The Funhouse Thread (or, more broadly: Stooges - Classic or Dud?)

An I think qua Funhouse it is the point that there is no swing and especially *no* restraint, that is good thing. Of course I give a flying fuck about pentatonic scales and the blues, it's about the intensity which you get in one go or not (strange how L.Bangs had to grow into Funhouse).

1st album also very good and Raw Power too.

Fun? Well, sure I suppose you can call it fun. It's not exactly the first word that springs to mind, tho. It's not for nothing they have a song called "No Fun".

So, without a doubt, classic. TV Eye is the greatest "punk rock" song ever written...that riff sounds like a tank flipped over on its back, treads just endlessly, pointlessly grinding into oblivion...

pure poetry mate :)

Mmm, 32 versions of Loose is a bit much, although all those L.A. Blues versions sound interesting. Ah well, live goes on.

Mark: Funhouse is...well, it's raw. It's real friggin raw. There's no sheen to it whatsoever. Raw Power may have been a fuck you, but Funhouse forgoes the lube completely. Obviously it's one of my favorite records, but I would say listen before you buy.

btw, "Raw Power" is a damn fine album, but doesn't work me up into a frenzy like "Funhouse" does.

I think FH made such an impact on me yesterday because it's so UNlike a lot of what I've been listening to lately.

my first time in chicago, where my girlfriend used to live, we were sitting in this odd taco burrito house, with an owner who resembled ned flanders, mexican TV blaring and an almost exclusively black clientile (the casual segregation of US inner cities still jars with this south london native). i'm tucking into a taco that will swiftly tear itself out of me within the hour, when all of a sudden the most skin-crawling, abject howl tore through the room. EVERYONE spun around, only to discover some college kids had thrown 'TV Eye' on the jukebox.

fuck. funhouse is sharper than a bag of knives. never really play 'LA Blues' when i listen to it, though. and don't buy the Funhouse box - just full of lacklustre run throughs of songs that were perfect on the LP...

S cratch Records has a single LP best of the Funhouse Sessions, which I recommend if you loved the album a lot. It contains alternate versions of everything but "LA Blues", and two tracks not on Funhouse ("Slidin' the Blues"/ "Lost in the Future"). These two tracks are slowed down blues songs (in the broadest sense of the word), with sax.

You can get these two songs by themselves on a pretty expensive 7" if you'd rather just have them. It's on super thick orange vinyl, with a thick cardboard picture sleeve, but a slight warning: my copy has some serious pops at the start of each side, and the edge of the vinyl came broken off, so there's this sliver of wax hanging off. On the plus side, it's better sound quality than the LP's versions because it's mastered at 45 RPM.

Oh yeah, and on the back of The Best of the Funhouse Sessions, there's the picture of the Stooges lounging on the rug, which was available in the early gatefold US pressings.

"Loose" is totally "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Dont' you want to go, "Well, it's allllllriiiiight" every time the chorus comes on? (Loose has a better chorus, though.) I know it came out a year earlier than Sticky Fingers.

Suprised that people downplay the blues riffing on this album. The structures of the melodies & riffs seems very steeped in blues to me, and respectful at that.

Maybe I'm just not in the mood for a shamanistic rock'n'roll frontman screaming the blues over heavy guitars at the moment. As I said, I do like the album -- but it's no Led Zeppelin.

I listen to the Stooges maybe once a week; it's usually driving home from school (I've a tape of Funhouse & Raw Power in the car) or getting ready to go out--when I'm excited and in a good mood.

Exactly. What a fucking record, you can't top it.

Samuel Johnson to James Boswell, September 20, 1777.

Funhouse could very well be the finest recorded document there is of rock'n'roll, and I dare say that if you haven't heard it, you've never heard rock'n'roll played properly, dammit! That said, you should learn from my mistake and avoid the Rhino Funhouse Complete Sessions box set at all costs, as it cruelly robs the album of its mystique. Via twenty-eight consecutive takes of "Loose," the illusion that the Stooges were drunky, drug-imbibing brigands who swaggered into the studio, let'er rip, and then took off again is blown away to reveal the truth that the band were actually meticulous in their tinkering and exacting standards....a somewhat anal-retentive streak you'd sooner assume bands like Rush and King Crimson being guilty of.

