Ladies and Gentlemen… THE SPOOGES!

The Spooges at Headquarters

Not sure exactly how it happened, but suddenly I have found myself playing bass in a hilarious band called, The Spooges. Why that name? Because it’s made up of members of The Fags (plus Rob Morgan as front man) — and we’re playing all Stooges songs. Fags + Stooges = The Spooges. (don’t blame me; it was Rob who came up with the name!).

Considering this started pretty much as a lark, I can’t believe how much fun I’m having — we’re all having. Dahny Reed’s guitar leads are so raw that Rob and I find ourselves laughing during them just because they are SO rocked out. It appears that Dahny goes into some kind of distortion-wah-wah-trance when he plays them, and you can almost see the sounds pulsing throughout his entire body… very fun to watch and hear. My brother Ben Ireland is drumming like an absolute maniac – which also cracks Rob and me up. Ben is such a fantastic drummer and this is one band that definitely shows off his tremendous talent. Dave Bayro’s great rhythm guitar grounds the grinding noise and fills everything out just right.

Rob Morgan on vocals — don’t know how many of you knew him back in the time of the Madhouse, which was one of the first punk rock party houses to spring up in Seattle (and was where he lived) — but although Ben and I knew him quite well back then, we really had no idea he could scream like this! We always knew he had a great voice — vocalist for The Squirrels and The Pudz… And sure, I still have cassette tapes from the early-‘80s at the Madhouse where someone would yell, ‘One…two…three…’ and then 30 young punks would scream at the top of their lungs and completely distort the sound from the little condenser mic in my tape deck. (the poor neighbors!) So I knew Rob could scream… but Iggy screams? I had no idea. He does them perfectly – not just sonically, but soulfully too. Plus he laughs all the time during our rehearsals — very fun to play music with.

Stooges songs aren’t really what you’d imagine they’d be like when you play them. I know those guys were on tons of drugs, but geez, how could they write some of my all-time favorite rock songs — that also have such weird arrangements? Not complex (obviously), but just bizarre. If you’re a musician you know what I mean when I say that a lot of the phrases are made up of three bars instead of four, and then out of the blue they switch to four. Or what’s up with the timing on the intro to ‘I Got It Right’ — when there are no normal counts between the main drum hits? We just found so many oddities while learning these songs, which has made playing the music more interesting. Mostly though, it just feels so good to play this music.

As a bass player I have loved learning Dave Alexander’s and Ron Asheton’s bass lines. Since every bassist has their own style, it feels so good to my fingers to play notes and phrasing that I wouldn’t normally do — almost like exercising different muscles that don’t get as much attention. A lot of the bass riffs are based on blues (not so surprising), but even jazz — definitely not what one would imagine in a Stooges song! Of course there are other songs where the bass line holds down the composition simply and heavily — basically two notes played over and over like some rock-and-roll machine. I love playing it all.

The Spooges’ first (and maybe only) show will be on December 28^th at the High Dive. The night has a fantastic line-up — four bands in all, none of which should be missed! (Rick Smith is coming to town for a reunion of The Girls – yaay!). However, take note! The Spooges are going on second — so if you wanna hear this soulful rock craziness that I have been describing, you better get there by… (eek!) 8pm. Yes, you read that right. Just in time to take a couple of swigs of your beer before we go on. (That’s almost required). Plus the cover is only six bucks, so there is a chance a lot of people will come out of the woodwork… so show up early! This is one show that I can say absolutely say: You won’t be disappointed!

Over and out!