Big Star

cool, i'll probably buy the LPs

Big Star box set on the way http://blurt-online.com/news/view/2303/ Wonder how much overlap there'll be with the Thank You Friends comp (which is great).

tantalizing stuff here http://bigstarbook.blogspot.com/ As unified as Radio City sounds as an album (thanks in large part to John Fry behind the mixing board), it was actually somewhat cobbled together from a variety of sessions. What's Going Ahn stands out as the only track recorded outside the main RC sessions that was engineered by John Fry as a formal session (She's A Mover and Mod Lang came out of late night informal sessions by Chilton and Richard Rosebrough and Morpha Too and I'm In Love With A Girl were done by Chilton after the formal RC sessions).

Alex's acoustic demo for this song is simply stunning and will hopefully be included in the forthcoming Big Star box set. (There's also an equally strong demo for Life Is White.) Unlike a lot of demos, these are something far more than vague or rough sketches. The entire arrangements for the band are laid out in detail with just one guitar. Alex's vocals will send shivers down your spine – they're on par with Thirteen.

I keep meaning to order that book, it looks awesome.

yeah i didn't even know it was out -- it does sound pretty great, like the author got a lot of access.

I enjoyed the 33 1/3 book, but maybe its release was rushed a bit, since it's littered with typos.

http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=519760
great song from the box set streaming: the seed that grew into stroke it noel when alex heard the string part i guess. there's SO much unreleased big star stuff i'd love to hear; the javanovic book from a couple of years ago talked about alex eradicating all the backing vocals from takes of third era stuff to make a whole new record.

oh man this song is pretty good

overrated Grandpappy Indie (VU notwithstanding); not worthless, but nor are Wishbone Ash, for goodness sake

vintage challops

yeah song is nice; description of what's going ahn demo sounds great too, that song's pretty perfect. there are all these beautiful stories about the backstory (like a GREAT one i think i typed somewhere before about jim dickinson's crutches on nature boy), and one of them is a similar sort of thing as above about watch the sunrise; when big star were rock city but starting to hang out with alex, they ended up in the studio asking him if he had any songs or what he could do, and he sat and played it, and that's it, just with an overdubbed twelve string at the start. so great.

yeah, the "Lovely Day" streaming on the Rhino site is awesome! Thought it was going to be the solo acoustic thing from the Thank You Friends site, but i guess not! Can't wait for this box ...

yeah me neither; I'm thinking of pre-ordering it this weekend after I get paid, just so I don't forget about it when it comes out.

whoah that demo is amazing!! totally different lyrics/melody, but the weirdo rhythm of the backing track and the descending riff are all there - bizarre.

It's a neat historical document, but that song definitely isn't as good as "Stroke It Noel." In fact, it sounds a bit incongruous to me, kind of like an odd mashup.

nah, it's not as good, but I pretty much love hearing ANYTHING by this band

Yeah, not as good as "Stroke It Noel," but it sure beats anything on that In Space crap.

keep an eye on the sky has leaked, apparently

another box set i cannot afford at the moment. :'(

Anyone heard it? Is the previously unreleased stuff any good?

http://www.memphisflyer.com/TheDailyBuzz/archives/2009/09/16/big-star-box-set-behinds-the-scenes

@d@m h1ll is a hero & a total bro

cool interview! this box set does sound amazing ... if yr like me and have to wait before buying, there's this very neat recording: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/187210978/dusted-in-memphis-in-honor-of-yet-another

There's nothing revelatory in the unreleased stuff, just a lot of little bits and pieces that are nice to hear. I lol'd at this bit in the Pitchfork review "adding incomprehensible backing vocals to the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale""

incomprehensible if you don't speak French

hee hee!
is the live stuff as good as some are saying? better than the live ryko disc?

I guess elementary French isn't a job requirement at Pitchfork. Haven't really delved into the live disc yet.

tbf those bkg vocals ARE really slurred n blurred. I thought they were done by Alex's gf tho.

yeah, think they're done by "Leeza" who gets a shout out in "Kizza Me" ...

