"Gimme Danger": A dialogue on Jim Jarmusch's Stooges documentary

At the end of a week that knocked lots of folks for a loop, my buddy and Missouri teachaholic Phil Overeem and I both had the chance to view Jim Jarmusch's new Stooges documentary Gimme Danger and put our heads together via intarweb chat to share impressions. Here's the resultant chinwag.

Ken: I thought Jarmusch did a good job, appropriate to the material. The MC5's story was a big story with heavy socio-political significance. The Stooges' was a little story about young guys growing up together through music. Iggy performed the same role in this as Wayne Kramer did in MC5: A True Testimonial, which is appropriate, because Ig's a good storyteller. I like that Jarmusch stuck to "family," with no Dave Grohl/Slash commentaries. James Williamson and Kathy Asheton added interesting sidelights. Steve Mackay and Scott Asheton both looked ravaged and didn't have as much to say (although I found Scott on Dave Alexander particularly poignant), but they belonged in this. I would have liked to have seen more Danny Fields, but he has his own doco now, I guess.

The big question in my mind going into this was what would Jarmusch do visually, given the paucity of footage (James Williamson told me, "Film stock was expensive and not worth wasting on us"). The synced footage from Cincinnati and Goose Lake that everyone has seen on Youtube was used well. There was some better quality vid of a performance from the Ron era without sound, and some B&W footage without sound from the '73 Academy of Music show in NYC that I didn't know existed. Jarmusch used a lot of photo montage, and employed animation to illustrate some stories in the same way the Beware of Mr. Baker filmmaker did. I thought the visuals supported the story well.

Phil: I can't disagree with any of that. Jarmusch had some serious technical limitations as do so many directors trying to do similar things, and I was hoping he'd be a little more imaginative in overcoming them, but the movie seemed to swing metronomically between talking Ig and content, talking Ig and content, talking Ig and content. Plus clip-recycling and animation (which I admit I found amusing), which are like check-boxes. Also, a little light on L.A. And stretching a short story into a novel, so to speak. I enjoyed it, but it dragged a bit. I love your point about the band as family. That was a major strength of the film.

Ken: By L.A., I presume you mean the "death march" time after Raw Power. Some folks, I reckon, are disappointed there's not more about the drugs and debauchery. I figure they can read Please Kill Me. The story I was interested in was how these absolutely typical American kids went about becoming a band, and what happened after. I liked that Jarmusch started at the end -- kind of like Sunset Boulevard with Bill Holden "narrating" the story facedown in the swimming pool.

Phil: Well, I certainly wasn't craving drugs and debauchery (I know it well), but for a general audience it's certainly part of the story, right?

Ken: I don't think they glossed over it. There weren't a lot of stories, but it was acknowledged in the context of the band's deterioration.

Phil: It seemed pretty minimal compared to the reality, to me. But not a huge deal-breaker, true. Also, how did you feel about Ig's discussion of Bowie's role? That combined with the stock footage of the plane taking off to Europe made an interesting statement.

Ken: I think it was fairly accurate. At that point, Bowie was as manipulated by De Fries as anybody. But he definitely gained cachet from the help he rendered to Lou and Iggy. I think Ig showed nice humility -- and perhaps, self-awareness -- in allowing them to skip his entahr solo career until the reformation.

Phil: I thought about that. Jarmusch was wise to just jump that (for the most part--there are a few vid clips from that time) for scope's sake. We are agreeing for the most part on the content; I think my disappointments were technical and structural, though I too like the way he chose to open. I have been struggling with the question, "Well, how would he have done it differently?"

Ken: I'm glad it exists to bring all of that material together in a coherent way (because I hate watching shit on Youtube). And I still have my grainy Nth generation VHS of Cincinnati. I think it was important to do it while as many of the cats were still living as possible. Ron passed relatively early in the filming, but they did get some good material with him. It wouldn't have been possible to make a great film like MC5: A True Testimonial or The Kids Are Alright because the Stooges just weren't filmed that much. Prior to 2004 or so, no producer would have countenanced the making of a Stooges doco. Luckily, Ron told his stories lots of times to lots of folks, so his side of the story is well documented.

