Big Star

Did he give you the twisted smile, TSF, the grimace?

Re: depression and Big Star - def remember the third album, in the British music press and elsewhere, being described as the ultimate 'downer' alb in the 1980s ("any downs at all any downs at all") - poss enhanced by This Mortal Coil delivering bleakish versions of 'Holocaust' and 'Kangaroo' on their first alb (1984). 'Femme Fatale' aside, Third/Sister Lovers feels closest sonically and emotionally to Berlin amongst Lou Reed's discography at that moment in time.

xpost That's a great story TSF!

Yes, good AC story. Here's mine, forgive me if I've already linked to it too many times: Why is it that every time I'm at a show, I can never identify a single one of the hundreds of shitty, anonymous songs being blasted over the club PA system before the gig starts?

In my view, Artful Dodger is power pop, and in a way they're the precursor to Cheap Trick. "Talk Talk" from their first LP is a definite Beatles-American landmark; the rest of that record, with the exception of the definitely power pop "Wayside," isn't quite as distinctive. Honor Among Thieves is better, more consistent. Vocals weren't sneaky or vexed like Big Star's or Badfinger's. Even did a song called "Dandelion" that wasn't the Stones tune, covered "Keep a Knockin'" like the Flamin' Groovies did. That Spotify list is way off base, in my opinion. Take a listen to the first 2 Artful Dodger records and tell me if you hear Argent or Head East. I don't.

First AC show I saw was in March 1981 in Nashville, with the Panther Burns. His guitar playing was absolutely amazing. "We'll wait until Tav tunes his guitar!" was a line I recall. It was the real deal, avant-rockabilly like I've never heard since. None of the records they did come close to that, though "All Down the Line" on Behind the Magnolia Curtain does come close.

All the critics in the '70s pointed out that Big Star was like the Byrds. I think the sense of a band being really restrained in the service of...piloting the songs makes sense. But there's nothing really all that Byrds-like about Big Star, maybe there's some similarity to the first song on Notorious or something like "Jesus Is Just Alright" from Easy Rider. The Zeppelin comparison has been made; the third Led Zep record has some similarities to #1 Record. "Ramble On" maybe.

And OK, James, I've been reading up on Elijah Wald's work and, for ex., Greil Marcus' disagreement with Wald's contention in Escaping the Delta that Robert Johnson was a derivative songster who reworked previous music and whose reputation was inflated in the '60s. I knew Steve Calt, the blues writer who did the bio of Skip James and who died in 2010. A major guy. I wish I could've spent more time with him. Calt always maintained that the cult of '60s blues that led to Bloomfield, Clapton and Canned Heat came from a misreading of blues as a guitar music as opposed to a vocal music. But Wald, I think, discounts Johnson's guitar playing in order to make his point about the continuum of blues, and I think that he's off when he discounts blues itself in favor of mainstream pop that he claims Johnson and other "blues" performers did. Johnson was not exceptional; his recordings were sonically thin; and white people turned him into a romantic figure. Valid points, but on the other hand, you could say that Charlie Parker was really just turning the work of earlier saxophonists like Don Byas into stuff that later listeners would valorize beyond all reason. Wald's work tends to be about how listening to records has killed real-time music-making; he wrote an entire book about how the Beatles' work helped kill pop as a dance music. His Newport book, from 2015, talks about the confusion about rock-as-pop that characterized the 1965 folk festival.

Chilton identified with Gram Parsons and the offhand approach they took seems real similar. "Just to See You" from the 1970 solo record is a Parsons rip. The route from 1969 and Gilded Palace to the '90s and Will Oldham has to go thru punk, which I always thought was the thing that separated old-school alt-country from modern Americana. If you want to know why Nashville won and Memphis lost in the struggle to dominate music in the last 40 years, you could examine Oldham's career, along with that of many others--songs are just so adaptable, whereas performance styles are a bit more complicated. Perhaps indie-alt-country does performance styles more tellingly than Nashville can--I never bought into the greatness of Emmylou recording with Lanois, for example, his production seemed completely extraneous. So maybe Oldham knows something we don't. I know I'm not really getting to the heart of it here, complicated.

