* En anglais uniquement
As a founding member of the legendary
Stooges, guitarist
Ron Asheton forever changed the face of rock & roll, his raw, primordial riffs presaging the rise of punk by a decade. Born July 17, 1948, in Washington, D.C., he first surfaced in the teen band the Dirty Shames before joining the
Iggy Pop-led
Stooges in 1967. The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based group made its live debut on Halloween of that year, earning immediate notoriety for its frighteningly intense live presence and blistering, primitivist sound. Although celebrated in certain underground circles, the band -- also including
Asheton's drummer brother
Scott and bassist
Dave Alexander -- were otherwise almost universally reviled, but were still signed by Elektra to record their self-titled 1969 debut LP; the album sold poorly, as did its successors (1970's
Fun House and 1973's
Raw Power), but
the Stooges' long-term impact was incalculable -- in effect, their aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach laid the groundwork for the emergence of punk.
After
the Stooges disintegrated in the wake of
Raw Power's commercial failure, the
Asheton siblings formed the short-lived
the New Order, issuing a self-titled LP on RCA in 1978;
Ron next surfaced in the famed Detroit cult outfit
Destroy All Monsters, who were briefly darlings of the British music press on the strength of punk-era singles like "Bored" and "Meet the Creeper." In 1981, he joined ex-
Radio Birdman members
Deniz Tek and
Rob Younger in their underground supergroup the New Race, recording the live LP The First and the Last. Quiet for the better part of the decade that followed,
Asheton returned to active musical duty during the mid-'90s, recording Thin, Slim & None with
the Empty Set while also teaming with fellow
Destroy All Monsters alum Niagara to release
The Last Great Ride under the name
Dark Carnival. He also teamed with
Mudhoney's
Mark Arm,
Mike Watt, and
Sonic Youth's
Thurston Moore and
Steve Shelley in the one-off project the Wilde Rattz, recording a handful of tracks for 1998's glam rock-era film drama Velvet Goldmine.
The Stooges, including
Asheton on guitar, reunited in the early 2000s, touring extensively and releasing a new studio album,
The Weirdness, in 2007.
Asheton was found dead in his Ann Arbor home on January 6, 2009, having died of an apparent heart attack several days earlier. ~ Jason Ankeny