i woke up today to the news that Ron Asheton was found dead in his house. what a bum out.
it was my second job, guitar teching for J Mascis, that i was fortunate enough to not only meet ron but ended up spending a good amount of time with him as he would fly out to various shows on that tour. J would do half a set of his songs with Watt and George Berz and then Ron would come out and they would play a half set of stooges songs, Watt on vocals. I have so many fond memories of those gigs.
As a matter of fact it was at the very first show on that tour that i met Ron. not only was it just the first show of that tour but it was thee FIRST show i ever guitar tech'ed. despite my protestations and my better judgement J had hired me to be his guitar tech. i told him that i didn't know a thing about guitars. that basically he should pretend like i had never touched one. i was nowhere near qualified to be guitar tech'ing for j masccis. he didn't care. the tour manager at the time, eric fischer, told me that j said "he'll figure it out." so, it was the first show at sxsw in 2001. i spent the whole day after an 11 am load in waiting for j to show up and basically show me how to string a guitar. at like 2 pm i find out that ron will be playing with us that night. so now not only do i have to worry about mascis but i am supposed to be worried about the guy that wrote like every song that ever mattered to punk rock? j shows up at like 4 pm and gives me theeee most basic guitar stringing lesson ever. there are 6 of his guitars i have to restring. i break like 5 e strings in a row. i am a mess. time is running out. i have no clue what i am doing. mascis at this point in our relationship is a man of few words to say the least. and then ron shows up. i am star struck. i am fumbling. i am useless.
he hands me his guitar and asks if i can tune it up for him. he's pleasant. he's unassuming and he is a legend in my life.
i tell him, "hey. i am sorry. but i can not tune your guitar. i have like 5 more of these to do and i don't know what i am doing. i am sorry." i must have apologized like 10 times. there is nothing i want more than to tune RON ASHETON'S guitar. but i can't.
his response "david don't worry about it. my girlfriend will do it."
well that show happened and in a couple of weeks i was changing strings on 6 guitars at a rapid pace. ron would show up for the shows in the bigger cities. we would shoot the shit. he was SOOOO excited to be playing again. people were buzzing about this combo of dudes shredding stooges songs. iggy was mired in mediocrity at the time and i think that ron was thrilled. we were all thrilled that he was getting some sort of attention. the fans would flip when he would shred solos, jamming on his wah pedal. he would often try to defer to j during the solos, but j insisted that ron do them. he was just happy to be there.
in dc, during the last song of the set, he broke a string. during the break between the encore i was frantically trying to change it but the end was stuck up in the guitar. i was threading the new string through from the top trying to dislodge the piece when i stabbed myself in the finger. there was blood everywhere. finally they went on and i had to give him j's blue sparkle telecaster instead of his black strat. he finished the show with that guitar and i put his guitar in the case with my blood drying all over the white pick guard. the next day i would fix it in nyc. ron showed up early and opened his case and took out his guitar and exclaimed "jesus! there's blood all over this thing!" i thought he was pissed. i ran over to him and apologized. i said "ron! i'm sorry. i was gonna clean that off that was my blood i stabbed myself last night with a string and i didn't have time to wipe it off before you guys went back on stage. "
he was bummed. he said "oh. i thought i was shredding so hard last night that i was bleeding." it didn't matter though, he wailed every night.
shortly after iggy came groveling back and they got the stooges back together. i know ron was thrilled. i was lucky enough to see them play all over the world. japan. barcelona. baltimore. it was such a pleasure seeing ron finally getting to play in front of thousands of people freaking out while he played.
there is one moment that i think about often, one of my favorite touring memories. we were in london in 2001 leaving to drive down to portsmouth to play a show. i got in the van to drive and i turned around to make sure that everyone was there and there in the back were pretty much every guitar hero i had as a teenager. and now for that matter. there was j and watt. kevin shields was along for the ride. and ron. i remember turning back around and starting the van and smiling to myself thinking that if you told me when i was 17 that this would be happening i wouldn't have believed it.
in high school i would come home on tuesday afternoons and set my stereo to record a show on the cleveland state university radio station. it was called "blows against the empire". one day when i got home from skating with my friends i laid in bed and listened to the show. and one day there was this song that blew my mind, the chorus "now i wanna be your dog". and man, from that opening riff, i remember sitting up in bed and getting up and going over to the stereo and turning it up and dropping my jaw. that's not hyperbole. i sat in front of the speakers. it was the first time. i don't think i had heard a scuzzy guitar like that before. i was 14. and right before the song finished the tape ran out. i was freaking. i had to wait a week before i could call up this college dj and sing the song to him on the phone and find out what this was. i am glad i got to share that memory with ron and let him know how much his band meant to me. i am sure he knew how much the stooges meant to a lot of people all over the world. it's just that you would never know it.
and this is one of my favorite pieces of tour memorabilia i have. it's a photo from that 2001 tour outside of the great american music hall in san francisco.
l-r:
Steve McKay (stooges sax player, jammed with us that night), Eric Fischer (tour manager, who would end up tm'ing the stooges when they reformed and becoming Ron's right hand man), me, J Mascis, George Berz, RON ASHETON, and Watt (who would fufill a life long dream and get to actually be in the stooges when they got back together.
