*** The Electric Prunes

STOCKHOLM 67

(Heartbeat Productions)

Here it is, the authentic link between Trogg and Stooge. Granted, guitarist/rock historian Lenny Kaye gave us the news back in '72 with his Nuggets compilation, a double LP of the finest greasy garage groups of the '60s. But there was still something a little too tame -- too Beatles-like -- about the studio recordings by Nuggets groups like the Electric Prunes, the Standells, and the Remains to justify their being linked aesthetically with the nascent punk of Iggy and the Stooges.

Stockholm 67, a legendary live recording of the Electric Prunes in Sweden, documents a group freed from the burden of crafting coherent pop tunes, and sounding Stooge-like in a way that the Nuggets version of "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" simply doesn't. On "Get Me to the World on Time," the rhythm section enters the same throbbing Fun House the Stooges would three years later. As for lead guitarist Ken Williams, well, here he is indulging in the kind of feedback freakouts that Iggy and his cohort wouldn't put on vinyl for another two years.

-- Justin Farrar