Recommendations of the Editorial team
The 100 best musicians of all time: Iggy & The Stoges – Essay by Thurston Moore
For me, Iggy & The Stooges were always the perfect embodiment of what should be music. Music as a manifesto of naked life, music that fuses into the extreme of existence. They played high-energy blues and oriented themselves on the freakouts by Jimi Hendrix and the spirit of John Coltranes Free Jazz. For Iggy, The Stooges should be a variation of what he had experienced as a boy in Chicago. Old blues people who hung up so much into their music that-as Iggy put it-“the music dripped from the body”.
I was 14 when I saw a photo of Iggy with The Stooges for the first time. The upper body naked, the skin sprayed with silver color. He sweated and had a broken incisor. Was young and looked as if he was completely out of control. He believed that what he did was important. An art that was sufficient and did not hit the establishment.
The band’s sound was simple and yet got under your skin. Scott Asheton played drums as if he played in an electric blues band. While his brother Ron hit clever chord progressions from the guitar, Scott pressed onto the gas and was able to swing at the same time. When I worked with Ron for the soundtrack of “Velvet Goldmine”, he gave me a crash course in the first week of how Stooges songs could be played. We went through the material of “The Stooges” and “Fun House”.
“Fuck you, fuck you and fuck you”
“Raw Power” was the ultimate “fuck-off” statement. The band let everything hang out and increased in a stupor. The album was generally ticked off as Trash, but David Bowie’s original mix has a broken quality that was far ahead of its time.
It was an experience to be able to follow the Stooges-Reunion with Mike Watt on the bass live; At the 2003 Coachella Festival they played their first gig. First Iggy jumped up into the air, then ran to the edge of the stage and showed the spectators the stinking finger: “Fuck you, fuck you and fuck you.” Then he shot to the side of the stage, where the usual bagage stood – Sonic YouthQueens of the Stone Age, Red Hot Chili Peppers – and made a gesture as if he wanted to get you down. It was wonderful. Good to know that Iggy still wages war.