Iggy Pop Confirms Details of Stooges Gigs in 2010

Posted on Sep 8th 2009 11:45AM by Liisa Ladouceur
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Iggy Pop has confirmed he's reuniting Iggy and the Stooges for gigs in 2010. As previously reported by guitarist James Williamson -- who bumped founding guitarist Ron Asheton to bass for the band's classic 1973 album 'Raw Power' -- the line-up of Pop, Williamson, drummer Scott Asheton, bassist Mike Watt and saxophonist Steve McKay will play London's All Tomorrow's Party festival March 2 and 3 of next year.

"Ron was really the core of the original Stooges, he occupied a huge space in the middle of that band," Pop tells Spinner. "I didn't want to replace that. The only other thing left to do that had any validity with the fellows I work with was to bring James in to do 'Raw Power.'"

At the request of ATP, the band will perform the 'Raw Power' album in its entirety at the festival. Pop says when he joins the band for rehearsals in L.A. later this month, they'll also be running through "key songs" from earlier Stooges albums -- such as 'I Want to Be Your Dog' -- as well as material from the Pop-Williamson project Kill City and the singer's own solo hits. e

As for why he wants to join the growing number of acts recreating their classic albums for the stage (although the Stooges' 2003 'Fun House' shows pre-date this season's tours of the Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Ocean Rain,' the Pixies' 'Doolittle' and many more), he acknowledges that 'Raw Power' is one of those of those records that deserves special treatment.

"Just as in painting, there are album masterpieces," he says. "There was a time, which is probably gone, in which there was this dreamlike possibility that an album was much more than a product, it was an occasion and it could be a crucial work of art. That situation existed, not at the beginning of rock 'n' roll but in the '60s and '70s, when there were certain albums made that say something. They grew legs, and they walk around just like the giants that walk the Earth in the book of Genesis. Our group had two albums that really, really, stand up and run around: 'Fun House' and 'Raw Power.' So when we were asked to play it, I thought to accept the offer would be a very good call."