Deathblog: Ron Asheton 1948 - 2009

So I was determined to get that Top 30 out of the way before posting anything else, but during the meanwhilst, as it is apt to do, stuff happened.

In particular, it’s been a bad festive season for guitarists.

Ron Asheton. Need I say more? In the field of memorable and iconic christian name / surname combinations, ‘Ron Asheton’ is hardly up there with, say, ‘Mars Bonfire’ or ‘Templeton Parsley’, but nonetheless, for everyone out there who was lucky enough to be exposed to (and more than likely “transformed into the misshapen wreck you see before you today” by) the first two Stooges records at a formative age, it’s a name that’ll ring out as if I’d typed it in twenty foot high stone-wrought block capitals surrounded by exploding fireworks.

Ron Fucking Asheton. I learned of his death about the same time I was finishing off my #5 - #1 post.

Trying to think of much else to say is pretty futile. I’m sure there are already thousands of people around the internet saying stuff like “No Ron Asheton, no punk rock”, and so forth. And on one level that’s obviously a utterly witless thing to say – punk rock is as punk rock does; you could apply that to literally hundreds of people; witness Lester Bangs bit where he traced the ‘spirit of punk rock’ back person by person to St. Francis of Assisi or something. But at the same time, you can see exactly where they’re coming from – there’s a SINGULARITY, and monolithic year zero power to Asheton’s playing on those records, that defies any attempt at description, and if a daft generalisation gets the feeling across in a moment of several-steps-removed mourning, why not?

I knew the first time I heard ‘No Fun’, on a mixtape, walking ‘round some anonymous country road somewhere aged 16 or 17, that there was no possible way to express what this music did to me; I felt exactly the same way the last time I heard it, for the millionth time, probably in the background at some gig, waiting for a band to come on. Some great music you end up taking for granted after you’ve heard it X number of times; it becomes part of the canon, part of the background. That never happens to The Stooges. An A barre chord, a D barre chord – out of that he makes something that makes you feel like the only sane reaction is to explode into some kinda hummingbird-esque frenzy, followed by plunging your hands into your chest cavity and tearing yourself inside out. Talk about the ‘spirit of punk rock’.

And ‘TV Eye’ and ‘1970’ from a year later, are, like, ten times gnarlier. So gnarly it’s taken me till my mid-20s to even process ‘Funhouse’ to a satisfactory degree, despite regular and ecstatic plays. The second side of ‘Funhouse’ is ALWAYS too much; a vicious, damaged, intoxicating, unrepeatable living thing, like rock n’ roll’s nearest equivalent to those latter day Coltrane albums... if Coltrane had been a knuckleheaded, drug-hoovering, white suburban delinquent I suppose.

Of course, Iggy’s lyrics and implied physical presence are a vital part of making this music what it is too, but this isn’t really the place/time to talk about that. And, no matter how many interviews he gives talking about how he was the brains of the operation, the pecking order on those albums has always seemed the other way around to me, and who needs brains? It sounds more as if Iggy is being whipped up to career-best levels of performance and creativity by the pre-existent force of The Stooges music. Especially on ‘Funhouse’, where his whole being seems to become one more instrument, gasping for life in a purely exhilarating fashion between the lava-storm of Asheton’s guitar and Mackay’s sax.

And that’s that. Rather than say more words, I was tempted to suggest that everyone who owns a guitar and amplifier should pay tribute by, an a predetermined juncture, throwing open the windows and blasting the ‘No Fun’ riff as loud as is electrically possible, like some musical equivalent of the ‘mad as hell’ scene in 'Network'.

Thankfully though, some other people have come up with some fine words where I failed, to save the local police the embarrassment of having to drag me away for breach of the peace.

As is so often the case, Chris Summerlin is right fucking on in every respect, and I hope he doesn’t mind me stealing the picture he used for this post. I wouldn’t go quite so far as he does in condemnation of Iggy (I’ve got some love for the old bastard yet), but all his points are sound, and he runs down all the pertinent info you need to know.

This guy has some good stuff to say about his time roadying for Asheton and J. Mascis prior to the Stooges reunion too.

And man, do I ever now feel an idiot for not getting it together to ever witness said reunion. I mean, I know the album they did was a fucking disaster, but those shows they played must have ruled like nothing else. What else was I doing that was so important every time they played in London? They were even the saving grace headlining some utterly loathsome corporate festival on Clapham Common over the summer. To think – if somebody whispered to my teenage self that at some point in future IGGY & THE FUCKING STOOGES would play within walking distance of my house, and I DIDN’T GO... well I think I’d better watch my back lest some unlikely time travel paradox allows my teenage self to be lurking in a shadowy doorway with a sack full of doorknobs.

Someone else I’m cursing myself for not going to see when I had the opportunity is Davey Graham, who died before Christmas. I’d love to take the time to say some stuff about him, just as I’d love to proof-read this post properly and fill it with Mp3s and other nice things, but I’m posting from work and probably won’t get another chance to write/post for a little while, as I’m taking an uncharacteristic plane flight to Italy tomorrow morning to visit a friend.

I’m sure though that, having spent so much time mastering the ways of the guitar, carving new styles out of thin air and seamlessly blending music from all over the world, Davey would be pretty pissed off to find himself playing second fiddle in the obituary stakes to a guy who just liked to turn it up to 10 and play riffs that sometimes don’t move beyond one fret. Oh well – maybe I’ll write him a proper, if belated, Deathblog upon my return.

Labels: Davey Graham, deathblog, Iggy Pop, punk rock, Ron Asheton, The Stooges