Song Of The Day 3/30/2014: The Stooges - "L.A. Blues"

They All Scream: I felt a week of screaming was in order. But I didn't want what our millennial ruffian friends call "screamo," which as far as I can tell is the product of malfunctioning drug paraphernalia, acne medication and a ticking trust fund. I wanted genuinely upset people to scream. I wanted people who felt no remorse about putting perfect strangers in difficult situations through screaming. I wanted to hear people screaming because they're in peril, on drugs, determinedly avoiding family reunions, inconvenienced by a device that has a mechanism that looks like a human jaw, unable to jump-start the lawnmower, or lapsing Quakers. I wanted a week of earned screams. I think we have one.

We're starting out with one of the classic screamfests from a band who recently, sadly, got a little quieter. "L.A. Blues" is one of the most violent collapses of structure in the pre-punk dawn, the final song on the Stooges' Fun House album. It's not just Iggy Pop who's screaming on this. The guitars are screaming. The dual drum sets are screaming. Even the goddamn saxophone is screaming. As far as the Stooges' maître d is concerned, Iggy not only screams on "L.A. Blues." He grunts, he chokes, he groans, and I think at one part he even belches. This stuff is actually much better for you than you might immediately think.