Big Star

box set seems to no longer be on Spotify though, kind of a bummer

amateurist-certainly seems possible, and if so, for me that makes me love it even more.

When Borders went under, I was always saddened most when I'd be in a store on the last or next to last day before closing and find amongst the last CDs in stock the Big Star box sitting alone on a shelf.

I read a galley of the book in February. I have long known of but have never met nor ever corresponded with Ms G-W, although know a shit-ton of people who do and have. I have never thought she was particularly insightful vis-a-vis what she was writing about: she hacked that shit out. but it always been clear she was very well connected.

She sez in the book that she was around Alex a number of times in the last, oh I don't know, 30 years. and I will mention that my wife, who works at an outlet that received the galley provided to me, told me that Chilton's widow, who evidently only knew him for a relatively short time and is much much younger than he, wrote to my wife's outlet to say, well, fuck HGW, who the fuck does she think she is, I'm his widow, etc.

I only have the galley, with contains no reference, so I can't say how HGW cites all the shit she does. but she did a great fucking job, despite that the WSJ dude correctly points out that she is no wordsmith (for all I know, she has no aspiration as such). But yeah, there's no doubt that the book encompasses every single facet of the guy's life, background, artistry, radio interviews, attitude towards booze, drugs, his legacy, pussy…it would have been beneficial were I to know just how HGW knew all this shit, tho.

I had long suspected that the milieu in which he came up, upper crust Memphis which WSJ guy and HGW reference but which I have no first hand knowledge of, was similar to the one which I grew up in, Louisville KY, which isn't far away. Probly the two are largely consonant w/r/t to music culture, and how privileged people become artists because they can in both places, etc etc… Chilton's experience is one I recognize, probly just by proximity.

I hear R&B in Chilton's vocals. One of the pluses of the otherwise diffuse and muddled 33 1/3 book about Dusty in Memphis is its explanation of how this Wexler-Mardin ethos drew towards itself the tight rhythm of Stax. When I hear "September Gurls" Chilton's vocals sound like he's invoking Dusty Springfield more than the Beatles.

in fact Dusty could have done a fantastic version of "September Gurls."

i adore both chilton and dusty but there's a... diffidence and strain to Chilton's Big Star vocals that seems a world away from dusty.

also key to his vocals (and their charm) is the combo of chilton's strange, effeminate mid-south drawl and his faux british accent.

i have a bunch of radio shows that chilton did in the 70s and 80s and it's delightful to just listen to him speak, what a weirdo.

he has the best voice

more like big fart

A chance to post this again, don't mind if I do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U-k32L0KCc

amateurist otm

what a weirdo
think this is pretty key, really -- he was an odd guy to begin with, and he went through some even odder experiences. thing that bummed me out about the bio was how genuinely unhappy he was. i sort of figured people projected that on to him because of a record like sister lovers (even though the depressing nature of that record I think is kind of overstated). but he obviously was extremely troubled (at least throughout the 70s).

also key to his vocals (and their charm) is the combo of chilton's strange, effeminate mid-south drawl and his faux british accent.

He was a fabulous soul singer – and it's almost like those two voices were some weird metaphor for the guy who played by the rules of the industry (confidence and bravado) and didn't (vulnerability and emotional).

i adore both chilton and dusty but there's a... diffidence and strain to Chilton's Big Star vocals that seems a world away from dusty.

― I dunno. (amateurist), F

I hope I was clear when I made the Dusty comparison that I didn't mean they sounded like each other: I heard similarities in approaching particularly charged material.

I don't hear diffidence in "Kangaroo," "Big Black Car," or a few of the more fraught Third performances.

i do wonder if Chilton's effeminate speaking voice was a kind of (internalized) attempt to wind-up people, since it is pretty much the polar opposite of the deep-voiced, macho southern dude accent. I listen to interviews with him in the 1970s and I imagine that for many his intonations, etc. would have coded as gay.

i mean even if this is barking up the wrong tree, i think there's no question that his eccentricities were as cultivated as they were real. i don't mean that as a criticism.

when i do listen to those interviews there's something very modern about chilton's affectations: the drollness, the blank irony (is he being sarcastic or not?--it's often hard to tell), the almost Valley Girl-like elongation of end syllables (which again takes the southern drawl into places unknown). in general his hipster disaffection and contrarianism (even or especially to his fans/admirers) seems very modern. not to imply those things were unknown in the 1970s by any means, but to find them in this obscure Memphis boho cult power-pop rocker whose greatest passion was more obscure New Orleans 45s is pretty amazing. i think some of this frisson is captured in the tav falco TV appearance linked above.

