Scott "Rock Action" Asheton, drummer, Stooge, 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, family man, all time great, passed away on March 15, 2014 at age sixty-four after bouts of severe ill health since 2011.
He remained one of the select few who helped transmogrify our culture. The world is a better place for having had him in it, changing an entire art form along with his cronies The Stooges and then Iggy and The Stooges. He also was justly celebrated for his stints in Detroit supergroup Sonic's Rendezvous Band, in Dark Carnival alongside his brother Ron Asheton and extreme chanteuse Niagara, and for his work with rocker Sonny Vincent.
Given the combination of a naturally taciturn man and an unobtrusive photographer, I only saw onstage the guy who was part of what Paul Trynka called the Greatest Second Act in the history of Rock and Roll, but I did see the family man too. My heart goes out to them...
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"Take it down, man, to the drums. Hear where he's got it?"
Scott "Rock Action" Asheton's drum kit at the Tribute to his late brother Ron Asheton, Ann Arbor MI, 2011.