stooges

Photographer, chronicler of New York City's punk scene and onetime minder for Iggy & the Stooges and manager of Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, Leee Black Childers, has died.

Peter Whitfield photo

Tributes are flowing for Stooges saxman Steve Mackay who has passed away in hospital in California following complications from surgery.

MESSAGE FROM IGGY ON STEVE MACKAY'S PASSING: pic.twitter.com/haOUe7Wd7p

— Iggy Pop (@IggyPop) October 11, 2015

You probably know the back-story about the core package (the straight re-issue of the Bowie mix with live disc appended) so let’s cut to the chase and talk about the Deluxe Ediiton.

The last couple of years have been a bonusburger for Stooge aficionados who just have to own every last artifact (which presumably you are if you're reading this). Easy Action brought us live documentation of the original Pop-Asheton-Asheton-Alexander unit (the deluxe "Popped" and pristine "A Thousand Lights"), as well as the seldom-heard Pop-Asheton-Asheton-Williamson-Recca lineup ("You Want My Action") and even James Williamson's waters-testing stand with his guitar tech's y'allternative band the Careless Hearts. Rhino contributed recordings of the hitherto undocumented Pop-Asheton-Asheton-Cheatham-Zettner configuration "(Have Some Fun: Live At Ungano's"). "Kill City" got the whole reissue-and-revisionist-history treatment. Even Williamson's reform school band, the Coba Seas, have a release.

Okay.  Let's get one thing straight.  This album is great.  Here's your six bottles, James.  (Last time I tried to give you six bottles for something, the Barman turned me down but now we seem fine with that kind of thing).  Now, if the Barman would do a quick edit we could be three for three.  Six.  Six.  Six. Apt.



Of course there are elephants in the room.  Great hulking elephants and the occasional five foot one elephant.  I guess we'll just have to tackle them head on.  (Can I pun my way through this whole review? ) As a spoiler, I've read Robert's review because I know he'll have a different take to me.  I haven't read the Barman's because it is always funny how often we write the same review.  There could be some overlap.



This one's just for the fans. By which I mean, if you're new to the Stooges, don't buy this record. Instead, buy "Fun House", then "The Stooges", then "Raw Power".

In which the complete recorded works of the 1980s and ‘90s are compiled on one double CD set, spanning 38 tracks.

You have to give it to Easy Action. They know how to package a legacy. And Scott Morgan, of course, has had lots of legacy to restore.

Michigan’s Best Kept Musical Secret had been around the metaphorical block a few times by the time the ‘80s rolled around, but up until that point his bands hadn’t produced many recordings. If he hadn’t invented blue-eyed soul, Morgan played a big part in its arrival in the '60s when front-man for Ann Arbor’s Rationals who took a detour into soulful, pastoral-flecked psych before running out of steam. 

_{Eddie Spaghetti (left) of The Supersuckers thinks it's all a bit loud but Frank Meyer begs to differ. Ed Culver photo.} 

Los Angeles musician, author and filmmaker Frank Meyer is a surprisingly talented singer songwriter and a highly skilled, captivating raconteur. He seems like a genuinely all around good guy, so I'm a little embarrassed I did not get that hip to his extensive discography much sooner.

I first became aware of both Frank Meyer and fellow feature article subject John 5 way back in the hazy distant past-maybe like, 23 years ago, in the pages of a glossy punk ‘n’ roll bible, “Pop Smear”, with both my boyhood idols, Evil Knievel and David Lee Roth on the cover. I was workin' at a news stand in the Midwest where long lines of unhappy barflies flooded in front of my cash register all day, incessantly wanting to buy the scratch off lotto tickets. "I'll take ten Lucky Pots Of Gold and five Leprechaun's Rainbows".

Frank seemed to have won the rock ‘n’ roll lotto when he got to hang out with John 5 and David Lee Roth, live, and in-person, on multiple occasions, and then, went on to write books and form his own bands that criss-crossed the country. He was playing bills with all the other bands I liked at the time and releasing a long and prolific stream of records I never really heard.

Expatriate Americans living in Shanghai in China, Round Eye have unleashed a video to accompany their song “Billy” which is a stringing critique on the state of politics back home.

Round Eye recently signed to the Canadian label Sudden Death Records (owned by DOA’s Joey Shithead) and collaborated with the late Stooges sax man Steve Mackay on an eponymous record "Round Eye" last year which you can hear and download via theiur Bandcamp (link below).

“We've lived here for 6 years but have never neglected the issues of home,” explains singer Chachy. “This video is our open letter to the United States.  We really put a lot of work into this to ensure the message is very loud and very clear.”

Round Eye on Bandcamp

Round Eye on the Web

Sometimes I think I’m a bastard instead of being just somewhat scatterbrained. See, I put this order in to Easy Action and they sent a couple of other CDs as well. Generous of them. And I never thanked them.

Alright, I’d had a couple of man-flu health ishoos, and there were other inconveniences. But I never fucking thanked them. And they’re a generous, intelligent company. I feel like a small limp dick confessing this. But you should know some of the circumstances.

