Big Star

Let's not blame the biography for the reviewer's comments, since, like I said, I can't tell from reading them how much is based on the actual book. Sure are a lot of reviews like that.

Especially since his description makes them seem like they clashed and egged each other on, more than "tempered."

Let's not blame the biography for the reviewer's comments, since, like I said, I can't tell from reading them how much is based on the actual book. Sure are a lot of reviews like that.

yeah. the new yorker reviews are often like that, basically synopses of the books under review that still manage to be frightfully condescending toward the books' authors.

Even if I'd never heard or heard of Chilton or Big Star, think Carl Wilson's thoughtful description (also gets around to the book, eventually), would make me want to check them out (including the bio):
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/020_05/12773

Up to Bach's Bottom in the book and it's 10/10 so far. Amazing story.

Thanks! That Carl Wilson review is genius, really.

I read a galley of the book in February. I have long known of but have never met nor ever corresponded with Ms G-W, although know a shit-ton of people who do and have. I have never thought she was particularly insightful vis-a-vis what she was writing about: she hacked that shit out. but it always been clear she was very well connected.

She sez in the book that she was around Alex a number of times in the last, oh I don't know, 30 years. and I will mention that my wife, who works at an outlet that received the galley provided to me, told me that Chilton's widow, who evidently only knew him for a relatively short time and is much much younger than he, wrote to my wife's outlet to say, well, fuck HGW, who the fuck does she think she is, I'm his widow, etc.

I only have the galley, with contains no reference, so I can't say how HGW cites all the shit she does. but she did a great fucking job, despite that the WSJ dude correctly points out that she is no wordsmith (for all I know, she has no aspiration as such). But yeah, there's no doubt that the book encompasses every single facet of the guy's life, background, artistry, radio interviews, attitude towards booze, drugs, his legacy, pussy…it would have been beneficial were I to know just how HGW knew all this shit, tho.

I had long suspected that the milieu in which he came up, upper crust Memphis which WSJ guy and HGW reference but which I have no first hand knowledge of, was similar to the one which I grew up in, Louisville KY, which isn't far away. Probly the two are largely consonant w/r/t to music culture, and how privileged people become artists because they can in both places, etc etc… Chilton's experience is one I recognize, probly just by proximity.

. I read about them for years as a teenager and pictured them as this incredibly contemporary-sounding group that was misunderstood for being ahead of its time. When I heard #1 Record and Radio City for the first time, they didn't sound as revolutionary as I expected.

this is otm for me and plays into how they were processed by the bands they'd go on to influence and be name dropped by--even today, much as i enjoy #1 record particularly, i don't hear a lot of the 'mats (for example) in there.

A band can have influences without trying to sound like those influences

good to know

just saying if you come to work with EXPECTATIONS and then those EXPECTATIONS are changed, altered, and you are surprised by the work, that might be a good thing for you cuddles

what i'm getting at with my question is that the musical influence isn't really apparent to me in say REM or most of the Mats &c, so i'm wondering what the influence *is* that i'm not seeing--sensibility? stance toward success, like someone pointed out upthread? curious what else we might be able to draw out by thinking about it.

inspiration

they made great music which in turn inspired those other bands to try and make great music

they=BS

I know exactly what HOOS is getting it and will try to comment later if I can.

don't bother i already answered the hell out of the question

ty famous instragram God

I totally hear Big Star in REM and the 'Mats (esp Westerberg's acoustic/ballads stuff. "Skyway" is total Chilton/Bell style)

What REM sounds like Big Star?

"Everybody Hurts"

I am not a big REM fan don't expect me to spend much time thinking about this, they bore me

I can't believe the publishing industry still adheres to this bizarre "release hardcover, wait one year, release paperback" model. I want to read A Man Called Destruction NOW. The extra money is never the issue, it's the cumbersome nature of hardcovers (no, I don't do ebooks).

^^ this is v true

This came up in the X thread, who I think were very influential (attention to lyricism for example). Perhaps this is stating the obvious, (I don't think anyone doubts the influence of VU, but who sounds like them?), but I don't think influence is as simple as sounds like.

