Big Star

Stephens manages Ardent Studios, I believe.

I seem to recall a quote from Chilton in an interview about how the hardest drugs his circle had access to in the Big Star days were pills, and how they wouldn't have known what to do with coke or heroin even if they had access.

yeah i think 3rd is basically an album under the influence of valium

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

I wondered about this too. I can't remember if it was in the doc or not, but I remember someone saying that Bell hated Memphis and wished he'd lived in Britain. I found that baffling; I mean, he was into what he was into, and that apparently didn't include the Stax scene, but I just can't for the life of me imagine growing up in Memphis in the 60s and hearing "Green Onions" and thinking, "Meh."

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?

I don't think there was a single person or event that fucked this up. Stax was in a bad way, and was being attacked from all angles (fairly well covered in the Stax doc Respect Yourself). I would be surprised if there weren't other records that suffered the exact same fate as Big Star's.

imagine growing up in Memphis in the 60s and hearing "Green Onions" and thinking, "Meh."

But imagine hearing it day after day after day while you're being told you ought to sound more like Carl Perkins or the Bar-Kays.

Yeah, I suppose...I can see that.

I guess I feel like, Chilton didn't seem to have any problem incorporating his favorite Memphis and British influences into his songs, so it's a little difficult for me to grok Bell's perspective.

Bell seemed to have a tortured artist persona from day one, though, so the way he viewed the world was probably a little different.

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?

this would involve pretty direct finger-pointing and cause friction for all parties being interviewed - people who deserve the blame aren't going to accept it on camera, and people directing the blame at them would just be stirring up shit and opening old wounds. so of course no one's going to go into detail about this.

and how they wouldn't have known what to do with coke or heroin even if they had access.

there's quotes about Chilton injecting things into his neck (throat?) in the Jovanovic book. so they had access to something.

Jody Stephens on LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/pub/jody-stephens/8/6b4/78a

xp

occasionally I go thru bursts of stalking old skool indie types on LinkedIn

jody stephens is a killer drummer

and how they wouldn't have known what to do with coke or heroin even if they had access.

there's quotes about Chilton injecting things into his neck (throat?) in the Jovanovic book. so they had access to something.

― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, January 16, 2014 1:35 PM (12 minutes ago)

As noted many times upthread, Bell had a smack habit...

I always heard the Daisy Glaze lyric "And I'm thinking Christ/Nullify my life" as a heroin cop... hmm.

well it's definitely a ref to the song "heroin"

xpost to the point about making white music in a town known for black music. I asked Robert Gordon something along those lines when I was writing about Third. He said: "I don’t think Stax and soul was ever the dominant sound on the street in Memphis, certainly not on the mainstream street. The people at Stax complained about not getting local radio play. The two dominant radio stations were playing southern rock."

Was that the case in the early/mid-60s though (when Bell and Chilton's Beatles/British Invasion obsessions presumably began) ?

After a switch to all-black programming, WDIA was the city's top station.[2] In June 1954 WDIA was licensed to increase its power to 50,000 watts. Its powerful signal reached down into the Mississippi Delta’s dense African-American population and was heard from the Missouri bootheel to the Gulf coast. As a result WDIA was able to reach 10% of the African-American population in United States.[1][3]

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

I thought there were quite a lot of younger musicians and bands in Memphis who were more influenced by the Beatles than Stax, in the early 70s I mean

I mean, even Stax was influenced by the Beatles!

heeey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtgYGvLi2A0

xpost But that doesn't mean Bell and Chilton were listening to WDIA – they may have been listening to the mainstream rock stations. Certainly, Gordon was pretty clear it was an outsider's view of Memphis to assume everyone cared about Stax/Volt. Just like plenty of people who live in Hackney couldn't give a toss about grime.

John Fry had a oft-repeated quote that the Ardent gang were Anglophiles, and the only other music they felt was worth listening to was R & B, and most of the best of those records came from Memphis.

What was it like being a privileged white person in that area in the early 70s?

http://www.kickacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/light_blue_grass1972.jpg

lol

I used to pry my dad for details – he and Alex Chilton were about the same age, both grew up in Memphis. Both into the Beatles, though I think Dad was just into anything on Top 40 radio.

So a long time ago I had the chance for a sit-down interview with Chilton and asked Dad for some insider questions to ask him. Dad said he didn't know anything about the guy, didn't ever hang out with any of those White Station boys.

So I reversed it and when I finally sat down with the man, I asked him something lame along the lines of how it felt for some White Station kid to make it to the top of the charts at 16. Chilton just looked at me and sneered, "White Station? Fuck those guys, I came from Central."

My point maybe to all of this is that Memphis is a larger city than you might think.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/07/cover-story-big-star/

This was the piece I wrote about Third (with contribs from Jody Stephens, John Fry, Carl Marsh, Leza Aldridge, Chris Stamey, Mitch Easter, Pat Ranier).

That's an excellent piece, ithappens.

this was a wonderful movie

the very last scene when it's John Fry and his assistant and they have the master tapes to Radio City up and they are playing around with it on the board, the very last moment Fry is struck by how good it all still sounds, how perfect it is, and he looks up and is just beaming with pride, i thought that was the best little moment i think i ever saw in a music movie

thanks for the link ithappens excited to read that

Watching the doc on vacation right now and I'm wondering if part of the reason Chilton's solo career was so disappointing is that everyone thought he was the genius behind Big Star when it was really Bell.

eh i dunno, they were both great i think, very lennon and mccartney

well no because Chilton made two brilliant Big Star albums largely without Bell's input

I mean I love Chris and all but I Am The Cosmos doesn't even get close to Third/Sister Lovers

yeah radio city might be my fav now, i dunno sisters lovers rules too

i like i am the cosmos more than sister lovers, challop i kno. radio city is my favorite of everything though. for some reason i thought it was speculated that chris bell was involved with those two albums more than had previously been supposed, no idea if that is accurate at all.

that's not the impression i've gotten from anything i read or the doc

Chilton's solo career is only disappointing if you don't actually understand Alex Chilton

bell wasn't at all involved with sister lovers afaik -- he had a hand in writing "back of a car" (and i don't think he was credited originally), but i think that's all he really contributed.

The 33 1/3 back has Bell co-writing 'O My Soul' and 'Back of a Car' before splitting.

Supposedly Bell started some of the other slow songs on RC for Chilton to finish. There's an old Fry quote about how Bell had some material he "devested his interest" that landed on the album.

those credits are what i must have run across re "been more involved with" and then mentally exaggerated, thank you guys for clarity. xp

Chilton and Bell (and the other members) prob benefitted from a precarious balance of opposing forces--competition as well as co-operation, creative friction, all that good stuff.

have always had a hard time imagining what that relationship was really like based on what's out there, always seemed to me like chris bell was a self-defeating homo which doesn't do the official record any favors. idk xp

33 1/3 book on Radio City has a bit of info
http://books.google.ie/books?id=7U9xj4EE8RgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false

But Lennon and McCartney lasted a lot longer, in terms of creative output; think their relationship went back further, maybe deeper (equally focused, creatively and career-wise).

Chilton's solo career is only disappointing if you don't actually understand Alex Chilton

― Οὖτις, Monday, August 18, 2014 6:44 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^
& also i mean i love bryan maclean as much as the next guy but seriously chris bell wave big star fandom is p ridic

ps go buy some lx chitlin records u bozo

Bryan MacLean!

I was trying to think of some other examples of that type of revisionism. Kim Deal and the Pixies to an extent I guess

revisions of albums by bands

george lucas' mix of the white album

William Friedkin's Exile On Main St.: The Version You've Never Heard