Here’s one of those impossible rock ‘n’ roll questions, the kind with no right answer: Do I buy tickets for Iggy and the Stooges at the Fillmore on Tuesday?
A case can be made for each side of the argument.
Absolutely yes: The Stooges are one of the most important rock bands of all time.
Or absolutely not: They were important and underappreciated in the ’60s and ’70s, but their attempt at continued relevance – the recent reunion album, “The Weirdness” – is an exercise in greed, ego and irrelevance.
It’s impossible to deny the Stooges’ importance as a proto- punk band. Alongside the Velvet Underground, they helped shape modern rock ‘n’ roll with their fiercely bare-bones approach to music-making.
That’s why “The Weirdness” is such a cringe-worthy misstep. Instead of reveling in the glow of mainstream adulation they never received in their heyday, the Stooges tried to re-create something that happened decades ago under the triumvirate of youthful brio, cheap drugs and boyish sexuality.
Head Stooge Iggy Pop, who doesn’t even smoke cigarettes anymore, turns 60 on April 21.
“We never thought about tarnishing our reputation here until people started asking us about that, saying that we might harm our legacy if we tried to record another record,” guitarist Ron Asheton said recently. “In the early days of writing, people asked us, ‘What if you come back with something that nobody likes?’
“But we agreed we couldn’t think in those terms because it’s still the Stooges’ energy, and it’s still the elements that have always made up the Stooges: anger, sex and that sarcastic, smirking humor that tends to come out of the music.”
Unfortunately for them, anger, sex and humor vary wildly from a 20-year-old’s soaring soul to a drug-ravaged brain that’s pushing 60. “The Weirdness” reaches hard for that magic the Stooges conjured up in 1969 with producer John Cale for their debut. But the end result is unlistenable.
That’s not to say Tuesday’s show isn’t worth your $30.
The band was never known for its technical prowess. Primal rawness was always the core of the Stooges’ appeal. (Their third record was smartly titled “Raw Power.”)
The Asheton brothers – Ron on guitar and Scott on drums – are praised for their voluminous, crunchy sonics. Pop, in all his skeletal, ex-junkie glory, has been called the grandfather of punk for good reason. His off- the-top delivery is visceral, a fact only enhanced by his lyrics’ stone-cold simplicity. “No fun, my babe, no fun.”
This reunion, with ex-Minutemen legend Mike Watt playing bass, is a solid live lineup. In April 2003, the same lineup played its first concert together in more than 30 years at the Coachella festival in Palm Springs, Calif. The set was a fist-pumping celebration of the punk spirit and D.I.Y. ethos.
Pop was possessed, charging the stage. He assaulted the crowd with blistering rock ‘n’ roll that had aged well. He was awkward, old and a little weird, but he was obviously a star who had returned home to spotlight.
“Man, was I nervous,” Asheton said. “We knew our stuff … But we were deer in the headlights, and it was either sink or swim or rocket to the moon. It was amazing, but afterward we didn’t know what came next, until Iggy came over to our trailer and asked Mike Watt, ‘Would you be available for any more shows?’ ”
It’s a huge jump for bands such as the Stooges or the Pixies. You’re selling a smattering of tickets the month before you break up. Years later, reunited, your audience has ballooned.
“Obviously it’s great being able to play to an appreciative audience,” Asheton said. “We feel like old bluesmen, because we had to wait 30-some years to get accepted by everybody. It took some time for the world to catch up with us. But it was worth the wait, because this is the most fun I’ve had playing onstage all my life.”
The original trio has had some existential conversations about whether their slow rise was predestined.
“Iggy, my brother and I, we were talking one night about what would have happened had we become successful back then. Maybe it wasn’t preordained. Maybe, we thought, people would be dead if it went any other way.
“(Original Stooges bassist) Dave Alexander’s dead, but he died (of pneumonia) after leaving the band. Maybe Kurt Cobain was predisposed to suicide, but he also didn’t like the fame he got within a few years, and had that fame happened to us back then, who knows what would have happened.”
Asheton is most pleased that the reunion has brought him closer to his brother. They normally lead separate lives, he said, and this has been a time for catching up. And even though Asheton spoke with Pop only twice in the 25 years preceding the most recent outing, he says the tour reminds him of the ’60s in some ways.
“Everyone’s getting along super-well,” he said. “We have a deep friendship, and it comes from when we first got together and had our own house. Back in the ’60s, it was different. It really was the separation of us against them. They were very tribal times, and all the bands moved into a big house together for safety’s sake, like cave men sticking together.
“We had that common bond of coming up through those times, and once we got back together again and started laughing and remembering, all the years in between evaporated. Iggy’s still the same, always nervous getting ready for a show. We don’t see him all that frequently. He sticks to himself a bunch and sequesters himself to get his mind ready for a show.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
