Jim Jarmusch Movie About The Stooges Nov.2016

This is the band that first made me understand that Rock and Roll was going to be my life. I love this band! I don't remember much when I was 13 years old, but I do remember buying the first Stooges album at the local record store. I had been waiting for the release date as I was a White Panther (the same group of maniacs that managed their brother band, The MC5) and I knew all about the Stooges, but being 13 years old, I had not ever heard their music until that day I bought "The Stooges" album. And you can only imagine what an eye oping experience that was! One other thing that I remember about that day that I had rode my bike to to the record store and came home, locked myself in my room and put the album on, is my older brother banging on my door and telling me to turn it down. I remember him asking me "How can you listen to that? That's not even music! Well each to their own....right? Jim Jarmusch has made a documentary about the Stooges called "Gimme Danger" All I can say is "GO SEE IT!"

Almost every rock musician worth a damn over the last 45 years—and many who aren't—has claimed influence and/or inspiration from the Stooges. It seems odd that there aren't already a dozen documentaries about the Ann Arbor, Michigan group, with their nuclear-grade rock and charismatic, double-jointed übermensch frontman, Iggy Pop. But no. Jim Jarmusch's Gimme Danger is only the second one, and the trailer (view it after the jump) promises a real cool time. An especially entertaining part occurs when Iggy says, "When I was a little boy, the Ford Motor Company, they had a machine that engineered a drop [explosion sound], a mega-klang. I thought we should get some of that in our songs."

A huge fan of the Stooges, Jarmusch filmed eight hours of Iggy—who grew up in a trailer in Ypsilanti, Michigan—talking about the Stooges and himself. Gimme Danger also features some original, previously unheard music that Scott and Ron Asheton made, with Iggy putting vocals over it.

In one segment of the film, Iggy tells Dinah Shore (?!) on her TV show, "I think I helped wipe out the '60s," and anyone who's heard The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power can attest to the feeling that this music was ground zero for a new strain of rock rooted in savage lustiness, exhilarating nihilism, and an outrageous will to power. No band had more effectively laid down a mainline to the id than did the Stooges—and nobody's really equaled them in this regard since.