More on Ron Asheton

I think I met Ron Asheton once, in passing really, I think it was at the old performance network, he was practicing with Powertraine, Denis Tek of Radio Birdman was there, along with Scott Morgan of course, and as I recall Ron was leaving as I was coming in with my brother. I do remember the first time I saw Ron and knew who he was, it was in 1997 or so when his band Dark Carnival was playing the State theater in Detroit (I refuse to call it by that SF club name) and recall clearly Chris “Box” from Mazinga giving Ron a copy of the first Mazinga single we'd put out on Reanimator. I don't know that Chris would ever have thought that he was going to get to play with Ron someday, not to mention live around the corner from him.

Around the corner, that's maybe why his passing sent a chill though my body, because he was a local guy. The last time I saw him, was when my brother and I were coming home from the local grocery story a couple of months back, and Ron was driving in the lane next to us. It really wasn't a shock, because our local grocery store was his local grocery store. He lived, at least a chunk of his life, about three city blocks from us, interrupted only by a swath of I-94, a swath that I could hear from my bedroom window when I was a teen and a young adult, and that I assume he should have been able to hear as well..... of course I didn't know who he was when I was a teen or when I was in my early 20s. It was only when I was in my mid to late 20 that I discovered The Stooges and the fact that they were local boys, a pair of brothers and their buddies from school. A couple of kids that had started something and when they were young and wild not had much commercial success... just like us.... and lived (well most of them) to see their legacy (that's a shout out for the Mazinga guys for those not in the know) legitimized.

Ron lived to see his art heralded, lived to see it spawn, well punk rock and much of what has flowed from it since. I am sure in the next couple of days we are going to see tributes and comments and biographies of Ron Asheton, but I just want to say, thanks for all you helped to build, and prove about how a couple of kids from Ann Arbor Michigan could over come their second class citizen status as Townies and set the world on fire...