Big Star

a truly great music doc is the Cannibal Corpse one from a couple years back, but for the most part, if the band's canonical, it feels like there is for sure a template on what people want to see - and I'm assuming this has to do with how, for it to be successful, you have to be speaking to people who don't generally give a shit about music. like, people enjoy music on whatever level, but people who're already music-obsessed would prefer something that really digs deep -- whereas for general audiences, I think there's already a large barrier in place, and it's been decided that this "the incredible true story of how this came to be and what it meant to people down the line" is the template for getting around that barrier. to venture beyond that would be risky, and to take risks you need the assurance that you're not going to be throwing a lot of money down the toilet.

agree -- making documentaries is not free and takes a lot of time. it's going to have to appeal to a more mainstream audience or risk being that movie that only some people have barely heard of rather than streaming on netflix for the world to see

therefore i am obliged to mention this, which should be streaming somewhere along with the other 3 in the series at some point shortly (but not on netflix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtSYQAtK6RY

i wish more music docs would just show loosely edited archival footage, maybe some voiceovers or something, and let us come to our own conclusions about it. like For All Mankind but instead of space, it's music.

Yeah, like The Kids Are Alright.

i saw the documentary on a boat during ATP new york, and what i remember most is how great it was to hear the music on a nice big loud sound system. it was a great-sounding documentary.

The same day I watched this I watched the Patty Schemel doc Hits So Hard, which wasn't really well put together from a cinematic point of view, but leaves few stones left unturned.

i wish more music docs would just show loosely edited archival footage, maybe some voiceovers or something, and let us come to our own conclusions about it

I totally agree w this but unfortunately this just isn't possible for the vast majority of pre-internet music, simply because most bands were not that well-documented on film during their existence

i know, it's just what i wish -- that there were a super fan weirdo in the audience with a camera who 30 years later is like "hey anyone want to see these tapes?" for every band i like

hell, even bands i don't like
i'd watch basically anything like that

yeah you never know with some of these bands, seems like there's always random unseen stuff popping up.
parts of the dylan/scorsese doc, the parts that use pennebaker's footage of the 66 tour, are like this, no narrator or talking heads, just this cool archival fly on the wall footage. i wish the whole thing was like that. i guess eat the document is out there.

"charlie is my darling" is a great example of that kind of doc, and it was about eight thousand times better than "crossfire hurricane," the other rolling stones documentary that got cable play last year.

but there is obviously room in the world for many kinds of docs. sometimes you need narration and easy-to-follow stories. sometimes you don't.

left a bad taste in my mouth when someone in the film called lesa aldredge chilton's "muse" and it just kind of hung there. "muse" is kind of a yucky concept for this day and age.

you know what musician doc was great? the albert ayler one.

also i'm aware that the bands rediscovering big star in 80s/90s is a huge part of their legacy and indeed how some of us even know about them but that doesn't justify, cinematically, all the boring fucking talking heads in the doc who just say variations on, "this band was great!"

mitch easter is incredibly annoying btw, he uses "like" as a filler word more than any 13-year-old girl.

sometimes you need narration and easy-to-follow stories. sometimes you don't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_AYqZddckc
(bonus question: fcc, can you tell me what New York New Wave guitar player appears in the above video)

"they were, like, the best, like, BAND, like out there. i mean, you know, they like, you know, like had this like SOUND you know."

xpost

(xp) haha. and i do not know what nynw gtr player appears in that spot, but i will say that every single dude in it looks like they belong in a bar in bushwick in 2014.

best part of the doc was the WTF of realizing that TGI Friday's was the center of the party scene in Memphis in the mid-70s

i know, it's just what i wish -- that there were a super fan weirdo in the audience with a camera who 30 years later is like "hey anyone want to see these tapes?" for every band i like

or even just the audio! when i finally started to get into big star i searched everywhere for some sort of concert recording or even just a single song...didn't find anything. tylerw, do you know of one?

(not counting 1993's "Columbia: Live at Missouri University" recording, of course. which is hilarious, btw, because "Missouri University" doesn't exist. such a quintessential missouri to have a big star connection and then that happens)

There was a decent live gig released in 1992 on Rhino, then there were some sketchy boots released in the later 90s.

IIRC the rhino thing is "live on the radio"

(i mean, that's not the title, but that's what i think it is. live, on the radio.)

boots of the early 70s period with chris bell, or from one of the other lineups?

Isn't there one if those live on the radio things with Lightman on bass? WLIX or WLIR or something

look for Nobody Can Dance from the late 90s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=045DkSUKCsQ

sorry, i should just back in and research it myself.

