Big Star

I have that Jovanovic book, it's okay but not particularly great

there's some ok stuff in the jovanovic book, but he's not a great writer by any stretch. and doesn't have a particularly good feel for the music. man called destruction and the 33 1/3 are much better.

Reminds me I should probably reread Howlin' Wolf bio as well.

Memphis Boys by Roben Ford has tons of interesting info about American Studios that is relevant and interesting, although it is way too long to read from beginning to end, so is best used as a reference.

Speaking of names, you've fused Memphis Boys author Roben Jones with Robben Ford, who has or has had a band or one-off called the Memphis Boys. Totally understandable, and Edd's recently posted pn ilx about American Studios mainman Chip Moman, so circle still unbroken.

also *on* ilx, even!

Lol, sorry, thanks. I spent quite a few seconds just making sure I spelled "Roben" correctly and then dropped the ball for the surname.

fp'd you for that don't let it happen again

Think I was affected/infected by the misspelling bug by reading those few pages of Jovanovic.

For some reason I decided to try to watch Almost Famous on Netflix. It's a truly anti-rock movie in every way except maybe for the big scene where they all get misty-eyed over "Tiny Dancer" after Billy Crudup freaks out on acid. Its total embrace of "rock" got me to thinking about this piece, by Anthony Miccio, that Slate published in 2005. It's a takedown of Radio City that makes all the standard points about how rock ought to be a big shared experience and wonderfully crass and all that. Which of course has some merit as an idea, absolutely. In the essay, which begins with an aside about the 1973 Memphis rock writers' conference which says they "got together for a free dinner in Tennessee or somewhere further south," he goes on to say that the record didn't impress anyone upon first listening, and that Alex Chilton could've never turned on mass numbers of people as could Peter Frampton. The first part of that is false; virtually everyone I ever met got the spooky familiarity of the record on first listen; I certainly did. Second part is true, I suppose. And OK, Christgau with his "semi-popular" formulation is one thing, but for sure there's really no reason why you can't appreciate Art and all that stuff, as opposed to the big statements which are also Art. Miccio: "Someone who thinks the only thing that separates 'Back of a Car' from 'Ticket to Ride' is a promotional budget probably hates pop-as-in-popular music, as it represents a crass, literal, threatening world that they’ll never be confident or disciplined enough to belong to."
It's a pretty interesting poptimist view of a record that I suppose you could say is a rockist favorite. Miccio claims that fans fetishize the album because it represents a higher brand of pop that consumers were too dumb to appreciate, and alludes to the record's "inadequate" nature. In other words, it was an inferior version of stuff that was done better by more healthy, vulgar folk: the Raspberries and I guess, Badfinger. (Artful Dodger really was as good a power pop band as any of them, but to this day they have none of the critical rep that Big Star has, and they were the outward-seeking, slightly more vulgar version of power pop that Miccio seems to favor.)
Miccio has just enough of a point to make you feel a little uncomfortable. Music doesn't exist without an audience, is one way to view it, but this does tend to discount the impulses of musicians, and certainly in Memphis, there was always an inward, self-serving impulse that lay behind blues, for example--people doing it solely for the hell of doing it. I think the supposed opposition between "vulgar-good" and "subtle-bad" that so many critics use is one very big thing that can hobble any true assessment of rock music. And Miccio suggests that Westerberg regrets his infatuation with them, since it got in the way of his writing hummable, hit songs. And anyway, Christgau's idea of the semipopular wasn't all that big a deal; wasn't Fritz Lang's The Big Heat semipopular in the '50s, whereas Hitchcock--who's the more satisfying filmmaker? I say Lang is) was popular? Piece is right here.

"Till The End of the Day" just came on my ipod and I thought, "Hey, which cover of 'Anyway Anyhow Anywhere' is this?" Cleverish intro there by Alex.

"Back of a Car" requires you to commit to the lyrics. It requires you to commit to the idea that, yes, it actually took Alex Chilton four full, discrete verses to adequately draw that picture. Miccio doesn't address the narrative in that piece. He doesn't present a blueprint for how a shortened narrative could have functioned in a superior way.