Phil: That, to me, was so fortunate: to get Ron's and Scott's takes. Also, I was very impressed with Williamson. To your last comment: yeah, that's part of my struggle in trying to suggest a more imaginative approach--it's just that I have put so many docs under my belt in recent years I found myself calling the next move. BUT the most important thing is to get it all in one place, coherently, with relative artistry. He did that.

Ken: I like that Ig and Scott gave props to Dave Alexander, and I found the bits on the making of the various recs to be useful.

Phil: I suppose he could have, ala Julien Temple, provided more musical context for what they were doing, instead of mostly the IMMEDIATE context of the MC5 and VU and free jazz. What about the crap that made The Stooges such a shock? I also agree pretty completely with you about keeping the commentary in the family, but it might have been nice to have a few more old dogs other than Danny to record what it sounded like fresh. Was expecting more story on the making of Funhouse, but maybe what was said was the main thing.

Ken: It's a fan's document, but still a more coherent narrative than The Kids Are Alright. Most of the people who will see this know the story, from Please Kill Me and From the Velvets to the Voidoids. Not to mention the Paul Trynka and Bob Matheu books. The crap -- from Fabian to manufactured flower power -- was addressed.

Phil: Yeah: a fan's document. OK, maybe I disagree a little that the film is just FOR the fans. I mean Jarmusch has his own following that might conceivably not know much; there were several such in the audience. I asked for a show of hands. But Fabian was long past and flower power was waning anyway. Confessional singer-songwriters?

Ken: "Marrakesh Express." I think you're correct -- they focused on main things. It was longer than I expected it to be. To make a movie of viewable length, excessive context is dispensible. They could have made a longer film crammed with more minutiae, but that wouldn't have served the Stooges or the viewer any better.

Phil: I initially understood your phrase "fan's document" as meaning "Jarmusch's document" but you mean more than just that.

Ken: I mean a telling of the legend for people who already love the Stooges.

Phil: Yeah, I think that was what he was doing, but shouldn't one reach a little further, at least? I am thinking now about what WAS in there that could have been cut...There will be, I am sure, the inevitable bonus material.

Ken: To your comment about going from Ig to visual, I think that's why the animation was added -- to break the monotony. The best use of stock footage I've ever seen was in the Howlin' Wolf doco. But then again, in comparison, Wolf was filmed extensively. Mike Watt was his loquacious self, and reminded me of the Wylde Rattz thing that Ron talked about when I spoke to him in '99. (BTW, I hated Velvet Goldmine.)

Phil: I couldn't make it through VELVET GOLDMINE. Watt was a burst of energy into the proceedings, and THAT was a great example of the occasional details that even solid Stooges fans (like me) might not have known--the genesis of the reunion. That might have been widely circulated, but I missed it. Further example: the band's decision to just stay in one place when they went on stage!!! Another highlight was Iggy serially dismissing claims that the Stooges were "rock," punk," etc--they just were. Surprise for me was SO much about the Five in there. I knew it would be there, but not so developed ("big brother - little brother").

Ken: I'm not sure it's possible to make a person under 40 understand what it was like before everything was available all the time. Or what the draft was like. It's like, I'd dig to see a doco about Buddy Bolden that shows his importance, but such is not possible. But I think Jarmusch focused on the universality of their experience, rather than the uniqueness, for that reason. I know the MC5: ATT filmmakers struggled with narrowing the focus. It could have been a ten hour social history of '60s America. But I think they made good decisions, as did Jarmusch.

Phil: You said, "I'm not sure it's possible to make a person under 40 understand what it was like before everything was available all the time. Or what the draft was like." I honestly would have liked to see a stab at at least the former, and how the latter affected their legend. Thanks for giving me more ammunition!

