Big Star

yeah, i'll concur there

Sweet, poppy, cool, but also kinda fucked up. Quite obviously on Third, but also the hatefully desperate vibe on "Life Is White," and "She's a Mover" is some MANIC shit. I loved them when I was younger -- I was listening to "Thirteen" when I was 13 (funny how i hear it differently now -- so I was amazed when I put their records on about a month ago and they sounded better than ever. It's true, they will always somehow sound contemporary, like any inspired true-believing rock&roll, hey hey my my

Hes got a good range on Like Flies On Sherbert too, a bit more free than the Big Star stuff

I love that album! It was a recent discovery for me. It's absolute proof that he was in complete sympathy with all things Rock n Roll. "Hey! Little Child" is amazing with its "Whold Wide World" beat* and Chuck Berry-level teenage lechery.

"Oh little fool, are you learning anything in school
maybe you might drop out, maybe travel somewhere down south
Hey hey little child"

*is there a better name for this beat? I had heard it all my life, but it never really came to life until I heard the Wreckless Eric song

hehe! very observant. I really dont know though, have to do some research...

Radio City: best guitar and drum sound, ever. perfect. archetypal.

@people explosion:

it's called the "Cha-Cha".

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JC0Wa3P_dO0&fmt=18

from the dvd accompanying the Oxford American Best of the South issue this month

that is sweet! thanks.

the 'aptly titled number one record' thing's kind of off though, right? i thought that lazy stax distribution meant that they never really did much, sales-wise.

i'm seeing them in a couple of months. i think i'd maybe prefer to see alex play skewed guitar solos and clichés stuff alone, but, still, way exciting.

aptly titled 'cause it was their first.

cool video!

"Hey! Little Child" is a cha-cha. xp

why in the world would they couple this footage with that tune?

aptly titled 'cause it was their first.

ahhh, thanks.

have the ardent studio sessions been discussed here yet?

I think what the fella meant was that it was No 1 Record as in it's NUMBER ONE, man. As in, Fuckin A, totally bodacious etc.

have the ardent studio sessions been discussed here yet?

is that the thank you friends comp? i think this is where i heard about it. i was pretty excited to hear the demo of downs, because there's a story about the recording of it in the book. apparently they were playing it, when some ardent a & r guy bowled in saying, this could be a HIT!, this song has POTENTIAL!, and so alex said 'i want to use a basketball for the snare drum'. well good.

Could someone explain where the song "Jesus Christ" came from? That is to say, they never had, to my knowledge, any other songs with any religious content and yet it seems to be unironic in its sentiment. The "we're gonna get born now" perhaps belies this a small bit.

"it seems to be unironic in its sentiment."

are you kidding. just listen to the way chilton sings the verses.

"they did rejoice/fine and pure of voice/and the wrong shall fail/and the right prevail": this couplet seems so completely trite that maybe it has to be ironic given that the album as a whole is about fucky uppyness, but I dunno, does chilton discuss it anywhere?

also there's loads of incongruous, disconcerting elements to the music which are clearly mocking or doubting the chorus.

mm, i don't know. he likes playing around with traditional song forms, and i've heard him intro it live as his 'christmas song'. maybe it's just him writing a carol.

i think chilton tips his hand when he sings "we're gonna get BORN!" haha.
still, there are a couple tunes on #1 Record (Chris Bell's, I think) that are, to me, at least a little bit informed by the christianity. maybe just "my life is right" now that I think of it. "Lord, I've been trying ..." I think Bell was fairly conflicted with being a gay/southern/christian/rocknroller. And who wouldn't be?

I've never thought this was ironic, nor the VU one

i dunno, i don't think that the VU's "Jesus" is ironic, necessarily -- though I suppose an argument could be made for a Jewish guy writing a hymn of praise to Jesus is ironic in some sense -- but it's not just a straightforward song. as reed has said, that third VU album is about love in all forms -- physical, spiritual, etc. i mean, i don't think lou has ever come out as a believer or anything. ANYWAY, i do think that Chilton's "Jesus Christ" is at heart a genre exercise, his own version of a christmas carol. i don't think it betrays any deepseated christian longings in the man though. fucking amazing song either way.

