ABSTRACT
To understand the context in which the Stooges found themselves “situated at the vanguard”, it is necessary to start at the very beginning. Before they became the heavy rock band that recorded two albums for Elektra Records, they were a different sort of band altogether. Though the Stooges’ method was to feel things out for themselves rather than take cues from cultural theorists such as Adorno, their aims corresponded with the artistic approach he envisioned thirty years before, the making of a body of new music that did not fit a “prepared” format, for liberated audiences. The engagement with and the exploitation of Black forms by white musicians is widely documented, and the “white blues” model could be a lucrative one. The Psychedelic Stooges’ first show happened the night of Halloween 1967 at the Ann Arbor house of their first manager, Ron Richardson.
