Big Star

first place I recall seeing it was The Kid Stays in the Picture

yeah...i think maybe it's in the beatles documentaries too? the ones that came w/ the reissues.

first place I recall seeing it was The Kid Stays in the Picture

^^me too. i thought it was pretty neat for a bit but then it got old. and yeah, way overused these days.

yeah, i mean, it looks cool kind of, but it also just screams to me "we don't have any really good footage of this band!" which then calls into question the existence of a documentary in the first place.

This doc sounds like a great one

for me to poop on

Picked up the box for $20 at Bullmoose in Maine - a cut-out with a slice through the bar code! I'm as impressed as everyone else. One thing to c orrectc itt - the live disc sounds great, not bootleg quality at all!

Has anyone done a comprehensive A/B comparison between the released versions and the alternate mixes? I don't hear significant differences in many of them.

Was anything left off the box that can be found elsewhere? What's unique to the Ardent comp?

afaik, the demo of Big Black Car that's included on the Ardent comp is unique to that release. and it's great too.
some of the alt mixes on the box set are pretty similar to the released versions, yeah. haven't done an a/b comparison.
& yes! the live disc sounds great.

Don't have either in front of me at the moment, but the ardent thing has an extra Icewater track and an exclusive snippet of Alex singing "Don't Worry Baby".

in other news, looks like that big star doc is showing at sxsw http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_FS12365

i feel like i'm really late to the party, but i'm just starting to get into big star for real. i've given #1 record a shot several times over the last decade but could never get into it that much, other than the big obvious stuff like Thirteen and September Gurls. but this time i skipped straight to Third and i love it, particularly the last half. over on the What is the original track sequence for Big Star's third record? thread (which prompted me to check out Third, incidentally), it seemed like the original tracklist is the way to go, even if it wasn't what Chilton intended for release:

http://i41.tinypic.com/125timd.png

i love the descent into o dana, big black car, holocaust and then kangaroo. Kangaroo, especially. what a fantastic song.

also, way upthread someone linked to a good article that focuses on Alex Chilton from 1975 to 1981. that link is now dead, but it's still online at http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/crawdaddy/2011/07/alex-chilton-1975-1981.html . the reason i mention it is that there was some brief discussion upthread about whether or not the lyrics of "Jesus Christ" are ironic. fwiw, the article says:

With less inspired results, Tiven had Chilton and company run through “Jesus Christ”, a song Chilton had recorded for Third. “I thought that was a really good song,” Tiven says. “When we did it, Alex sang it in a German accent and sang, ‘You’re going to rot in your grave tonight, Jesus Christ.’ He was really trying his best to be as offensive as possible.”

So, you have the cd with #1 Record AND Radio City on it, then?
Cuz Septembur Gurls is on Radio City while Thirteen is on #1 Record.
I had a similar experience to you, but it was Radio City that really clicked for me. It's an all time favorite now. I think it's a perfect record. After picking up the box set, though, I love it ALL. The demos of the Radio City songs and the Third songs are really great, check them out.

i don't actually own #1 record or radio city, i was just going off of memory and thought both songs were on #1 record. i'm planning on returning to those records at some point (Radio City in particular, i haven't given it a fair chance), but for now i'm just going to take my time with Third and let it soak in.

the demos of the Third material on the box set really put the lie to that album being half-assed/messy/drug-addled madness. Chilton's arrangements are clear as day.

xp

I mean sure there are weird production choices and touches and a lot of the delivery is off-the-cuff but the songs themselves have very definite structures

oh man, i should check that out. in the allmusic review of Kangaroo it mentions that Chilton recorded the guts of it on a single track, just 12-string guitar and vocal, and all of the other stuff was added the next day. i'd love to hear that original middle of the night version, although i love the washes of chaos of the recorded version too.

if there's a solo 12-string demo version of Kanga Roo (similar to those for Stroke it Noel, Big Black Car, Downs, Jesus Christ etc), it's not on the box set. The liner notes to the ryko reissue go into how Kanga Roo was recorded - iirc Jim Dickinson said Alex had overdubbed the mellotron and feedback and some other stuff all one channel as a deliberate challenge/test of Dickinson's patience and mixing skills

my other favorite anecdote from the Ryko reissue was about using a basketball as a snare drum for Downs

i got all 3 albums on some weird german 2cd many years ago... the tracklist for sister/lovers is 17 tracks long and really weird...