I don't think the live album adds much. And there are various live shows that have circulated for years.

But a lot of the demos are pretty great. The remastering is excellent, and the book is good. I really like it. I thought the P4K review was good (although, can I just add that the P4K review of the new Jim O'Rourke album is nearly unreadable.)

I've only listened to the first disk so far and it's louder than I'd like but not overwhelmingly so for 2009. It's really great, as you'd expect. I'll have more to say as I finish listening to it.

eee i want this pretty bad ... is the best deal on Amazon? Going for $49.99 right now.

kinda want this but thinking it's gonna be everything i already have plus some mildly interesting filler

pitchfork often reads like a high-school newspaper.

so does the box set have the fullness of the first two studio albums, in their correct orders?

pitchfork often reads like a high-school newspaper.

yes

nothing to say about the box set yet; listening to Sister Lovers though and thinking there ought to be a # to call when it seems like the right album to have on

btw d/l'ed that radio show Tyler from your blog and was surprised to see that it's where a take of "I Will Always Love You" that I've had for a while comes from. If that counts as having fun in the studio, shit, I don't know want to know what downs would be like. That take is fucking dark...they're having a lark until the spoken part and then no one's laughing, or should be, anymore; it's off the cliff.

yeah, it's dark -- I guess I've just had a theory that Alex Chilton is not actually a really depressed person -- just that he realized around this time that he could *sound* like a really depressed person, that he was really just following the sound of his own voice, if that makes sense. Maybe not.

Or following the girls/drugs.

lol yeah ... it is nuts how young chilton still was at that point, even tho he was practically a music industry veteran by then

on the box, the Chilton vox on "I Got Kinda Lost" are great.

lead vox, I should say

so does the box set have the fullness of the first two studio albums, in their correct orders?

― amateurist, Saturday, 19 September 2009 18:48 (Yesterday)

um, sort of... a bunch of tracks have been replaced with alternate versions but the running order is the same except for one Chris Bell song added near the end of Radio City. See here:

http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=519760

I don't think Sister Lovers ever really had a running order so I'm not sure about that, it looks different from the Ryko CD.

also "There Was A Light" with Chilton lead vox (and it's excellent; a demo sounding like a Sister Lovers outtake); so it has my four fav songs from I Am The Cosmos: the last two I mentioned (with Chilton as lead), plus "I Am The Cosmos" and "You And Your Sister" (the regular album versions).

yeah I like I Am The Cosmos (the album) a lot, but it's overshadowed by how unbelievably amazing You & Your Sister is ... one of my fave songs ever. other songs can't help bit suffer in comparison ...

Those four I listed are really great, but "You And Your Sister" (a B-side!) aches so hard; a cost of keeping it in the closet.

yeah, that's kinda what i think the song must be about. not easy being a closeted gay christian southern dude in the 70s i'd imagine.

"And I'm thinking, Christ, nullify my life."

Wow, the clarity really helps "Daisy Glaze"; before I just focused on the "you're gonna die" and "nullify my life" part but now the beginning part is spread wide open instrumentally, with lots going on in the background besides the ache...Radio City is such a great album.

btw the transposition of Christ with heroin ("Heroin") there is a genius pop lyrical move, like the kind that justifies a whole career.

(I'm guessing that's a Bell write despite it being a Chilton vocal)

love that dolly parton cover, tyler

I listened to the live set on the fourth disk of the box, and it was no big deal. It's good but I don't it justifies purchasing the set. The band seems a little edgy, probably because they were opening for Archie Bell and the Dells, and that's not a great match for songs like "ST 100" and "The India Song". A low point is the sequence "Thirteen" -> "The India Song" -> "Try Again" -> "Watch the Sunrise", where you can hear the crowd getting more and more restless; as a listen it's deflating. Then they come back strong with "Don't Lie To Me" and things improve a little, but they've lost the crowd by then. And on a box set where you already have multiple versions of many of these, saggy versions of them are bad value. I don't see myself relistening to the live set very often.

The Sister Lovers demos are pretty nice but I'll take the album versions over them easily.

Disks 1 and 2 are pretty great though!