Big Star Albums Re-Released with New Tracks

cool, i'll probably buy the LPs

Big Star box set on the way http://blurt-online.com/news/view/2303/ Wonder how much overlap there'll be with the Thank You Friends comp (which is great).

tantalizing stuff here http://bigstarbook.blogspot.com/ As unified as Radio City sounds as an album (thanks in large part to John Fry behind the mixing board), it was actually somewhat cobbled together from a variety of sessions. What's Going Ahn stands out as the only track recorded outside the main RC sessions that was engineered by John Fry as a formal session (She's A Mover and Mod Lang came out of late night informal sessions by Chilton and Richard Rosebrough and Morpha Too and I'm In Love With A Girl were done by Chilton after the formal RC sessions).

Alex's acoustic demo for this song is simply stunning and will hopefully be included in the forthcoming Big Star box set. (There's also an equally strong demo for Life Is White.) Unlike a lot of demos, these are something far more than vague or rough sketches. The entire arrangements for the band are laid out in detail with just one guitar. Alex's vocals will send shivers down your spine – they're on par with Thirteen.

I keep meaning to order that book, it looks awesome.

yeah i didn't even know it was out -- it does sound pretty great, like the author got a lot of access.

I enjoyed the 33 1/3 book, but maybe its release was rushed a bit, since it's littered with typos.

http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=519760
great song from the box set streaming: the seed that grew into stroke it noel when alex heard the string part i guess. there's SO much unreleased big star stuff i'd love to hear; the javanovic book from a couple of years ago talked about alex eradicating all the backing vocals from takes of third era stuff to make a whole new record.

oh man this song is pretty good

overrated Grandpappy Indie (VU notwithstanding); not worthless, but nor are Wishbone Ash, for goodness sake

vintage challops

yeah song is nice; description of what's going ahn demo sounds great too, that song's pretty perfect. there are all these beautiful stories about the backstory (like a GREAT one i think i typed somewhere before about jim dickinson's crutches on nature boy), and one of them is a similar sort of thing as above about watch the sunrise; when big star were rock city but starting to hang out with alex, they ended up in the studio asking him if he had any songs or what he could do, and he sat and played it, and that's it, just with an overdubbed twelve string at the start. so great.

yeah, the "Lovely Day" streaming on the Rhino site is awesome! Thought it was going to be the solo acoustic thing from the Thank You Friends site, but i guess not! Can't wait for this box ...

yeah me neither; I'm thinking of pre-ordering it this weekend after I get paid, just so I don't forget about it when it comes out.

whoah that demo is amazing!! totally different lyrics/melody, but the weirdo rhythm of the backing track and the descending riff are all there - bizarre.

It's a neat historical document, but that song definitely isn't as good as "Stroke It Noel." In fact, it sounds a bit incongruous to me, kind of like an odd mashup.

nah, it's not as good, but I pretty much love hearing ANYTHING by this band

Yeah, not as good as "Stroke It Noel," but it sure beats anything on that In Space crap.

keep an eye on the sky has leaked, apparently

another box set i cannot afford at the moment. :'(

Anyone heard it? Is the previously unreleased stuff any good?

http://www.memphisflyer.com/TheDailyBuzz/archives/2009/09/16/big-star-box-set-behinds-the-scenes

@d@m h1ll is a hero & a total bro

cool interview! this box set does sound amazing ... if yr like me and have to wait before buying, there's this very neat recording: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/187210978/dusted-in-memphis-in-honor-of-yet-another

There's nothing revelatory in the unreleased stuff, just a lot of little bits and pieces that are nice to hear. I lol'd at this bit in the Pitchfork review "adding incomprehensible backing vocals to the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale""

incomprehensible if you don't speak French

hee hee!
is the live stuff as good as some are saying? better than the live ryko disc?