myths of coolness

none of us were cool enough to be fans of the stooges way back in 1969(sorry, ken). it's just a fact. i think there was a lack of depth to our coolness.

i got to thinking about this today when i read ron asheton's obits in the chron & the nyt. the stooges released their epochal eponymous debut in 1969. it is considered an absolute historical moment in rock history. their next two albums are considered big deals too (their second album, "funhouse" is acknowledged as the "best" of the three albums they released in their original run). as a band, the stooges were done before i graduated from high school. i'd known mike & ken for maybe 2 years & philip for only a little longer. while we did kind of listen to the velvet underground & knew about love(the group)because ken insisted on playing one of their songs, the stooges were never played in philip's cave. not one of us did an acoustic version of "i wanna be your dog." none of us were their advocates.

what's striking to me now is how mainstream our "alternative" music listening was. our top 10 favorite albums from high school are all by folks who had top 10 hit SINGLES back then. w/the exception of cohen & phil ochs, our musical tastes were pretty mild. hendrix was as spicy as our tastes got. we can point out that most, if not all, of our guys are in the rock & roll hall of fame & that most, if not all, of the high school parking lot music isn't. i'm not sure that's much solace.

the stooges never had a hit single. none of their albums went above #150 on the charts. they were direct influences on punk, new wave, grunge & more (one of my favorites, chris whitley, has a great version of "i wanna be your dog" on his last posthumous album). the music is still powerful & immediate.

we can manufacture a number of explanations as to why these guys aren't on our lists. it's true that the harder edge of music didn't get it's due in philip's cave(tho philip was an unrepentant grand funk railroad fan). it's also true that access to non-charted music wasn't as easy then(remember radio station kaay from little rock arkansas? our area & generation's wolfman jack. i remember listening to this after midnight w/george tripping & me just wondering if they were going to play that spirit song i liked). there are lots more explanations.

i think we just weren't cool enough to get it. in pensacola, god only knows who was.