from my MySpace:
Ron Asheton 1948-2009
Current mood: bummed
A rock god is dead, but you can still hear the echoes from his amp. Ron Asheton died last weekend at his home in Ann Arbor. So far, all that is being said is that death was apparently due to that boilerplate term "natural causes," although there is speculation that it was a heart attack. Whatever the cause, radio stations all over the world are playing Stooges music. Practically every Stooges video on YouTube has noted Ron's passing.
Unless you know the history of punk rock, you can't know how important The Stooges were. In an era of hippies and flowers and free love, Iggy, Ron, Scott Asheton and Dave Alexander were snarling, sullen, smartass punks who had their amps as loud as possible and songs about unhappiness, anger and other teenage emotions not buried under pot or acid. The Stooges didn't want to hear about the new world—they knew it wasn't there, that it was much a sham as the straight world. They wanted liberation—on their terms.
Ron was critical to the band's sound. On the first two albums, THE STOOGES and FUNHOUSE, his guitar is raw and menacing--the perfect complement to Iggy's lyrics. It demands your attention; you can't be in the same room with that sound and ignore it. When RAW POWER was being recorded, Ron ceded guitar duties to the equally talented James Williamson and switched to bass. In the process, he and his brother Scott (aka Rock Action) became one of the most powerful rhythm sections in rock. If Iggy was having an off night, Ron and Scott could push him into a frenzy, a Dionysian state in which he might cut himself, contort himself, throw himself into the audience—anything to express the energy inside.
The Stooges imploded after that album, due to internal strife and burnout on Iggy's part. When they reunited in early 2003, the energy was still there, waiting to be tapped. Finally, people like me who missed the Stooges the first time around found out what the excitement was all about. I was lucky enough to see them play at a daylong festival in New York City in 2004, with Mike Watt on bass and Steve MacKay on saxophone. I remember people seemed to be saving their energy for the Stooges, knowing they'd need every erg of it. I remember this guy—he was about 4 feet tall—dancing madly, and me with him, thrusting our bodies in crazy directions, whirling like dervishes. It was an hour I wouldn't trade for anything in Paradise.
The good news here is that Ron lived to be part of that reunion, lived to receive his due as a true punk pioneer. Anytime a guitarist plugs a fuzzbox into his amp and turns the gain to full, Ron will be there in spirit. Even now, I can feel the feedback raising the hair on my arms, tingling in my fingers. What the mind perceives, the body channels into motion, into passion, into—no other words will suffice—rock action.
