Big Star

Somebody asked Cropper if he would come in and put guitar on ‘Femme Fatale.’ He showed up at the appointed time. I already had a guitar lead to plug him in direct, I already had the level, he was in the speakers, we played the tape, and Cropper walked inside the door, plugged his guitar in, and didn’t come any closer into that control room but one step. He was freaked out. It was this bizarre song with Lesa singing— talk about some confused boys!” Later, when Alex tried to erase Lesa’s parts, Jim demanded they stay on.

George-Warren, Holly (2014-03-20). A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man (p. 173)

And third one is the charm:

Those early singles with the Box Tops were still remembered by Barry Lyons at tiny Amherst Records, which specialized in releasing LPs by ’60s stars like Jackie DeShannon. Based in Buffalo, New York, Lyons tracked down Alex in Memphis and sent him a plane ticket to fly north and discuss the possibility of cutting a record. He drove Alex to Toronto to jam with Bob Segarini, a like-minded musician from California who, since ’68, had been on several major labels, releasing albums with different bands including Family Tree (during which he collaborated with Harry Nilsson), Roxy, the Wackers, and most recently the Dudes, all with little or no commercial success. Lyons’s idea was to put together a pop-rock supergroup composed of Segarini, Alex, and possibly such players as former Raspberries bassist Wally Bryson and guitarist Nils Lofgren. Alex got together with the Dudes, but after they didn’t click musically, they instead got wasted.

George-Warren, Holly (2014-03-20). A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man (pp. 188-189).

(I baited the trap but the bears must be hibernating)

I like that version of "Femme Fatale", Lesa and all - its "confused", halting quality has a lot of charm - but her version of "That's the Story of My Life" (linked below) is rougher. I wonder how much more off-kilter the album would have sounded if her vocals were left on....

http://youtu.be/z0SbXKjUR94

I love the drum sound on "Femme Fatale"--Dickinson's close-miking (?) captures the texture of a drumhead unlike anything I've ever heard on a recording.

So Dickinson starts working with Penn on the Emmett the Singing Ranger record, and Penn's written a song called "Tiny Hogs and Hinys," about how ladies love motorcycles. They're at Sam Phillips with Knox Phillips and Knox is as crazy as Penn and Dickinson, so he lets Dickinson bring in a couple of Harleys to provide the rhythm track for the song. One of the guys doesn't quite get it, he's just kind of idling, but the other guy--from the local Nomads, apparently--is into it, and the beat is great. The studio is filling up with smoke, because Campebell Kesinger was playing lead Harley and choking out the bike by using a screwdriver, and Mike Post, who was going to use the studio the next day, comes by, is appalled but then realizes what a great idea this is. Gene Chrisman plays drums to the Harleys and Dickinson says the track turned out great. "What, did you think I was going to use amateur Harley riders?" Where the fuck is this album??
I've heard the late-'60s Bob Segarini stuff with the Family Tree. Kinda psych-sunshine-pop. I do like the Wackers OK and I have a soft spot for the Dudes' album (which apparently was screwed up by producer Mark Spector to the point that the Dudes were very unhappy; there seems to be a second Dudes album out there on a collection that includes some of the original mixes of We're No Angels). I recall reading an interview with Chilton in which he said he "knew more" than Segarini. The Segarini style was a lot closer to Tiven's than to Chilton's. Apparently Segarini's still around, working in radio.

Family Tree: "so run along," FLOMP, "after it's warm..." Aerial Pandemic Ricky-Tick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4i78Qoaa7M

Read about Dickinson and Penn at Sam Phillips here.

Robert Gordon says Emmet the Singing Ranger Live in the Woods is languishing in an unknown corner of the Arista vaults

This thread has been a revelation. The recent flurry of posts has led me back into listening to Big Star for the first time in a while - a band I've always liked a good deal, without ever really 'holding' as a complete thing, if that makes sense. This weekend (my last before going back to school - teaching) I've gone down a complete rabbit hole, listening intensively (in various settings), watching the documentary and reading, reading. It's been one of those periods where you come close to somehow regrowing your ears, and I feel like I've finally made sense of the band's architecture: that moment in listening where time seems to pause and expand and you step inside, walk around, look into the eaves - for crows, for glyphs, for spent carnival balloons. Third has always been 'the one' and it's where I'm still getting those vital, disturbing punctum moments, but they've been coming at regular intervals, right across the three albums. Thanks for the thread. I love the internet.

