery and prognosis turned out so well, I kind of wondered
how I was going to fill up the next thirty years of life. Now I know.
I'll be a Stooges' fan.""It's a bit strange turning into a fan as an adult. I feel as if I'm growing up in reverse, having spent my teenaged years studying Latin and doing homework, etc. I had no idea it was coming, but I know that Iggy changed my life."
She wrote "I'm interested in some high-level discussions of what these kinds of performance 'do' for people." My own take was that it represented high-octane happiness (as opposed to daily low-grade happinesses) insofar as this was by its very nature fleeting, like having sex. She countered "So one gives oneself over to these moments, knowing they cannot last. The madness can't last forever. Your basic Dionysian cult of the Mysteries!" As for a seemingly reserved university professor embracing the fearsome rep of the world's most pro-active, wild band, she notes "I sometimes tell my students that if no one is pissed off at you, you're not doing your job."
Very first month online, I wanted to
research what was the adult version of fandom, to better hone the
appeal of my own photo-taking and writing, settling on Alan Rickman
(pre-Harry Potter) sites to view what grownups wrote about grownup stars
without the kiddie spamming. The actor seemed like an intelligent guy
who put a lot into his roles and worked continually, fomenting fan
discussions anew. I learned about slash and fanfiction from this foray.
Seguing back to the Stooges, Mlle. Prof embodies the best of this adult
version, letting something in the arts be a force for good in her own
life. Ardent advocate of Flarf (distant cousin to the aforementioned outsider literary pursuits within fandom,) Mlle. Prof alone has been elected Stooge For A Day online by Williamson who commanded "Go forth and have no fun." She countered privately, "I'm blown away by James' level of attention to someone he hadn't met, who it doesn't profit him in any way to cultivate, etc. I'm even more impressed than I was before. He has an inspired and focused work ethic for things he really cares about."
It
should be noted (as in Dire McCain's extensive 30 pp. interview with
him in Paraphilia # 5) that for the next three and a half decades after
Iggy and The Stooges swan song, audience-battery implosion onstage in Michigan circa 1974,
Williamson had walked away from the idiots in the music business who
couldn't fathom his having changed all hard rock genres forever. (All
are based upon his at the time, sui generis style of 1,000 mph
guitar-playing while retaining both precision and emotion. Fast songs
used to be propelled by its drummers alone.) After a university degree
he got in on the ground floor of (according to those in the know) the
fun 'Wild West' days of total creativity in the beginning of the
computer revolution, which must have reminded him of his former passions
in music and paralleled same. Raising his own happy family in Silicon
Valley, rising to Vice-President of Technology
Standards in the Sony
Corporation, taking early retirement to rejoin
his old band with his first Stooge gig in 38 years to a throng of 40,000
attractive young Brazilians in Sao Paulo,
his Stooges finally garnering induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 2010 after seven previous rejections, and rediscovering the joy
of playing guitar as one of its best practitioners ever, all this has
given Williamson's life story a happy-ending piquancy of sorts, rare in
the annals of rock. 
It's rarer still when one considers this all sprang
from one of rock's most troubled bands ever. Besides
its subversive-but-fun, against the grain of everything else going on
music that's now labeled "proto-punk," The Stooges, renamed Iggy and The
Stooges after James'
arrival, were known for utter corporate and managerial indifference,
even well-chronicled antipathy to them from same, "drugs like you
wouldn't believe" according to one member, a roller coaster ride of
misunderstood/dashed hopes versus fanatic critical acclaim,
the pioneers getting all the arrows-syndrome, and what
photographer/film director Larry Clark called "the usual betrayals in
the music industry."
More FAQs: Famed director Jim Jarmusch was on hand with a skeleton production crew to film the proceedings, all part of a planned magnum opus documentary of the entire span of Iggy Pop's 43-year music career inclusive of The Stooges and Iggy and The Stooges, originals and reunions alike. Said crew survived the trench-warfare of an entire show resembling one big moshpit: after the stage invasion of "Shake Appeal" dislodged patrons from their seats, half the theatre stayed pressed against the stage. ("I told you they were all going to mob the stage and stay there" I warned another young security employee, incredulous after seeing a sea of grey-haired fans among the all-ages types do just this.) The set contained great selections from all three Stooges/Iggy and The Stooges' now legendary releases.
Everyone there was thrilled to see cinematic commemoration of this particular gig. Whether for its homeboy frisson or the poignancy of the occasion of band colleagues dealing publicly with Ron Asheton's untimely demise, according to multiple gig-viewers the Ann Arbor show was their very best yet. The band blazed hard and true with guitarist James Williamson particularly white hot, biting his lips while peeling off killer riff after killer riff, occasionally closing his eyes while "in the zone." Scott "Rock Action" Asheton's drumming defies categorization, embodying The Right Stuff with similar rocket thrust, deceptively simple, always powerful and surprising. I still can't figure out WTF it is he does on his drum intro to "Raw Power." Saxophonist MacKay is also the go-to multi-instrumentalist providing bonus percussion and keyboards inclusive of that one-note essential on "I Wanna Be Your Dog." His saxophone parts are indeed perfect. Mike Watt remains one of the few bassists on the planet who can keep up joyfully and passionately with the quasi-speed-metal of "Shake Appeal" or "I Got A Right" (sung by Rollins to kick-start the headliners' part of the show and provide Iggy with a separate entrance to ecstatic audience acclaim.)