Kizza me
You can't have me
Jesus Christ
Downs
Whola lotta shakin' going on
Thank you friends
O, Dana
Femme fatale
Stroke it, Noel
Holocaust
Nighttime
Kanga-roo
For you
Take care
Blue moon
Dream lover
Big black car

that is weird. and plus, it loses the back to back order of Holocaust into Kanga-roo (Kanga Roo? Kangaroo?) which works so well not only because they're both in the same otherworldly bleak territory but also because the beginning of Kangaroo uses an almost identical melody to the one in Holocaust.

Holocaust chords are "borrowed" from Yoko Ono's "Mrs. Lennon" fwiw

I need "Blue Moon" near the end, find orderings where it's not p hard to follow

similarly, I find any arrangement that doesn't put Stroke it Noel first absolutely baffling

haha I love the Ryko opening with "Thank You Friends"

Holocaust chords are "borrowed" from Yoko Ono's "Mrs. Lennon" fwiw

never knew this, fwiw. mind's on crooked now.

it's pretty blatant - same key, tempo, piano part, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLeZTKEVGVk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQ977u8Wuk

Damn, you weren't kidding.

Yoko ruins everything.

I should finally listen to Big Star. I have everything else released on Ardent and a lot of records recorded there. The Hot Dogs and Cargoe have become two of my favorite records, but I keep putting Big Star off for some reason.

speaking of mrs. john lennon and holocaust

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXRExocnpUw

Third turns out to be even better when you're wasted and bummed out! who could have predicted that?!

seriously though, as much as i enjoy the first half, there's this run from blue room>take care>jesus christ>femme fatale(well, eh on that one tbh)>o,dana>big black car>holocaust,kanga roo>thank you friends that's just astounding

very seriously though

opening chords to angie always make me wanna go "on a dark desert highway..."

blue room lol

blue room>take care>jesus christ>femme fatale(well, eh on that one tbh)>o,dana>big black car>holocaust,kanga roo>thank you friends

otm tho (except femme fatale cover is good too)

oh, i didn't mean the carrot signs to mean lesser than or greater than, i just meant i liked that whole flow from song to song!

and i like femme fatale cover too, actually, just not in the context of that slide into wasterdom

i just meant i liked that whole flow from song to song!

oh yeah, me too. might be my favorite song sequence anywhere ever. awesome in that it's relatable no matter how good or bad i'm feeling, and however dark it gets, it never brings me down. plus just songs. could live inside blue moon forever.

i'm so happy to have Third in my life. I dunno, this afternoon I devoted some serious time to #1 Record and Radio City, but Third is just...way more appealing to my ears. I always try to stay open to stuff, and i'll revisit their first two over and over again (and probably update this thread in 2017 or something), but at the moment Third really appeals to me more than the others.

first two are really great (like REALLY great), but i agree. third forever.

i don't know, the first two seem relatively straightforward to me. don't get me wrong, it's great pop, and repeated listens earlier today i was enjoying them (and i'll keep checking them out and i'm sure at some point i'll revive this thread and feel like a dumbass for not loving them from the beginning), but Third really hits at something a bit skewed that really appeals to me.

yeah, that's the difference. first two are brilliant, aching power pop gr8ness. 3rd is alltime rip yr guts out weirdo darkness shit. and i'm way more in that camp, but you know, i'm cool with brilliant aching power pop too.

i'm sure at some point i'll revive this thread and feel like a dumbass for not loving them from the beginning

one week later!

ok, i'm officially obsessed. i don't think i've listened to anything else in the last week, and since i just started digging into the demos/i am the cosmos/icewater/rock city shit it's only going to deepen from here.

WHAT'S GOING AHN!!!!

having said that, with that said, that being said, that having been said, i am a little afraid to wade into the alex chilton solo stuff. also, that big star biography mentioned upthread by rob jovanovic has some nice tidbits and i'm glad i took a few hours to read it, but it really is pretty terrible.

Chilton album 1970 is well worth time even without having to try to "get" Chilton

oh, definitely. it's more the post big star output that i'm wary of. is there a good collection that picks out the good stuff?

It sounds like Third is the Big Star record for me by what you guys said above. How do Big Star compare to other bands on the Ardent label like Hot Dogs or Cargoe?

xpost re: good stuff. Speaking as someone whose favorite Chilton song is the fucked up version of "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It" I'm not sure how anyone could define "good" with reference to his post-Big-Star stuff. That 1970 album is pretty good without getting too complicated about things...been listening to it a lot since it appeared on Spotify.

How do Big Star compare to other bands on the Ardent label like Hot Dogs or Cargoe?

Oh Jacob.

What?? So I've never heard Big Star, their records aren't cheap ya know