Your film analogy is apropos, Edd, in that Miccio is a hardline anti-intentionalist and hates the auteur theory perhaps even more than he dislikes Big Star and all their fans. Hopefully he will come along in a little while and, um, clarify his position for us.

Had the same thought about those Shel Talmy covers, Tarfumes.

Tim and James OTM. The point of Miccio's essay is that fans were always making a case for Radio City as something that was really pop and that could fit right in with what was on the radio. But it lacked the power to do so. I think that is a common line on music like this, and quite often wrong-headed: how many times I've heard someone say, "Why this wasn't a hit..." and stuff like that.
I think what he's saying comes close to what I get out of Marcus on Randy Newman, that the scary world of true big-time, mass-audience participation is where real ideas are forged.

what is a "real" idea

What is an "idea"?

So if you look up "semipopular" on xgau's site, there are several iterations, as the kids say, but think it all comes back to thee earliest I've seen, from 1970 (in which he also tussles w terms like "artistic" and "musical"). Note that most of his examples already were or soon went on to make money, AKA vox populi, brothers and sisters and hardass realists:
the last two years have seen the development of a new phenomenon, which I call semipopular music. Semipopular music is music that is appreciated--I use the term advisedly--for having all the earmarks of popular music except one: popularity. Just as semiclassical music is a systematic dilution of highbrow preferences, semipopular music is a cross-bred concentration of fashionable modes. I'm not putting it down, for this is the music I am always praising ecstatically--the r&b takeoffs of Van Morrison and Randy Newman and Nolan, the easy electronicism of Terry Riley, the Wayne-Newton-with-a-bite of Nilsson, the self-conscious hillbilly plainsong of Tracy Nelson Country and (a very convoluted case) the Everly Brothers' Roots. Indeed, since writers and musicians usually prefer semipopular music, some of it even becomes popular; The Band and the Grateful Dead and Rod Stewart could all be argued into the category. My favorite examples, however, are untarnished by such associations. First is the Flying Burrito Bros., who on their first album offered the most outrageous combinations of pedal-steel and wah-wah distortion, verbal obscurity and country soul, all through the medium of a lot of ex-Byrd not-quite-stars. But even better is the Stooges, whose sole purported attraction, Iggy, continues to possess every star quality except fame.

I suppose semipopular music is decadent. It wouldn't be the first time that decadence has been the source of acute aesthetic pleasure. And indeed, the way it is so often enjoyed--quietly, stoned perhaps, Yes, perhaps. Yadda-yadda, whole thing here: [
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-aow/obsolesc.php Note that he seems kind of wry and/or bummed-out by the end, but '70 was a shit year for sure. Also you can see how he was already ready for Big Star.

And leave us not forget his later mention of the "bored enough to fuck with it" aesthetic.

The idea of a relationship between artist and audience that strengthens or tests the artist's original conception...like, country music is all about the conception of the artist meeting the approval or disapproval of an audience who is totally tuned into what she or she is doing. The Gilded Palace of Sin is semipopular--its audience may not have even really existed before the record got out into the world...

really enjoying this thread revival, lots to chew on, thx all

Indeed.

I think that is a common line on music like this, and quite often wrong-headed: how many times I've heard someone say, "Why this wasn't a hit..." and stuff like that.

I posted this upthread, but I still believe Big Star not being known while they were active was, for the most part, down to boring and sad logistics. iirc, the doc stated that copies of Radio City (other than promo/review copies, that is) didn't even leave the warehouse, due to the legal issues Stax/Ardent was grappling with.

Whatever audience there was couldn't have bought Radio City if they'd wanted to.

