Man...this was a royal bummer to read this morning...The Stooges founding member and guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead in his Ann Arbor, MI home early this morning. He was 60. I've always stated that The Stooges were the first punk band to exist...they exploded out of Detroit starting around '67 or so. There was nobody like them...and with Iggy out front...they could punk the pants off of you or have you running for the exits with your ears covered. You never knew what would hit you at a Stooges show.
Ron was the man behind the epic riffs in "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "TV Eye" and "No Fun". He never got the respect as any of the other early, brilliantly sloppy punk axemen did...and was eventually demoted to being the bass player after original bassist Dave Alexander died from drink...and James Williamson came in for Raw Power in 1973 to put punk on the map of maps with his own guitar goods.
Ron came back to the Stooges fold in 2003 as guitarist and the re-united band put out a very Stooges-like album of uneven brilliance called The Weirdness in 2007. They had been on the road for almost 4 years straight. I was lucky enough to see them at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco on their 2007 tour. We'll miss you, Ron.
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