OT: RIP Ron Asheton of the Stooges

[TOWOS]

** The Stooges guitarist found dead **
Guitarist Ron Asheton, who helped found Iggy Pop's band The Stooges, is found dead at his home in Michigan.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 814150.stm >

[Divemistress of the Dark]

I can't tell you how this bums me out.

OTOH, so glad I took the time/trouble to go see them last year.

[TOWOS]

[quote="Divemistress of the Dark"]I can't tell you how this bums me out.

OTOH, so glad I took the time/trouble to go see them last year.[/quote]

I do understand: I was always an Iggy and the Stooges fan and Mr. T. actually knew them and saw them when he was a student in Ann Arbor.

[Vince]

Yes that's really sad ! I saw them a couple of time since their reformation in 2003 and I love the way Ron played the guitar, he was really groovy...

The Stooges and Fun House are 2 of the best rock albums of all time for me. Listen to Telluric Chaos a great live recorded in Japan in 2004.

[Vince]

We are shocked and shaken by the news of Ron’s death. He was a great friend, brother, musician, trooper. Irreplaceable. He will be missed.

For all that knew him behind the façade of Mr Cool & Quirky, he was a kind-hearted, genuine, warm person who always believed that people meant well even if they did not.

As a musician Ron was The Guitar God, idol to follow and inspire others. That is how he will be remembered by people who had a great pleasure to work with him, learn from him and share good and bad times with him.

Iggy, Scott, Steve, Mike and Crew

-----------------------------------------

I am in shock. He was my best friend.

Iggy Pop

[DirtyMartini]

I saw this last night.

Way too young.

[63falcon]

A real loss- I always loved me some Iggy, especially w/ the Stooges.....

[Omaha_Perez]

I feel fortunate to have been able to see The Stooges at all - they were AMAZING - but I was looking forward to seeing them many more times. I'm really glad Iggy finally came around a few years ago to reform the band. I know Ron had wanted to for years - so at least he had that.

Iggy is awesome but he never had/never will have a more powerful band. They were so much more than a backing band. Ron will be missed!

Omaha

[TheEqualizer]

QUOTE

Iggy Pop gave his first interview since the death of Stooges’ guitarist Ron Asheton this morning, telling a pair of Detroit radio show hosts, “As long as I don’t think about it, I’m OK. And then when I think about it, I’m not OK… He had a beautiful touch as a musician.” Pop also spoke with Rolling Stone’s David Fricke at length for a memorial that will run in our next issue (on stands January 21st).

“He developed such a unique sound and approach to his instrument and writing that I don’t think that everybody got it at first, but over the years other generations caught on,” Pop told the Deminski & Doyle show. “I think a lot of good musicians were influenced by what Ron pioneered.”

Asked what bands he thought were most influenced by Asheton’s style, Iggy answered, “The most obvious would be Sonic Youth… bands that use dissonance and overdrive. I hear a little bit in Smashing Pumpkins… also in Nirvana.” Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore wrote about how the Stooges’ inspired Sonic Youth in our Immortals issue.

In a statement following Asheton’s death, Pop called the guitarist his “best friend,” and much of the radio interview was spent reminiscing about Pop and Asheton’s high school days as well as the early days of the Stooges. “For some reason my mind keeps going back to little clubs and bars in Ann Arbor… high school dances, armory dances that we would play, and, of course, the Grand Ballroom,” Pop said. “I knew Ron in high school vaguely because we were two of the first guys to let our hair grow over our ears. We used to get hassled for that from time to time.”

As for how he found out about Asheton’s death, Pop said, “I woke up and got a cell phone message last Tuesday morning from my U.K. manager for the Stooges. He just said, ‘Call me, I really need to talk to you.’ From the tone of his voice I knew something really big was up. So I called him in Europe. He said, ‘I got some bad news for you.’ From the tone of that, I had an immediate interior reaction. He then told me Ron had passed away.”

END QUOTE