Saxophone is introduced 2/3 of the way through the album, but when it cuts loose it seems as though the experience is more intense for the brevity of its appearance and the very testosterone-like accumulation and release of its energy. It is a very masculine album, paced in a really quite traditional if sleazy feel for male sex/drugs satiation.

What Alex says about the alternative takes ruining things makes sense. The original album is so well measured, with each track seemingly building on the dynamic power of the previous track, so the unleashing of sax+guitar twin blat makes perfect sense on side two as measured releases of power controlled (1970) and then casually let in (Funhouse) and then appearing to run wild up the walls (LA Blues). I would have thought you would have liked those side 2 tracks at least.

Yet i think the sax/piano extended rock'n'roll combo power of the stooges is best demonstarted on the final bootleg material like rubber legs and joanna and the rhythmic prowess and accuracy demonstrated on the definitive take of on the curb Get the album Rubber Legs -- worth it for the photos.

Iggy?!? Oh, Iggy?!?

some friends of mine frustrated with my enthusiasm for free jazz in general were at least able to find plenty to enjoy in LA Blues, and the recent evidence from the box set of alternative takes of this piece, one take apparently 18 minutes long (!), puts paid to the idea that this as-of-then totally "new" "rock" as climax/nadir of the whole exercise was anything but a very well crafted and musical joke for the supposedly intelligent of the fans to chew on

I have a great memory of pulling out of a party the night I graduated from high school and watching a prom queen slip and go face first into the mud just as "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" started playing on the tape player. It was hilarious synchronicity to the nth degree. My favorite Stooges song will probably be "Search & Destroy" no matter how many shitty covers get made, it still isn't played out with me.

Then one time in college I did a massive amount of schrooms by myself and put Funhouse onto repeat. I think I reached my precambrian self that night and ever since then that record is encoded into my DNA.
For better or worse, there isn't many records that I have that kind of an experience.

I've probably listened to those first three Stooges records as much as anything. If you take off "We Will Fall" and "L.A. Blues" all three records will fit on a C90. My tape I made of such eventually was worn out and was played for hours upon hours in my walkman and at work.

Iggy after The Stooges really tapered off. "Lust for Life" is great, "The Idiot" is good and then there is only a few scattered songs that I really like. He should have gotten a regular band together as assembling the records in the studio just didn't work out.

I live here in Kill city, where the debris meets the sea
Its a playground for the rich but it's a loaded gun to me

...and Consolation prizes ...iggy in a floppy straw hat...all good!

I haven't listened to "Soldier", "Zombie Birdhouse" or "New Values" in years, but I would say "Kill City" is another one that has a few interesting ideas that are just not developed. Somewhere in those records is a good material that unfortunately didn't get put together right.

An artist like Ig got killed by the label system in a way, as he had a record deal instead of a "band" making the decisions on how the record should go. His mental and physical state of repair didn't probably help things.

There is a great interview with James Williamson in one of the last issues of The Big Takeover that tells his side of the story about his time in the Stooges, Kill City and his producing of the New Values record. If you are a Stooges fan, it is worth searching out.

I like what you have to say abt this record george but maybe it is the fact that its all so 'measured' that prob doesn't do it for me.

I think 'double nickels on the dime' is a far better example of people who actually listened to jazz and did something with it. The sort of interaction you get, the way the rock/bass/drums literally bleed into each on many of the tracks does far more for me. Or 'Flash Gordon's Ape' on beefheart 'lick my decals off' where its all out of place and yet together. I'll take a few seconds of that over anything on funhouse.

Also I have a problem with the guitars on that record. It sounds really tiny (maybe its those hours listening to borbetomagus or takayanagi). you can listen to that one Limp Bizkit single or good charlotte current one, the 'guitars' do far more for me. It's probably some production trick but there it is. its not stooges fault, its just out of date but don't expect me to drop my jaws over those guitars.

