THE STOOGES
The Stooges is the debut studio album by American rock band The Stooges. It was released on August 5, 1969, by Elektra Records. Two songs, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “1969”, were released as singles; and the album peaked at number 106 on the Billboard album chart. “1969” was featured on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs at #35. It is considered a landmark proto-punk album. (More from Wikipedia)
John Cale has also had an important impact on music following his time with the Velvet Underground, though mostly behind the scenes. John Cale produced several proto-punk albums, including the first album by the Stooges, The Stooges (1969), and the first album by the Modern Lovers that Reprise Records refused to release; it was later released on Beserkley Records.
(December 2013)
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Iggy Pop began working with the Stooges again on his 2003 album, Skull Ring that also featured several younger artists: Green Day, the Trolls, Sum 41, and Peaches. The Stooges toured extensively between 2003 and 2008 with founding members Iggy Pop (vocals), Ron Asheton (guitar), and Scott Asheton (drums), along with (at Ron Asheton’s suggestion) new bandmember Mike Watt (bass guitar), formerly of Minutemen and fIREHOSE, and guest musician Steve Mackay (saxophone), who had performed on the Fun House album. During these tours, the Stooges released an album of all new material, The Weirdness (2007). Also, Elektra Records reissued the band’s first two albums, The Stooges and Fun House in deluxe 2-CD packages in 2005.
(March 2017)
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If all you ever buy are major-label record albums or CD’s, then you’re stuck. You have the choice of those three Stooges albums – The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power – and that’s it. And those albums are not always in print, and used copies are a tough find as well. As an example, for the third album, Raw Power, there was a 1989 CD release on Columbia Records – 16 years after the original vinyl edition in 1973. (The other two Stooges albums came out on Elektra Records).
(September 2017)
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Although it took me a while to warm to Kill City, it has become one of my favorites among Iggy Pop’s albums – even with the truly wonderful first album by the Stooges, The Stooges (1969) that is in the same current album stack. Considering Iggy Pop’s state of mind at that time – he had checked himself into a mental institution in an attempt to clean himself up and become functional again – the demos that he and James Williamson put together at the home recording studio of Jimmy Webb (!) in 1975 that became Kill City are remarkably self-assured and remind me of the feel of his triumphant solo album, Brick by Brick (1990).
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The Iguana Chronicles are by no means the only albums by the Stooges that have been released outside of the five major-label albums: The Stooges (1969), Fun House (1970), Raw Power (1973), The Weirdness (2007), and Ready to Die (2013). Because the music was supplied by a Stooges bandmember, James Williamson with the blessing of frontman Iggy Pop, I would view the albums in The Iguana Chronicles as legitimate releases.
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Charles Spano writing for Allmusic says of Wild Love: “Though lacking the teenage venom of cuts like ‘1969’ and ‘I Wanna be Your Dog’ off of The Stooges and the unadulterated raw power of, well, Raw Power, Wild Love is still essential for die-hard fans. The album, culled from rehearsals in Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York for the band’s 1973 tour, runs the gamut from full-fledged, ready-to-record tunes to the types of swampy jams that the band has claimed indicative of their studio songwriting process. Gems like the three minutes of rock & roll bliss dubbed ‘Wild Love’, the rambling, grinding ‘Pinpoint Eyes’, the Stonesy ‘I Came From Nowhere’, and the eerie, sprawling ‘Til the End of the Night’ could have given Iggy Pop the material for a stunning solo debut as early as 1973.”
(December 2017)
