Ain't no one going to turn me round.
Over the past few years I've tried to get out of the business of writing posts about rock and roll musicians when they pass on. There's too many of them and I've liked too much of it. Every so often; though, you've got to make an exception. Last Wednesday Alex Chilton guitarist and singer with the band Big Star and the Box Tops before that died at age 59 Alex Chilton dies at 59; led influential Box Tops and Big Star bands - washingtonpost.com. Days before he was to play a gig at SXSW in Austin SXSW: A Memorial for Alex Chilton at the Big Star Show - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com. The rest of the re-formed Big Star -- Jody Stephens with the two ex-Posies, John Auer and Ken Stringfellow, went on with the show joined by a set of guest singers and further original member Andy Hummel in a bittersweet tribute set SXSW honours Alex Chilton with memorial gig | Music | guardian.co.uk. The SxSw gig was on the heels of a comprehensive box set Keep an eye on the sky (Musical CD, 2009) [WorldCat.org] that came out on Rhino last summer and shows in London and New York.
I always knew his song "the Letter" from the Box Tops, a staple of top 40 radio when I was younger and still in rotation with 60's formatted stations. I began learning of Big Star material his subsequent band soon after arriving in college and getting involved with the student radio station [some Big Star background: Relix - Features - That '70s Cult Band: Big Star Remembered]. Playing the original of September Gurls reintroduced to people from the Bangles cover, and going on from there. I even saw the Bangles play their version. I bought Big Star's Third record recorded in late 1974 when the band was down to just Chilton and Jody Stevens, which was widely available in its mid 80's release, and I envied those who had no.1 Record and Radio City which weren't so much. There were even those at WMUC who had the Flies on Sherbet LP which was a strange and uneven record, even for Chilton. Some recorded performances of this material had Alex backed by members of the Soft Boys. The song "Hey! little Child" which was covered by Tommy Keene in 1984 dates from this period. Rowland Howard's band covered it in the late 1980's
One of the sweet things about never owning the first two Big Star records is that those songs can still catch me up and floor me when I hear them now. These are not only songs like "September Gurls" and "Mod Lang" which I think of as being more well known, but also "Ballad of el Goodo" (from where this post title is drawn) "O my Soul","Get what you deserve", "Thirteen", and of course "What's going Ahn." I used to play the Tav Falco and Panther Burns record too, For some reason it was only recently that I put together that the Panther Burns half of that eponymous duo was Alex Chilton. Chris Stamey did a single "In the Summer Sun" with Alex Chilton 1977. I always figured that was an early db's song, but that band didn't form till the next year. Not only Stamey but most everyone in Mitch Easter's orbit reflected Chilton and Chris Bell's Big Star vibe to varying degrees. There was a brief period when Chilton seemed to have dropped off the map, A second wider release of the delayed third Big Star record, Sister Lovers, in the mid 1980's put him firmly back on the map. I saw Chilton play at the 9:30 club during the tour in support of High Priest a 1987 LP that not only featured a song about the Dali Lama, but also an improbable cover of "Volare". The Feudalist Tarts ep which had come out the year or so before was a stronger outing -- I always liked the song "Underclass", but the LP brought him out for a national tour of the indie band club circuit. The Replacements not only memorably wrote a song about Alex Chilton, but went down to Memphis and recorded a record at Ardent studios with Jim Dickinson Chilton's producer. With Chilton overdubbing some guitar parts. Back in 1979-80 Alex Chilton had produced the first Cramps LP in Memphis, recording at Phillips and mixing it down at Ardent.
I don't recall he did any Big Star songs for that 9:30 club show. It seemed there was things he hadn't come to terms with then. The type of fame that he had claim to: respected working musician, rather than rock star. The type of songs he wrote and sang that suited him best - the early Big Star material against much of the latter stuff. A lot of this seemed to settle out by the 1990's when he formed a new version of Big Star with members of the Posies so he could play that material again. Surviving being flooded out of his house by Hurricane Katrina in the meantime. It seemed that recognition had finally come round for them. Now it feels like a certain era in American rock and roll has closed out. Here's to remembering Alex Chilton now.
- - -
Addendum 27Mar10. Looking over what I wrote, I decided I needed to add a further thought. Something that would speak towards what it was that made Alex Chilton and Big Star unique, their sine qua non. I think it was the difference between Big Star and the Box Tops. The Box Tops were a simple pop band, as typical now as then. A handful of kids tightly controlled by managers, labels, and the professional overseers put in the recording studio to complete an lp of pleasant and vaguely memorable inoffensiveness. The Box Tops didn't write their own songs. "The letter" was a fine song, but Chilton at age 16 when he sang it hadn't been anywhere long enough to want to get back that bad. And the song "Sweet Cream Ladies" ....whose perspective does that song reflect? Whatever.
When Chilton joined up with Chris Bell and his band Icewater, one thing they had going for them is that they had been hanging around Ardent studios for a while. They knew how to use a studio, they knew how to record themselves. No one was needed to run interference on them. There was no one who was going to impose a "pop filter" on them. In 1972 they settled down to making a record that reflected their thoughts feelings and experience. A music not tied to a drab working prettiness or cultural pandering. It was this sensibility that endured them to the DIY and indie kids of ten and twenty years later. There is a fine line of difference; though, between self realization and self indulgence. This is easier to spot when coming at the hands of an established act: indulging their egos after making a pile of money. It's as great a danger for those laboring in obscurity. testing the boundaries of their abilities and understanding. Big Star threaded that line as well as any rock and roll band ever has.
11:20:09 PM  ;;
|