If 1977 was the year Iggy Pop presented his professional face to the American public, it was really by a matter of degrees. Think about what constituted Mainstream USA back then and ask if it was ready for Iggy, even in the guise of a clean-living and professional working stiff? The question’s rhetorical so don’t bother answering.

The Iggy that Americans saw (those who took notice) is captured on “Shot Myself Up”, a made-for-radio recording captured live in a studio on Pop’s ’77 tour of his homeland.

The Electric Guitars are fucking extraordinary. I saw this outfit in Geelong and they deliberately mess with your expectations. Partly I spose it's 'cause there are so many fucking rock'n'roll bands. And these days, there's a big swing towards the manner of psychedelia (without the bad trips and foul behaviour) in the US and UK.

Yeah, so the Electric Guitars use wah-wah. But it's hardly a mannered thing - they use a lot of effects, and they ain't shy about it. This outfit don't need drugs to get your attention, instead they have carefully set-up songs and wield them like scalpels, chainsaws and bludgeons, sometimes all at once.

You think you know where you are with a band like this, you'll fall on your face. The second song alone ("Three Body Problem") is a case in point... you're sucked in, frankly, and after a while your sinuses are aching and your inner ear is rattling. If you have fillings, take them out before you listen.

Been waiting for this for some time so expectation levels were primed. If the prospect of another Igdisc doesn’t fill you with rabid anticipation after the ups and downs of the last two decades, the prospect of four tracks reuniting him with the Asheton brothers certainly should…

Consider the Sonic's Rendezvous Band saga... 

Arisen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of four of the Motor City's finest proponents of high-energy rock -- the MC5, the Stooges, the Rationals, and the Up - the Rendezvous steadfastly refused to bank on their illustrious pasts (which, granted, might have been more of a liability than an asset at that point in history). Rather, they insisted on a more original kind of expression -- hardly a guarantee of steady employment for a local band in the mid-to-late '70s. 



One of our favcourite punks, Sonny Vincent of Testors and solo band fame, is packing a new album for release in November with a band made up of Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), Rat Scabies (Damned) and Steve MacKay (Iggy & The Stooges.) The project is called Spiteful and here's a taste.

Sonny Vincent’s address book is fuller than a well-hung pornstar’s underpants so it’s no surprise to see him working with another star-studded gang on his latest album.

With his band drawn from the ranks of the Sex Pistols, the Stooges and The Damned, “Spiteful” is a gold-plated punk rock blast from go to whoa.

Ex-Stooge Jimmy Recca (picured at the left in the 1971 photo) continues his return to stages on Friday with a gig at Empire club (formerly JAXX) in Springfield, Virginia, with plans for more US touring and a European visit.

Talks are underway to team Recca with confrontational vocalist Texas Terri and her band in Germany later this year, and a US tour is in the works for October with an ex-member of The Doughboys.

Steve Mackay - saxophonist for Iggy & the Stooges, Snakefinger's Blues Band, Commander Cody and Violent Femmes, among others - is critiically ill in hospital in San Francisco following complications from surgery.

Friends say he went into Seton Medical Centre in Daly City a few days ago with sepsis, a life threatening condition that can lead to inflammation and organ shutdown.

Close friends and family are understood to be at his bedside.

Mackay is best known for his contribution to the second Stooges album, “Fun House”, and was recruited by the band from Ann Arbor avant garde band Carnal Kitchen. 

Mackay toured with the group throughout 1970 but parted company late that year.

He came back into the fold for both lives of the reformed band and continued to tour heavily with them until their recent hiatus. He played on both “The Weirdness” and “Ready To Die” and toured with his own band in the 2000s.

Heather Harris photo

These bloody phone interviews. If you’ve never done one, this is how it goes: 

First, you notice unfamiliar terms in the email from the publicist like AEDT and CST that refer to time zones. And that excremental daylight saving kicked in two days ago. Cue frantic fiddling on the computer to make sure you’ve got the right time. 

You’ve been given a choice of times - if you’re lucky. Bit awkward if you get stuck with a time when you’re at work and you have to excuse yourself to go to the bog and do an interview. Trust me, you get looks. 

“Who were you cackling away to in the toilet, Robert? New … chum?”

Cue: furious blushing.

This interview was with James Williamson, the guitarist for Iggy and The Stooges, who has a new solo album, "Re-Licked" in the racks. And I got lucky on another front this time, and the nearly-threenager grandchild didn’t arrive until after I’d finished, so assorted boing noises, yowls and her squeaky voice didn’t float up into the recording. 

With most "phoners"you do have a strict 20 minutes to adhere to, a weird time (in this case it’s from 8.55am to 9.15 am). But you do worry that it’s 4.30 am where the interviewee is, and he’ll be off his head on Tequila and mushies. As rock stars do.

Just 20 minutes to gain rapport and probe the poor bugger’s most intimate self?  Poor bugger? He’s on the receiving end of a long line of assorted gits like me for several hours.

One minute before the appointed time, you dial a local number - with the area code prefix. A recorded message asks you to select your language. I am always very tempted to fuck with this but have so far refrained. One day I’ll select Croat or Bulgarian or Tig or something.