Iggy & the Stooges "Raw Power Live: In the Hands of the Fans"

If it wasn’t for upper level corporate cost cuttings, this LP would not exist. After leaving the Stooges in 1974 and eventually music all together in the early 1980’s, guitarist James Williamson worked his way up the ladder to become Vice President of Technology Standards for Sony. A few months after the untimely passing of original Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, James accepted an early retirement incentive allowing him to terrorize stages again with his frantic Les Paul maulings. As sad as it was to lose Ron, it’s great to have Straight James back with his old delinquent pals.

In September 2010, the reconstituted Stooges took the stage at the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival in upstate New York to deliver the blitzkrieg assault of Raw Power in its entirety. Luckily for us the event was recorded and is being released on vinyl just in time for Record Store Day in April. Back in 1973/74 when Raw Power was a new release (and quickly dumped into the cut out bins) they only ever played about half the songs live. So how do they sound these days? Pretty fuckin good, and even better when you turn the stereo up.

Every bootleg I’ve ever heard of the band from 73/74 has always opened with “Raw Power” and this show is no exception. James may be a retired exec and family man but he can still fire up that riff at maximum throttle. The band sounds killer. Scott Asheton pounds the beat furiously and Mike Watt handle’s Ron’s killer bass lines well. Iggy’s voice is still in pretty good shape for a dude in his 60’s and he can still deliver lines like “Raw Power is a guaranteed O.D.” with supreme gusto. The great Funhouse era saxophonist Steve Mackay blows his horn adding some cool textures that haven’t been heard on this song before. Crashing right into “Search & Destroy” the band rocks like hell and it’s obvious the crowd is loving it.

Things slow down for the moody rocker “Gimme Danger” and James lets loose with a great solo at the end. The tempo kicks way up for a double dose of speed with “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell” and “Shake Appeal.” Steve adds some great tenor sax to these and makes them rock even harder. James busts out a slide for the great slow blues “I Need Somebody.” But that’s just the calm before the storm.

Insane jams like “Penetration” and “Death Trip” were never performed live back in the 1970’s and it’s great to hear them get aired out. Both of these feature killer guitar work from James. The album wraps up with a frenzied take on “I Got A Right.” That song had an interesting history. Performed live by the 1971 line up when both James and Ron were playing guitar, later recorded in 1972 with James on guitar and Ron on bass but dumped from the live set and then remained unreleased until years later.

I’ve often wondered what would have happened if Raw Power had been recorded under more “normal” circumstances. The album would have greatly benefited if they were recorded like the first Montrose record or Mountain’s Climbing. The Stooges were a heavy band but the production of Raw Power obviously confused most rock fans of the time. Even though they basically invented punk rock, the Stooges were always at heart a kick ass hard rock band. Hearing them blast these songs loud n proud in front of a frenzied crowd confirms that. 


--Woody

Buy here vinylRaw Power: Live:

Protometal Report - A Triple Dose of Iggy - Have Some Fun: Live at Ungano's, Popped: the Fan Club Package, and Kill City

The past year has been a bonanza for Stooges fans. In October 2009, four concerts of the 1971 line up were released by the UK label Easy Action as a box set titled You Want My Action. This is the band that featured both Ron Asheton and James Williamson on dueling lead guitars and the earth shattering rumble of Jimmy Recca on bass alongside Iggy and drummer Scott Asheton. In May 2010, Sony put out the deluxe Raw Power box set that came with a previously unheard concert of the Iggy & The Stooges version of the band in Atlanta from 1973. But now we have what we’ve all been waiting for – the Funhouse-era Stooges captured in all of their maximum 1970 insanity on a limited edition CD from Rhino Handmade entitled Have Some Fun: Live At Ungano’s.

For decades, survivors have been talking about the incredible run of shows the band played at a New York City club called Ungano’s around the release of the Funhouse album in the summer of ‘70. Now we have the audio evidence and it confirms the legend - The Stooges were an ferociously kick ass live band. Sound quality is a bit rough since it’s an audience recording but this is all that we have so I’m not complaining. The show was taped by Danny Fields, who signed them and the MC5 to Elektra Records. At the start of the disc there’s some very entertaining banter between Danny and a few others on the way to the show, including (rumor has it) Patti Smith.