I think it would probably be good to listen to that box set. I'm sure they let it all 'hang out' a bit more and so on.

I mean, its a good record i suppose but the greatest rock record? no way!

If i find 'kill city' I might pick this up.

Ash Ra Tempel and a few more Germans made quite a few records trying to capture that kind of freak out.

The best thing about tunes like "Funhouse", "TV Eye", "1970" or "Down in the Street" is that they are simple mostly based on a riff or two but are open enough that you can go all over the place with them. They almost have punk version of pedal point/modal jazz, more so than free tonality except for the grand freakout "LA Blues".

there are lots of ppl on this board who have close tastes to me and whose opinions I respect blah blah or whatever that love this but you know, i don't get it.

i stand by my "tv eye" comments, however.

Julio, I know it's not for you, that's cool, don't mean to chide you. I don't really get your complaints about it, but that's cool, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folx.

this shit is what makes me crazy: if you don't like funhouse, you can't like rock.

--well, sort of YEAH. Do you like 'Sticky Fingers'?

never heard it.

I didn't take offence to yr commnets or dada's. the latter's comment abt me not liking rock music was bullshit and I think he knows it as i mentioned bands i like on my big post earlier in this thread (though if it sounds like i did take offense then I didn't really)

I have no probs with you andrew and I like you as well (I almost got a dead c record bcz of you): I ans yr question straight.

ok sorry i got a bit uptight but that isn't true really.

stooges in general, funhouse included, get a definite supermegaclassic rating. no amount of hype can overshoot the amazing intensity of what this machine was grinding out.

grrrrrrrr...

Then when I got it (free/free/ebay story snipped as repeated too often) I understood. Also, when I eventually got the first album, realised that Fun House was wayy better.

But, shall look out for the deluxe edition of "The Stooges". Naturally, nothing new (for me) on the deluxe "Funhouse"

Gaz, which of these two is "your favorite record in the world?"

Formed in 1967, the Stooges were Detroit's gritty response to what singer Iggy Pop calls the "wockety-wickety-wackety-woo" of the hippie movement. "It didn't even rock," he told Rolling Stone in 2003 of the flowery soundtrack to the Summer of Love. "I mean, 'Marrakesh Express?' It may be the worst song ever written."

YEAH!

A "deluxe" edition of Fun House is practically guaranteed to be inferior to the original.

(not least bcz it is a v.v.poor descriptor in ref the stooges)

THE STOOGES (DELUXE EDITION)

Disc One
1. "1969"
2. "I Wanna Be Your Dog"
3. "We Will Fall"
4. "No Fun"
5. "Real Cool Time"
6. "Ann"
7. "Not Right"
8. "Little Doll"

Disc Two
1. "No Fun" (Original John Cale Mix)*
2. "1969" (Original John Cale Mix)*
3. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Original John Cale Mix)*
4. "Little Doll" (Original John Cale Mix)*
5. "1969" (Alternate Vocal)*
6. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Alternate Vocal)*
7. "Not Right" (Alternate Vocal)*
8. "Real Cool Time" (Alternate Mix)*
9. "Ann" (Including "The Dance Of Romance")*
10. "No Fun" (Full Version)*
*previously unissued

FUN HOUSE (DELUXE EDITION)

Disc One
1. "Down On The Street"
2. "Loose"
3. "T.V. Eye"
4. "Dirt"
5. "1970"
6. "Fun House"
7. "L.A. Blues"

Disc Two
1. "T.V. Eye (Takes 7 & 8)"
2. "Loose" (Demo)
3. "Loose" (Take 2)
4. "Loose" (Take 22)
5. "Lost In The Future" (Take 1)
6. "Down On The Street" (Take 1)
7. "Down On The Street" (Take 8)
8. "Dirt" (Take 4)
9. "Slide (Slidin' The Blues)" (Take 1)
10. "1970" (Take 3)
11. "Fun House" (Take 2)
12. "Fun House" (Take 3)
Bonus Single Mixes
13. "Down On The Street"
14. "1970"

Why not some live stuff instead of alternate takes etc? Guess the tapes don't exist. Around the time of Funhouse das Stooges were covering Pharoah Sanders' "Upper and Lower Egypt" and performing unrecorded/released songs like "Dogfood" (later recorded by Iggy) and I'd love to hear what the 1968/69 Stooges sounded like when they'd perform one droning "song"/"energy freakout" for the duration of their set. (Ron Asheton has always claimed they wrote the bulk of the first album "on demand" during the sessions.) But I'll probably buy these reissues anyway.

