Here's a piece of history for Stooges fans. We're publishing - for the first time anywhere - three sets of photos of the "Funhouse" and pre-"Raw Power" Stooges, from the six shows they played in the St Louis area in 1970 and '71.
CRAIG PETTY was lucky enough to be at all those shows, several of them with camera in hand. His photos were destined for publication in a Stooges book which, alas, appears to have stalled. So we're presenting them for the first time, in copy-protected form. (You may be able to reproduce these photos if you have a worthy project in mind - but please make sure you seek permission here first. OK?)
Craig takes up the story...
"The color photos of Iggy with longer hair, no dog collar and unripped jeans were from Kiel Stadium, St Louis, Missouri on March 7th, 1970.
"The next set of color shots with Iggy in ripped jeans , dog collar and shorter hair come from The Rainy Daze Club St.Louis MO in about July 1970 - a week or so before the famous Cincinnati Festival with the 'walking on the hands' film."
Close observers will note that Iggy is almost identically dressed in that TV footage:
"The black-and-white shots are from May 27th 1971 at the Factory, in St.Charles (a suburb of St Louis.) This show is the one that many bootlegs are from, and many of those are mistakenly labeled Kiel Stadium 1970,"
Craig says.
(There's a bootleg on the mysterious Starfighter label which purports to be this show - a better quality copy of that tape is circulating through traders.)
"The Factory show had Ron AND James Williamson on dual lead guitars for a very rare and short lived period. This was a makeup show for one canceled the night before at The Music Palace when the band's equipment truck didn't show.
"About 35 minutes into the show, Ig whacks Ron in the head with his mic by accident and the gig stops. They come back and try one more but it goes down. The show is over.
"People are pissed. Iggy comes out into the crowd afterward and hangs out and talks to everybody and is very apologetic. This is very cool.
"The promoter stiffs them. That's very uncool.
"A couple of weeks later they're dropped by Elektra and the band goes dormant.
"They came back to St Louis in '73 for two shows at the American Theatre."
Dates Craig recalls the dates the band played in St Louis over 1970-73 were:
3/7/70 Kiel Stadium
3/25/70 Rainy Daze
?/7/70 Rainy Daze
5/27/71 The Factory
8/18/73 American Theatre (two shows)
You can access the photos here. Wouldn't hurt to tell Craig how you feel (to quote Ig) by leaving a comment.
16 comments:
These pics of The Stooges are incredible. Many thanks for putting them up for all to enjoy. What a treasure for Mr. Petty to have in his possession. I haven't read the stories yet, just glanced over 'em and they look fantastic also, can't wait to give 'em a good read. Great stuff.
Amazing!!!!
Excellent. That period is under-documented. Just got done with Trynka's Ig book, which goes some distance in correcting previous myths.
Thanks for providing the pics and memories.
Ed
Fuckin´hell! YeesSS!I have longed for pictures like these! This period of The Stooges is really interesting.I have that low quality record mentioned and would really like to hear it with better sound.Hope it turns up someday!THANKS! Mr.Photographer!!!
sportscards here -
THESE ROCK some day i'll half to let mine from 72 go :)
Many thanks for the photos. That are real treasures.
how the hell did this guy miss getting a shot of james williamson, the most dynamic stooge EVER?
ho hum, iggy and ron....soooooo boring.
Holy shit, this is great! Thanks for posting this! I'm alerting the locals.
Cheers,
kopper
Thank you very much for the pictures Mr Petty and I-94 !!
As the comments above also say they document a little known period about the Stooges. Iggy or Wehrers dates were a year out in 'I need more' so only found out years later that the Stooges actually had a dual guitar lineup for a while. And what a wonderful electric noise they made!
Elektra really tripped themselves in 1971 up by not opting for a third album (and must be kicking themselves now!). The Stooges were so ahead of their time - they must have blown peoples heads off in 1971 with the sounds they got up to - they make my jaded palate grin with joy 37 years listening to those crazy extended jams from the '71 show.
In my opinion however pumping money into a band sonically representing the social and ecological tumult, anomie, and unpleasantness of industrial Amerika was probably not a winning move for a company expecting mass sales out of their profitized and contracted human resources.
The Doors the Stooges were not - thank the heavens! The Stooges music has aged well, the Doors not so.
Thanks again.
I was at the Stooges concert at rainy daze. Iggy hit a girl in the arm with the mic, blood everywhere,then the opening band Gene Edilin and Rush came back on stage and started fighting with Iggy, the show then ended. What a great night. John Gorski streetdown@aol.com
Craig, you the man here as the historian for Iggy's forays into the
Louie---glad you still around, RIP
for our man Shelton...hit me up sometime @ paparay@vintageinyl.com.
Time Is Longer Than Rope, is it not,
amigo??
I was at the Rainy Daze show along with Craig and some others, and I was the one who got speared by the microphone stand that Iggy was waving around. Still have the scar. The show was stopped and Iggy carried me to the managers office, and gave me those silver gloves in the pics you see. I wish I still had them; but I'm sure I traded them for acid at the time.
Laure Evans
I was at the Rainy Daze performance, right up in front, sitting on the floor. I was searching for some info to share with my 27 year old daughter who is really into that musical era, so I want to thank you for that blast from the past!!
I was also at the Rainy Daze shows, including witnessing the mike stand incident/ what happened as I recall, was that Iggy so violently abused the mike stand, by lifting and pounding the thing so hard against the stage, that the cast iron base of the stand broke off at the bottom end, leaving a spear like rod in his hand. While he occassionally stabbed the floor with it, one of the blows stabbed into the person's arm that was laid out and resting on the front edge of the stage. I'll never forget the sounds and images of that grotesque injury. Yowee owee!!
Althoug the Stooges and Iggy shows at the Rainy Daze and elsewhere were wild and dangerous in your face performance art, believe it or not, those early day Alice Cooper shows were just as balls to the walls, and full of crazy maxxed out confrontational performance art, designed to blow our young minds, and indeed delivered some of the most original and soul shaking theatrics!!! I would LOVE to hear from others out there who have stories, photos or film or video of how revolutionary these cultural events were. -JMan
The Rainy Daze was a wonderful and somewhat scary place to come of age. My family moved to Chersterfield, MO in 1964 (age 11). We lived at a nearby subdivision called Westbury Manor. I could walk to the club it was so close. Back in the day before the concerts the Rainy Daze was the site of a huge store that sold tractors, lawn and garden supplies! I recall when there was also a barbershop, bike shop and general store near the club. Kids would go down Hog Hollow Rd. to smash pennies on the train tracks for fun and race cars when we got older. That all changed when rock music came to our little town. I was friends and next door neighbor to Jeff Grinnell the lead guitar player of Oliver's Warlocks (kind of a Rainy Daze house band) and spent a great deal of time hanging out at the club. Todd Cromer even used the head of my Fender amp to run the house PA system when theirs broke down. Anyway... I was at the Stooges show and was totally blown away, this group changed everything I had ever thought about music and playing music. Not just Iggy, the whole band created a totally new sound pallet, Ron Asheton was so original. Spent some time talking with the Stooges road crew, sitting on the back of there little trailer, sharing smokes and had a really great time. Other great shows at RD: The Box Tops, The Outlaws, Aorta, Alice Cooper (I think the ticket was $1.50?), Fever Tree, Rotary Connection... It was a very cool place and a wonder experience I will happily recall the rest of my life. Thank you for the video and the post!
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