King Sound, 15 July 1972

The Sex Pistols are still a pimple on the stooges ass.

Well, I guess the question is; when did conception happen.

I saw the Stooges in L.A. in 1973. It was the single most inspirational show I've ever seen. Many of us who were there were musicians and it changed the way we did business. We suddenly understood that there were possibilities beyond what we had imagined. The way that we played our instruments changed, the way we wrote songs changed, the notion of what could be done on stage changed.

None of the bands we were in or subsequently formed did covers of Stooges songs, though. For one thing they were difficult to play. For another, they were pretty hard to put your own stamp on - they had already been done the best way they could. Many of us knew how to play the songs but it made no sense to try and cover them if you couldn't do them at least as well as the original.

If you were there you understand the importance of seeing the Stooges in that time. You get how powerful they were and how important they were. They were a blast of energy in a sea of mellow. If you weren't there and you didn't see them and you weren't of that time it would be difficult to understand the significance of what they did.

I don't know who was at the show in London and who wasn't but I have no doubt that it had a massive effect on those in attendance. As Mick Rock says in the new documentary - "The audience was fucking stunned" - or something close to that. If you were there it very likely put light to things that needed light. It may have taken a while for people to find kindred souls or to get good enough on their instruments or to just be old enough to actually put a band together but I have no doubt that it helped in some way, and very early on, to birth the punk rock scene in Britain. Just as the Stooges did in L.A. and New York and Australia and who knows where else.

I was just about to ask what tree scoh fell from, but Larry, you have covered any comment I may have made and then some.

I 'd only add that I first saw them live in 1969 and it was a mindblowing experience. By that time, I had been to 100's of rock concerts and nothing was remotely like the Stooges.

The power of the music, the theater, the presence of the band, all combined, it was like cold water being thrown in the face of rock and roll.

The Stooges were the kind of band you either loved or hated, but nobody walked out of the gigs without being effected by the show.

Petrie Terrace wrote:

Oops, just noticed your post Neven! Is that for certain?, is that a personal recollection, or something you've found a broadcast date for? I'd be fascinated to know.

sorry i only saw this post now.I found the stooges broadcast date in a record collector article about the old grey whiste test.
a friend from a friend looked it up at some bbc library and there was cincinatti on the tape

larry fine wrote:

I don't know who was at the show in London and who wasn't but I have no doubt that it had a massive effect on those in attendance. As Mick Rock says in the new documentary - "The audience was fucking stunned" - or something close to that. If you were there it very likely put light to things that needed light. It may have taken a while for people to find kindred souls or to get good enough on their instruments or to just be old enough to actually put a band together but I have no doubt that it helped in some way, and very early on, to birth the punk rock scene in Britain.

I don't doubt the audience was "fucking stunned", Iggy's antics alone would have achieved that.

But if that show were the "Birth of British Punk", why did those people attending who later became famous as Punks wait 3 or 4 years to form Punk bands? You see my point?

I'll give you a comparison. The now infamous Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, 1976. In the audience were a number of people who were so impresssed by what they saw that immediately after that show they went out and formed their own bands. From that audience came Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths, Simply Red, amongst others.

Even though some of the now famous attendees of the Free Trade Hall gig didn't become famous with those bands until in some cases a number of years after the show, they all went out within weeks or months of seeing it to form their own Punk bands and start to create their own scene.

You see, it's the gap between the Stooges gig at Kings Cross and the emergence of British Punk which reveals the inconvenient truth. If that show was such a defining moment in British Punk, why would the kids in the audience have waited 4 years to start forming Punk bands? They wouldn't. Punk would have begun in 1972 or 1973, not 1976.

The timeline speaks for itself.

The Stooges played Kings Cross in 1972.


Joe Strummer (who it was claimed above was at the gig) started his first band in 1973. The year after the Stooges London show. It was an R&B band. Between then and 1976 he played in one other band, another R&B band.

Mick Jones formed the London SS (which we're led to believe without any audio evidence was a garage-punk type outfit) in 1975, prior to which he'd been in a trashy glam-rock style outfit heavily influenced by Mott The Hoople and the New York Dolls.

Brian James joined the London SS in 1975

John Lydon joined the Sex Pistols in 1975. Prior to which they'd existed since roughly 1973, by all accounts playing mainly Mod covers.

Siouxsie Sioux formed her first version of the Banshees in 1976.

So it seems pretty clear to me, those weren't kids who were inspired to go and form a band because of the 1972 Stooges gig. Or if they were, they were incredibly relaxed about doing so.

Natalie wrote:

I was just about to ask what tree scoh fell from, but Larry, you have covered any comment I may have made and then some.