Ken: Part of the point is that while they were "real communists," they weren't involved in "causes" like the Five were. And that is addressed.

Phil: Funny Reagan Republic Ig talking about communism!

Ken: The difference between practical and ideological. "If you live in the same house, eat the same food, and share your money, you're a communist."

Phil: Hey, I know you hate this, but what grade would you give it? You've moved me up to a B+. BTW, I thought the text seemed either eye-rolling (bleeding? well, I get the connection, but we didn't see much of that) or cheap.

Ken: I don't have the objectivity to rate this. Although I'm not close friends with these people, this feels like a movie about people I know. My expectations of it were apparently different than yours. I'd be curious to hear what a young person who was aware of the Stooges (or one that wasn't) thinks about it. I'm glad they included Harry Partch. I knew of his influence from Please Kill Me and Velvets to Voidoids, but still.

Phil: Yeah, the Partch segment was a very pleasant surprise. OK, OK, I am coming around further. A few times I was made to rethink the Stooges music a bit.

Ken: What I loved about the Stooges was their ordinariness. The Who and the Five looked like golden gods. The Stooges looked like me and my bad acting buddies. I could imagine them sitting with us outside the deli, having spitting and farting contests and wondering why the really neat girls wouldn't go out with us.

Phil: That last sentence connected with part of my intro, where I stole from what you told me about Iggy seeing the other three just being lowlifes and conceiving the Stooges from that. I don't remember you using "spitting," but I did...and polishing switchblades, which was a bit much. They looked like bad news.

Ken: The most revealing story is about the hood-type guys Ig was "friends" with coming over to the trailer and goofing on it and his family. An example of how the anger was fueled.

Phil: Also, "25 words or less."

Ken: Key to the aesthetic. And Johnny Ramone hating the '70 shows because they didn't play songs he knew. They never dwelt in the past, even when they scarcely had any material.

Phil: Where do you think GIMME DANGER ranks against similar docs where the directors had similar disadvantages? You mentioned the Wolf doc and The MC5's.

Ken: I can't think of one where there was such a paucity of live footage. But again -- as I said starting out, I think the scale and scope was right for the story. It was more like listening to a guy telling a story, with illustrations and digressions. Which is what you could do, given the available materials. I liked the voice recordings of the Asheton kids, which Kathy told me were discovered right before her int, but after Ron was gone.

To people of the Millennial generation and younger, the Stooges don't sound unique because there are a million bands that sound "like that" now. I think the film recognizes that such was not always the case, but I don't know how more examples or explanation would have made that point more strongly.

Phil: We are not so far apart. One point, though, that I made in my intro was that as easy as the early Stooges' sound seemed to be to make, even THEY couldn't replicate it when they reunited. I don't really hear many bands sounding like them.  I hear bands trying on that attack but it just isn't as primitive, as id-rock, as natural-sounding. Sidetrack: another of my favorite moments was Iggy's analysis of how they came to be thought of as nihilistic (kind of related to the 25-words-or-less vow).

Ken: The reason for that is they learned how to play. Scott says the first time they played "Not Right" was the take. They became more skilled players, but they were more creative when they were reaching beyond their grasp.

Phil: Well, YEAH, they learned how to play, but few bands who don't know how sound anything like they did when they didn't!

Ken: By the '70s with SRB, Scott had become more of a four-on-the-floor drummer. On Funhouse, he's reaching for Clyde Stubblefield and Elvin Jones. Not making it, but doing something unique.

Phil: See, yeah, that's it. And out of what did that spring?

Ken: I think Iggy might have been the "pusher."

Phil: The jazz. The Partch. Yeah, the pusher!!!!

Ken: Free jazz was in the wind in Detroit/A2 because of the Five, Sinclair, and people like Charles Moore. As for Partch: Ig worked at Discount Records.

