Scott Asheton, the drummer of The Stooges since its inception and along with his late brother Ron and frontman Iggy Pop, and who remained a consistent member of the group, passed away on March 15, 2014. He was 64. The news of Asheton’s passing was posted today to Iggy Pop’s Facebook page.

With Ron Asheton on guitar, Scott Asheton on drums, Dave Alexander on bass, and Iggy Pop on snarling lead vocals, The Stooges became of the progenitors of the entire punk scene which followed it. While scores of bands at the time were singing and playing music that was essentially white man’s blues, The Stooges turned the heat on the collective Bunsen burner skyward and forged a new musician’s game, one in which attitude and fierce white noise was the order of the day. While originally on the fringes of the fringe when they first started, it was on the strength of albums like Raw Power, Funhouse, and their self-titled debut released 45 years ago this year, that The Stooges became one of the leading pioneers in the sculpting and eventual finalized shaping the first wave of punk music, circa 1976 to 1980, crystallized in places like New York City, LA, and England.

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.

With the music arm of the 2013 edition of SXSW in full swing and sonic force, who better to kick off that inaugural night deep in the heart of Austin, Texas at the House of Vans showcase at Mohawk than Iggy and the Stooges, who have already gained plenty of PR this year, with an album on the way followed by a summer tour. The band threw their hearts full of napalm into the delirious and frenzied crowd a few nights ago, debuting a few songs from their upcoming album Ready To Die, which is the first to feature the lead guitar strains of James Williamson on record since the band’s seminal 1973 release Raw Power, released over 40 years ago this year.

Led by T-N-T [he’s dynamite] lead singer Iggy Pop, who although in his mid-60s, still burns like a white hot, white noise whirling dervish of intensity and sonically apoplectic moxie, had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand, which has been his musical wont since he made mincemeat of a microphone and a stage over 45 years ago when The Stooges’ first musical strains were heard in Southern Michigan.

The late, great Ron Asheton, one of the paramount figures of the original Detroit hard rock/early punk sounds and styles whose work with the original incarnation of The Stooges garnered him as an important of a factor to its influence and staying (raw) power as much as the five foot one man who was born with sonic attitude, Iggy Pop, is being immortalized on a forthcoming DVD to be released in April of this year.

The DVD, which commemorates the man’s legacy and talents via testimonials by fans and friends alike, and a full-length tribute concert done by surviving band members, which was recorded and filmed back on April 10, 2011, bears the direct and to the point title: A Tribute To Ron Asheton.

You can check out the trailer for the DVD here below, along with the track listing and other details.

Raw Power, the third album by The Stooges, which is considered one of the forerunners of the entire punk movement which followed and dissected it like The Koran or other religious artifacts, celebrates its 40 Anniversary today.

The record, led by the snarling white hot cracked iron pot vocals of Iggy Pop, the filthy and VU Meter popping guitar sounds of James Williamson, and the lurid yet lucid rhythm section of the Asheton brothers, Ron on bass (who originally played lead guitar for the group) and Scott on drums, or maybe they were garbage cans with drum skins on them, now stands as an important record, a playbook of pre-punk and the punk/grunge gumbo that was to follow. Never before in the history of rock and roll (except for possibly the pioneering Seattle band from the 1960s, The Sonics) has a band profited so much in every which way from a more erratic, disjointed, slap-it-together as quick as you can manner and attitude than the approach and execution of what manifested Raw Power. Even the fact that Raw Power was produced by glam-chameleon David Bowie didn’t bring a sense of commercialism to it. It was a record divinely steeped in nihilism, of regret and bargain basement confidence, a record that was whip smart, the whip covered in barbed wire and napalm, its full milieu and scope in a true teenage wasteland.