I was having a bad week already, when I opened the paper and saw that Ron Asheton, guitarist for the Stooges, had passed away. What could I do, except put on Funhouse and crank it up.
This is my blues music. By that, I mean this is the music I turn to when I'm depressed. This is the music which makes me feel better, or at least lets me work through my feelings. Funhouse has gotten me through more depressions than any other record. Especially in my late teen's and early 20's, when depression hit really hard, and the right song was key.
That song would be "Dirt." And the thing that made "Dirt" work was Ron Asheton's guitar line, backing up Iggy as he sings, "I'm buuurrrrnnning…. inside!" Not just backing him, but echoing him, reinforcing the words. Making it believable. That was enough to get me through, to convince me that I too could burn like Iggy.
But it took the whole album to get there, or at least, all of side 1 (this was back in the days of vinyl, when you could isolate one side of an album), Funhouse kicks off with three cuts of unrestrained, balls out rock'n'roll ("Down on the Street," "Loose" and "TV Eye"). Everything I kept bottled up in my adolescence—aggression, lust, ego—pours out of those songs. And, not coincidentally, those emotions are usually the source of adolescent depression. While it is Iggy on display in those songs, Asheton's guitar drives them.
And then, after everything has been shaken loose inside of you, things slow down for "Dirt." Is it a ballad, a blues, a slow soul groove? Whatever. It's the point where the album comes back under control, where you start to feel you have power, power over your emotions, and over the world. You may be dirt, but you are burning too. And it is Asheton's guitar that makes you feel that.
Sure, there's plenty more I could say about Asheton. About how his guitar riffs on the Stooges debut invented punk rock, About the incomparable live power of the reunited Stooges (which I was lucky enough to see). About his post-Stooges band Destroy All Monsters, and their wonderful single "Bored." About the arching bass line he played on the live version of "Gimme Danger' on the bootleg Metallic K.O.
But I'm listening to "Dirt" right now, and that's all I need.
G. Murray Thomas writes and performs poetry because he can't sing. He can be found at myspace.com/gmurraythomas