(although I seem to have most of those already as well)

god yeah, I'd kill to hear this recorded with any sort of fidelity. you'd think there'd be some live tapes in the elektra vaults, somewhere. nontheless I don't have the complete fun house box, so I'll probably get this.

Funny thing is -- well, it's not that funny, really -- that when the Complete Funhouse Wallet-Draining Swindle Fuck-You, Completist Dork Fanboy Box came out (and I bought it, natch), I remember saying "y'know, why don't they just cull the best takes and edit it down to something more manageable". Which, of course, now they have.

2nd album stuff = if you weren't one of the thousand to buy the boxset like I was then AMAZING still

Fuck you haters.

I'm very excited about these too. More so about the first record, but I'll bet the Funhouse bonus disc is more fun to listen to (or rather, more consistently listenable) than the box.

You didn't have to put it quite as raw as that, Raw Patrick, but you do have a point and I will still be buying both of them nevertheless since I'm in the Completist Dork Fanboy demographic. I wasn't hatin', I was expressing a slight disappointment that there weren't any new rarities on that Fun House bonus disc.

Oh, and That One Guy: there's one on eBay right now (ends Sunday July 3rd, current bid USD 101), but the last one on there, with damaged box went for USD 322.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/07/iggy_pop_video_.html

So fucking classssssssssic

This guy who was in an old post-punk band who has been emailing me because I put them on my blog told me that his 16 year old son recently asked him if he'd heard of The Stooges. He & I both thought that was just too much.

Incidentally, their Massey Hall show on Wednesday night FUCKING ROCKED, MOTHERFUCKERS! Hastily-replaced (or borrowed) equipment notwithstanding.

And yes, that eCard really says: "Ringtones: coming soon!"

-- StanM (StanM), Monday, 1 August 2005 20:33 (3 years ago) Bookmark Link
(coming soon: in a packed train, my phone starts ringing: "LAAAAAAAAWD!")

-- willem (willem), Monday, 1 August 2005 21:15 (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

TV Eye actually was my ringtone for a while, until it left my nerves so shattered that I had to change it to something less screamy.

That said, you should learn from my mistake and avoid the Rhino Funhouse Complete Sessions box set at all costs, as it cruelly robs the album of its mystique. Via twenty-eight consecutive takes of "Loose," the illusion that the Stooges were drunky, drug-imbibing brigands who swaggered into the studio, let'er rip, and then took off again is blown away to reveal the truth that the band were actually meticulous in their tinkering and exacting standards....

That's precisely what I love about the Funhouse box. Of course they had exacting standards; bands that great usually do.

And what difference does it make how they got there? They got there, didn't they?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://bp1.blogger.com/_kEVcy0rQ4Wk/RpHGQ7HviMI/AAAAAAAADqM/vfHCSA_XP5A/s400/folder.jpg&imgrefurl=http://telhadosdomundo.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html&h=400&w=400&sz=34&hl=en&start=7&um=1&usg=__IoK-NnZ6CkSbUibpPnCgJpR50ho=&tbnid=LPe6IFiGQoCN0M:&tbnh=124&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dstooges%2Bfunhouse%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

I can't seem to post pictures very well today.

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn306/Floridian_20/Stooges.jpg

What I'd really like is some FH-era live material, but apparently there really isn't any extant.

Email from Rhino today:

To celebrate the release of Fun House in the summer of 1970, The Stooges brought the uncompromising ferocity of their second album to New York City and unleashed it within the cramped confines of Ungano’s, a hole-in-the-wall club on the Upper West Side. A reel-to-reel set up in the audience recorded the manic maelstrom as the band performed the entire album – except “L.A. Blues” – along with the until-now unreleased tracks “Have Some Fun” and “My Dream Is Dead.”

