Big Star

What was it like being a privileged white person in that area in the early 70s?

http://www.kickacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/light_blue_grass1972.jpg

lol

I used to pry my dad for details – he and Alex Chilton were about the same age, both grew up in Memphis. Both into the Beatles, though I think Dad was just into anything on Top 40 radio.

So a long time ago I had the chance for a sit-down interview with Chilton and asked Dad for some insider questions to ask him. Dad said he didn't know anything about the guy, didn't ever hang out with any of those White Station boys.

So I reversed it and when I finally sat down with the man, I asked him something lame along the lines of how it felt for some White Station kid to make it to the top of the charts at 16. Chilton just looked at me and sneered, "White Station? Fuck those guys, I came from Central."

My point maybe to all of this is that Memphis is a larger city than you might think.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/07/cover-story-big-star/

This was the piece I wrote about Third (with contribs from Jody Stephens, John Fry, Carl Marsh, Leza Aldridge, Chris Stamey, Mitch Easter, Pat Ranier).

That's an excellent piece, ithappens.

this was a wonderful movie

the very last scene when it's John Fry and his assistant and they have the master tapes to Radio City up and they are playing around with it on the board, the very last moment Fry is struck by how good it all still sounds, how perfect it is, and he looks up and is just beaming with pride, i thought that was the best little moment i think i ever saw in a music movie

thanks for the link ithappens excited to read that

Watching the doc on vacation right now and I'm wondering if part of the reason Chilton's solo career was so disappointing is that everyone thought he was the genius behind Big Star when it was really Bell.

eh i dunno, they were both great i think, very lennon and mccartney

well no because Chilton made two brilliant Big Star albums largely without Bell's input

I mean I love Chris and all but I Am The Cosmos doesn't even get close to Third/Sister Lovers

yeah radio city might be my fav now, i dunno sisters lovers rules too

i like i am the cosmos more than sister lovers, challop i kno. radio city is my favorite of everything though. for some reason i thought it was speculated that chris bell was involved with those two albums more than had previously been supposed, no idea if that is accurate at all.

that's not the impression i've gotten from anything i read or the doc

Chilton's solo career is only disappointing if you don't actually understand Alex Chilton

bell wasn't at all involved with sister lovers afaik -- he had a hand in writing "back of a car" (and i don't think he was credited originally), but i think that's all he really contributed.

The 33 1/3 back has Bell co-writing 'O My Soul' and 'Back of a Car' before splitting.

Supposedly Bell started some of the other slow songs on RC for Chilton to finish. There's an old Fry quote about how Bell had some material he "devested his interest" that landed on the album.

those credits are what i must have run across re "been more involved with" and then mentally exaggerated, thank you guys for clarity. xp

Chilton and Bell (and the other members) prob benefitted from a precarious balance of opposing forces--competition as well as co-operation, creative friction, all that good stuff.

have always had a hard time imagining what that relationship was really like based on what's out there, always seemed to me like chris bell was a self-defeating homo which doesn't do the official record any favors. idk xp

33 1/3 book on Radio City has a bit of info
http://books.google.ie/books?id=7U9xj4EE8RgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false

But Lennon and McCartney lasted a lot longer, in terms of creative output; think their relationship went back further, maybe deeper (equally focused, creatively and career-wise).

Chilton's solo career is only disappointing if you don't actually understand Alex Chilton

― Οὖτις, Monday, August 18, 2014 6:44 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^
& also i mean i love bryan maclean as much as the next guy but seriously chris bell wave big star fandom is p ridic

ps go buy some lx chitlin records u bozo

Bryan MacLean!

I was trying to think of some other examples of that type of revisionism. Kim Deal and the Pixies to an extent I guess

revisions of albums by bands

george lucas' mix of the white album

William Friedkin's Exile On Main St.: The Version You've Never Heard

Let It Be Naked

Tbf Jim Dickenson may have had as much to do with the greatness of Third as Bell did with #1. Though of course Radio City is more than enough to ratify Chilton's reputation.

Per revisionism, Bill Berry gets more credit for REM now than he ever did in the band.

"The drummer's more than half of it."---Norman Mailer on the Stones.

(I'm starting to think that's true of every band I care about, in any genre.)

