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.
― pplains, Friday, 17 January 2014 21:26 (ten years ago) link
http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/07/cover-story-big-star/
― Wild Mountain Armagideon Thyme (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 20 January 2014 04:08 (ten years ago) link
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).
― Unsettled defender (ithappens), Monday, 20 January 2014 11:36 (ten years ago) link
That's an excellent piece, ithappens.
― one way street, Monday, 20 January 2014 14:55 (ten years ago) link
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
― Ronnie James 乒乓 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 21 January 2014 15:26 (ten years ago) link
thanks for the link ithappens excited to read that
― Ronnie James 乒乓 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 21 January 2014 15:29 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Naive Teen Idol, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:22 (nine years ago) link
eh i dunno, they were both great i think, very lennon and mccartney
― ruffalo soldier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 18 August 2014 21:25 (nine years ago) link
well no because Chilton made two brilliant Big Star albums largely without Bell's input
― Number None, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:27 (nine years ago) link
I mean I love Chris and all but I Am The Cosmos doesn't even get close to Third/Sister Lovers
― Number None, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:30 (nine years ago) link
yeah radio city might be my fav now, i dunno sisters lovers rules too
― ruffalo soldier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 18 August 2014 21:34 (nine years ago) link
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.
― mattresslessness, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:41 (nine years ago) link
that's not the impression i've gotten from anything i read or the doc
― ruffalo soldier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 18 August 2014 21:42 (nine years ago) link
Chilton's solo career is only disappointing if you don't actually understand Alex Chilton
― Οὖτις, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:44 (nine years ago) link
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.
― tylerw, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:45 (nine years ago) link
The 33 1/3 back has Bell co-writing 'O My Soul' and 'Back of a Car' before splitting.
― campreverb, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:47 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Randall "Humble" Pie (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 18 August 2014 21:49 (nine years ago) link
those credits are what i must have run across re "been more involved with" and then mentally exaggerated, thank you guys for clarity. xp
― mattresslessness, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:51 (nine years ago) link
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.
― dow, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:51 (nine years ago) link
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
― mattresslessness, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:56 (nine years ago) link
33 1/3 book on Radio City has a bit of infohttp://books.google.ie/books?id=7U9xj4EE8RgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false
― Number None, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:57 (nine years ago) link
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).
― dow, Monday, 18 August 2014 22:07 (nine years ago) link
― 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
― schlump, Monday, 18 August 2014 22:21 (nine years ago) link
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
― Number None, Monday, 18 August 2014 22:25 (nine years ago) link
revisions of albums by bands
― mattresslessness, Monday, 18 August 2014 22:28 (nine years ago) link
george lucas' mix of the white album
― schlump, Monday, 18 August 2014 22:33 (nine years ago) link
William Friedkin's Exile On Main St.: The Version You've Never Heard
― Randall "Humble" Pie (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 18 August 2014 22:35 (nine years ago) link
Let It Be Naked
― dow, Monday, 18 August 2014 23:58 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 August 2014 23:59 (nine years ago) link
Per revisionism, Bill Berry gets more credit for REM now than he ever did in the band.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 00:00 (nine years ago) link
"The drummer's more than half of it."---Norman Mailer on the Stones.
― dow, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 00:31 (nine years ago) link
(I'm starting to think that's true of every band I care about, in any genre.)
― dow, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 00:34 (nine years ago) link
My point wasn't that Chilton wasn't a talent – just a different kind of talent than Big Star maybe suggested he was.
― Naive Teen Idol, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 01:11 (nine years ago) link
― I Am the COSMOGRAIL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 01:12 (nine years ago) link
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.
― I Am the COSMOGRAIL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 01:19 (nine years ago) link
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
― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 01:37 (nine years ago) link
didn't come UP with them
― I Am the COSMOGRAIL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 01:40 (nine years ago) link
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
― schlump, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 04:05 (nine years ago) link
(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
― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 04:30 (nine years ago) link
My pal Josh played "Thank You Friends" last night on the Fenway organ:https://twitter.com/jtkantor/status/501781916862148609
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 17:56 (nine years ago) link
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.
― fields of salmon, Wednesday, 20 August 2014 18:05 (nine years ago) link
seemed to me like chris bell was a self-defeating homo
use other words, mattresslessness
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 August 2014 18:09 (nine years ago) link
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
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 20 August 2014 18:10 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 20 August 2014 23:13 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 20 August 2014 23:22 (nine years ago) link
songs the grizzly bear taught us
― schlump, Thursday, 21 August 2014 01:14 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 21 August 2014 02:58 (nine years ago) link
Around Third I guess he became a p fullblown alcoholic, that might explain a lot
― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine), Thursday, 21 August 2014 03:25 (nine years ago) link
Οὖτις otm, also
― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine), Thursday, 21 August 2014 03:26 (nine years ago) link
. 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?
The impression I got from reading Rob Jovanovic's bio (which IMHO is not too good to be honest) is that A) Big Star was never really a fully formed, ongoing "band" but more of a one-off project which resulted in #1 Record. With that album not being successful, they sort of disbanded, but when they found out it had been very well received by the critics, they came together again for "Radio City". So, for all the greatness that's in those 2 albums, I'm not sure they're really representative of Chilton's sensibilities; to him it was probably just another attempt to see if he could achieve success in his own terms. I mean, it is probably representative of his sensibilities, but just a part of them, and there's much more to him than that.
And B) Big Star was pretty much done with commercial success in mind. They wanted to make it in their own terms, but they really wanted to make it. I think Bell was totally disheartened #1 Record went nowhere in the charts. And Chilton, he has that tension between wanting to make it, being rejected by the audience and then answering by sabotaging his own career. Which is more or less the same tension that feeds Paul Westerberg and the Replacements. So those are, to me, two reasons for him going totally bonkers.
― cpl593H, Thursday, 21 August 2014 13:01 (nine years ago) link