It was quite revealing that they couldn't get a band take on the first album unless Ig was in the live room, dancing.

Phil: That's really the secret. The movie tells it, w/o clubbing you over the head. A-....

Ken: They literally learned to play on the road in front of huge festival crowds. Before that, they were...an art project. The reason they sounded the way they did is because they weren't copying a established sound, they were playing over their heads with a variety of bizarre influences that they couldn't possibly have replicated. And then they got caught up in the momentum of volume, adrenaline, and endorphin. I like your "not clubbing you over the head" remark. Just tell the story, and if the viewer is engaged she'll figure it out.

Phil: Nice. I'm a little overmatched here.

Ken: I've been obsessed with this music since 1970. But you and I are different kinds of fans/listeners. I'm a "just enough" guy. You're a "more" guy. It's not a criticism, just an observation.

Phil: No, I get that. I think it's related to my tendency to listen as a gestaltist. I do not know where that came from.

Ken: I don't think more data would have strengthened the case.You studied lit theory? I'm guessing. I listen more...intuitively. Like a monkey who finds a transistor radio. First it's magic. Then I listen to it all the time. Then it breaks, and I find...something else. That's an interesting observation, and I guess I do tend to hear parts before the whole, if they are audible.

Phil: Nope. Well, a little [literary theory]. I listen intuitively, too, on a song by song basis. Certainly I respond and write that way. But I don't think it's from that. I want the whole to be better. But see that's why I don't think we're so far apart. I don't necessarily want more data...maybe different...and different structure. But you've brought me over.

Ken: Maybe I went knowing the limitations that existed, and so didn't expect or want anything more. I think it was done coherently and respectfully. I would see it again. I would recommend it to another fan, or a novice.

Phil: Gear-shift: what year was it when you first played a Stooges song live?

Ken: I didn't play Stooges music until 2004. No one I knew back then dug 'em, although some of the older cats I knew saw them and the Five at Randall's Island in '70.

Phil: "I Wanna Be Your Dog" was a staple of my first band ('85) and "Funhouse" the climax point of my second one ('90). 'Course, I didn't play, I "sang"--but those were cathartic songs, especially the second. Lou [Reed] was a great model for me to be a non-singer because of his style but mostly for his verbal genius. Iggy was how to do it physically, release the id, plus...25-words-or-less made the song easy to remember.

Ken: The first Stooge song I played was "TV Eye," sitting in with a band the night the Stooges played Coachella. Two years later, we started the Stoogeband. When we learned those songs, we started with the mistakes. I mentioned before Scott said the first time they played "Not Right" (not "Real Cool Time") was in the studio. You can hear on the take, he plays through the break after the first verse. They left it in. We learned it. The beginnings of "Loose" and "1970" are chaos that coalesces.

Phil: Which I absolutely love.

Ken: Me too.

Phil: I guess the reason I went down this road was to try to think about how the movie worked for me just from the perspective of having been in a band of semi-reprobates who could not play (except for one guitar player). We weren't together long enough to have learned much, but we had a reunion (minus one, with a different guitar player) that sounded like the reunited Stooges sounded compared to the original, now that I think about it. The other band: everyone could play (except me), and it was all covers, and I had anger to expel and often was altered. BTW, that reunion was just a few years ago, and the drummer and original guitarist could play very well, and the added guitarist had come out of SRV into garage punk.

Ken: I always say the MC5 worked harder, but the Stooges always won. Not then, but via historical validation. I think the simplicity of Stooge songs has given them more longevity than the Five's with the exception of "KOTJ."

Phil: But don't you think that's also due to Iggy's visibility over the last forty years? And his being taken up as an icon? By the youth circa '90s, I should say. I am thinking that the (for lack of a better term) grunge kids were the ones who first started to bring them up to me when I was teaching. I remember, too, a couple of videos and his Rock The Vote thing with Kate Moss.