There needs to be a collection of 'smirks on record' - Chilton's at the end of 'Nature Boy' is a masterpiece of the genre.

Also, it was great, after following various routes down the wormhole, to end up at the Everlys' 'Pretty Flamingo': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j2D0mQWExg

Ha, I believe I many have gone down that particular rabbit hole a decade ago. Over that decade I finally came to grasp the concept of the composite minor scale and learned the technical name of that particular harmonic trick I was asking about.

One more bit of trivia I dredged up/was reminded of last week. Bill Cunningham, bassist for The Box Tops, concentrated on the upright and went on to a career as a classical player, and used his relevant skills to arrange the strings for Chris Bell's "You and Your Sister."

Another, unrelated song, called "You and Your Sister" that sounds a little like the Everly Brothers backed by the VU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghf6u9NEodg

The Vulgar Boatmen are a fascinating (well, sort of) lack of success rabbit hole in their own way.

Had the same thought about Big Star before hearing them as well, another surprise upon first listen. Wondered if he decides to sing high because

... it was closer to his natural voice?

I barely remember one or two of the reunion gigs I saw, but iirc the Posies guys sung the higher stuff and Chilton the other songs? I got the vibe he had them singing the songs he did not want to sing, even though he could.

Alex Chilton is the Goldilocks of vocalists, range-wise.

Also, now have this image of Alex and Prince having a conversation and then singing together, having an amusing discussion about how to divvy up the vocal parts.

That Vulgar Boatmen made me think of Gary Louris (or do I mean Mark Olson?) - something in that melody and the cadences. Great track.

Thanks for those links, JamesRedd. This wormhole is deep, deeeeep. (Idle musings, but do these things 'lead' anywhere, as such? By which I mean, does having the tools to decode the relative patterns in harmonic scales etc, lead to anywhere definitive, or do the songs, the patterns just evaporate the closer you get to the source? I suppose it's a question of music's ultimate lack of concrete reality and how it remains a non-representative medium (notation aside). I'm babbling.)

Chinaski, a little bit of theory goes a long way, unless of course you have signed up for some kind of classical composition class and need to know exactly what is required to get your voice-leading right for the form you are studying.

Jazz players have to know all the stuff about creating melodies from chords built on notes of various scales. With Big Star, you really have to marvel at how mature the writing and playing is on those records, how skillfully they use a rather abstract harmonic language that derives from the standard patterns guitarists favor. "Give Me Another Chance" is really advanced in this regard.

Watched Jonathan Demme's Neil Young film, shot at the Ryman. Young's songs are not unlike Bell-Chilton tunes. Too bad Bell couldn't have learned to simplify some of his ideas, like Young is so great at doing. But then it wouldn't have been quite so...troubling, I suppose. My friend Yuval Taylor claims Big Star is a lot like Bread, and I can hear that too, a band like the Autumn Defense certainly sounds like Bread and like Big Star.

the harmonic tricks heard on that particular everly brothers album can probably be credited to the hollies, who were the backing band for the entire album and wrote a bunch of the songs. the melodies have more in common w/ other hollies records than other everly records.

i say this even though
1) i really like that album
2) the everly brothers are my favorite group, probably
3) i'm sort of 'meh' on the hollies

(that's not to say that the everly bros' other work isn't full of interesting harmonic tricks; just different ones, usually)

x-posts

bread has some really good songs, but the lifeless vocals usually all but kill them for me

If I didn't know better, I would say that the story about the recording of Emmett the Singing Ranger Live in the Woods sounds like something Jim DIckinson made up out of whole cloth. Oh wait.

or maybe not

this is mildly relevant too I guess

The Everlys' other Warner Bros. stuff is full of great material that points the way toward power pop and Big Star. "You're Just What I Was Looking for Today" is a good example. Yeah, the Hollies added a lot to Two Yanks. But the Everlys' version of stuff like "So Lonely" completely outclasses the Hollies'.