(Great and OTM posts, btw, Edd)

yeah I don't really buy that there were aesthetic reasons for their failure, the records literally weren't available

Ardent didn't release "September Gurls" as a single until the summer. Since they basically didn't tour very much and didn't have much of a live show, I wonder how effective any marketing Ardent could've done for it would've been, assuming the records got into stores. Would the audience for retro-Beatles that had bought "Go All the Way" bought "September Gurls," and would radio stations have played it? I'm not sure that 1974 audiences would've bought it in any numbers to make them into stars, even with marketing and touring behind them. Was there a context they could've operated in? I think they would've been compared to the James Gang or maybe Rick Derringer by me and my friends in high school back then. I knew enough rock history to understand the '50s revival, but I didn't have any context for the '60s then, I had just discovered stuff like the Who's early stuff and the Barrett Floyd. I didn't begin to systematically listen to the Beatles, who'd I'd absorbed thru osmosis as a kid, until 1979, when I bought Rubber Soul, Hard Day's Night and For Sale, after I knew about Big Star. Anything pre-1967 seemed ancient. Those Beatles records were like new music to me, because I had already dismissed them as passe. It was the '70s.
Can't remember what George Pelecanos novel it is, but there's one set in 1976 that uses someone talking about records they liked as verisimilitude to establish the era, and they mention Radio City.

DJ: "You're been getting an awful lot of critical acclaim for your new album [1974's Radio City]; it's really good!"

AC: "Yeah, uh, that's nice... I hope it sells... we've had critical acclaim before."

...

DJ: "The kind of music you play has been compared to the Beatles in the mid-60s. Do you find the music to be timely? I mean, is it anachronistic to be playing this type of music in the mid-1970s?"

AC: "I don't know. I haven't really decided yet. Somebody may convince me of that yet. I'm just doing what I like to do, you know? It sounds melodious to my ears."

...

AC: "This first one's from our first album, #1 Record, which can't be found anywhere. It's really rare. In fact, I can't find any around Ardent Records anymore."

Big Star Live, 1974

Would the audience for retro-Beatles that had bought "Go All the Way" bought "September Gurls," and would radio stations have played it? I'm not sure that 1974 audiences would've bought it in any numbers to make them into stars, even with marketing and touring behind them.

Maybe not stars necessarily, but at the very least I think decent radio exposure and touring could have pushed their albums into the mid-lower regions of the charts, and maybe made local hits of their singles.

The touring issue is a big one, though. Frampton was brought up earlier, and he toured pretty much non-stop from when he left Humble Pie in 1971 until he Came Alive! in 1976, all the while honing his audience-baiting chops as the halls slowly got bigger. His albums didn't crack the top 100 until Frampton in 1975 -- even with A&M pushing him, and his Humble Pie pedigree, it still took him the entire duration of Big Star's existence to find an audience.

I'm not one for "what if"s, but I think it's safe to say that if Big Star had been able to do extensive tours (granted, an impossibility given Stax/Ardent couldn't provide tour support/promotion) over a period of years, their profile would have been dramatically higher. Not Frampton-level by any stretch, but at the very least an album or two on the charts.

Thread caused me to listen to NCHM soundtrack. I'd seen it but in an environment without really hearing the song mixes. Holy shit, this reconfiguration, less bar band more ... What? Almost chamber-ey is fucking awesome at times. The versions of when my baby's beside me and My life is right, for example, are so nice. 13, wow. The de-zepped versh of o my soul is maybe too much. Haven't got to last few songs. Totally get ppl saying these sound too twee or soft. Different enough and good enough to ensure I'll play shitloads of this.

Fwiw I can't imagine 1973 responding to this production AT ALL.

Speaking of "O My Soul," I always thought this proto-disco single by the Everydsy People, "I Like What I Like," bears more than a passing resemblance to the Big Star tune--though Big Star never prefaced a song with the drum beats you hear for about two minutes before this awesome song really kicks into gear. 1973--I have their album, but nothing on it is as good as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3GxL2gXd0

the Everyday People, that is

Link to the Miccio piece? No idea it existed.

Actually, Everyday People, 1972, Canadian rock band on Paramount. There was also a '70s US funk group called the Everyday People. Anyway, the single was split up and edited just like "O My Soul" was edited for the Ardent single, which really wasn't a good idea.

Alfred, here's the link to Anthony Miccio's Radio City piece: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/big-star-radio-city.htm
February 15, 2005.

And it's Stylus, not Slate, my bad.

speaking of semi-popular, I've always wondered how well Chilton did off the Bangles cover.

