I wish I could have seen that Stooges show. I saw a good review of it somewhere on the Net.

Old and sober. It’s true. While youth and spunk can carry a band a long way, a rock band composed of tough old gnarly gristly survivors can be pretty damn great. Mission of Burma last year is along these lines. I saw the Dictators a long time ago — but they were already old. Some of these old guys have played thousands of shows. They are professionals. They know what to do. Experience is worth something, even in the punk rock niche. I have no doubt that Iggy, one of the great showmen, could tear the roof off, drug free and all muscle as he is these days.

I hope you get to that Shonen Knife show. Work and kids are keeping me too busy to even look and see who’s playing, let alone going out.

I liked the punk site you linked to earlier… and along that line… Thurston Moore (sp?), who is to Japanese girl punk bands what Norman Mailer is to jailhouse poets (Shonen Knife is playing 10/31 at the Magic Stick in Detroit), somehow talked Iggy and Ronny Asheton to kiss and makeup for the scheduled Sonic Youth show here recently…

So I went to “The Stooges Reunion” show (Sonic Youth warmed up) a couple three weeks ago (with Mike Watt filling in on bass for the dead member… is there any band that guy hasn’t played with?) and it was a much better show than anyone had reason to expect. The irony was that between Watt on bass, who can play anything, all the years Ron Asheton’s had to practice, and Iggy playing his hometown (well… kinda, he’s from Ypsilanti, not Detroit), they were much sharper and tighter than they ever were before. Or maybe they were just old and sober, it’s hard to tell the difference.