The Stooges Funhouse 50th anniversary box set (1 Viewer)

mjp

Founding member
Maybe a discussion for the Neil Young hi-res thread, but Rhino is releasing a $400 50th anniversary edition of The Stooges Funhouse in July...on vinyl.

It's basically The Complete Funhouse Sessions, which is still available on CD, re-released in a shittier format. (Pressing the single album version at 45 RPM is cute, but vinyl is vinyl.) They've included Live at Ungano's, which you can buy for less than twenty bucks, so I'm not sure how they got to the $400 price.


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Personally, I'm holding out for the 8-Track version.

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it's on spotify - i'm gonna see how long i can hang with it...

edit - i'm out - track 3.

edit 2 - listened to the album. wow that's crazy for 1970! must've spun heads back then. that last
track is super-crazy! his vocals are amazing too. great album. 5 stars.
 
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I don't know why any normal, sane person would want to listen to all those takes. As a musician though (one who played nothing but Stooges songs in my first real band), I love hearing it all.

Everything was recorded live in the studio, with Iggy singing through a PA system, which was an...unusual way to record. And when you have all the takes to compare, you can see when they'd usually hit the best take when doing a song ten (or 15 or 30) times.

The universe aligned for The Stooges on that record, and they were never better, before or after. Definitely not after.
 
Looks interesting but definitely expensive. Plus, I don't own a vinyl player. Thinking of getting the Funhouse Sessions on CD, though.

As a musician though (one who played nothing but Stooges songs in my first real band)

I'm curious about that. I think that I mentioned in another discussion that I've been trying to pick up the guitar again. Of course the first thing I thought about was getting some of my favorite punk songs down, with as little help from the internet as possible. Yesterday I thought of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" as a song I'd like to learn how to play. I got some of the chords down already, but I guess my question is: how the hell did you figure out Ron Asheton's guitar solos? They sound so chaotic, which is what I mainly like about them and why I think they would be great to learn to start learning something about guitar solos. They're definitely not virtuosic like most metal or prog rock solos, but to me they are their own category.
 
how the hell did you figure out Ron Asheton's guitar solos?
I didn't, someone else played them. But he didn't really copy Ron's solos verbatim. But then I don't think copying them verbatim would be in the spirit of The Stooges.

I played a couple of James Williamson solos, they weren't that hard to decipher. I think I got those solos because I played very treble-y in those days, and Williamson was a screechy motherfucker.

Learning the Funhouse (I guess technically it's "Fun House," but I've always thought of it as one word) songs was what taught me about groove and swing, two things most of those songs do. The Stooges (at their best) were loose, and dare I say funky.

"I Wanna Be Your Dog" is a song I've probably heard 20 bands play and not one of them got it right. But it's a simple chord progression, so everyone thinks they can play it.

- - -

Funniest Stooges story: when they decided to call themselves The Stooges, Ron Asheton called Moe Howard from The Three Stooges. Apparently Ron called him from time to time just to chat. Figures, I guess. When Ron asked Moe for permission to name his band The Stooges, Moe said, "I don't care what you call your fucking band as long as it isn't The Three Stooges!"
 
But then I don't think copying them verbatim would be in the spirit of The Stooges.

You're probably right.

I played a couple of James Williamson solos, they weren't that hard to decipher.

Really? Always thought Williamson was more technical when it came to guitar. As you've mentioned in other posts MJP, I think that's part of the reason why Funhouse is so much better than Raw Power. It feels less technical and more stripped down to the basics.

Funniest Stooges story: when they decided to call themselves The Stooges, Ron Asheton called Moe Howard from The Three Stooges. Apparently Ron called him from time to time just to chat. Figures, I guess. When Ron asked Moe for permission to name his band The Stooges, Moe said, "I don't care what you call your fucking band as long as it isn't The Three Stooges!"

Hahahaha. Nice piece of trivia.
 
Always thought Williamson was more technical when it came to guitar.
Not more technical, just a different style.

Williamson never left any space in the music he played. It was all wall-to-wall guitar all the time. As Iggy put it in that Jim Jarmusch documentary (paraphrasing from memory), "James occupies all of the sonic space when he's playing."

Ron Asheton went wall-to-wall sometimes, but more often than not he left spaces for the songs to breathe. And his playing swings, something Williamson never had.
 
I think I know what you mean. I should probably listen to both albums back to back to really grasp the difference. I have also yet to watch the documentary.
 

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