Fun House

The Stooges

Elektra, 1970

http://iggyandthestoogesmusic.com

REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 10/01/2006

Detroit rock never got much better than the Stooges. One could almost argue Detroit was the birth of what would later become punk -- sure, you could argue the Clash and Pistols came from Britian, but the stripped-down sound and sneering attitude came straight from the Motor City, in bands like the Stooges, MC5 and even early Alice Cooper, who was a lot more hard-rocking and less theatrical than what we know now.

What helped solidify these bands as godfathers was the stomping, sweaty live shows, as evidenced on Kick Out the Jams, though arguably the Stooges influenced more bands than MC5 did. But both bands sound similar, and Fun House comes close to replicating the sound of MC5 and the Stooges' own live show, infused with a primal rhythm section, minimal wall-of-sound guitars and Iggy Pop's nihilistic, proto-punk singing.

This all gives Fun House the feeling of a concert, with a muddy sound quality that remastering can't and won't fix, since part of Detroit rock's charm is its underproduced simplicity and reliance on attitude over sound. If you can imagine what Alice Cooper's Killer album would sound like crossed with the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues," mixed with a need to kick someone's ass, you've got a pretty good idea of Fun House. The downside? Because there is no variety in the production, the seven songs all sort of blend together in one beer-soaked haze, sounding like excellent garage rock but not sounding terribly different from each other, at least until repeated listens prove otherwise.

"T.V. Eye" is perhaps the standout track here, though in reality the first six are all cornerstones of Detroit rock (the closing "L.A. Blues" is five minutes of noise and a waste of space). Mixing Iggy's snotty howling with distorted, druggy guitars and a visceral, immediate drum beat, the track hammers home its paranoid message in an immediately catchy glam/punk hybrid. It's the kind of song you'd have to see live to understand, but on record its power is no less diminished. Same for "Loose."my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

Where the Stooges differed from other hard rock bands of the time is their down-to-earth nature and relative simplicity. There are no lyrics about Tolkein or wizards, only a few guitar solos and no complex signatures, just music recorded by four guys who wanted to play and hit you in the gut with their riffs. They'd buy you a beer afterward, don't worry. But alcohol is not a requirement to enjoy this - the seven-minute bluesy punk of "Dirt" is hypnotic in its own right, a menacing death march that could lull you to sleep if you weren't afraid Iggy would stab you as he howls about how his woman treats him. It manages to be psychedelic, bluesy and raw all in one.

"1970," a sequel of sorts to the debut's album "1969," celebrates sex ("I'll be up all night until I blow away") in the band's now-expected stomping garage fashion - at first. After Iggy gets through, though, a killer guitar solo winds in and then leads into a saxophone solo (courtesy of Steve MacKay) that has nothing to do with jazz and all to do with face-melting rock. The band had been listening to Coltrane at the time, and it shows, though surely Coltrane never thought to include Iggy Pop shouting "I feel all right" over his sax lines.

That sax comes back on the eight-minute title track, an extension of the former song that is basically a full jam session while Iggy occasionally sings over top in his best Jim Morrison impression. It's the definitive moment on the album, the all-out jam led by the sax and the relentless rhythm section that was among rock's most powerful and unheralded. It would have been the perfect way to close the record (and this portion of the band's career, which it in fact did), but "L.A. Blues" gets that honor -- and while that keeps with the nihilistic punk spirit of the band, it's a tuneless mess that gets old quickly.

But records that rock this hard with this much attitude, with commercialism and production superseded by sweat and beer, fueled by drugs and fighting, come along once in a lifetime. Granted, listening to the Stooges now reveals a rather primitive band with a lack of melody and sophistication, a band that could ride the same chord and beat for seven minutes and call it jamming (if you ever hear the box set with the sessions that make up this album, you'll know what I mean). And certainly, this could be seen among the elite as an atonal mess, a record made by four drug addicts and presided over by a bored loser who would smear himself in peanut butter and dive into the audience during shows. Surely not the kind of professional work you'd get out of Van Morrison or Dylan in 1970.

If you want to see it that way, this is not the album for you. The Stooges don't create art; they create glam-shock-garage rock noise, and it's an album you need to hear.

Rating: A-

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© 2006 Benjamin Ray and The Daily Vault. All rights reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of Elektra, and is used for informational purposes only.