Ron Asheton/Tornado Turner

Does anyone ever wonder why when James was kicked out of the Stooges for those few months in '73 that Ron never reprised his role as lead guitarist?

From what I gather, there are a few recordings of the Igg rehearsing with Tornado Turner around this time. Where these intended as a new Stooges setlist with Tornado replacing James and the ball rolling as close to normal with Ron remaining on bass? Is it Iggy trying out the 'new guy' himself, recording some rough demos to give Ron and Scott an idea of what he's like? Or is it Iggy grabbing hold of yet another hot shot guitarist to use for his (at this point) fledgling career?

blackout88 wrote:

From what I gather, there are a few recordings of the Igg rehearsing with Tornado Turner around this time. Where these intended as a new Stooges setlist with Tornado replacing James and the ball rolling as close to normal with Ron remaining on bass? Is it Iggy trying out the 'new guy' himself, recording some rough demos to give Ron and Scott an idea of what he's like? Or is it Iggy grabbing hold of yet another hot shot guitarist to use for his (at this point) fledgling career?

I don't believe that there are any recordings of Iggy rehearsing with Tornado Turner. Someone on this forum speculated that Tornado Turner was the unknown guitarist on the tape previously thought to be of Iggy and James until James denied involvement, and this speculation seems to have become regarded as fact despite there being no evidence to support it

blackout88, your first question has been my own rejoinder to the guitarist vs. guitarist puerile debates.

Also, and how can this be phrased without litigious reprisal, can one even fathom a management decision to fire Williamson? No one, for instance in other camps, would have even entertained the notion of firing Keith Richards, no matter how out there at times; in fact, heaven and earth were moved to accommodate his continuing role in the band.

Management takes credit for Raw Power, but turned down what could have been two additional Raw Powers for the world. A one step forward, two steps back style of management?

If I've understood it correctly, James was fired only because Iggy agreed to let him be fired. If Iggy hadn't agreed, they would have been looking for new management, rather than a new guitarist. So, re the Stones, maybe a better question would've been "Can you imagine Mick Jagger ever choosing a manager over Keith Richards?"

Re Why Ron didn't become the guitarist again. If James is to be believed, in London Iggy was only talked into taking Ron back on as a bass player as a "last resort". So it's not a great stretch of the imagination to think the "You can swap back to guitar later" line was just equally cynical bullshit Iggy fed Ron to get him on the plane/keep him happy.

Re "puerile debates". I love James & Ron's playing pretty much equally, and their styles are too dissimilar to be compared. But luckily I never knew either of them personally, so all these years later I don't feel obliged to find excuses for either one of them.

Re management turning down two more RP's. Management companies/record labels are businesses. The first RP was in cut-out bins within weeks of release, the majority of the band members were full time junkies, and "band unity" was such that the singer would happily see his co-songwriter/guitarist fired if it meant saving his own skin. Hardly an attractive proposition.

It's funny how people get all Social-Darwinist about the Iggy/Ron/James thing, "Get over it dude, the better guitar player won!", but whine like hell the instant they get to Mainman and Bowie being promoted over Iggy. Mainman looked at Iggy, looked at Bowie, and probably took all of 0.001 of a second to decide who they'd promote first/most. You only have to look at Iggy and Bowie's subsequent solo careers to know they made the right decision.

"You only have to look at Iggy and Bowie's subsequent solo careers, to know they made the right decision."

Harsh !!

I'm talking about from the perspective of a business, Ted. If you like Bowie's or Iggy's solo records best is a matter of personal taste.

I'm not disagreeing , actually I agree with you.

I'll stumble headfirst into my own puerile debates here for context. From my own art history studies, I knew then (the '70s) that just because excellent talent was overlooked by the public at large during it's own era doesn't mean that it's not extremely meritorious. In fact most innovation in the arts initially is judged badly, whether by Luddites or management (assuming there's a distinction) or the industry (today's equivalent of court patronage.) Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime to his own brother, killed self in despair. Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" choreographed by Nijinsky provoked a full blown riot at its debut (punk rock!!) with Nijinsky resorting to bashing out the meter himself so that the musicians and dancers could follow the beat over the shrieking crowd noise chaos.

When I first heard of then saw The Stooges, (heard of/bought LPs '70 -'74, saw in '73) all of their combination of factors--wild, fast music that didn't sound like anyone else, Chris Burden-like performance art/theatrics, amusing, individual personalities with attendant good looks, in your face confrontation, cool, emphatic musicianship--rang so true that their records resonated with me as "these are my people." (although no, I wasn't that extreme. But enough so that I was one of the few of my boomer generation that welcomed later punk rock with arms open wide.)(That's a Tamarian metaphor.)

Since the firing ultimatum is said to have originated from Mainman, I do speculate that management was one step forward, two steps backward, based upon my obervations of other musicians who created then destroyed their own bands. Management in this case could be said to have accomplished only the latter.

Lastly, The Stooges 2.0 played and Iggy and The Stooges 2.0 play to ecstatically appreciative all ages audiences; Bowie eventually did not, and was seen to not make a great living off his art until he jettisoned aforementioned minder squad. The better management decision would have been to add some vision and possibly a heart to that miasma of bean-counting assertions regarding Iggy and The Stooges 1.0. I wish there had been the contemporary two additional Raw Powers, but am glad the current tour, Sony Raw Power releases and future Kill City plus the additional material releases vindicate so much of the unfinished business at hand.