Not as well as That 70 cents Show

Bangles money bought him a new car and his land near Hohenwald, Tenn., where he attempted to build a house and on which he lived in a tent for a while around 1991. I think he was making enough toward to have had health insurance, definitely.

Solid cover too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otx4-esLsBs

Link to the Miccio piece? No idea it existed.

The mistaken Slate credit threw me.

where he attempted to build a house

would read a whole book just about this tbh

thanks, edd. really flattered to have this piece not just remembered but grasped for what it was intended to be - less a dismissal of big star (it's not as prominent in the piece than i recalled, but i adore all of Third and at least the hits-by-accrual on the previous two) than a poptimist reaction to eccentric semi-pop hyped as "pure pop."

with a decade's hindsight, i wish i did less strawmanning and more quoting of said hype. And my reductive language regarding semi-pop is more glibly dismissive and undiplomatic than it would be today ("By revering this album, you are, without question, a pervert." is especially trolling - not sure if I was intentionally referencing Xgau's Bee Thousand dis or just indulging in the same needless goading). but i'm glad you picked up what i was trying to put down. believe it or not, this thing got me whitepages-doxxed on another music board. said offendee never did show up on my doorstep, maybe he calmed down.

i was a midwestern alt-kid belatedly discovering in early adulthood i enjoyed mainstream pop/rock even more than the more esoteric roads suggested in indie circles, and reacting to the cloistered vanities of magnet magazine types (who were pretty prominent in a big ten college radio dj's life). for many reasons cultural and personal, those battles feel barely worth the bile today. i'm proud i went out on "It’s best to love things for what they are rather than what we’d like to think they could’ve been," but i wish i'd made a less obnoxious case.

Glad you posted Anthony. Here's Christgau talking about some of this, way back in 1974 before Tortoise and Neutral Milk Hotel:

Radio City is another case in point. Their cult, which consists mostly of rock journalists, went all to pieces in praising the album's mid-60s weltanschauung last January. But I didn't really hear all of that, not really, until I learned to love the Raspberries' Starting Over, the final proof, simultaneously smooth and powerful (and slick and mechanical), that good art and a longing for the past are not always incompatible. Radio City is not so much the flip side of Starting Over as its underside, revealing all the loose musicianship of the albums the Beatles were making a decade ago--Beatles VI, say--to be a good deal more pain-filled, and daring, then they've ever seemed before, without surrendering any of that music's adolescent semi-innocence.

Rock is art. Remember rock-is-art? Remember how we railed against it? But rock is art more indubitably every year, and as the years progress we're not so sorry we lost the battle. Art does endure, a little, and we come to value endurance as we endure ourselves. We no longer regret the way the strictly aesthetic, no-sale triumphs of Gram Parsons and Big Star coexist with the cultural accomplishments of Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder, because even if culture does mean art plus society, art itself can often offer more excitement than all of the most accomplished popular culture in a time when society provides few satisfactions.

And of course, Big Star and Gram Parsons have proven as influential over the (short) long run as either Joni Mitchell or Stevie Wonder. And of course, the claims made for Gram Parsons for country music are probably just as inflated as the claims made for Big Star in alt-rock. I think Grievous Angel and GP and Gilded Palace are great, but I prefer George Jones and Moe Bandy and Vern Gosdin and would have to blame Gram, at least in part, for Will Oldham.

Lol ok I was w u up til the oldham comparison

Yeah, that's way too harsh, that's like blaming the Beatles for Manson (everybody knows it was the Beach Boys). I hadn't thought of Big Star in specific connection to Beatles VI, but that is a wonderful album, though cobbled together for mere Americans (and, it says here, New Zealanders!)only, it stands on its own, even if you're well aware of previous releases, and was a fave of mine long before I played it at parties in 77-78, between Pistols, Clash, Jam, and Costello, never with any objections. Don't usually link from wikipedia, but all of this is accurate, far as I can tell---even pleasantplains luvs it---GET THIS ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles_VI

(Also played it at parties alongside Graham Parker & The Rumour in the sequence w those others)

(Ditto Andy Fairweather Low.)

(and that live Stiff thing)