Rhino Handmade brings to light this legendary unreleased show in its entirety on a single disc accompanied by a poster, two glossy photos taken that night, and new liner notes composed by Lenny Kaye. Shipping November 16, HAVE SOME FUN: LIVE AT UNGANO’S will be available for pre-order on October 25 exclusively at www.rhino.com for $19.98.

The adrenalin-drenched set features singer Iggy Pop, guitarists Ron Asheton and Bill Cheatham, drummer Scott Asheton, bassist Zeke Zettner and saxophonist Steve Mackay. The band closes the show with a 10-minute-plus psychedelic, freak out jam featuring two unreleased tracks, “Have Some Fun” and “My Dream Is Dead.”

Musician and writer Lenny Kaye attended the show and transports you there in the album’s liner notes: “The sound comes in sheets of earsplitting noise, dense and bleating, as if a sheep is being led to slaughter. You can literally hear the ’60s gasping for breath, the totemic sacrifice of The Stooges.”

The same day HAVE SOME FUN will be released, Rhino Handmade will also rerelease 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions. This seven-disc boxed set topped Rhino Handmade’s poll earlier this year to determine which of the label’s sold-out titles to put back in print. The reissued collection – which will not be individually numbered, preserving the collectability of the initial release – will be offered in its original packaging for $119.98.

I've never heard of Bill Cheatham or Zeke Zettner before; anybody know anything about these dudes? Were they just hired hacks for one night?

i guess zeke must be the zeke mentioned at the start of 'dum dum boys'?

Hmm, wonder if Rhino will send me *another* complete sessions?

Still, that live one sounds good...

Looks like Cheatham and Zettner were roadies:

http://www.glampunk.org/stoogelineup.html

More info here (incl a photo):

http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/repost-of-rare-stooges-photo.html

Really worth reading the comments on that second link btw.

Yeah, bless 'em.

I think Funhouse is the greatest rock album ever, but I still don't feel the need to hear the complete sessions. I wonder how the sound quality is of the live show. I wasn't too chuffed over the live disc with the Raw Power set.

I have the complete sessions in my iPod but have never made it through. And the live albums haven't done much for me. I've seen Iggy twice - once solo and once on the initial run of Stooges shows - and that was enough.

I do like the TV Eye live album from '77, though.

the sound quality of that easy action box set wasn't great, but the music itself is pretty exciting.

I want this live thing.

WOW!!

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/170.jpg

(thanks to WFMU blog for the tip)

ha yeah, those pics are amazing.
now i guess this show has competition for coolest high school show ever
http://www.garagehangover.com/images7/MyddleClassSummitHighFlyer.jpg

hooooooooly cow!

a distant third, but still cool
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oyMn5ruuF1o/S2xhIvJdfuI/AAAAAAAACbY/8ydnvjfqqVo/Buffalo%20Springfield%20Flyer_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg

you guys didn't tell me that they quoted me on the cover of a stooges reissue!! okay, they really quoted rolling stone but whatever. that made my day. i sold that to some dude and just looked at the quotes out of boredom. simon is quoted on fun house. i feel like i'm part of the stooges family now.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1001233_10152417512352137_1727566765_n.jpg

R.I.P. Scott Asheton (via Iggy Pop on fb):

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM IGGY:
My dear friend Scott Asheton passed away last night.

Scott was a great artist, I have never heard anyone play the drums with more meaning than Scott Asheton. He was like my brother. He and Ron have left a huge legacy to the world. The Asheton's have always been and continue to be a second family to me.

My thoughts are with his sister Kathy, his wife Liz and his daughter Leanna, who was the light of his life.

Iggy Pop

little baby girlie, little baby boy.
cover me with lovin' in a bundle o' joy.
do i care to show you what i'm dreamin' of.
do i dare to whoop ya with my love.
every little baby knows just what i mean livin' in division in a shiftin' scene.