I really liked "A Man Called Destruction" btw.

Hardbacks will persist so long as libraries persist

i have the same thoughts re: difficulty of hearing their supposed influence, hoos

I totally hear Big Star in REM and the 'Mats (esp Westerberg's acoustic/ballads stuff. "Skyway" is total Chilton/Bell style)
― Οὖτις, Thursday, September 4, 2014 12:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this, absolutely. i can hear it loud and clear in e.g. "unsatisfied."

but surely a band can have influences that they don't closely resemble musically. the influence can be more broadly related to their ambitions, aspirations, sensibility, etc.

thats what i said if people would just listen to me wateface

also the mats may have seen in chilton's solo career an emblem of/justification for their shambolic, putatively anti-careerist approach (which of course went away right about the time they started writing tributes to alex chilton!).

xpost

i mean the beatles were liberating to a whole host of musicians but most of em probably don't sound like the beatles

but "influence" is an overused critical heuristic anyway, where's mark sinker when you need him?

the acoustic guitars at the opening of "unsatisfied" owe everything to big star IMO

wonderful song btw, worth listening to again :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU6IndADEWI

i hear the strong open major key jangle and vox of radio city in early-mid rem (xp). 'radio-free europe'. also 'thirteen' in lots of indie pop. elliott smith maybe exists in a parallel dimension, idk. sort of think it's more about the vibe and context than the music per se for many kewl bands and albums.

I think with REM just the basic concept of an artsy Southern band playing jangly pop owes something to Big Star. I mean, what other precedents are there really.

From the time pre-Big Star was in high school (also dropping out, in Chilton's case),'til they first got together, the Beatles were saturating the market--would've been flooding it, if they were anybody else---but somehow it worked, because they also tried their best to keep up the quality, even raising or at least shifting the bar: you just never knew quite what the next single, much less LP might be like. And this despite increasing rumors of discord---so Chilton, already the jaded/jaundiced vet, might've been encouraged to try and get *something* remarkable done, no matter how much of a difficult kindred spirit Bell obviously was.

Is part of their influence keeping the mid-60s Beatles/Byrds/Kinks strain of rock 'alive' to the next generation? I've been thinking about this while listening to Big Star concurrently with the classic rock poll, that they really were an "alternative" to the Southern/boogie-rock, prog, and metal emerging at this time. And they seem aesthetically distinct from the Laurel Canyon/LA singer-songwriter scene in certain ways as well--less folky and slick, a little more angsty.

I mean, they're this band who writes songs that are jangly and catchy but also still have a certain level of aggressiveness (not as "smooth" as the LA scene), and that seems like a direct influence on, say, R.E.M. and a number of their contemporaries.

Yeah, Radio City really pushes beyond *relatively* mellow #1. And of course Third/Sister Lover pushes (incl. luck) even further.

Actually I'm pretty sure this is where Paul nicked Unsatisfied from-check out the :10 chord changes in particular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUFuJQATLZA

@dow agree on Radio City. A shambling, angry/defeated song like "Life is White" seems pretty close to the Replacements in tone.

Actually I'm pretty sure this is where Paul nicked Unsatisfied from-check out the :10 chord changes in particular.

wait this sounds exactly like some Faces song

You Wear It Well... I think?

Yep, at :47 here: http://youtu.be/rsqKdZ3JZ2k

obviously Westerberg was a fan of all three bands so whatever but I was momentarily shocked by the possibility that anyone in KISS ever had an actually creative musical idea

Actually I'm pretty sure this is where Paul nicked Unsatisfied from-check out the :10 chord changes in particular.

ha you might be right! nice call. i still think the whole musical approach of the replacements' song owes a lot to BS.

listening to Radio City right now, still rocks

box set seems to no longer be on Spotify though, kind of a bummer

amateurist-certainly seems possible, and if so, for me that makes me love it even more.

When Borders went under, I was always saddened most when I'd be in a store on the last or next to last day before closing and find amongst the last CDs in stock the Big Star box sitting alone on a shelf.