from the LP Funhouse, Elektra Records, 1970I must confess, as I scroll through the Stooges discography (which, admittedly, only truly contains four albums), it remains something of a hit-or-miss affair for me: some tracks are just plain boring, and not in any sort of intellectually redeeming way either, while other songs shine as bright as the fucking sun, and they continue to captivate my mind, listen after listen… shit, I’ve probably heard this track 10 or 11 times in a row just while writing this, and I’m not even close to my saturation point yet! “…I’ll stick it, deep inside…and I’ll stick it, deep inside…’cause I’m loose…” Iggy Pop tossed this triple entendre out on the table like it was a dare, and after listening to the legion of takes they included on the full Funhouse sessions (from Take 2, “…well i'm flyin' on a red hot wiener, yeah I'm ridin' on a big hot dog; well it's a thing that's slick and greasy, well it's a thing that's big and long…”), it’s clear that Elektra records got off easy with the take that wound up on the album. Ron Asheton’s explosive guitar playing here blows any beliefs about him being mediocre right out of the water, his acidic solo blazing all over the place in a rather Hendrix- inspired display of instrumental prowess. People talk a lot about what a junkie Iggy became, and he was a dope fiend, but his top drug of choice (and the substance which ultimately led to his getting put away in an asylum more than once) was always Quaaludes, the most entertaining downers ever invented for human consumption; I mean, I pulled my shit together a while ago now, but it’s probably a good thing that there are virtually no interesting (i.e. Tuinals, Seconals, Nembutals, ‘Ludes) depressants floating around anymore.