I tried to situate Oldham in pop in this piece from a couple years ago. Don't know how well I succeeded.

Here's Christgau on the first 3 Artful Dodger LPs. They did another one in 1980,Rave On, that I've never heard:
Artful Dodger [Columbia, 1976]
Having barely conquered my addiction to "Think Think," the supra-Beatles raver that opens side two, and having learned that "Think Think" stiffed as a single, I find myself clearheaded enough to report that if "Think Think" didn't make it this band will have to wait till next year, and to point out that next years sometimes come for bands this tight, melodic, and intense. B

Honor Among Thieves [Columbia, 1976]
These kids deserve to turn into teen heroes everybody can be proud of. They respect the rock and roll verities, but in a dynamic rather than an arty or nostalgic way: their instrumental wallop is powerful enough to keep them in there with the heavies, but so deft that the lyricism of their songs is left untouched. A lot of bands around CBGB will spend their lives wishing they could have gotten it together like this. B+

Babes on Broadway [Columbia, 1977]
OK, two nice if slightly deliberate albums of power pop go virtually unnoticed, so you up the power, especially since you're running out of the cute tunes 'n' tricks that provide the pop. But then it isn't power pop any more--sounds almost like Angel, or Queen. Sounds pretty desperate, too. C+

Here's "Think Think" (not "Talk Talk," as I call it above), from Artful Dodger. Too formalist to be popular, despite the heartiness of the vocals?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBEoNzGQEFI

And one from Rave On. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JUrUPT-Yzs

(Maybe I'll read Wald and Calt's books, but as paraphased here, their points seem irrelevant at best---Robert Johnson may not have been all that in some way or other, but he was as much of a primary and galvanizing source of those songs and their sources and that sound and sensibility as most musos, most listeners of anu kind could find in the 50s-60s, and he still sounds powerfully affecting to me)(and he eventually went platinum, so I may not be the only one)(If the cannier of gifted Brits initially focused more on the guitar than the vocal tradition of the blues, it worked out well enough, as blues, blues-rock and blooze, and if it's creative misprision at best, then maybe Hubert Sumlin, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, also BB, Freddy, and Albert King, for instance, might be okay with that)

Originally came here to say that say I just listed to the s/t Rock City album, rec in late 60s, released in '03, and it's pretty good power pop: though the pace gets almost leisurely on occasion--not Jody's fault, I don't think; he's ready to rock when Chris is, like when they invite us to "climb the walls" (of the world, not the asylum). "Lovely Lady" starts courtly, suddenly pauses about 2 minutes in, comes back with a drum beat, then, "You don't trust this fairy tale..." also there are three songs that made it onto Big Star's #1, as well they might, and Terry Manning's keys rec to fans of xpost Michael Brown, Garth Hudson for that matter (sometimes touching on CB's interest in religious-tending themes, though neither of them overdo it) and the CD adds a couple of refreshingly extroverted singles tracks by Rock City bassist Thomas Eubanks Icewater version of "Feel" is a bracing finale, oh yeah and Chilton shows up on the "Try Again", sounding very 'umble).
info from label:
http://www.luckysevenrecords.com/RC.htm

Thanks for Artful Dodger!

But there's nothing really all that Byrds-like about Big Star

"Ballad of El Goodo" isn't like the Byrds? AC hung out with McGuinn when he first moved to NYC and, according to the Jovanovic book, McGuinn was a big influence on him.

"Ballad of El Goodo" is kinda Byrds-like. Chilton sings a bit like McGuinn. Chilton also hung out with bluegrass-folk musician John Herald in New York. The early critics also compared Big Star to Moby Grape. I guess I hear the comparison: "8:05" and an obscure but beautiful track from Moby Grape '69, "What's to Choose," which is as downcast as any Big Star tune and as understated. Demo is even more anticipatory of Big Star than the studio version:
demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM77sgB4rpg
album version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO3kKiTdchE
Maybe someone could do a collection called The Sources of Big Star, like Yazoo records did for Robert Johnson.

For another thread and another time, but I recommend Calt's I'd Rather Be the Devil bio of Skip James. Acid, unforgiving, analytical, disenchanted.