I see there is some speculation on this site regarding my brief tenure with the Stooges. I will try to shed some light on it if interest still exists. I do have a recording made in Iggy's living room of he & I writing a tune entitled "Wicked Dick From Detroit" with Ron playing along. There is no complete take but I will try to post some version of it in the future.

Yes, interest exists!!!

Thanks!

Yes please! Your memories and recordings are extremely welcome. Please post away!
Cheers,
Richard

Yeah, please! We'd love to hear about your short tenure w/ Ig. Also would love to hear
your tape with Ig and Ron and yourself!

For sure!! This is a very misunderstood part of their history.

I like to know the stories from the actual participants. Yes, please write in...

Lets here some Wicked Dick!

Is this really Warren Klein? Tell us some Kim Fowley stories.

Can't wait to hear your stories and recordings.. Who knows, we might start to referring "Iggy & unknown guitarist", to "Iggy & Tornado Turner".

Yes, would be excellent to hear this! Thanks Tornado.

"It's funny how people get all Social-Darwinist about the Iggy/Ron/James thing, "Get over it dude, the better guitar player won!"

Just to make a brief comment on this. The common conception of survival of the fittest being attributed to Darwin is completely false. Please correct people when they say this because it isn't true. "The survival of the fittest" is a somewhat twisted take on Darwin's ideas that was perpetrated by the English philosopher/theorist Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903).

Darwin had a fascinating view of the evolution of living things and he was one of the first modern western scientists to describe the importance of mutualisms between living things or +/+ relationships. These are an important component of stable ecosystems.

Tornado wrote:

I see there is some speculation on this site regarding my brief tenure with the Stooges. I will try to shed some light on it if interest still exists. I do have a recording made in Iggy's living room of he & I writing a tune entitled "Wicked Dick From Detroit" with Ron playing along. There is no complete take but I will try to post some version of it in the future.

Hi there - like the others who've posted here, I'd love to hear your stories. One thing that you may be able to clear up is the mystery of the tape that has circulated for years featuring Iggy, an unknown guitarist (James says it's not him) and a drum machine. Some of this has been released on various semi-official compilations - cover versions of things like Ballad of Hollis Brown and I Feel Free, and rough originals like Dynamite Boogie. It has been suggested that the mystery guitarist is your good self - can you confirm / deny? Thanks!

Tornado wrote:

I see there is some speculation on this site regarding my brief tenure with the Stooges. I will try to shed some light on it if interest still exists. I do have a recording made in Iggy's living room of he & I writing a tune entitled "Wicked Dick From Detroit" with Ron playing along. There is no complete take but I will try to post some version of it in the future.

I bet this is fake. I don't think you are Warren Klein. I mean, when Paul Trynka wrote "Open Up And Bleed", he tried to contact you to talk about your days in The Stooges, and you never answered. Why would you do this now on a forum?
But I might be wrong...

951Sib wrote:

Tornado wrote:

I see there is some speculation on this site regarding my brief tenure with the Stooges. I will try to shed some light on it if interest still exists. I do have a recording made in Iggy's living room of he & I writing a tune entitled "Wicked Dick From Detroit" with Ron playing along. There is no complete take but I will try to post some version of it in the future.

I bet this is fake. I don't think you are Warren Klein. I mean, when Paul Trynka wrote "Open Up And Bleed", he tried to contact you to talk about your days in The Stooges, and you never answered. Why would you do this now on a forum?
But I might be wrong...

I don't think you're wrong. I suspected this was a hoax from the very beginning. It seemed doubtful to me that a guy that had but a cup of coffee with a band before he was uncerimoniously jettisoned would want to revel in it. These jokers though, know how to throw in extraneous detail like an "incomplete take" to make it more believable so I can sympathize
with people who fell for it.

Definitely, in my opinion, it's a fake.
Why on earth would he take the nickname "Tornado" on this forum??? This alias was given by MainMan management, right? And I can't figure Warren was particularly happy with it.

We all know Warren Klein is not comfortable with his brief tenure in The Stooges. I can't imagine that, after years of "denial", he would come here and suddenly want to tell us everything, good and bad memories, etc.

Now that I think about it, I bet this is the same clown who a while back claimed to have a live version of "Asthma Attack" on his hard drive. Thankfully, nobody took that very seriously. Anyway, I think we can safely assume that there is a bullshitter in our midst so keep your antenna up.

I didn't think I was that hard to locate since others have done so. I was never contacted by Paul Trynka, unfortunately, & I will post my story here in the near future. I want to think about it for awhile before doing so. We're talking ancient history here, & I don't think it's any emergency now. I will probably put up a Facebook page in the near future for contact purposes. If anyone wants to contact me in the meantime, give the reason & information to contact you here.

For the record, in response to prior posts: It was Iggy that suggested I have a knickname, not Mainman. I don't think there was any other copy of me rehearsing / writing with Pop than I have, but if someone posts a link I will check it out & advise as to it's authenticity. Also, I don't think what I have on tape is worthy of publication, & after consideration, I couldn't do so without Pop's approval. Thanks for your interest.
Warren "Tornado" Klein

Here are a few tunes from the 'Iggy and unknown guitarist' tape, taken from various sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-f_hKd-s-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmSYL9bCIwI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKOrbuhPZKg