Stooges drummer Scott Asheton has passed away at the age of 64.

The Stooges were perhaps the seminal proto-punk band, eschewing the peace-and-love ideal of the day in favour of the three Fs:  feedback, fucking, and getting fucked up.  In an era where rock ‘n’ roll had a tendency of being a bit fey and esoteric, the Stooges skewed in the opposite direction.  They played like cavemen, bashing out howling songs of go-nowhere lives with a snarling abandon that wouldn’t fully come into vogue for a decade.  Like primitive Sixties garage rock heroes like the Sonics, Monks, and Troggs, they banged out three-chord anthems to teenage wastelands built around brother Ron Asheton’s swirling feedback and the pound of Scott’s drums.

From 1967 to 1974 they prowled the United States, selling virtually no records and freaking people out with singer Iggy Pop’s wild onstage antics.  After falling apart in an implosion of booze, heroin, and commercial failure, Asheton took over the drumset of Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, featuring garage-soul guru Scott Morgan and fellow Detroiter Fred “Sonic” Smith, formerly of the MC5.  When Smith put the band on hiatus to marry another proto-punk (American poetess Patti Smith) in 1980 Asheton followed Morgan around through various projects including The Scott Morgan Band and Scott’s Pirates.  In 2003 he joined up with the reunited Stooges to tour endlessly; in 2007 the band released a fourth album, The Weirdness.  In 2009 his brother Ron died and in 2011 Scott suffered a stroke after a performance at a festival in France.

Iggy Pop had this to say about Asheton’s death:

“My dear friend Scott Asheton passed away last night. Scott was a great artist, I have never heard anyone play the drums with more meaning than Scott Asheton. He was like my brother. He and Ron have left a huge legacy to the world. The Ashetons have always been and continue to be a second family to me.

My thoughts are with his sister Kathy, his wife Liz and his daughter Leanna, who was the light of his life.

Iggy Pop”

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-“1969”, from The Stooges (1969)

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-“I Wanna Be Your Dog, from The Stooges (1969)

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-“T.V. Eye”, from Fun House (1970)

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-“Fun House”, from Fun House (1970)

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-“Search And Destroy”, from Raw Power (1973)

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-“Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell”, from Raw Power (1973)

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-“City Slang” – Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, late 1970s

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-“Pirate Music” – The Scott Morgan Band, from Rock Action (1988)

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-“You Can’t Have Friends”, from The Weirdness (2007)

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-“Sex and Money”, from Ready To Die (2013)