More FAQs: Famed director Jim Jarmusch was on hand with a skeleton production crew to film the proceedings, all part of a planned magnum opus documentary of the entire span of Iggy Pop's 43-year music career inclusive of The Stooges and Iggy and The Stooges, originals and reunions alike. Said crew survived the trench-warfare of an entire show resembling one big moshpit: after the stage invasion of "Shake Appeal" dislodged patrons from their seats, half the theatre stayed pressed against the stage. ("I told you they were all going to mob the stage and stay there" I warned another young security employee, incredulous after seeing a sea of grey-haired fans among the all-ages types do just this.) The set contained great selections from all three Stooges/Iggy and The Stooges' now legendary releases.
Everyone there was thrilled to see cinematic commemoration of this particular gig. Whether for its homeboy frisson or the poignancy of the occasion of band colleagues dealing publicly with Ron Asheton's untimely demise, according to multiple gig-viewers the Ann Arbor show was their very best yet. The band blazed hard and true with guitarist James Williamson particularly white hot, biting his lips while peeling off killer riff after killer riff, occasionally closing his eyes while "in the zone." Scott "Rock Action" Asheton's drumming defies categorization, embodying The Right Stuff with similar rocket thrust, deceptively simple, always powerful and surprising. I still can't figure out WTF it is he does on his drum intro to "Raw Power." Saxophonist MacKay is also the go-to multi-instrumentalist providing bonus percussion and keyboards inclusive of that one-note essential on "I Wanna Be Your Dog." His saxophone parts are indeed perfect. Mike Watt remains one of the few bassists on the planet who can keep up joyfully and passionately with the quasi-speed-metal of "Shake Appeal" or "I Got A Right" (sung by Rollins to kick-start the headliners' part of the show and provide Iggy with a separate entrance to ecstatic audience acclaim.)
And yet... the highlight of the show sprang from an odd new instrument in the Stoogean arsenal with the heretofore unheard acoustic ballad "Ron's Tune" which began:
"This is a requiem
For a heavyweight
Deniz
Tek's portion of the show found him sporting one of Ron Asheton's
guitars to play the latter's material from 1969 debut "The Stooges" and
1970's "Funhouse." "Dirt" remained the standout, Tek snaking its slower
tempo quite sinuously. Channeling Ron was no mean feat, insofar as the
still movie-star handsome Dr. Tek has forged his own strong persona via
his Australian band Radio Birdman (the name itself a mishearing of a
Stooges' lyric in "1970") during the original '70s punk era, solo work
and multiple bands since (including the New Race with Ron Asheton and
the MC5's Machine Gun Thompson,
both fresh from their prior the New Order collaboration)
within his multiple careers. 
Far in her distant past, she'd turned down blitzed-to-the-gills advances from one of them, who was projectile-vomiting profusely as well as repeatedly falling over in the gutter outside the Whisky A Gogo. (Luckily the proverbial moment of clarity to seek help soon occurred for him. She later was ashamed it hadn't for her to help what was obviously a dude in severe distress.) In darkened rooms she had listened over and over to "Kill City" when it finally was unleashed years after the band's breakup. With its languid but forceful musicality reminiscent of The Bigs in the music world, ("Exile on Stooge Street" some termed it,) "Kill City" seemed to mirror the unlikely combo of arrogance and despair in her own quest to get the art out and the love in. Luckily as well, the latter ensued via her still ongoing relationship with her better half, a onetime proto-punk lead singer in the early 1970s himself. Once there had been a few very late night phone calls from Ron Asheton (a smart and funny guy but inveterate night owl) that annoyed her better half, who now had to arise at 5 a.m. for work. She genuinely regretted never being able to get the two of them together to talk guns, assorted weaponry and military history knowledgeably from similarly well-informed, warped, witty rock and rollers' P.O.V.s
Set List (as held by Deniz Tek in the photo): Space
Age Toasters perform/Orchestra overture/I Got A Right (Henry Rollins
with Scott Asheton, James Williamson, Mike Watt, Steve Mackay)/(Iggy
joins for full Iggy and The Stooges set: Raw Power/Search And
Destroy/Gimme Danger/Shake Appeal/1970/Night Theme/Beyond The Law/Fun
House/Open Up And Bleed/Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell/I Wanna Be
Your Dog (with orchestra)/(with Deniz Tek and orchestra) TV
Eye/Loose/Dirt/Real Cool Time/Ron's Tune (Iggy Pop, James Williamson
alone)/No Fun (everyone back onstage performing all together like oldskool Rock televised extravaganzas
ADDENDA PHOTO OPS ! !
Go to LINK* for casual photo ops surrounding the event with shots of Deniz Tek, Hiawatha Bailey, Scott Morgan, Rick Ruiner, Kim Retrokimmer Maki and other Ann Arbor/Detroit/Stooges-related luminaries!
*http://fastfilm1.blogspot.com/2011/05/24-hours-before-tribute-to-ron-asheton.html
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