The Stooges

Ann Arbor

Iggy Pop, born James Osterberg, formed the Stooges in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 with guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton and bassist Dave Alexander. Pop had drummed in the Iguanas and the Prime Movers. He said that two things pushed the band to play in public: seeing the Doors at a University of Michigan dance, and meeting an all-girl band from Princeton called the Untouchable. Their first show was at their communal house on Halloween night 1967. Billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, they played the Grande Ballroom in Detroit through 1968 and on 3 March opened there for Blood, Sweat & Tears. Early on they used a vacuum cleaner, a blender and oil drums struck with a ball hammer. Danny Fields of Elektra signed them in 1968 alongside the MC5, for $5,000 against the MC5's $20,000.

Elektra

John Cale produced The Stooges at the Hit Factory in New York in April 1969. It reached 106 on the US chart. Fun House followed in 1970, recorded in two weeks in Los Angeles with Don Gallucci and with Steve Mackay added on saxophone. Pop jumped into the crowd at the Cincinnati Pop Festival that June. Rolling Stone's Charles Burton called them the ultimate psychedelic rock band in 1970, while Melody Maker's Roy Hollingworth called it the worst record of the year. Alexander was dismissed in August 1970 after turning up too drunk to play at the Goose Lake festival. Most of the band apart from Ron Asheton had become serious heroin users, Elektra dropped the band, and a breakup was announced on 9 July 1971.

Raw Power

Pop met David Bowie in New York in September 1971 and signed with the management company MainMan, whose head helped him land a two-album deal with Columbia. In 1972 he went to London with the guitarist James Williamson, and after trying British players they brought the Asheton brothers back, with Ron moving reluctantly to bass. The band was now billed as Iggy and the Stooges. They recorded Raw Power at CBS Studios in London, and Bowie remixed it for release. The album, with songs like Search and Destroy and Gimme Danger, spent three weeks on the Top 200 and peaked at 183. Columbia and MainMan dropped them, and the band split in February 1974 after a Detroit show captured on Metallic K.O..

Reunion

Williamson later left music for a career in electronics, and Alexander died in 1975. In 2003 the Asheton brothers and Pop reunited, with Mike Watt on bass and Mackay back on saxophone. The Weirdness appeared in 2007, recorded by Steve Albini. Ron Asheton died on 6 January 2009, and Williamson returned. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 and made Ready to Die for Fat Possum in 2013, the highest-charting album of their career at 96. Scott Asheton died in March 2014 and Mackay in October 2015. In June 2016 Williamson said the Stooges were over, since everybody was dead except him and Pop.

The Sex Pistols recorded No Fun in 1976. Kurt Cobain's journals repeatedly name Raw Power as his favorite album, and Johnny Marr named it his favorite record. Jim Jarmusch directed the documentary Gimme Danger in 2016. Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Buzzcocks and Pere Ubu are among the bands that have cited the Stooges as an influence. Lester Bangs wrote about them in Creem around the time of Fun House, and Mojo put all three early albums in its 1995 list of the 100 greatest, with Fun House highest at 16. Rolling Stone ranked the band 78th in its 2004 list of the most influential artists, and Mojo gave them its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.