Down on the Street
Fun House was released on July 7, 1970, on Elektra Records. The Stooges recorded it live in the studio over five days at Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles, produced by Don Gallucci, who had played organ on “Louie Louie” with The Kingsmen. Elektra wanted “Down on the Street” as the opening track over the band’s preference for “Loose.” The song opens with a single bass note and then the whole band arrives at once, a riff that lands like a door being kicked off its hinges. A single version was released in August 1970 with a Doors-style organ overdub by Gallucci. The album sold poorly. Critics who bothered to review it mostly hated it. The world took its time catching up.
Fifty-six years ago today, the Goose Lake International Music Festival opened in Leoni Township, Michigan, eighty miles west of Detroit. The promoters billed it as a better-organized alternative to Woodstock. Around 200,000 people came over three days. The lineup included The Faces with Rod Stewart, Jethro Tull, the James Gang, Chicago, Mountain, Ten Years After, Bob Seger, and MC5. The Stooges took the stage on August 8. It was the original four-piece lineup of Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave Alexander. Legend held for fifty years that Alexander was too drunk to play and stood onstage without touching his instrument. In 2020, Third Man Records released a soundboard recording of the set and complicated the story. Alexander played. He was shaky on some songs. He was solid on others. Iggy fired him after the show regardless. It was the original lineup’s last performance.
Iggy Pop formed The Stooges in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1967. The band collapsed in 1974 after three studio albums. Pop relaunched his career in Berlin with David Bowie producing The Idiot and Lust for Life in 1977. The Stooges reunited in 2003 with a new lineup and continued performing until Ron Asheton’s death in 2009. Fun House was commercially ignored on release and has since been recognized as one of the most influential records ever made. The fingerprints are on punk, post-punk, and grunge. What they played on the street in 1970 is still being heard.