Tynan's Anger

Image by RealLowVibe via FlickrIn the age when any dead famous person will shoot up to the top of Google Trends and inspire dozens of instant blog posts, one thing gets lost—what value does one dead famous person have over another?

Death tracking on the Internet is nothing new, but it broke through to the mainstream with the death of Anna Nicole Smith, the Paris Hilton of the ’90s. Smith’s death, which would have stayed in the tabloids 10 years ago, was the F1 front page story of the New York Times in February 2007. We saw similar spikes with Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, Roy Scheider, and Eliot Spitzer’s career. Even Alexei Cherepanov, a 19-year-old Russian hockey prospect who barely anyone other than Rangers fans had heard of before his death, experienced a similar Google spike.

In all these cases, the reaction to the death is the same: “Our deepest condolences to friends and family of…” Never mind the fact that, by rule, any one who makes this kind of blog post knows no one even close to friends and family of the dead famous person. In fact, this kind of blog post is usually a good sign of a bad blogger. The real meaty posts talk about what anyone who gives a shit about the dead person really cares about: the career, the life, the body of work, the impact. Whether that dead person made his mark in the arts, sports, politics, or gossip, that’s the only way 99% of us can connect to the dead, and anyone who thinks otherwise has some really naïve viewpoints on how they relate to celebrities.

That’s why the sane responses to the death of Ron Asheton didn’t talk about his family life. The really smart ones didn’t even talk about the legacy of the Stooges. Those who truly got the impact of the death talked about nothing but a handful of riffs: “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “No Fun,” “Loose,” “T.V. Eye.” You can throw in a couple of more songs, and maybe talk about his bass work on Raw Power (or, if you’re a jerk, talk about the disappointment of The Weirdness, while claiming you’re just being honest), but it’s those four riffs that defined this man’s contribution to the world. Talking about the legacy of the Stooges is useful, but misguided; for better or for worse, the legacy of the Stooges is almost exclusively reserved for the legacy of Iggy Pop. Books have been written about Iggy Pop. Sentences, maybe paragraphs if you’re lucky, can been found about Ron Asheton. So what distinguishes the legacy of Ron Asheton from the legacy of Iggy & the Stooges? Four riffs. Period.

G-F#-E, A-E-A-A-A-E-A-A-D-A-D-A-D-A-E-A, E-G-A, A-A-A-C-A-C-D#-D-A-C-A. They’re some of the best riffs ever written, with a guitar tone like no other, and I'll be listening to those riffs for the rest of my life. Rather than write about it, the best way to react to Asheton’s death was to blast Fun House at full volume, awaking your neighbors if at all possible. I found myself rereading Lester Bangs’ review of the album, possibly the greatest single album review ever written, and still found little to no mention of Ron and a hell of a lot of talk about Iggy. I later moved on to listening to Raw Power with the bass track maximized (considering how awful that mix is, this was a grueling task), and saw a virtuosity to Ron Asheton I never saw before. He’s one of the most important guitarists to my life, as he was to millions of others.

But here’s the thing: I don’t know the man. I saw him in person once, when the Stooges performed in Chicago in 2007 and I was too chickenshit to rush the stage when everyone else did (I would have gone straight to Mike Watt anyway, who I know much better, in that I’ve read every book ever published on the Minutemen and have actually had a conversation with him). I don’t know anything about Ron Asheton the man, ‘cept that he did a lot of heroin 40 years ago, grew up in Michigan, and has a brother who’s a drummer. And I don’t care. All I care about is four riffs. I’m fine with that. I’m sure Ron, on some level, would be fine with that too. Those four riffs mean a whole lot more to me than Anna Nicole Smith ever did. And I don’t give a fuck about either of their families, and neither do you. Except for Scott, in that we may never get to see the Stooges play again. But hey, there’s always James Williamson.

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Labels: Anna Nicole Smith, celebrity gossip, iggy pp, Mike Watt, Raw Power, rip, Ron Asheton, Stooges