‘I got these slides from a guy at work. He walks up to me and says, ‘You’re a musician, right? I got these old slides from a show at my high school, Wanna see ‘em?’ I held the first one up to the light and…!’
- Jim Edwards
After this capsule was published, Pete emailed Retronaut:
‘I was there as a sophmore. My photo (with pals) is on pic #12 – in the bleachers. The show also featured Brownsville Station and Mitch Ryder. Iggy only played four songs before collapsing in the middle of the gym floor on the lap of another one of my pals who was in nineth grade at the time.
‘The show was late due to Iggy being arrested earlier in the night – and then bailed out by band members. Iggy did not start until midnight – way too late for the kiddies in attendance.
‘I see at least five members of the student body in the crowd – that are now dead. Yet Iggy rolls on. How cool!’
…
Thank you to Vintage Everyday
Holy sh*t!!!! AWESOME.
Can you e-mail me please? Might be interested in publishing those.
very cool. is that Dave Alexander on bass? I dunno whether he had been kicked out by this point or not
Nice, Iggy cannot be denied.
‘Mr Osterberg, due to your raucous style of music and your provocative dress sense, neither you nor your band will ever be allowed to perform again at Farmington High School.’
Zeke Zettner on the bass guitar!
Holy shit, was there a brief period featuring Ashton and Williamson on guitar?
Seriously, is that Williamson in the leather stinkers? These pics say a lot. Great stuff.
You rule!
Who’d have thought he would end up selling car insurance?
Cool stuff. Iggy and I had the same haircut.
wow! wow! wow!
f**kin’ A buddy!
the pants! those pants! Wow.
His fly may be open and his red rump exposed but at least NO TATTOOS !!
Phwwoaarr! Adonis!
Lunchtime rallies just aint what they used to be….
Good morning students,today we will be having a musical group in the gym at lunch time …….
Amazing! It looks like he was doing a Mick Jagger.
“Seriously, is that Williamson in the leather stinkers? These pics say a lot. Great stuff.”
Not only is it Wms, but it’s his first gig with the Stooges.
Found that info on Wiki – these slides might be kinda – - worth something to someone.
hey that was my high school.
For some insightful ‘dope’ on this particular time/space of the Stooges saga, I submit these nuggets from Per Nilson’s excellent short bio book; “The Wild One”:
“….By late 1970 James Williamson was back from the reform school in NY, and he moved to Ann Arbor. He knew Ron from time in The Chosen Few, & he started sitting-in on Stooges rehearsals. Prior to his arrival, Steven Mackay (sax) had left to return to Detroit to form the Mojo Boogie Band. The ‘free jazz’ oriented improv style was soon replaced by James’ more high-energy rock & roll riffage….
….In an interview in ZigZag in late ’70, Iggy emphatically denied any speculations the the “new” Stooges would become more accessible or softer in order to appeal to a larger audience;
his quote: “Mass recognition is not what’s important to me, what’s important is individual recognition. In other words, it’s not how many people recognize you, it’s what the people who do recognize you, recognize you for. To me the biggest band is the band that’s biggest in the hearts of the people who listen to it…”
…..The drug climate in America changed during 1970; suddenly heroin was spreading rapidly & its general availability increased abruptly in Detroit & other major cities. In John Sinclair’s opinion, the epidemic of heroin was a result of carefully planned US government strategies: “The 1st step was to start cutting the LSD with amphetamine & market it as some powerful new trip: STP!…By ’68, just about every hit of acid was 80-90% speed w/ a tinge of LSD to make it seem ‘weird & scary’. Everyone trying to ‘trip’ became habituated to amphetamines without even knowing it. Next, amphetamine crystal slid onto the scene, & kids who had been dropping the speed-laced ‘acid’ could dig it ’cause it was ‘like the acid, without the ‘scary’ side-effects”. Once they started running speed, it was just a hot minute until smack crept in, and it first got to be popular as an antidote for the jangly after-effects of speed runs….
….By late ’70, all the Stooges, barring Ron, were addicts.”
Anyway, I thought this backround info kinda puts this “high school hop” gig in some kind of perspective. ( Wonder what size balloon did the high school dance budget bring?)
*In early ’71, Zeke Zettner left the band & enlisted in the Army and went to Vietnam, allegedly to get cheaper heroin. Zeke died from an overdose in 1975.
Those US GOVERMENT people sure is samrt …ain’t they!
All stupidity set aside; always wanted to try it, herio…, i meant Iggy!
AWESOME pictures
Is this happening today? Will people be looking back , 40 years from now, remembering when acts such as The Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper and The Stooges played their high school auditoriums as a matter of routine? Man, am I grateful for these photos. I wasn’t exactly there, but other places exactly like that with no camera. THANK YOU.
Surreal seeing these pics 40-odd years later… but at the time it wasn’t unusual to have cool bands playing at schools… even here in Adelaide, Australia… We had the Zoot (who were just starting to get big here) play at my school… and later, into the 70s, once I started playing in bands (such as Rashamra), school lunchtime gigs and ‘socials’ were part of the promotional round for our latest record. Of course there would be the occasional ‘noise complaint’ etc, but they were great fun and an important way for kids to see their favourite bands while being too young to get into clubs… and they bought a fair proportion of the 7″ singles too! Sad that it’d never happen now! But anyway, thanx so much for the photos and you do have a very cool site! Cheers from OzLand
Both James W. and Ronnie played guitar toward the end (before the band reunited). The only recordings of this line up with both on guitar are live. Most are barely listenable.
joanie
September 7, 2011 at 11:39 am
Cool stuff. Iggy and I had the same haircut.
_
Funny,’Iggy and I had the same haircut.’
ew, he was creepy even then
Search and Destroy!
I went to high school here in the 90′s. According to our AP history teacher, Jerry Young, he found Iggy in the bathroom, (last picture), in his crotchless jeans, passed out on heroin. He told him to get up and put on the show. Perhaps a bit of a misjudgment when he started to use his leather collar to strike some kids in the front row. Apocryphal? Maybe. But rock bands were not allowed to play at FHS until my sophomore year, 1993.