The Stooges' set at the time would always end with "Fun House," which would traditionally dissolve into free-form madness to close the show. On the record, however, the free-form part was turned into its own separate piece called "L.A. Blues." (On the boxed set, the unedited 17-minute version is titled "Freak.") The decision to break the bit into two distinct numbers again came from Gallucci.
"He thought it would be a good idea, and he was the producer, so nobody argued with him about it," says Mackey, who later went on to play with Andre Williams, the Violent Femmes, Snakefinger, and the current Stooges-inspired Streetwalkin' Cheetahs. "We just said, 'Okay, that's cool.' But it was really interesting trying to get that energy coming cold out of nowhere. That particular session [for 'L.A. Blues'] was pretty far-out. I guess I decided I was going to be 'psychedelic' for that session. And so I was, chemically, if you know what I mean. I don't know if anyone else in the studio was, but I certainly was."
Creatures of the Hollywood hills: The Stooges laid out during the making of their "L.A." album, Fun House.
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In the year 2000, Asheton -- who's still a working musician as well as a screenwriter and film actor (you have seen Mosquito, right?) back home in Detroit -- is able to put his little ol' Michigan garage band into proper perspective. "We never wanted to be any kind of pop band. We really wanted to be something different. And because we started out as musical virgins, we got to develop and create something that was fresh. I think it was really to our benefit that we didn't know how to play our instruments real well. It turned out to be the genesis of a whole new sound."
It will forever be argued among the faithful as to whether the pinnacle of that sound was Fun Houseor the more standard hard rock (by Stooges standards, that is) of their third album, Raw Power, which was produced by David Bowie and released three years later on Columbia. To Rhino's credit, it's aware that there are just enough Fun House addicts out there to make an undertaking such as this worthwhile. Says David Baker of Rhino Handmade: "I think it's now generally acknowledged that Fun House was a primordial record. It invented an entire genre of music years before that genre became popular. It's now an American classic."
"It's funny. I eventually grew to love it because I loved their rawness," says Gallucci. "There were no apologies in the music. But it wasn't just simple music; it was almost Zenlike. They had pared everything down, not because they were necessarily bad musicians or because they were dumb. They actually got rid of all the fey stuff that started to pop up in rock right about then. They eliminated all the artsy stuff and went back to just pure to the bone, to the studs, rock. At the same time, I knew that nobody would get it in 1970. But pioneers always get the arrows and slings. Eventually, they were recognized, and I think that's great. But back in 1970, they were on a mission."
Asheton can actually laugh about it now. "The Stooges were always kind of looked down upon. 'Bunch of freaks! They can't play!' So ha, ha, ha! We were freaks back then. Now we're the godfathers of this type of music."
Rhino Handmade's1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions is available online at rhinohandmade.com