The Police song?

No, by Clarke-Hicks-Nash of the Hollies. Such an amazing track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9FMvjh6m7Y

Thanks again, Rdd, for exposing me to Two Yanks, although the Hollies dumped some 'orrible pseudo-Dylanny "poetic" verbiage in there, which made the Everlys even more impressive, because transcendence. (Also, yeah, the Hollies tunes and I think production? did show their pop smarts, more satisfyingly than some of their own records.)

Big Star---Complete Third (Omnivore, Oct. 14, 2016)

Vol. 1 Demos to Sessions to Roughs

73 minutes, what I've heard so far:
Careful sedation of the post-midnight mind keeps several of these now-familiar songs affectless, via smoove solo voice & guitar (nerf 12-string, quite a feat). Opener "Like St. Joan (Kanga Roo)" does kinda work (sonically) as a junkie children's song, not too long after *Vice* President Spiro "Nolo Contendre" Agnew had described "Puff The Nagic Dragon" that way, and "Lovely Day" glides like it should, o yes, and "Downs" is a crisper, Lou Reed-Dorothy Parker campfire sing-along. But then "Femme Fatale" is limpid, ditto the following "Thank You Friends"-"Holocaust-"Jesus Christ" sequence, although they do hitch up some kind of diverted-milk-train-to-score-settling-day subtext (I think, although they're also nodding me out). Bland vocals especially useless on "Holocaust", unless you want to think about it more than listen, in which case the impression of "You're not even worth pissing on/singing about with any degree of effort or giving a shit" rules conceptually, I guess--and the piano is startling, both for finally showing up, and more for eerie gravity, suggesting the surfacing of a previously unknown /Plastic Ono Bandouttake.

However, that subset is followed by a much more appealing one, listening-wise: the tender (!), watchful, very nocturnal "Blue Moon"-"Nighttime"-"Take Care", then the pre-Cobain codeine classic "Big Black Car" moves as slowly as possible, but certainly does move, and is immediately followed by "Don't Worry Baby": Jesus wants him for a sunbeam and got him, got several multitracked Alexes, apparently, just chirping away in pre-dawn harmonies, and even before that, we finally get *two* guitars, showing me stuff about the chords etc. I hadn't noticed before.

And then! Fuckin' finally! We get two tracks, back to back credited to Alex & Lesa, which really should be the other way around, because she's the one who keeps them going, or is really ready to, while he keeps fumbling around---"Aw, now I've got my guitar in the wrong position"--sabotage? Notes claim the album and "album" have a lot to do with their relationship: "Scott and Zelda" even get invoked---welp so far it def seems about keeping some kind of chaos on the minded and mined sidelines, so guess it might be some kinda love too---coming from "Situations arise/Be-cause of the weathah", but even more obliquely so far; maybe they saw/nodded in and out of Renaldo and Clara? Edited sketches and happenstance, so maybe---

Anyway, Alex & Lesa try their hands at Beatles' "I'm So Tired", a bit haphazard but/and very enjoyable, also contextually perfect---and even better, "That's All It Took", which I thought was gonna be, "Just one look, that's all it took", the pop-rock-r&b song, but it's a country song, *not* campy: we get an on-it duet x ace guitar solo---adding up to a perhaps unique artifact in the AC pantheon (see Edd upthread on Chilton trashing a good Gary Stewart song).

That's as far as I've gotten, will check back in after making more time (though not seeing many unfamiliar Big Star titles ahead, on the rest of this disc or the other two.)

"Rdd"--am I fusing Edd and Redd? Becoming inevitable here, perhaps, but I meant "Edd."

You created a super-ilxor

Oh my God you're right...