greatest passion was FOR obscure New Orleans 45s

there's much we don't know or went unsaid about the Bell-Chilton relationship so

what, you think they could have been lovers? i think i've seen some (wild) speculation about that.

i think knowing a little about chilton's persona has helped me make sense of "like flies on sherbert" etc. the persona lends it a convinction and coherence. of course i don't know if it really was a product of half-assed, chaotic sessions or if it was put together to sound that way. or both. maybe the book has answers. i like that album a lot, though.

No, but all the evidence suggests much sexual tension. Who knows what signals were exchanged between two young and relatively good looking men with their talents.

yeah true dat

i feel like mid-period chilton (like flies on sherbert-->high priest) was groping for something really interesting that's barely tangible but still kind of elusive on the actual releases. like, a genuine breakthrough, a kind of self-consciously artless, lyrical primitivism that would actually be more fully realized by other folks. the closest analogue, other than tav falco/cramps, is i think moe tucker's solo stuff.

George Warren's book mentions that Chilton had a fling with a guy in the early 70s. and someone who worked with Chilton in the mid 70s, who despised him with visceral intensity in the aftermath through to the 90s, told me that AC wanted to swing with him and his girlfriend at the time.

So…I always thought that maybe the sensitive, star crossed, worried about his sexuality Bell was in love with the more feckless, devil may care AC. Very tempting to speculate that AC maybe teased him, or did get physical and then withdrew…and that this could be key to tensions that made the band what it was…note that none of the songs on #1 HR contain gender specific descriptors…

Plus "You Can't Have Me"! Not the kind of song I expect a man to write to a woman.

<i>i do wonder if Chilton's effeminate speaking voice</i>

haha, are you from the South? Chilton talks like most of the people I know from the mid-South, myself included.

the documentary was exceedingly (maybe excessively) careful in avoiding discussing these matters-- i think perhaps the participation of the bell family was contingent on them doing so

haha, are you from the South? Chilton talks like most of the people I know from the mid-South, myself included.

no, but my girlfriend is from tennessee and i've spent a lot of time there. chilton's voice is quite different, i think, from the usual. at least in a lot of the interviews i've heard.

"these matters" = bell's gayness, basically

yeah the doc at those moments sounded 10 seconds away from a lawsuit

The interview with Chilton I've listened to is the one on the Live record that came out from that 1974 radio show, and that just seems like a typical, languid drawl that I have heard everywhere from Mississippi to North Carolina.
put another way, it's not a Southern Sissy accent.

i'll see if i can find one of the interviews I have online, but it'll have to wait until i get home.

yeah the doc at those moments sounded 10 seconds away from a lawsuit

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 5, 2014 3:36 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's sad that they couldn't bring this up since it goes a long way to explaining bell's depression (and maybe his death?) albeit in a way that makes it even more tragic if that were possible.

I could care less about Bell's gender preference.

"You Can't Have Me" isn't abt a woman, also drunk dudes do gay shit all the time

re: AC's dialect…again, I cannot say for sure, as I have never been to Memphis…but I am from Louisville, a mid-south/midwest locale that likely has a lot in common with Memphis…and I have known people from the town…and I now remember that I spoke to AC on the phone for about two minutes on behalf of the record company I worked for in the mid 90s so that I could send him the masters of High Priest and No Sex to him…

so I'll say that indeed his speaking style is not necessarily "southern sissy" (which is a funny-as-fuck frase and one that manifests widely) but it's more louche, more fancy and upper class…

"You Can't Have Me" isn't abt a woman, also drunk dudes do gay shit all the time

― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine)

to me that's how this song codes

I could care less about Bell's gender preference.

― calstars, Friday, September 5, 2014 6:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is there anything else you don't care about that you would care to tell us about?

veronica, "louche" is precisely the right word

"preference"

also i just noticed that almost all of chilton's albums are out of print! wanted to pick up a CD copy of high priest which i only have on tape. wtf.