Terry Manning's 1970 Home Sweet Home is one of the first examples of Memphis power pop-Beatleism:
December 31, 2006

When Terry Manning sings about his "dear old mother" in "Choo Choo Train", he doesn't give a damn about her. Written by Donnie Fritts and Eddie Hinton, "Choo Choo Train" is only marginally straighter in the Box Tops' version, which Manning engineered. Home Sweet Home is a record of magnificently conceived and beautifully recorded parodies, and it's not without overtones of something approaching real feeling. Originally released in 1970 on the Stax imprint Enterprise, Home Sweet Home gives George Harrison's "Savoy Truffle" and Jack Clement's "Guess Things Happen That Way" the Memphis anglophile treatment, with Richard Rosebrough's drums locked into a stiff post-soul-music groove. It illustrates how Manning, Chris Bell (who plays guitar on four tracks) and other Ardent Studios denizens created Memphis power-pop by letting local traditions collide with cosmopolitan abstraction. These heartfelt jokes point the way toward Big Star's #1 Record and Radio City.
Artist Terry Manning
Album Home Sweet Home
Label Sunbeam
Author Edd Hurt No Depression Issue #67

Is there something in Nothing Can Hurt Me about how the Ardent guys were way early on The Beatles curve because of some connection with Vee Jay records? Like they had some early copies of The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons or something.

/ But there's nothing really all that Byrds-like about Big Star/

"Ballad of El Goodo" isn't like the Byrds? AC hung out with McGuinn when he first moved to NYC and, according to the Jovanovic book, McGuinn was a big influence on him.

Calt always maintained that the cult of '60s blues that led to Bloomfield, Clapton and Canned Heat came from a misreading of blues as a guitar music as opposed to a vocal music
Believe Francis Davis says something similar if more nuanced in his blues book.

The photo of Alex holding Untitled was the original cover for the first issue of his '70 album, on Ardent. He was a lover of the bayou even then.

Calt was one cranky guy, but brilliant. Kind of the Robert Crumb of blues writing. He always used to say that the white blues guitarists picked someone like B.B. or Albert King as role models because they knew the Kings could never upstage them. We both really liked Snooks Eaglin, who he thought far superior to any of the big-name blues guitarists lionized by fans in the '60s. In a way, his thinking on this is like Miccio's take on indie folk overestimating the worth of Radio City, except Calt was far too saturnine and Latinate a scholar to truck with pop, the Pet Shop Boys never entered his biosphere.

xpost
To oversimplify, in thinking about pop music one might think
1) Somebody made this music for some reason
2) Somebody sold this music for some reason
3) Somebody consumed this music for some reason

One might then try to determine some of those reasons if possible. There are people who only care about one of those questions and dismiss the others, but some of us might be interested in all three. Because of his career and his personality, and his association with one of the mother cities of modern pop music - as well as his adoption of another- Alex Chilton and his projects make for particularly interesting grist for the mill. In that framework of three simple questions and whilst the Rio Olympics are about to close, I would like to recommend Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music In The Making of Modern Brazil, by Bryan McCann.

except Calt was far too saturnine and Latinate a scholar to truck with pop, the Pet Shop Boys never entered his biosphere.

I'm a big fan of Brazilian music. Ruy Castro's book on bossa nova is one of the greatest things I've ever read and certainly answers James' three questions. Charles Perrone on MPB is another good one. I'm always trying to turn people onto João Gilberto, who is such a great artist. I wonder if Chilton ever listened to him. He certainly operates in some Ideal World of Pop that consumes him, so there's some similarity. A man and his guitar and you. Thanks for the recommendation.
Where I part company with Miccio, perhaps, and with Chuck Eddy, perhaps--Chuck is a hero of mine and in a way a mentor, but I could never write like he does--is in this question of why people make music. Being a professional is a good reason that I suspect isn't enough for some critics. Tricky territory indeed, if you're a pop fan who also respects what pop isn't equipped to do. A real swamp when it comes to attempting to write actual criticism of pop music.