My point wasn't that Chilton wasn't a talent – just a different kind of talent than Big Star maybe suggested he was.

Supposedly Bell started some of the other slow songs on RC for Chilton to finish. There's an old Fry quote about how Bell had some material he "devested his interest" that landed on the album.

Tend to agree with NTI. There are certain big, grandiose pop music moves that one associates with Big Star which Alex eschewed later in his career for which it is easy enough to draw the conclusion that in fact he didn't come with them in the first place.

Got the impression frm interviews he thought that ws all kinda juvenile stuff actually. RC/3rd're two of my fav records, never rly listen to #1, listen to solo Chilton a lot more than either, the single aside Cosmos is stodgy

didn't come UP with them

this all just sounds a little too much like What Music Documentaries Can Teach Us, to me, & i'm pretty sure where this leads is it seeming like the dandy warhols are actually a pretty cool band, all of us eventually becoming the guy at the party gesticulating about some guy's private press song suite of new england devotional songs. i don't think that untangling big star's sweet recipe is really reducible to an eyes-closed/spoon-to-mouth interrogation of their ingredients.

think we need to spend as much time with rad shitty alex chilton records as we do listening to moby describe the intensity of his teenage moments trembling to joy division

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqt9uI9hrF4

(PS I/Alex (iirc) meant "juvenile" as in young/youthfully dramatic, not in a necessarily disparaging way)

xpost never heard that before, it's fantastic

My pal Josh played "Thank You Friends" last night on the Fenway organ:
https://twitter.com/jtkantor/status/501781916862148609

this all just sounds a little too much like What Music Documentaries Can Teach Us, to me, & i'm pretty sure where this leads is it seeming like the dandy warhols are actually a pretty cool band, all of us eventually becoming the guy at the party gesticulating about some guy's private press song suite of new england devotional songs. i don't think that untangling big star's sweet recipe is really reducible to an eyes-closed/spoon-to-mouth interrogation of their ingredients.

think we need to spend as much time with rad shitty alex chilton records as we do listening to moby describe the intensity of his teenage moments trembling to joy division

This is an excellent post which perfectly sums up the turn towards thought-provoking this thread has taken recently. To be honest though I still have a lot of questions about Chilton that neither books nor documentaries have been able to answer, how someone could go from making "September Gurls" (I think about this song a lot) to making "shitty" records in such a short span of time. Why did he come unravelled so quickly and spectacularly?

I have this working hypothesis, very artsy and flaky, that "Daisy Glaze" is the first glimpse of "apocalyptic Chilton" and that he had actually seen something prior to its writing—I don't know what—that caused him to go quite mad. He kept his shit superficially together and over time admitted to the lesser crime of being an incompetent, zany alcoholic weirdo to conceal the more painful truth of having stared into the abyss and come back alive to tell the tale.

seemed to me like chris bell was a self-defeating homo

use other words, mattresslessness

I think the only relevant piece of biographical info you need is that Chilton's musical interests were broad enough to span the Byrds, Bach and Jimmy Newman and that all of the music he produced stems from that

Which Chilton records are we deeming "shitty"? Flies on Sherbert and Bachs Bottom are indeed a mixed bag, but Live in London, High Priest, the Black EP, Man Called Destruction, a few other EPs and singles and Cliches are all great.

personally I totally sympathize with Chilton being frustrated by fans who wanted him to keep making the same kind of music he did for a fairly brief period in his youth, it must be annoying to have people tell you that you're supposed to stay eternally 23 and miserable (see also David Byrne comparing requests to reunite your old band with requests from random strangers for you to remarry your ex-wife). His interests were always broad - gutbucket R&B, country, British pop, garage rock - his catalog reflects this. And the simple fact is some of those genres don't call for the meticulous studio craft of early Big Star, they aren't well served by it. The Cramps would sound terrible with a bunch of chiming guitar overdubs and vocal harmonies.

songs the grizzly bear taught us

Fwiw, I think a record way too many people slept on by Chilton was A Man Called Destruction. Great, funereal brass arrangements, inspired track choice. "What's Your Sign Girl" is an awesome kind of summary of everything he was up until that point.

Around Third I guess he became a p fullblown alcoholic, that might explain a lot