I know this is a week or so overdue, but I haven’t be able to watch my dvr-ed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction until last night. Because it was so long after the airing, I was going to just let it go when I tried to find an article talking about the Stooges in particular, but there were so few. So I may be a day late and a dollar short, but better late than never. (ha. I really do love clichés.)
Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day was selected to induct The Stooges in to the Hall of Fame. He started his speech, “I’m very excited and nervous as hell to be up here” and the audience can tell that he meant it, this was his opportunity to honor one of the bands that he grew up on, one of the bands that inspired him to be a musician. Durring his speech he inserts a few prominent plugs for punk rock, he uses a quote by The Dictator’s Scott Kempner, (taken from the punk book, “Please Kill Me”) to illustrate The Stooges influence and then goes on to list 75 punk (and alternative) Stooges influenced bands including: The Descendents, Buzzcocks, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Germs, Rancid, Nirvana, Fear, Operation Ivy, Replacements, Ramones, Gogol Bordello, 7Seconds, X, Television. After his exhausting list, he goes on, "It's the sound of blood and guts, sex and drugs, heart and soul, love and hate, poetry and peanut butter.” We see Eddie Vedder smirking, he is one of the few in the audience who gets it. Billie Joe concludes his intro with, “It is about fucking time.”
It is about fucking time, 2010 in the 7th year that The Stooges have been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Like them or not, agree with punk being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or not, The Stooges influence cannot be denied.
As they were introduced, three old men walked to the stage, the three remaining Stooges. Iggy’s speech started, “We won,” he says very calmly as he shows us his note card, “We didn’t win a lot startin’ out. We three here, are the surviving Stooges. Ron and Dave would have gotten a big kick out of this” Iggy rambles in his customary way, slightly coherent and totally magnetic, as he schools the suits in the audience about being cool and lets them know who is cool. He notes that F. Scott Fitzgerald said,“There are no second acts in American lives.” then began to get chocked up saying, “This particular group of friends has had the good fortune of having a lovely, lovely second act.” Iggy is not the only one getting choked up, Billie Joe face muscles distort as his eyes tear, Eddie Vedder is smiling, and Tre and Mike from Green Day nod in acknowledgment among the room of blank faces.
James Williams thanked his family and his band. While Scott Ashton memorializes his brother, Ron, “I really miss making music with him and I probably will the rest of my life. To me he was the best.” He then echoes his band mates in acknowledging that there was something extraordinary about this group of guys when they came together, “It wasn’t until we met Iggy…he brought our dreams to life and made them come true…we had The Stooges.”
While their speeches were, quiet, deliberate, and heartfelt their performance was raw power. Iggy’s danced around stage sans shirt dress pants and stiff shoes, his singing and flailing were on par with what anyone could imagine a 62 year old Iggy Pop should be doing. They began with “Search and Destroy” Iggy’s voice strong and the music as powerful as ever. Billie Joe entered to play guitar on “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and it quickly turned into a sing along, Iggy beckoning everyone up on stage. Eddie Vedder was the first audience member to leap on stage followed by Mike and Tre of Green Day and a few others that I didn’t recognize. Iggy relentlessly egged on the rest of the audience, “show me you’re not too rich to be cool.” He was eventually joined by a few more traditional looking suits, but my eyes were on those musicians I grew up listening to. They looked radiant, honestly radiant, I saw them for the first time as fans, fans having the opportunity to be on stage with one of their legends. Their joy was contagious, The Stooges were having fun playing, these musicians were having fun singing along, and I was having fun watching them.
I was weary of this whole thing, punk wasn’t meant to be in such a corporate institution, but The Stooges were just as influential as any rock and roll band of their era(s). I was scared that they would be too outrageous or too reserved. I should have known better, I should have realized that The Stooges are indeed special, they were punk before there was punk, they were never anything less or more than who they wanted to be. From their eloquent acceptance speeches to their powerful performance showed who they are as a band, and why they so deserve this recognition in music history.
The Stooges performance, their ability to break down the fourth wall, include their fans, and own a room that most people don’t believe that they belong in; their expressiveness and intelligence; their enthralling music and lyrics; all came together that night to make me even more excited about the music that I love and the community I am a part of.
In his speech Iggy said, “Music is life, and life is not a business.” No truer words were ever said to encapsulate the sprit of punk.