:)

ONWARD

http://media.jrn.com/images/g7knox1_5181237_ver1.0_640_480.jpeg

But the Everlys' version of stuff like "So Lonely" completely outclasses the Hollies'.

that is correct! :)

The rest of xpost Vol. 1---Demos to Sessions to Roughs:

"Pre-Downs": somewhut asymmetrical grove-to-jam thang finding its way sometimes, with prob Dickinson shouting Beefhearty-Dr. John jive through the control booth mic, occasionally following it his steel drum, Chilton with his indolent aristo laugh--some potential here, but more on "Baby Strange", which i wish they'd nailed for the finished album or whatever it was. A third version of "Big Black Car", this one marked (Demo # 1/band), and yeah they're finding their way, but it's distracting, especially after the intimate confidence of the lights-out acoustic demos: he knew just what he was doing, where he was going and not-going--"Heroin" and several Townes Van Zandt tracks come to mind, but no nudge-nudge with the important influences etc---here, the confidence eventually becomes arrogant, then too indolent for that, "Sun-ny day, ", etc etc.---which would be more involving if the musos, incl. him, weren't poking this way and that---but then! his guitar becomes astringent, probing, in a way I can't defend associating with the Byrds--but maybe I'm right, because damn if it doesn't go over this little arc, surrounded by Byrds-y, starry and I guess Star-ry notes, twinkling as the car cruises on (Jody's so patient, he knows it'll work all work out eventually).
"KIzza Me", already in progress, is the first band track completely in focus, and "Til The End of the Day" even gets its Alex guide vocal kept for the final version, but these, and especially "Thank You Friends", really are rough, dry, kinda dull-edged mixes. "O Dana" and "Dream Lover" mostly absorb the roughness into their own juices and keep going, winning me over pretty quickly. End of Vol.1.

Thanks, D! Looking forward to hearing (reading) more.

Guys, one of the Box Tops posted on our borad once, for realz:So it's called _When Pigs Fly_...

― Wild Mountain Armagideon Thyme (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, January 11, 2014 6:54 AM (two years ago)

The Box Tops' "Call Me" was recorded by four of the five founding members of the group. The group reunited in late 1996. More info at http://www.boxtops.com/
Alex Chilton = vocal Bill Cunningham = bass Danny Smythe = drums Gary Talley = guitar

― Bill Cunningham, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (fourteen years ago)

Also, RIP original Box Tops drummer Danny Smythe, who passed last month:
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/danny-smythe-box-tops-dies/

(I referred to that the xpost acoustic solo demo of "Big Black Car" as "pre-Cobain codeine classic", and the more I listen to all this stuff again, the more I think of how it fits between Lou and Kurt--did either of them ever mention Alex or Big Star? KC has been quoted to the effect that his original idea for Nirvana drew on the Beatles and Black Sabbath, so they've got the former in common at least.)

Complete Third Vol. 2: Roughs To Mixes starts with a Dickinson rough mix of "BBC": Alex's guide vocal has the self-awareness, confidence and indolence, now without lolling around in complacency, and/or no sonic distractions; the band knows the song now. Guitar sounds a little warped sometimes, but fittingly. Fry's mix immediately rivets attention on the vocal, which sounds like he's singing through a--pipe? Exhaust pipe? Opium pipe? Meerschaum? A tight focus, maybe eventually too tight, despite the more vivid bandscape: it might become more about the sound he's getting, less about the song itself (thinking most about that vocal effect); JD's mix is more transparent--would like to hear something that uses elements of both.

More of a sustained success (though still a little distancing, Fry's mix of "Take Care" adds a cool, thin, slightly dirty echo-mirror to Chilton's voice (good staircase-type ambience on the word "stairs", and was already thinking he might be singing to himself. Also, it enhances the (eventually slightly over-underlined) suggestion of Lennon, as does and did the piano, which was mentioned as most effective aspect of the solo demo of this song. Again, vivid, resonant band sound, though *kinda* prefer how on Dickinson's mix I first became aware of Cunningham's upright bass when it starting grinding away at the piano, during a little interlude between verses---in Fry's version, bass is even the first thing we hear (although yeah it sounds real good all through, and never showboating).

Also good Dickinson rough of "Whole Lotta Shaking" and a couple takes of "Take Care."

