The Stooges-Fun House
A long time ago, I ran across The Stooges’ Fun House used and knew it would be worth the minor investment. What I didn’t know was that my minor investment held the key to one of the greatest rock albums of all time and an album that I would repeatedly spin ever since. Primitive and retarded, this is music that anyone could play but very few could really execute.
The first exposure to The Stooges that I had came with a Personics mix tape that I made at a Tower Records store in Los Angeles. Personics was an 80’s attempt at capitalizing on the mix tape “market.” For about a buck a song (back then, a hefty fee) you could should from thousands of songs in a book, type in the corresponding number and within ten minutes the tape and a custom cover was made using digital (read: cd) sources. Fidelity was good, and I believed the system utilized a high speed dubbing technique and an early version of what would be a standard consumer product known as a jukebox cd player. Anyway, the choices of songs were pretty bizarre. Typically, you didn’t find any recent hits that you could include on your mix tape. I specifically remember Naked Eyes’ “Always Something There To Remind Me” was the most dubbed song in the Personics’ catalog, a full three years after it originally appeared on the U.S. charts. You also wouldn’t find complete albums, which made sense because you could inevitably the complete album cheaper than if you made it through Personics. I still have my tape, entitled “Tenderfoot” and it included such gems as The Gap Band’s “You Dropped A Bomb On Me,” Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” and The Stooges’ “1969.” I included the song on a whim after previewing it and it started off Side A of my overpriced mixtape.
In college, we had a shitty basement in the house we lived in and it included a stinky couch the previous tenants had left us. We moved a bunch of weed and music instruments down there and when the weed took effect, sometimes we performed. A friend recently scored enough cash to buy a Fender Twin combo amp. He loaded it up and visited our basement with a Gibson SG in his free hand. The dude later recorded a single for a local label, but back then he could barely play in time. You can’t really fuck up a Stooges song, but he managed to give it a shot but constantly speeding up. I’ve got the tape of that “session” somewhere, and you can hear me start cracking up when I get to the part where Iggy goes “Well come on!” in the song. It was funny to me that we were managing to fuck up a Stooges song. That gives you an idea of how bad it sounded.
Swear to God, several years later another group of guys in another basement that I was in managed to extend The Stooges “No Fun” into a thirty minute version and the results were breathtaking. At least it seemed to be at that moment.
That’s the underlying brilliance of The Stooges: songs so primitive that it takes effort (or an out of time guitarist) to really fuck them up. Hundreds of bands covered them Hundreds of bands copied them This may explain why Rhino Handmade released every note of the “Funhouse” sessions in a limited edition box set. It quickly sold out and now fetches around $500 on Ebay. It doesn’t explain why someone would actually pay that amount just to hear repeated versions of the same song over and over. But if you’re retarded like me, there’s a voice in your head that thinks paying that amount is completely rational. Unfortunately, the financial situation makes a purchase like that totally out of the question.
So Rhino does a gracious thing and goes back to the original masters for the first two albums, lovingly spruces up the sound, repackages the shit and throws in a few rarities on a second disc. God bless ‘em: there is not two other albums more deserving of such treatment.
The debut Stooges album, initially panned by critics, stands as a refreshing rock reminder during a time when psychedelic excess was the norm. Produced by Velvet Underground member, John Cale, the first album is probably the band’s weakest. That being said, it’s the debut that gave us “1969,” “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “No Fun,” which means that it’s better than 95% of the shit that’s currently in your record collection. Cale originally tried to make the record into a Warholian art record fronted by white trash kids from Michigan. The end results, which some selections are included in the second disc, are as dismal as it sounds. For probably the first time in history, the record label was right to demand the recordings get remixed entirely. They only include about four of the mixes, thankfully, and so the rest of the disc is filled out with alternate vocal tracks and full length versions. Everything is duplicated (“No Fun” makes a total of three appearances on the set) because the band didn’t have their shit together enough to realize an entire long player. Three out of the original eight tracks were written during the actual recording.
Elektra records signed the band at the same time they swooped up the MC5, but oddly tried to package them into the same mold as The Doors. Even the original artwork mirrors The Doors’ debut and the track “We Will Fall” comes off as very nearsighted attempt at trying to match wits with “The End.” It comes nowhere close, as you might expect, and it sounds completely out of place with the rest of the album.
When you get to the second album, “Fun House,” the band is completely out of their minds and who better to capture that mental state than the former keyboard player to The Kingsmen? This album is better than 99% of the shit that’s currently in your record collection. From the opener “Down On The Street” to the chaotic closer “L.A. Blues,” this is one of the greatest American rock albums ever recorded.
Here’s where the bonus tracks get pretty fucking interesting: The second disc lifts so key tracks included on the “Complete Fun House” material. You get an early take of “Down On The Street” that shows the band finding the song’s groove. The lyrics also devolve and it’s cool to watch Iggy toy with the phrasing of his hollers.
Here’s where the crazy Doors’ comparisons continue too: the mono, single mix of “Down On The Street” features some pointless Ray Manzarek organ fills throughout the song. It’s a cool little curio that demonstrates Elektra records had no clue how to market these loony boys.
Packaging and artwork are enhanced on both releases and you get a lot of stuff for the same price as a regular release. What you’re paying for, whether it’s $16.99 or $500, is the music: perhaps the most perfect documentation of late 60’s/early 70’s Detroit rock music that slayed anything and everything happening around the country at that time. And some thirty five years later, it slays pretty much everything that’s happening around the country today.
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