Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Ron Asheton: 1948-2009
Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton generated raw power
Susan Whitall and Adam Graham / The Detroit News
Ron Asheton's hypnotizing, droning guitar sound helped make classics out of Iggy and the Stooges songs like "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "1969." Asheton was found dead early Tuesday morning at his Ann Arbor home, according to police. No cause of death has been released, although initial reports suggest that it was a heart attack. Asheton, a founding member of the iconic '60s band, was 60.
Asheton's death comes just days before an announcement is expected from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on whether the Stooges will make it into this year's class of inductees. The Stooges -- who inducted fellow Michiganian Madonna into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2008 with a pair of gutter-punk renditions of her hits "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light" -- are nominated along with Metallica, Run-D.M.C., Jeff Beck, Chic, Wanda Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, War and Bobby Womack.
In a statement released Tuesday, Stooges singer Iggy Pop said, "I am in shock. He was my best friend."
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A joint statement released by the Stooges called Asheton "irreplaceable. He was a great friend, brother, musician, trouper. He will be missed.
"For all that knew him behind the façade of Mr. Cool & Quirky, he was a kind-hearted, genuine, warm person who always believed that people meant well even if they did not. As a musician, Ron was the Guitar God, idol to follow and inspire others. That is how he will be remembered by people who had a great pleasure to work with him, learn from him and share good and bad times with him."
The Stooges -- vocalist Iggy Pop (born James Osterberg), guitarist Asheton, drummer (and Ron's little brother) Scott Asheton and bassist Dave Alexander -- formed in Ann Arbor in 1967. The band's raw sound helped lay the template for what would later become punk rock and influenced several generations of do-it-yourself bands.
Iconic music
The group released "The Stooges" in 1969, followed by "Fun House" in 1970 and "Raw Power" in 1973. The Stooges disbanded a year later, and though their music never found much commercial success, it continued to be discovered by up-and-coming rockers.
In subsequent years, the Stooges were name-checked as an influence by figures ranging from Kurt Cobain (who cited "Raw Power" as his favorite album of all time in lists published in his book "Journals") to Guns N' Roses (which covered the song "Raw Power" on 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident?") to the White Stripes' Jack White (who in the liner notes for the reissue of "Fun House" called the album "by proxy the definitive rock album of America"). Both "Raw Power" and "Fun House" were included on Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.
In 2003, after nearly 30 years of inactivity, the Stooges reunited for a series of live shows, including a summertime performance at DTE Energy Music Theatre. Memorably delayed by that summer's blackout, the performance was rescheduled and captured on a live DVD, "Live in Detroit."
The momentum and reception from those live shows resulted in the band yet again becoming a fully functional touring outfit. Several tours and high-profile festival gigs followed, including shows at Meadow Brook Music Festival and the Fox Theatre in Detroit, as well as a 2007 studio album, "The Weirdness."
'He kept it simple'
During the Stooges' 30-year hiatus, Asheton kept busy in a number of bands, including Destroy All Monsters, Dark Carnival and The New Order, which he formed in Los Angeles with longtime friend, drummer Dennis Thompson of the MC5.
Thompson recalls heading over to the Fun House, the Stooges' Ann Arbor hangout during the late '60s and early '70s, when things would get a little heavy at the MC5 house.
"I would hang out with those guys, watch TV, smoke a joint and relax," Thompson said Tuesday. "We'd laugh, we'd crack jokes. They weren't so serious. They were aware of the revolution, they were aware of the times, but they just liked to have fun. Their outlook on life was a little less serious."
Thompson said Asheton's gift was the simplicity of his playing.
"He could appreciate jazz music and he could appreciate other forms of music, but he kept it simple," Thompson said. "He was a minimalist. The Stooges sound, and the reason they were popular, is because rock and roll should be simple and it should be pure. It was wild excitement crammed into three minutes."
Despite the fact his playing was often seen as rudimentary, Rolling Stone named Asheton the No. 29 guitarist of all-time in its 2003 list of the 100 best guitar players ever. "Asheton was the Detroit punk who made the Stooges' music reek like a puddle of week-old biker sweat," the magazine wrote. "He favored black leather and German iron crosses onstage, and he never let not really knowing how to play get in the way of a big, ugly feedback solo."
An inspiration
Photographer Leni Sinclair, ex-wife of MC5 manager John Sinclair, was on the scene in the 1960s when Asheton and the Stooges were thrilling teenagers and outraging parents with their loud shenanigans in the dank rock halls of Detroit and Ann Arbor.
"It was mesmerizing to hear them play 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' at the Grande Ballroom," Sinclair remembers. "Ron was not a very flamboyant showman on stage, but the sound just got under your skin, if you let yourself go. I saw him again four years ago, and it sounded just like it did back then. He had something special going, a hypnotizing sound."
Ann Arbor promoter Peter Andrews was there in 1967, in Ann Arbor, when Jim Osterberg of Iggy and the Iguanas formed his new band, Iggy and the Stooges.
"When Iggy formed the Stooges, it didn't matter that nobody could play an instrument," Andrews remembers. "After all, the MC5 weren't the best musicians. But the MC5 and the Stooges had their Detroit sound, and Ron was the trouper of that Stooges sound.
"Ron was a sort of a gentle soul in a very ungentle situation," Andrews said. "The Stooges gave him direction. He wasn't a fake. And he brought a certain swagger and cool to the band."
Not all bands from Detroit's acclaimed rock scene of the '60s endured to inspire younger generations, but the Stooges' proto-punk sound was popular with younger musicians like producer Jim Diamond of Ghetto Recorders in Detroit.
"'I Wanna Be Your Dog' was my fuzz-wah guitar bible as a kid," Diamond said. "I learned a lot about how to really play the guitar listening to Ron Asheton growing up. That guy showed you that wild and loose was the way to go."
Detroit News staffer Melody Baetens contributed to this report. You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or swhitall @detnews.com.
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