Ken: By 2002, though, as he admitted, he was out of ideas and not selling records. The Stooges reunion was many things. One was a tonic to his career. Although I like that he gave the Ashetons a nice victory lap while they were still living.

Phil: Do not disagree. But he stayed in the public eye via the reunion and some movies and constant comparative references in the rock press, don't you think? (Still trying to explain why the Stooges--though maybe I am just talking Iggy here--trump the Five for other reasons.)

Ken: The Five were better musos, saturated with Chuck Berry and Stones when they started. That made it harder for them to do something new. Their free jazz freakouts, all released in the '90s, do not stand up to repeated listenings well. The Stooges were barely competent, and invented their music from the ground up as they went.

Phil: Oh, I agree. Especially about that last sentence. But I don't think THAT'S the main reason the majority of us don't think of them as much as we do the Stooges, though it ought to be, I think Iggy has in some ways cast shade over THE BAND--another reason for the documentary to exist.

Ken: The Five's political aspect is harder for people to grasp.

Phil: Oh, I agree with that, too. Hell THEY had trouble grasping it, and sometimes rejected it.

Ken: Too complex. The Stooges were simple. "25 words or less."

Phil: Hard to believe Iggy is the last man standing of the original group. BUT...BUT...do you think, say, had Iggy OD'd in '73 we'd still be seeing the Stooges on a more important level? I don't mean you and me, because we do, I mean rockdom.

Ken: Affirmative.

Phil: I have thoughts about whether the movie illustrates a band-forming process that is no longer common?

Ken: I don't think that's changed much in the fundamentals. What's changed is what they aspire to. There are more roadmaps/templates/models. Musicianship is generally at a higher level.

Phil: Which, ironically, can be a barrier?

Ken: Yeah. If you have a certain level of chops, it's easier to copy somebody else (cf. our earlier discussion of the Five). There are "Schools of Rock" now. A few years ago, the Stooge band drummer and I went to one to teach a bunch of 10-year-olds how to play "Search and Destroy." It was innaresting.

Phil: And you can't go backwards in time.

Ken: Nope.

Phil: The film really does nicely nail that.

Ken: But aesthetics haven't changed much in the last 40 years. Even forms that were considered extreme now have conventions.

Phil: Indeed. But can you pretend to not be able to play and run smack into something fresh? Anymore?

Ken: "Pretend to not be able to play" is a concept beyond the scope of this inquiry, I think. You have the life experience that's been dealt to you. You have all the knowledge you've acquired that affects your ability to express yourself through whatever medium you choose. You're influenced by all of that whenever you try to create something.

Phil: Sorry about that! I was just thinking about the odds of really NOT being able to play and innovating. I mean, can't musicians code switch just like folks do when they talk? Today, I mean.

Ken: A kid born in 1996 can't pretend to be Ron Asheton in 1967. Nor would he want to be, I don't think.

Phil: I would think "a kid" might!!!

Ken: It's kind of like "Can blue men sing the whites?" You are the product of your time and place. You perform or express yourself in a way that mirrors that.

Phil: So you're making me rethink the early portion of the film. Slowly pushing me to the "A" by demonstrating how MUCH Jarmusch DOES get in...

Ken: Again, I'd say that given the limitations (available resources, human attention), and the scale and scope of the story (small, human, not grand and epic), I'd say he did what needed to be done. There may be other movies about the Stooges, but this will be, um, hard to beat.

Phil: I think, having seen most of his films, I was looking for more of his stamp on it. But he ceded that to getting the story right.

Ken: Like J. Mascis ceding half of his set on the "Fog" tour to Watt (and later Ron) doing Stooge songs.

Phil: And just dealing with the band-doc conventions. Humility begets humility.

Ken: You can't make it more than what it is.

Phil: And humility is a gateway to truth.

Ken: They were pariahs who were validated by history.

Phil: Well, yeah!

Ken: And historical validation wears the white Stetson.