The hilarious discussion sets up the main event perfectly. The club owner tries to introduce the band but Iggy screams “TAKE IT” and the band crashes into “Loose.” The tempo’s way up, faster than the studio version but the band is extremely tight and in control while being out of control at the same time. First thing you notice is how hard Scotty hits the drums. Jeezus, that cat can groove. Ron’s guitar playing is razor sharp and former roadie/new bassist Zeke Zettner replicates Dave Alexander’s parts just fine. Iggy’s voice is great and he lets out lots of howls and screams. Every song from Funhouse is played and it’s a real treat to finally hear an unedited live version of “TV Eye.” Unfortunately, the song “Funhouse” is truncated but there’s a killer jam that evolves out of “L.A. Blues” that’s titled “Have Some Fun/My Dream Is Dead.” These songs might have been improvised on the spot or could possibly be an unrecorded song called “Way Down In Egypt.” Whatever the case, the band really cuts loose, especially sax maestro Steve MacKay. Steve’s playing has always been an excellent mix of Junior Walker R&B and Archie Shepp free jazz.

Packaging on this disc is good but not great. There are some cool shots of Iggy flipping off the crowd (who are sitting on the floor!) but not much of the rest of the band. There’s a reproduction of an advertisement for the show. It’s interesting to note that the week before The Stooges played was the debut of Tony Williams’ band Lifetime featuring Jack Bruce, John McLaughlin and Larry Young. Iggy and Ron have always claimed that they did a bunch of coke with Miles Davis at one of the Ungano’s shows, but others say that although Miles was there he basically had his fingers in his ears. Johnny Winter is also rumored to have been at one of the shows, too.

Buy here: Have Some Fun: Live At Ungano's

For the real hardcore collector, Easy Action has released Popped: The Fan Club Package with reproductions of newsletters that were put out by Natalie Schlossman from 1969 to 1971. The Stooges were an extremely unpopular band and it’s amazing that someone went out of their way to document what they were doing with so much care and attention. The newsletters are fascinating to read but the real shake appeal here is a CD containing more 1970 live recordings titled A Thousand Lights. The mint deluxe packaging also comes with some great photos, a t-shirt and a booklet with a great interview with Jimmy Recca about his time in the band.

There are versions of “Dirt” and “1970” recorded in NYC but it’s not clear if they are the August 1970 shows or from a prior engagement. Either way, they’re great performances. A show from Chicago in July 1970 has been floating around on bootlegs for years and the audio has been cleaned up a bit for this CD. The sound is pretty rough but the unhinged versions of “Funhouse” and “L.A. Blues” make up for it. There’s even 1 song from the infamous Goose Lake festival where bassist Dave Alexander supposedly got so drunk and forgot all the songs. To wrap it up, there are the audio fragments of the 2 songs and that got aired on the Midsummer Night's Dream television special from a festival in Cincinnati that also featured Traffic, Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper and Mountain. Chances are you’ve seen the famous photos of Iggy walking on the crowd and flinging peanut butter around from this show.

There aren’t a lot of these box sets, so get one while you can.


Buy from Easy Action


 

After the Stooges exploded in 1974, Iggy and guitarist James Williamson soldiered on and eventually made the album Kill City under difficult circumstances. Iggy hit rock bottom in Hollywood and wound up in a mental institution. While on weekend leaves, he cut his vocals on Kill City at a studio owned by soft rocker Jimmy Webb. Originally intended to be demos to score a better record deal, it was eventually released by Bomp Reocords in 1977. There’s always been a lot of discussion over the mix of the album. Many complained that the sound lacked balls while others noted the lack of cohesion.

Despite all of this, Kill City is a pretty decent album but now it’s much improved that James Williamson did a complete remix of it. The guitar is much more potent and upfront in the mix. The title track is still one of Iggy’s best and “Consolation Prizes” contains some excellent sleazy slide guitar work from James. “I Got Nothin” and “Johanna” were performed on the last Stooges tour and they were redone here with some occasionally overbearing saxophone. Iggy and James were obviously going for a Rolling Stones-type of sound here and are moderately successful at it. If they had done some of these songs with Ron and Scott Asheton along with some of the other great lost Stooges songs, it would have made a great 4th album for the band. Since that never happened, this is all that’s left and is a worthy addition to any Iggy-phile’s collection.

--Woody

Buy from Bomp (green vinyl)

“Kill City” promo clip