Spotify's got a fairly good supply of Chilton, Big Star, Box Tops. Just got this--should be good, considering that it's from the tour promoting the Columbus, MO live CD:

BIG STAR LIVE IN MEMPHIS,
THE INFLUENTIAL BAND’S
ONLY KNOWN COMPLETE PROFESSIONALLY FILMED CONCERT,
COMING ON OMNIVORE RECORDINGS ON NOVEMBER 4
Package available as 2-LP set, CD, digital and DVD,
with notes by Big Star’s Jody Stephens, Ardent’s John Fry,
and director Danny Graflund
Big Star live: photo by Danny Graflund
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The gig poster said “BIG STAR IN THEIR FAREWELL U.S. PERFORMANCE.” Luckily, this iconic Memphis band’s homecoming show was nothing of the kind. As Jody Stephens points out in his liner notes, “We played Los Angeles three days later and went on to play together for another 16 years. No one ever said anything about the poster.”
Omnivore Recordings is proud to present Big Star’s first appearance in Memphis since 1974, and only known professionally filmed show in its entirety. Live in Memphis chronicles that October 29, 1994 performance on CD, 2-LP (with download card), Digital, and DVD.
All audio formats contain the complete 20-song set, which includes Big Star classics like “Thank You Friends,” “September Gurls,” and “The Ballad of El Goodo,” Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos,” and covers of T.Rex, The Kinks, Todd Rundgren and more, performed by Big Star: Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens, and Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow from the Posies.
Also included are notes from filmmaker Danny Graflund, Ardent Studios’ John Fry, Jody Stephens, Jon Auer, and Ken Stringfellow in both the CD and LP packaging, as well as in the DVD. Per Omnivore tradition, the first pressing of the LP will be limited to 1,000 colored vinyl, with black to follow.
According to Stephens, “This second life for Big Star begins on April 25, 1993, in Columbia, Missouri. The performance gets recorded and released. We now have a record to support and a reason to tour. A handful of dates far and wide followed, but then an offer came from the New Daisy to play Memphis. Pretty exciting! Walking into the New Daisy that night brought on a rush of ’70s friends I hadn’t seen in years. So much support there from well-wishers, which included John Fry and my parents. Stepping onstage that night in Memphis with Alex, Jon, and Ken was an incredibly good time and a bit of magic. It wasn’t so much that we were playing to the audience as we were sharing the music with them, and they were sharing themselves with us. We all cared.”
Stingfellow wrote: “It might seem intimidating, and at the same time look presumptuous, to step in and complete the lineup of Memphis’ most beloved cult band on their home turf. However, Jon and I were (and to this day remain) absolutely passionate about the music of Big Star, and that sense of devotion and belief propelled us forward and, hopefully, silenced any grumbles about what two kids from Seattle were doing there in that lineup. By the time we rolled into town to play this show, we’d gone from the initial, delightfully fragile, show in Columbia, Missouri, to engagements in London, San Francisco, and Tokyo. There would be more heft to the show, and we were getting to know Alex and Jody in even deeper ways, musically and personally. You might even say . . . we were a band.”
“Omnivore is thrilled to release what may be the only complete Big Star concert ever professionally filmed. The exuberant Memphis hometown crowd reception made this a night to remember, and even though the concert was not recorded with the intent to become an album, we know that fans will want to be in the front row for this show,” says the release’s co-producer, Omnivore’s Cheryl Pawelski.
Track Listing:

In the Street

Don’t Lie to Me

When My Baby’s Beside Me
I Am the Cosmos

Way Out West

Till the End of the Day

The Ballad Of El Goodo

Back of a Car

Fire*
Daisy Glaze
Jesus Christ
For You
Baby Strange
Feel
September Gurls
Big Black Car

Thank You Friends
The Girl From Ipanema
Patty Girl
Slut

*”Fire” does not appear on the DVD

I think I was at this show! Depends on whether they played Memphis more than once between 1994 and 1998.

I just caved and ordered hardcover of the book, like I knew I would.

did i ever post this here? i was just listening to the 45 tonight. love the Bell-tones on this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=newVegT-jjs

love this song too. would have been a perfect big star b-side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8aJ-iqekdM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YTjJg-GAEE

Wow. Would have thought that "Love You (All Day Long)" was a Raspberries tune if it didn't say otherwise.

A Man Called Destruction just arrived.

Initial thoughts: it's a hardcover book, totally unnecessary for my needs as a Alex Chilton theorist. Why do publishing companies persist? It was 20 bucks, why couldn't they ship a trade paperback?

because it hasn't been printed yet? do you know how publishing works?