I 'd only add that I first saw them live in 1969 and it was a mindblowing experience. By that time, I had been to 100's of rock concerts and nothing was remotely like the Stooges.

That'll be the tree of logical evidence.

Let me ask you something Natalie. You've said it was "mindblowing" seeing the Stooges in 1969, better than hundreds of other concerts you'd already seen by that time.

If you'd been inclined to form a band because of that Stooges show, when would you have done it? A few hours later, a few days later, a few weeks later, a few months later?

Or would you have waited a few years later, until 1973? Because that's the kind of delay we're supposed to accept if we're to believe the Kings Cross show was the "birthing" moment of British Punk.

What is an acceptable time to elapse for an inspiration to be considered still relevant? Mick Jones would have been about 17 in 1972. A difficult age to effectively put a band together. He may well have formed a band prior to the London S.S. We would be unlikely to know about it.

I don't believe that punk rock started at any one time - not at a Stooges gig or a Sex Pistols gig or because of the Ramones. There was a very long gestation period and any number of things came together to kick start that movement. I'm simply stating that as someone who saw the band at that time that they were highly influential and very motivating and a kick in the ass/breath of fresh air. So were the New York Dolls and Mott the Hoople and several other bands who were around at the time.

I don't think that you can totally discount the effect that the Stooges would have had on the people who saw them in 1972 because you didn't see proof of it by 1973. Ideas often take time to form and cohorts take time to find. While I agree that Pernil may be overstating his case; I think you are discounting it too readily.

Yes, the Stooges were more mindblowing in 1969 that all the bands I had seen previously. Bands I had seen included the Stones, Beatles, Who, Jimi Hendrix, need I continue?

You ask when I would have formed a band. I am not and never have been a musician so that would be a moot point.

What I did immediately, was form the first Stooges fan club in 1969. That was just me. The fact that other musicians did not actively form bands for a few years, does not discount the Stooges' influence.

Timeline or not, fact is that the early British punkbands themselves say the Stooges were a big influence on them. And of course the sound and performance of the Stooges speaks for itself. Compared to the Stooges The sex piustols are commercial shit. The kind were you buy you trousers with a hole in it, instead of wearing them long enough.

The Sex Pistols were only successful as a result of management making a big stir and the timing. They were never "commercial", they only became that in the years following with thousands of mediocre bands doing immitations of them. Strip away the hype and you have a damn good rock and roll band.

Natalie wrote:

Yes, the Stooges were more mindblowing in 1969 that all the bands I had seen previously. Bands I had seen included the Stones, Beatles, Who, Jimi Hendrix, need I continue?

It has almost nothing to do with the subject of the topic but I really like this sentence.

I was in contact with the BBC archive in London not so long ago and (sadly) they did not have anything of the Stooges from 1972. Case closed.

++ edit ++

I should have been more specific. The BBC have nothing in their archives on the Stooges that they actually filmed when the Stooges were in London in 1972.

the well known cicinatti snippets were shown on OGWT in 1972

tOBE DAMMIT POSTED THIS ON FACEBOOK :



SCALA CINEMA OR KING SOUND (I GUESS WAS THE NAME OF KING’S CROSS CINEMA, AT LEAST TEMPORARILY), KING’S CROSS, LONDON, UK

I GOT A RIGHT, SCENE OF THE CRIME, GIMME SOME SKIN, IM SICK OF YOU, THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE (TONY BENETT COVER) , MONEY THAT WHAT I WANT (BARRET STRONG COVER), TIGHT PANTS,FRESH RAG, YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL, SEARCH AND DESTROY, PENETRATION

Well. What to make of that? He writes as if he has a copy of the tape, Tobe of course, being Iggy's drummer from the last edition of the Stooges. Does that mean that there's something coming out of this?

I doubt it.

james matlock wrote:

Well.   What to make of that?     He writes as if he has a copy of the tape, Tobe of course, being Iggy's drummer from the last edition of the Stooges.     Does that mean that there's something coming out of this?    

That setlist comes from this page by "Tobe Dammit", who I suspect is not Iggy's drummer, Toby Dammit.

What isn't clear from the page is whether or not the setlist is quoted from the "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" book. I don't have the book so I can't check.

This set list was already running online. I do not remember where I saw it, but it was exactly the same

They didn't play that many numbers at King's Sound, so clearly a fake.

I GOT A RIGHT, SCENE OF THE CRIME, GIMME SOME SKIN, IM SICK OF YOU, THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE (TONY BENETT COVER) , MONEY THAT WHAT I WANT (BARRET STRONG COVER), TIGHT PANTS,FRESH RAG, YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL, SEARCH AND DESTROY, PENETRATION

I did a doublecheck with James about it, and it´s of course not a correct setlist because some of the tracks were not written yet