Veteran rocker Iggy Pop has led tributes to Scott Asheton, the drummer with his pioneering band Iggy & The Stooges, who died at the weekend aged 64.
Asheton was a key figure in the band seen as precursors of punk rock with the self-titled 1969 debut album produced by John Cale of the Velvet Underground, and 1973's Raw Power, produced by David Bowie.
"Scott was a great artist, I have never heard anyone play the drums with more meaning than Scott Asheton. He was like my brother," Pop said on his Facebook page.
He hailed Asheton and his brother Ron, who played guitar in the band and died in 2009, saying they "have left a huge legacy to the world. The Ashetons have always been and continue to be a second family to me."
Asheton was the Stooges' drummer until they split at the start of the 1970s. After a low-level career with a variety other bands, he returned when they reunited in 2003, and played on last year's album "Ready to Die."
Their proto-punk early work, while not commercially successful, was seen as paving the way for punk rock, which took off in the mid-1970s with bands like the Ramones in New York and the Sex Pistols and The Clash in London.
Other tributes to Asheton included one from Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, who tweeted: "So sad to hear about Scott Asheton passing!!! Rock Action forever!!".
Another, more high-profile veteran of the early pre-punk era in the United States, Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed, died last October in New York at the age of 71.
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