Don't remember Alex ever name checking or covering João Gilberto, but I do remember him introducing a Bossa Nova by saying "this is a song by Jim Beam's brother Jo." Wish I could remember exactly what tune, probably was just "The Girl From Ipanema." And yeah, the Ruy Castro book is great, thanks for recommending it years ago, still want to read his book on Garrincha.

Is there something in Nothing Can Hurt Me about how the Ardent guys were way early on The Beatles curve because of some connection with Vee Jay records? Like they had some early copies of The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons or something.

― Deneb on Ice (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, August 21, 2016 2:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just rewatched this today, and no, there's no mention of Vee Jay. There is, however, a contemporary photo of the Ardent art director (I can't remember her name at the moment) looking at a copy of Beatles For Sale -- that is, she (or someone else at Ardent) went through the trouble of acquiring an import copy of the record, not an easy thing to do in 1965. So they were ahead of the curve in the sense that they realized at the time that the Beatles' UK and US albums differed significantly.

Ah, but http://www.theaudiophileman.com/the-ardent-records-story

Thank You Friends
Title: The Ardent Records Story
Label: Big Beat
Cat. No.: CDWIK 2 273

...or power pop aficionados, Big Star. Well, the label seems intertwined around the band. There were a host of artists who worked at the Ardent studios but this 2CD collection focuses on the decade (1966-1977) in which the Ardent sound was initially honed, featuring melodic yet edgy sounds that paid homage to the British sound of many of the so-called Invasion groups.

John Fry, co-founder of the label and recording engineer commented that , “I remember when the first Beatles single came out on Vee-Jay, John (King, friend and partner) and I twigged onto it right away and wanted to find out more about this stuff coming from England. So we got a foreign subscription to the New Music Express and discovered that there was this whole new world of groups. From then on we were Anglophiles.”

On that tip, in the liner notes to the old Twofer #1/RC CD, John Fry is quoted as saying the Ardent gang used order loads of British imports so they could study the records as they were properly mixed and mastered.

Interesting, didn't know that!

xp

Yes. I just read the same thing in the Bruce Eaton 33 1/3 book on Radio City, which must be where I read it in the first place.
xp

John Fry: I remember the day the first Beatles single came in on Veejay. We put that on and said, “What in the world? Who are these guys and what are they doing on Veejay? Veejay doesn’t have stuff like this— how did this happen?” It was the last sort of sound you would expect to come in on a Veejay record [the label’s bread and butter was r& b artists like Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, and The Impressions]. That attracted as much attention as anything else. When we got curious— we being John King and me and to a lesser extent, by the radio days, Fred Smith because he was in the process of going off to Yale— we would go to any length to track it down. We were going to find out what this music is and where it came from and what’s going on. ‘Please Please Me’ enjoyed no success initially. The Veejay release … everyone just yawned. We said, “Okay, it’s England. There must be a music magazine in England, something like Billboard.” And we scoped out that it was New Musical Express— so we got an airmail subscription. Then we could see what was going on and there was this world of groups and we spotted a mail order record store— guy had his name John Lever and then Record Shoppe with an “e” on the end of it. We figured out how to send him some kind of international money order. At first we ordered The Beatles because we wanted to see what that was about. Then we’d just look at the pictures. “This artist looks kind of cool— let’s order one of theirs and see what they sound like.” We started to get other British artists and finally got to the place where we would send him money every once in a while and tell him we wanted a standing order to ship any new release by the artists on this list as soon as he received it. The interesting thing about that was the Beatle records and a lot of other records then were coming out sometimes months ahead in England from the time they were issued in the United States. A lot of people at a lot radio stations became our best friends because we’d say, “Hey, how’d you like to have a Beatle exclusive early?” When Capitol finally decided they were going to issue ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ I happened to go into the Capitol distribution office here, the guy handed me the single and said, “Do you know anything about this? They’re putting a big push on this. I don’t know if it’s going to do any good or not.” I just laughed out loud. He asked me if it was going to be hit and I said “Yes it’s going to be hit.” It’s so weird because

Eaton, Bruce (2009-05-01). Big Star's Radio City (33 1/3) (pp. 16-17). Continuum US.

