Big Star

that woulda been my guess, actually

I worked for/with John Fry at Ardent, and for all the rumors that were spread around that office, him being gay never made the rounds that I recall. Not that some people didn't find him peculiar in an unspecified way. He was married when I knew him, which I realize doesn't mean much.

How someone can crush on anyone other than Jody Stephens, I have no idea.

haha yeah he was definitely the pretty one

without a doubt
they're all pretty cute though!

yes i did just pop in here to say that

also i saw the trailer and was dubious because i need no convincing about the greatness of this band and it seemed to just be people telling me things i already knew

but now dr m is making it sound a little more appealing

yeah I totally want to see it, even though I'm a little wary of it being mostly "CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT NO ONE LIKED BIG STAR IN THE 70S WHAT A TRAGEDY THEY WERE SO GOOD"

well having Stax declare bankruptcy when Radio City was getting ready to ship didn't help

also one interviewee seemed to imply Bell was gay/bi without getting any more explicit.

I read talk on another forum that Bell's family supposedly requested/insisted this not be covered in the film.

This was absent from the liner notes to the box set as well.

A couple of things that got me into the band were big articles that ran in Mojo (1999) and the original Revolver (2000). IIRC, in the latter there's a great quote from an insider (either Fry or Jim Dickinson) about Bell's problems with going Born Again: "He realized believing wasn't going make him stop wanting to take drugs or stop being a homosexual."

lol this casts "Tennis Bum" in a new light

I love that song!

Everybody I know who has seen the movie says it is so much more than "OMG, people missed out!" Total tearjerker.

The "Chris Bell was gay" rumor makes the rounds all the time, based afaict on absolutely nothing but non-specific third-hand stuff, or only Will Rigby exclusively. Which gives it the weight of air, even if true. Reminds me of the same stuff re: the equally long dead sensitive soul Nick Drake. From the "Fruit Tree" (fruit!!!) box set liners:

"His sensitivity became a shield. His friends sometimes wondered if he was a repressed homosexual. That would have explained his sense of defeat at age 18, his intense need for privacy, his denial of the body, his inability to touch people, his idealized view of women and his failure to have a girlfriend. But if he was homosexual he was far from gay. He was so deeply repressed that he could not imgine a physical salvation.Too private to talk about his moods, Nick wrote songs that mapped his melancholy with precision. Singing to an audience, he could communicate."

Pretty sure Chilton makes some sneery homophobic remark about Chris Bell in that KUT radio broadcast - after Bell was dead, classy huh?

In fact it was "Chris was a homosexual. That's why we had to break up."

A friend worked with A.C. right after his move to NYC, not impressed w/ him as a human.

xp yeah, uncomfortable moment -- though that whole interview is alex trolling, I think. not that it excuses it...

You can totally see why Alex Chilton would be a hero to Westerberg. A real tell me to jump, I'll sit down guy. AC as a human ... I can only assume the guy had massive issues - mental, chemical, social. Good days, bad days.

I saw him play some time ago, and when someone requested a Big Star song, he played Michael Jackson's "Rock With You." In fact, I want to say he played it twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaycAs2Jr3A

ha, i like that
A real tell me to jump, I'll sit down guy
yeah, a friend saw him on both the box tops and big star reunions and said chilton seemed like the friendliest, most fun guy at the box tops show (where the crowd was about as unhip as you can get) and bored/unpleasant at the big star show.

A lot of people thought he let the Posies guys sing the songs they did because he couldn't, but apparently he absolutely hated a lot of the Big Star stuff. Bad feelings.

he played Michael Jackson's "Rock With You." In fact, I want to say he played it twice.

this kind of thing is why AC was awesome

dude obviously had a contrarian streak a mile wide

I dunno Josh, if Grisso's quote is accurate, and from the tapdancing-around I heard in this doc, the Chris-was-gay talk seems closer to secondhand, and we're not getting first anytime.

Some gays are always on the lookout for cultural totems who aren't Liberace.

In fact it was "Chris was a homosexual. That's why we had to break up.

def recall this from the radio show, which is also the one where Alex does Riding Through the Reich or whatever that pseudo-Nazi jingle he had was

haha, yeah, he was obviously in a "provocative" mood for that particular broadcast.

Much talk in the film of how he had no use for Big Star after the fact, and then ppl were "flabbergasted" at the reformation in '93. Um, ka-CHING?

are the Cramps in the doc at all...?

just a bit. More Tav Falco.

I think the Big Star reunion was really just a matter of catching him in the right place at the right time.

also i saw the trailer and was dubious because i need no convincing about the greatness of this band and it seemed to just be people telling me things i already knew

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Thursday, June 27, 2013 6:16 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but now dr m is making it sound a little more appealing

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Thursday, June 27, 2013 6:16 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't want to say so earlier, but i didn't think this doc was too great. they did well, given the paucity of footage from back in the day, but it's overlong, it lacks pace, it spends too long having indie rockers and such telling you they love big star, etc. is this by the same guy who did the replacements doc?

Who is the dude working on the Grant Hart doc?

yes and yes
that's why i was apprehensive

at least i think so! formula seems the same, and it's not one that interests me for the abovementioned reasons

So any significant differences in that new alt-take collection, soundtrack to this doc maybe? Good review in Rolling Stone, but yknow...

Yeah, it's the soundtrack (though may have more/different than the movie, as these things sometimes work out)

doc isn't "great" at all, simply bcz of lack of live footage etc for starters, but I think it's an entertaining film for ppl who are not steeped in the lore. I've played the LPs (not lately) but never became a superfan who read about em.

If this guy could get rights to the 'Mats music and cut the fan talk down to a reasonable length, maybe that project wd work too.

i'm sure i'll enjoy it (and i'm pretty steeped in the lore), but yeah, not expecting it to be "great".
listened to sdtk last night (it's on the various streaming services) -- fine, but nothing essential.

also it seems reasonable to spend a lotta time w/ critic interviewees cuz they "made" BS's rep to a degree, given the sales/distrib disasters.

yeah they really are the ultimate critics band -- wasn't their biggest gig (at least in the 70s) a rock critic convention?

yes, that's basically the focal point of the first half of the film.

It's remarkable to think that Big Star, let alone the VU (was Big Star the first band to cover the VU?), was a hard to find relative obscurity as recently as the '80s, given what an influence both those bands were on so much of what came out of the college rock scene at the time. Was it really just critics that kept (either) act alive? I imagine musicians passing the LPs around like totems helped at least as much. Not to mention critics who were also musicians.

(was Big Star the first band to cover the VU?)

Bowie

On Pin Ups, or around then? He was definitely in there, but I'd say scenester rock star who hung at Max's and produced Lou Reed that same year (72?) is trumped by kids stranded in Memphis, even if they got there a year or so later.

think this is from 67 or 68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUcnN9ULhA
i dunno, VU records might've been slightly hard to come by before the mid 80s, but they must've had a much higher profile than big star thanks to Lou Reed's relative rock stardom in the 70s. i don't think more than a thousand people even knew the name big star before the mid 80s?

I don't think you can overemphasize how obscure the VU was. I mean, it took 25 years for the Sex Pistols album to go platinum, and that was one album with historic hype behind it. Want to say the VU, like Big Star, was mostly out of print in the early '80s.

This was actually recorded before the release of The Velvet Underground and Nico
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPwCSem3cUQ

I believe somewhere in this 11-part interview, Mo claims to have not known the band was influential until the mid'80s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdV_THMjeKk#at=77

Mott the Hoople covered Sweet Jane on All the Young Dudes (1972). so no