Blog Posts by Kris Needs

Since Mott The Hoople announced their reunion back in January, websites have buzzed about the setlist, plane tickets have been purchased as far away as New Zealand and California while fans who've waited 35 years for the original People's Band to return worked themselves into a lather of anticipation.

More cynical elements feared it could go spectacularly wrong. It would not, after all, be out of character for the band who once sang "you can never grow old" to make a rusty pig's ear of their eternal teenage anthems. But, as Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, howling in the front rows at his own expense for three of the five nights at London's Hammersmith Apollo, said, "It doesn't matter how old they are; nobody today plays rock 'n' roll like these guys. Maybe the Stones but..."

Over the course of what came to be known as Mott Week, one word repeatedly reverberated across the jungle telegraph: emotional. Speaking as someone who followed the band religiously during its five-year lifespan,

"Ron wasthe Riffmeister and all that was good in this world," declares Andrew Innes ofPrimal Scream, just one of countless bands who owe an inestimable debt to Ron Asheton's (pictured, in glasses)monolithic stun guitar onslaughts on the first two Stooges albums.

Asheton,found dead on Monday at his Ann Arborhome from a suspected heart attack, was the most influential punk guitarist ofall time, his monosyllabic, pile driver riffs providing blueprints for laterapplecart-upsetters like the New York Dolls and Sex Pistols. Even former CaptainBeefheart and Jeff Buckley guitarist Gary Lucas has paid tribute to "some ofthe best and most iconic riffs in punk history."

In his ownprivate world Asheton, whose unusual pantheon of heroes included Adolf Hitlerand the Three Stooges, was the most dangerousembodiment of the Stooges' dum dum boys aesthetic, infamous for his extensivecollection of Nazi memorabilia and the unsavory swastika armband later adoptedby UK punk-shockers. Ironically, he was the

Mitch Mitchell, the drummer nicknamed "Queen Bee" by Jimi Hendrix for keeping his music together, was the other crucial component in the sound of the Experience, redefining rock drumming as he pursued and accentuated the guitarist's stratospheric flights with the deft scattershot freefall of his jazz heroes Elvin Jones and Tony Williams. Mitchell's supercharged fusion grooves provided the only rhythmic bedrock on which Hendrix felt truly comfortable and, apart from the brief Band Of Gypsies diversion, underpinned Hendrix's entire solo career.

Born John Mitchell on July 9, 1947, in Ealing, West London, Mitch started his career as a child actor in late '50s TV schoolboy romp Jennings before moving into TV commercials, through which he developed an interest in the studio drums. At 14 he started working in Jim Marshall's Hanwell guitar shop, talking himself into playing with visiting local groups before joining the Riot Squad in 1965. Mitch played many sessions for producers of the day