That was Carole Manning looking at Beatles for Sale. Which is my favorite Beatles album!

There are great photos of the band taken by Carole Manning posted on tumblr by somebody named aliphantparts.

At first we ordered The Beatles because we wanted to see what that was about. Then we’d just look at the pictures. “This artist looks kind of cool— let’s order one of theirs and see what they sound like.” We started to get other British artists and finally got to the place where we would send him money every once in a while and tell him we wanted a standing order to ship any new release by the artists on this list as soon as he received it. The interesting thing about that was the Beatle records and a lot of other records then were coming out sometimes months ahead in England from the time they were issued in the United States.

Yeah, that definitely qualifies as ahead-of-the-curve. Arguably, the only folks in the US more ahead of the curve than that were those who heard George Harrison sit in with a local band at the VFW hall in Eldorado, IL in 1963 (near Benton, where George was visiting his sister).

All the critics in the '70s pointed out that Big Star was like the Byrds. I think the sense of a band being really restrained in the service of...piloting the songs makes sense. But there's nothing really all that Byrds-like about Big Star, maybe there's some similarity to the first song on Notorious or something like "Jesus Is Just Alright" from Easy Rider. The Zeppelin comparison has been made; the third Led Zep record has some similarities to #1 Record. "Ramble On" maybe.

xpost Comparing the UK and US Beatles releases could be pretty instructive as they came out, come to think of it (Somebody in the Wall Street Journal recently compared UK and US Rubber Souls, and claimed to know/fairly plausibly pitched why the changes, in terms of Capitol trying to adjust to trends).

Listening to Prix's Historix, recorded in post-Big Star 70s, out this year: maybe it will grow on me, but so far seems like most of the best tracks were on '15's mostly amazing Ork box, and further highlighted by that context. Which is impressive, considering that *most* of the Ork seems like highlights, but here, the whole thing seems like a picturesque yet distant herd, even when I turn it up. Producer-guitarist Tiven keeps it moving along---15 tracks in 41 minutes, awright---but lead vocals, mostly by Tommy Hoehn, don't project as much personality as any of the Big Stars, incl Jody, who ain't here, unfortunately, though Bell is, and Chilton and Dickinson show up in the background sometimes. Maybe I shouldn't have listened so soon after Rock City, although I liked a lot more of that one right away.
More info and Tiven's backstory here:
http://hozacrecords.com/prix/
t

Need to listen to Rock CIty, I guess. Just thinking that my favorite Beatles album was one of the US ones, Something New. Also had a soft spot, or some kind of a spot for The Beatle's Second Album, maybe because I thought what other group could have such a poorly titled record company artifact turn out so good.

Oh, speaking of Terry Manning's xpost own album, which he was ordered to do after his off-the-cuff Box Tops parody, my fave track is the wild extended preview of "I Can't Stand The Rain"---he was still working on the tracks for Ann Peebles when he got a desperate call from a buddy, so took the Hi Rhythm Gang, and a tape recorder, over to fill in for a no-show for some lucky Senior Prom, soon in musical flames.

The Beatle's Second Album

Prix is too fussy, too worked out in the wrong ways. The arrangements and performances don't breathe. Tiven's production trademark, actually. Similar to what's wrong with Van Duren's first album, which could have been great had it not sounded so canned. Prix is not completely horrible, but the version Chilton did of "She Might Look My Way" is magnificent in its simplicity; the Prix version fucks up the beautiful chromatic riff that begins the song, obscures it. The best version of "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It" is on the Chilton live-at-CBGB album, One Day in NYC; the version here is dinky. I think Tommy Hoehn is OK, sounds kinda like Ian Lloyd of the Stories, or Van Duren, for that matter. Whatever else you might say about the Tiven Chilton stuff, at least Alex sounds soulful, if uncomfortable with the bsnality of "Every Time I Close My Eyes."
I love the Beatles' For Sale. They sound so relaxed, vocally, so distanced from any kind of hysteria. Great singing. Can't bring myself to listen to them any more, but that one I can still enjoy. And "Hide Your Love Away," Lennon sings it so well.

Can't hardly stand to listen to them anymore either, especially a whole album from beginning to end. Sometimes can listen to one song over and over to see what's going on, if not what's going ahn.

