The first titanic loss of the new year, guitarist Ron Asheton of protopunk behemoths, The Stooges, died on Tuesday. And, although the band he helped start burned out after only 3 phenomenal albums, the fires set from 1969 to 1973 spread across a future forest of up-and-comers for decades to follow…
While mid-’60s garage rock groups like The Sonics and The Monks staked out the land, and The Velvet Underground and The MC5 circa ‘68-’69 broke the ground, it was The Stooges, with their 1969 self-titled debut, that laid the rock-solid foundation of all punk to come. Iggy Stooge, Ron Asheton, Dave Alexander, and Ron’s brother Scott conceived and delivered this snarling beast-infant of the genre to an unsuspecting America, dangerously arming generations thereafter with the sonic tools necessary to destroy Western civilization (the Western civilization of naively wholesale peace and love, at least).
Launching the record with the seediest wah-wah you’re ever likely to hear, Asheton’s guitar set the anthemic tone for Iggy and the other lost boys of “1969″, bored out of their minds and prowling the streets looking to tear the power from any flower in sight. The apocalyptic intro of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” proved the lead track was no fluke and, with “No Fun” and “Real Cool Time”, the legacy was sealed. The Doors-inspired fat of “We Will Fall” and “Ann” had yet to be trimmed but, no matter, Iggy and his main man Ron had announced very definitively they were ready to tear the building down. With their next record, 1970’s Fun House, they would do just that.
(Check out tomorrow’s No Fun: Ron Asheton’s Death Trip, Part 2 for more.)
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