Oh yeah, and Fry's mix of "Nighttime" does improve on or is even better than Dickinson's, at least in terms of getting the "grain of the voice", which in Chilton's case can incl. fleeting nuance, flickerin' thought, even though in the notes he claims to have written most or all of these songs w no great conscious intent---in performance, he starts to get it/let it slip, little bit.

Dammit! If we could just have Dickson doing the treble, Fry doing midrange and bass---how about it, Mr. Albums That Never Were? D.'s "Thank You Friends" has a whole lotta shakin' shiny wires, excitable female backing voices, some kind of curvature too, all going with Ray Davies Chilton mash-up of arch excitement x poise, mentions of "Kayyyy-os", like he's serenading somebody, and how if not for his friends, the winds would take him get him high, o heavens. Fry's mix keeps the dry wit, but brings it down to earth; nice bass of course as always.
But the tight focus on the voice really works on "Nature Boy", drying out the so-what room sound of Dickinson's version, making Chilton sound more committed, masterful, even, though he still isn't Nat King Cole*, of course--ditto the piano (Cole was even better at that), but it sounds better here too, even though it was good enough to practically steal the show from Alex-Boy on the JD version.
*Cole sounded awed and awesome, but it ain't that much of a song otherwise, incl. here. Still, Fry's presentation is surprisingly damn good.

In both mixes, AC comes to a point where he obviously wants to laff, which doesn't help (if you're going to record and issue the thing at all, do it straighter than that). But he gets past it.

Just another l'il flicker of impulse and then control, so thank you again, friend.

ha i love chilton's "nature boy" -- that's eggleston on the piano ... kind of hoped there was a whole tape of them screwing around but I guess this is it.

Some of these *may* be different takes as well as diff. mixes, but they're certainly close enough for comparison.

Like diff piano at one point on the Fry version? Anyway it's a keeper.

(mention of Bread upthread totally apropos: the more I listen to these sessions, the more flashbacks to Top 40 narcotic satori, discreetly stoned at and by the Pizza Hut jukebox: "Nuthin can, hhhhhuuut me...")

the rest of Vol. 2: Roughs to Mixes:
So (spoiler), several subsequent Fry rough mixes *do* 'llow Dickinsonian treble hijinks atop the lucid layers of rhythm, which are also getting bolder. The notes have AC auditioning Dickinson with the brand new "Kanga Roo", and finding the results very educational. So at some point, he may have been more assertive with Fry about taking the music further(and/or more credibly articulate, having understood what JD showed him---along with what Fry had already taught the Big Star crew about running the board).
However it happened, Fry's rough "Lovely Day" swirls and swoops all around the crisp rhythm farmers, and his "Kanga Roo" is jangle-dub, with orchestral tendrils drifting by, teasing the chaos, Lady Alex Davies trilling and trailing fingahs in the thin paisley currents, thee whole pre-channeling Mad Profressor's re-channeling of Massive Attack, just a little, la-la-la.
Fry's rough of "Downs" is a pulsating puzzle palace, "After Hours", sung by Lesa, sports pre-ska skiffle-ish, kinda Mungo Jerry casual catchiness, with a bit of clarinet sometimes. She sounds less confident singing lead (Alex in the background) on an alt of "At The End of The Day", which detracts from the momentum a little (though might not notice if there weren't an Alex-led take nearby).
Alex glides through "Femme Fatale" with Lesa repeating the chorus in French---notes have him erasing some of her tracks "in a fit of pique", but Dickinson scolds him into keeping this one (at the end, after nice warm wry delivery, he suddenly gets peevish and atypically Southern, like "Aw, whah on Earth should we do another tayke). This and "Blue Moon", like xpost "Nature Boy", show that Fry can do ballads too, without sticking in all that rocknroll stuff.

Hadn't seen some of these Eggleston Big Star pics before - this one in partic is v choice

http://dangerousminds.net/home/dangerou/dangerousminds.net/html/content/uploads/images/made/content/uploads/images/02bigstareggleston_465_673_int.jpg

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/william_egglestons_photos_of_big_star#JSPc09xG66cMXzgD.01

Thank you friend!

My fave:

http://dangerousminds.net/content/uploads/images/08bigstareggleston.jpg