The Beatles, I mean. My Big Star burnout recovery rate is higher.

_The Beatle's Second Album_

Sorry, there was more than one Beatle at that point. /The Beatles' Second Album/.

My pick for their best record. Dave Marsh made a more-than-convincing case for this being their best album in a 33 1/3rd-esque book (shares it's title with the record).

Man, I need to get back to that earlier stuff---speaking of xpost Ian Lloyd of Stories, I wasn't that big on him (as a lot of other people were), or whoever sang lead w the Beckies, but otherwise, both bands made good use on record of Michael Brown's melodies etc., after he left Left Banke (haven't heard the late 60s self-titled LP by Montage, also w much MB input). He wasn't trying to rehash Left Banke w those two, and I can imagine Chilton still listening.

Some good stuff on that Beckies record. Used to find it in the dollar bins, got issued on CD last year.

What Prix kind of reminds me of is the record by the Dudes, who are totally obscure today. We're No Angels, from 1975. A Bob Segarini project, similar to his work with the Wackers, except that the Dudes record is more like the Zombies or the Bee Gees, in spots, and also almost disco bubblegum elsewhere. I think it's a very enjoyable album with a uniquely light touch, a transitional record--pointing the way toward the Records, even, but with a crass and unhip undertone that is very refreshing.
http://images.45worlds.com/f/ab/dudes-were-no-angels-2-ab.jpg

Very appealing description (also, Bob Segarini is one of the great rock names, of course)! Don't get how that could be like murky, genteel ol' Prix. Now that you mention it, think Creem was into the Dudes, and maybe the Wackers.

Really impressed with Artful Dodger, great songs and a hint of the hard rock muscle that Cheap Trick would add to power pop to become a stadium band

Here ya go, Dow, the full Dudes album. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2iylep_dudes-1975-we-re-no-angels-full-album_music

why "raspberry"?

We're No Angels [Columbia, 1975]
The Consumer Guide Raspberry for 1975 is awarded posthumously to this Zombies tribute, which died almost immediately upon release, dismissed on name alone by everybody except diehard Wackers fans, an exclusive grouping that does not include your reviewer. Dudey it's not. There's a lovely pre-Pepper feel to it, although the bite of the Raspberries' Starting Over or Big Star's Radio City is missed, and a nice ripoff eclecticism operates as well--not so easy to evoke all the young hooples while borrowing a catch from Rod Argent. Anybody who can tell me where Brian Greenaway stole the little bit that goes "oh Lylee lady" wins a prize. B+

The Byrds element in the chorus of "The Ballad of El Goodo" is so palpable, like I could put my finger on the exact Byrds song that it comes from, but I can't. I'm not sure that song exists.

The vocal sounds like McGuinn. And the song it reminds me the most of is ... "5D (Fifth Dimension)"

But I was thinking about the verse, not necessarily the chorus.

Just listened to "The Ballad of El Goodo" and for a split second I thought I could hear a backing vocal by Rasa Davies.

Don't know if "El Goodo" is structured like a Byrds tune, myself, but I hear the general resemblance. I love "5D," but isn't it in 3/4 time? Dunno. Perhaps it was the stateliness of "Way Out West," for example, that reminded critics of the Byrds. "She Don't Care About Time," maybe? Parsons' "100 Years"? Critics also compared them to the Who, and maybe they meant Who Sell Out? "Our Love Was, Is"?
Alex used to do "5D"--I remember him covering it in a show I saw around 1991. And come to think of it, maybe he sang in those days just a bit like David Crosby? "Everybody's Been Burned"? "Psychodrama City"?

could totally see a cover of "Everybody's Been Burned" fitting right in on 3rd/Sister Lovers

Yeah, "5D!" Except when I play it, it's like, well, not really! It's in a different key and a different meter (xp) and has a different chord progression and a different melodic countour...

There's something in the harmony in the "El Goodo" chorus, I think.

Yeah, "5D" is in 3/4. I wasn't thinking the two songs sounded exactly the same, just that the way the lyrics and vocals flow seems somewhat similar.