The band's 1967 debut was at their communal State Street house on Halloween night, followed by their next live gig in January 1968. We had gone to New York a couple of months before that just to check out the scene, and we had never been to a place like New York… we went down around Eighth Street there where all the young tourists hang out, and we met these girls from New Jersey, from Princeton, they had a band called the Untouchable, and we’re like, 'Oh, you’ve got a band, sure, ha ha ha,' and they said 'Well, come to our house and see us play.' And we didn’t have anywhere to crash, and they played for us, and they completely rocked, and we were really ashamed. And the other thing was we went to New York. There were two things that made us do it one was seeing that show (the Doors), we saw that show and I just thought, well, this is so brazen, there is no excuse for us not to do it anymore. And we did not have the balls to get out and do it. In a 1995 interview with Bust Magazine, he relates: The second was seeing an all-girls rock band from Princeton, New Jersey, called the Untouchable perform. The first was seeing the Doors perform at a homecoming dance for the University of Michigan. Though the Stooges had formed, Iggy Pop attributes two key motivating influences to move the band forward.

Shortly after witnessing an MC5 concert in Ann Arbor, Osterberg began using the stage name Iggy Pop, a name that he has used ever since. Osterberg became interested in Ron Asheton after seeing him perform in a cover band called the Chosen Few, believing, 'I’ve never met a convincing musician that didn’t look kind of ill and kind of dirty, and Ron had those two things covered!' The three nicknamed Osterberg 'Pop' after a local character whom he resembled. Ron Asheton (guitar) and Scott Asheton (drums), and Dave Alexander (bass guitar) comprised the rest of the band, with Osterberg as the main singer. Upon returning to Detroit, Osterberg sought to create a new form of blues music that was not derivative of historical precedents, with influence from garage rock bands The Sonics and The Kinks. Osterberg was first inspired to form the Stooges after meeting blues drummer Sam Lay during a visit to Chicago. The Prime Movers nicknamed Osterberg 'Iggy' in reference to his earlier band. Iggy Pop (born James Newell Osterberg) played drums in several Ann Arbor–area bands as a teenager, including the Iguanas and, later, the Prime Movers. In 2007, they were awarded the Mojo Lifetime Achievement Award at the Mojo Awards. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked them 78th on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. The Stooges are widely regarded as a seminal proto-punk act. The Stooges formally announced their breakup in 2016 due to the deaths of Scott Asheton and saxophonist Steve Mackay. Ron Asheton died in 2009 and was replaced by James Williamson, and the band continued to play shows until 2013, when they also released their last album, Ready to Die. The band reunited in 2003 with Ron Asheton moving back to guitar and Mike Watt on bass, and the addition of saxophonist Steve Mackay, who had played briefly with the 1973–1974 lineup. Īfter releasing two albums – The Stooges (1969) and Fun House (1970) – the group disbanded briefly, and reformed with an altered lineup (with Ron Asheton replacing Dave Alexander on bass and James Williamson taking up guitar) to release a third album, Raw Power (1973), before breaking up again in 1974. Initially playing a raw, primitive style of rock and roll, the band sold few records in their original incarnation and gained a reputation for their confrontational performances, which often involved acts of self-mutilation by Iggy Pop. The Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, also known as Iggy and the Stooges, were an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave Alexander.

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