Big Star

Highly recommend Bruce Eaton’s 33&1/3 book on Big Star’s Radio City.

Okay maybe they hadn’t formally broken up before that but were kind of drifting a bit.

Chilton and Reed shared that bitterness of, “Oh, you like us now, and it’s hip to know our music? Because we went through hell for years trying to find an audience and thinking everyone hated us.” For Reed that bitterness extended to the point where the planned 1993 Velvets US tour wouldn’t hit NYC. It was one of the few things he and Cale agreed on during the reunion: “NYC didn’t support us then, so why should they be able to see us now?” (though it was a moot point since they split up.)

Now I’m hearing “Style It Takes” in my head.

What you say is of course true but I think there are some elements. I recall something Doug Yule saying something about Lou’s “imperfect instrument.” Both of these guys were huge talents but they lacked some facility which seems to have frustrated them. In the book I keep referring to, Alex totally dismisses his own songwriting, in particular his lyrics, on Radio City. Neither was a particularly natural musician in the traditional way, which I assume bugged them, although Alex managed to turn himself into his own kind of troubadour, slowly but surely building up his guitar chops from what he learned in those first lessons from Dennis Wilson on a Box Tops/Beach Boys tour.

Something something something

I wish I had right now a member the press in my presence upon which head to heap vitriol for my annoyance at my own neverending string of typos.

Member of

To be fair, he did the songs

?

I love thinking of 13 and You and Your Sister as a pair

You And Your Sister (Songs)

To be fair, he did the songs
?

He performed (many of them) live, he didn't shun the entire repertoire.

ah

At this point it’s kind of pointless to try to get inside his head and figure out what he was thinking. At any point really

I was just reading in my new/old favorite book about how he hated all his songs on Radio City, at least the lyrics, then that he hated the ones Chris wrote too, saying they were “written by committee” and then that he didn’t feel like he figured out how to write a good song at least lyric-wise, until 1977!

I’m trying to think of an Alex equivalent to I am the Cosmos

Maybe Holocaust

"Big Black Car"?

I think he disliked a lot of the Big Star songs for the turmoil they reflect and describe; his later songs are "snappier" and reflect more classical virtues of wit and emotional control.