The Stooges - The Stooges

THE STOOGES “The Stooges” , 1969

The late sixties was a time period were rock was full of drug-taking hippy psychedelic bands who were accomplished musicians due to years spent practicing before forming a band.   A band that couldn’t play their instruments who recorded a full album in less than week would have been sneered at by many of their counterparts.

After much begging while producing the album, Velvet Underground member, John Cale, successful managed to compromise with The Stooges to turn their amps down from full volume to nine.  “Psychedelic” may have been dropped from the full band moniker however there was no escaping the lingering in the lengthy slow-burning “We Will Fall” and “1969”’s wah-wah effects.   The stripped to the bone rawness and punk energy of  “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “No Fun” delivers an unbridled simple swift but shattering kick to the teeth.    The crude unrefined rock would continue into their follow up albums “Raw Power” and “Fun House”.  Despite the enlisting of bass player extraodinaire, Mike Watt, like many recent comeback albums, 2007’s “The Weirdness” suffers from a lack of song-writing chemistry and an incoherent flow that makes the effort misplaced.