Amidst all the hype about the fact that Iggy and the Stooges have gotten together recently, pretty much as a live unit born from the death of original lead guitarist Ron Asheton, and containing the musical unearthing of guitarist James Williamson, another influential game player who helped carve certain niches in the pre and post punk sounds and circles, finally comes the album Ready to Die.
The album, whose members have a median age around 60-66, is the first with the Raw Power lineup for the most part since that jolting sonic aneurysm of a release was released 40 years ago this year. Now think about that for a second. A 40-year gap between musical sounds done by the same artists. Reunions of that type in 1973 when Raw Power first hit record bins would have been of the Glenn Miller, Cab Calloway and Sidney Bechet variety. In 1933, Frank Sinatra wasn’t even on the charts yet. The point of that is, that music of that ilk around in 1973, 40 years after their inceptions, were as antiquated as they come, as out of place as a man in a three piece suit in a steambath. That kind of music wasn’t dated, it was double, even triple dated, and mainly reserved for a small contingent of fans who grew up with those sounds who still harked for those “good ol’ days” which were in full manifest by physical flesh and blood actualities of those artists they grew up with.
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