"Chilton and Stephens recruited bassist John Lightman for a handful of East Coast live dates, including a WLIR radio broadcast later issued as Big Star Live." looks like this was in 74/75, after Hummel left.

uh guys there's a whole live set on the Big Star box

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

http://blog.nola.com/entertainment_impact_music/2009/08/medium_jody%20stephens.jpg

lol

although i am disappointed in my lack of skills, i am really looking forward to checking out that live disc when i get home!

no live recordings w/ bell that i know of. the live set on the box is super killer, lots of great chilton guitar work, some tunes they don't play anywhere else. sounds as if they're playing to about three people.
this bootleg is very nice too, only instance of the band playing "candy says": http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/12/14/big-star-cambridge-performing-arts-center-march-31-1974/

Weren't there only a handful (at most) of shows with Bell?

yeah, i think probably less than a dozen? the jovanovic book mentions them covering "cinnamon girl" which would be interesting to hear.

Some of these shows on Youtube. WLIR and Cambridge Performing Arts, at least.

some very good chilton thangs + reunited big star over here too: http://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com/search/label/Alex%20Chilton
the 1977 chilton shows are fantastic: http://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com/2012/03/alex-chilton-rip-live-1977-feat-chris.html

Big Start got their biggest push from the Replacements, and to a lesser degree, REM.

So weird, Chilton seemed to avoid Big Star songs as a solo artist. Although he played "Motel Blues" on the really good bootlegged Alex Chilton live show (released last year Electricity By Candlelight http://theseconddisc.com/2013/11/06/alex-chilton-jeff-vargon-interview/) and that was a cover he played during the Big Star years (and is on the original Big Star Live album.)

he didn't think his big star songs were very good iirc

got their biggest push from the Replacements

completely not coincidentally, the promo cd comp that ryko put out to hype their 1992 big star reissues was called "a little big star."

(funny, though, to think there was once a time when getting a push from the replacements meant something.)

well and another reason that Big Star faded off the map was because their distribution was really hosed by the label issues, and it was exacerbated by a lack of product on CD until Ryko came along. Pretty sure the only way to get a CD of Big Star prior to Ryko was import only (that's how I got mine.)

Yeah, that twofer of the first 2 albums on Line (German label) was one of the most valued things I owned back in the olden days.

so uh whoever said Bell being gay isn't germane -- if yer making a 110-minute doc about the band, it's relevant. Esp if "You and Your Sister" is written to a boy, and there's anything more than snark to Chilton saying in a late '70s radio interview "The band isn't together because Chris is a homosexual."

Didn't say it wasn't germane, said it wasn't germane to the story of the band, unless of course there is significant evidence that Chris wasn't in the band because he was gay. You think that was the case? I've never heard that before nor read about it. Can't remember offhand, but I don't think Bell's sexuality was discussed in that biography or in the 33 1/3 book either.

they talk plenty about Bell's sexuality (and Christianity) in the bio iirc. not so much in the 33 1/3 since it's about Radio City.

ah thanks. I'm too lazy to go pull that off the shelf.

So yeah, then maybe they should have dwelled more on that then.

I made this comment a few months ago....

Does anyone know, specifically, what Chilton's problem was? He seemed to become spectacularly spacey and incompetent almost at the same time he was producing some of his strongest work... Hallucinogens? Booze? Doesn't have the telltale signs of coke or heroin, although Bell obviously went down to horse so hard drugs were obviously on the scene...

― fields of salmon, Tuesday, September 10, 2013 6:18 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And I actually still feel that way after watching the doc. There's that one comment—who was it?—"well, Alex was just interested in drugs and booze" (I'm paraphrasing). This doc could have told us more about that, about the failed move to NYC and a return to Memphis that must have felt anticlimactic, or did it? I also echo the sentiment upthread that the doc didn't focus on Aldridge—or really any relationships—enough. Other things I wondered about:

1. What was it like being a privileged white person in that area in the early 70s?
2. What was it like being a white musician making British-influenced music in a predominantly black city known for its own forms and styles
3. Couldn't the doc have actually tried a little harder to figure who was ultimately responsible for fucking up the promotion and distribution of Big Star records?
4. What was Alex's life like in NYC?
5. What was Alex's life like in the 80s and 90s in New Orleans?
6. What happened to Hummel?
7. What does Jody do now?

I read the 33 1/3 book and it's good but it suffers from the same problems as the doc (in fact the doc almost seems to take its storylines from the book).

6. What happened to Hummel?

from the doc it seems like he sits around waiting to have an opportunity to talk about how badass the tgi fridays scene was back then

Andy Hummel died three years ago.