The Stooges The Stooges (180g Vinyl LP) * * *

Proto-punk trailblazers The Stooges – Iggy Pop, Ron and Scott Asheton, and Dave Alexander – may have sounded like they were from the Stone Age, but the Ann Arbor quartet predicted the future of rock 'n' roll with the untamable sonic assault of their John Cale-produced self-titled 1969 debut on Elektra Records. The essence of punk years before the genre existed, The Stooges' furious music was a howling, visceral, fuzztone-drenched, and unprecedented vortex of sound. "The Stooges' influence is legion – to name all of the bands, singers, and would-be rock stars who drank from the well could fill 1,000 phone books," wrote author Mike Edison. "There is not a hard or heavy band anywhere on the planet that's not in earnest awe of The Stooges."