![]() In Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me, future punk avatar Dee Dee Ramone set the lurid scene: “They went on real late because Iggy couldn’t find any veins to shoot dope into anymore because his arms were so fucked-up … The band finally came on and Iggy seemed very upset … looked at everybody and said, ‘You people make me sick!’ Then he threw up.” Regardless of his and the band’s condition, the audience tapes of the Electric Circus performances (released in limited quantities in 2009 as You Don't Want My Name. But they soldiered on somehow, and armed with a set of new songs, played NYC’s Electric Circus in May of 1971. Less than a year later, the Stooges were falling apart, having been dropped by Elektra and quickly succumbing to serious heroin addictions. The Electric Circus, New York City, May 1971: “You Don’t Want My Name” The set ends with a blowout rave-up (consisting of a new tune, “Have Some Fun,” and a demented improv, “My Dream Is Dead”) that makes the Velvet Underground, who at the time were in the process of breaking up across town at Max’s Kansas City, sound like the Carpenters. Powered by the relentless riffage of Ron Asheton and the single-minded stomp of his brother Scott on drums, they rip through all of Fun House, Iggy’s vocals at their unhinged best. A&R man/tastemaker Danny Fields, who signed the Stooges to Elektra Records in 1968, brought a cheap tape deck to the first show, and his recording (belatedly released in 2010 as Have Some Fun) is a raw audio vérité of the band at an exhilarating peak. ![]() The crowd at the Cincinnati Pop Festival looks pretty into the Stooges, but what about New York crowds? Ready or not, a few months later, the band played a brief residency at small Manhattan club Ungano’s, bolstered by the addition of second guitarist Billy Cheatham.
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