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Friday 5 August 2016

Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!: Day 218 The Stooges

The Stooges - The Stooges

Elektra

5th August 1969*

Produced by John Cale

US Chart #106
*It was released a month later in the UK


Original Tracklist

Side A

01. 1969

02. I Wanna Be Your Dog

03. We Will Fall

Side B

01. No Fun

02. Real Cool Time

03. Ann

04. Not Right

05. Little Doll


Personnel
The Stooges

    Iggy Pop (credited as "Iggy Stooge") – vocals
    Dave Alexander – bass guitar
    Ron Asheton – guitar, vocals
    Scott Asheton – drums

Additional Personnel
    John Cale – piano, sleigh bell on "I Wanna Be Your Dog", viola on "We Will Fall"
 ***************************


Back in March this year Iggy Pop released what is reportedly his final album, Post Pop Depression, and thus bringing down the curtain on an outstanding career that has seen him rise from the unknown to now being considered as one of the Elder Statesman of Rock and Roll. Today we are rewinding the clock back to 1969 and the Debut Album from The Stooges, it's classic, even if it wasn't regarded as such on release.

It's not pretty music by any stretch of the imagination. Then again if you wanted pretty music to listen to the last place on earth you would be looking in 1969 would have been Detroit, Michigan! 

The Stooges had been on the go for a couple of years, and had gained a reputation for their wild, primitive live performances. Iggy Pop, especially, won fame for his outrageous onstage behaviour—smearing his bare chest with hamburger meat and peanut butter, cutting himself with shards of glass, and flashing his genitalia to the audience! Like I said, not pretty!

Elektra Records (who also had The Doors) took a chance on the band and in April 1969 they entered The Hit Factory studio in New York to lay down tracks for their Debut Album. John Cale of  Velvet Underground fame was Producer (though by the time of the recording Cale had already been shown the door by the band and had played his last show with them in September 1968).

At first they had presented to the label an album containing only 5 songs ("I Wanna Be Your Dog", "No Fun", "1969", "Ann" and "We Will Fall"), which was deemed not enough for an album, and Iggy has said he told them that the band actually had loads more songs, which they didn't and thus they basically wrote and recorded a further three songs in the studio!

The album didn't sell well at all on release and reviews were mixed, many uncomplimentary!

It's a testament though to the impact the album has had on bands since that a number of songs from the album have been either played live or recorded and released by a variety of artists. Click on the links below to listen to a few of the various Cover Versions. I cannot claim that all of them are good!

1969 Cover Versions
Too Much (French Punk).


I Wanna Be Your Dog Cover Versions
 Dogs.

I'm pretty sure I could find another hundred versions of it!

No Fun Cover Versions 
Sex Pistols (the last song they played together before breaking up in 1978).


 Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!

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