Stooges fans - prepare to lose your shit. The holy grail has been found. A soundboard recording of the original Stooges line-up - indeed of that line-up’s final performance, before the sacking of bass player Dave Alexander - has been unearthed by Jack White’s Third Man Records label and is set for release on August 7, nearly 50 years to the day that the performance took place.
There’s a plethora of live and rehearsal recordings of the later Stooges line-up available - with James Williamson on guitar - but stuff from the original group has always been thin on the ground. And this recording sounds incredible, as the version of “TV Eye” that Third Man have just unleashed makes perfectly clear!
More details will no doubt surface over coming weeks, but we can tell you that the recording was unearthed by Third Man’s Ben Blackwell, a noted punk-rock aficionado, writer and expert - he wrote the liner notes for the recent reissue of recordings by Dave Faulkner and James Baker’s legendary Perth Punk band The Victims - who also happens to be The Dirtbombs’ drummer - and Jack White’s nephew! Rumours of a major discovery have been circulating in Stooges fan circles for a while, but this announcement surpasses expectations!
Stooges fans will recognise that this is the show after which bass player Dave Alexander was summarily sacked by Iggy, supposedly for completely freezing in front of a massive festival crowd. So, is this recording completely bass-free? It makes sense to include the complete Third Man announcement to help answer that question, so check out the video and read on!
The Stooges | “T.V. Eye” [Radio Edit]
The apocryphal tale of the Stooges performance at the Goose Lake festival has been told countless times over the past five decades. Bassist Dave Alexander, due to nerves or overindulgence or whatever you choose to fill in the blank, absolutely spaces in front of 200,000 attendees. He does not play a single note on stage. He is summarily fired by Iggy Pop immediately following the gig. Here starts the beginning of the end of the Stooges.
But what if that simply...wasn’t the case? What if you could prove otherwise? Well, it’d be the proto-punk equivalent of having an immediate, on-the-scene, man on the street report of all those folkies booing Dylan’s electric set at Newport in ‘65. Irrefutable evidence of what ACTUALLY went down.
Found buried in the basement of a Michigan farmhouse amongst other tasty analog artifacts of the same era, the 1/4” stereo two-track tape of the Stooges complete performance at Goose Lake on August 8th, 1970 is the Rosetta Stone for fans of this seminal band.
Not only is this the last ever performance of the original godhead Stooges line-up, but it is the ONLY known soundboard recording of said line-up. Playing the entirety of their canonical 1970 masterpiece Fun House, the sound, the performance, everything about this record is revelatory.
Would you believe that...Alexander actually DID play bass on this occasion? Or that, despite a handful of flubs, he manages to hold his own? Especially on the bass-led songs “Dirt” and “Fun House”? Does Iggy provoke the crowd to tear down festival barriers? Did the powers that be pull the plug on the Stooges? So many questions are answered only to have more arise.
Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the performance, The Stooges Live at Goose Lake: August 8th, 1970 literally rewrites the history of these Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. It will be available on limited-edition coloured vinyl, CD and digital on August 7, 2020, nearly 50 years to the day after the performance. Check out the options and pre-order the album here.
Listen to The Stooges on Spotify:
Listen to The Stooges on Apple Music:
