Fuck Yeah, Big Star

rachelandthecity:

So, if you live near Memphis- It would be kind of cool if you came to this…

oneweekoneband:

Big Star’s Third - Thank You Friends (Live in Barcelona, 1st June 2012)

Let’s start at the end, shall we?

After an earlier, heartbreaking report of his drowning during the post-Katrina flooding proved false, Alex Chilton died of a heart attack in New Orleans on the 17th March, 2010. In the wake of yet another career resurgence – a box set was receiving a great deal of critical acclaim, and a hotly-tipped SXSW show was scheduled for the 20^th. That night, however, a quick rally round the city of Austin led to a last-minute tribute show, with anyone who was in town – Evan Dando, X’s John Doe, M. Ward and others – stepping up to the mic for a number in memory of Alex, ducking out of the spotlight for the last time.

Since then, even more acts have been rushing to pay homage to that most reclusive of cult icons, and the focal point of these tributes has been the officially-sanctioned Big Star’s Third nights. It’s a simple idea – take a core band of Big Star’s sole surviving, key Big Star session men, Mike “busman’s holiday” Mills and put out an open call for whoever is in town on a given night. Then get them to play one of the most fractured, enigmatic rock albums in history, round off with “the hits” and you’re done for the night.

It shouldn’t work. The recent glut of tribute records and shows are fawning and unnecessary at worst – will anyone really have their lives enhanced by Best Coast covering Fleetwood Mac? – and a passable curio at best. But Big Star always brought out the best in people: encouraging the pop sensibility in Paul Westerberg’s Midwestern punk rambles, brightening the jangle of Peter Buck’s guitars, encouraging Teenage Fanclub to have a wash and a shave in the bleary morning after grunge.

——

In a darkened auditorium, on a balmy Friday evening in Barcelona earlier this year, I was lucky enough to see members of some of my favourite bands try their hand at the strangest corners of Big Star’s music during one of these sets; from the third row, I watched Jeff Tweedy tear into ‘Kizza Me’, Alexis Taylor (in the role he was born to play) delicately purr ‘Femme Fatale’, and Mike Mills dutifully bounce a basketball for percussion during ‘Downs’. The show was, by turns, funny, heartbreaking and gloriously disjointed, just like the album itself.

The main set was capped off by a rendition of ‘Thank You Friends’; on Third, it’s the sound of a man at the end of his tether with the music industry. The most immediate thing on the album, you can all but hear Chilton throwing every single hook and cliché at the wall in the smug knowledge that his genius will make it stick – but no one will bother listening. There are gospel “doo-doo”s, a searing solo, and a series of twisted platitudes, culminating in a barbed expression of gratitude “to all the ladies and gentlemen who made this all so probable…” It’s not sung so much as sneered – the venom is enough to blow your speakers.

And yet, during the Third set, this great big fuck you gets turned into ‘We Are the Fucking World’ – everyone gets one last turn at the mic to round off one of the warmest, most intense nights of live music I’ve ever witnessed. And, completely unlike the album version, you can tell even from this video that they all mean it, man; they’re thanking you, friends in the audience, for picking them over any of the other bands playing at that time at the festival. They’re thanking each other, friends, for sharing the experience with them. And most importantly of all, they’re thanking Alex Chilton, writer of a whole bunch of wonderful music – some of which I will attempt to justice to with my poxy prose over the next five days*.

And you know the funniest thing of all about this rendition of ‘Thank You Friends’? Chilton would have fucking hated it.

*So thank you, Hendrik.

oneweekoneband:

‘Way Out West’

Only four months after Alex Chilton’s passing, original Big Star bassist Andy Hummel lost his fight against cancer. Unlike Chilton, however, his death was somewhat less reported upon. Hummel’s contribution to the band only ran up to half of the band’s second album, but his two songwriting contributions to Big Star show a talent in rapid development.

Sung by drummer Jody Stephens (Hummel was apparently mortified by the way his vocals sounded on the twee-as-sin ‘The India Song’, his sole writing credit on #1 Record), ‘Way Out West’ may just be one of the purest-sounding Big Star tracks. All the band’s hallmarks are here: high-gloss jangle, clever melodies and ever-so-awkwardly adolescent lyrics (“Sometimes I think that she’ll make me forget what I need most to remember,” anyone?). It’s just that the song wasn’t written by Alex Chilton, who contributes an almost baroque guitar solo, and an extremely nifty detail in the production - any time the word “west” is sung in the chorus, listen carefully to your westward speaker. But Hummel owns this track, without which Radio City wouldn’t be half the record it is.

But more on that later…

oneweekoneband:

Evan Dando - The Ballad of El Goodo

Some time in the nineties, when the Big Star catalogue (including a ‘definitive’ release of Third) made it to CD at long last, it seemed like the band were finally getting their due. Sure, enough bands were dropping the name of Alex Chilton and doffing their caps to his work, but that was as much of a signifier of taste and coolness as anything else. Now everyone else could hear what all the fuss was about, especially if you watched That 70’s Show.

‘Thirteen’ has certainly been a staple, tackled by the likes of Wilco, Elliott Smith and even Garbage (whose vaguely trip-hop rendition - allegedly favoured by Chilton himself - renders it painfully dated, though not without charm). A nineties tribute record manages to gather many of the decades big alternative names, and some interesting versions; Juliana Hatfield’s girlish vocals romp through ‘Don’t Lie to Me’, 

Anyway, in typically perverse fashion, my favourite two Big Star covers aren’t actually on that record - although Ardent Studios alumni Afghan Whigs made a stunningly stately stab at ‘Nighttime’. No, the main one to watch is Evan Dando’s take on ‘The Ballad of El Goodo’, shown above in cringe-making Hallmark Card/lyric-montage style, and recorded for (of all things) the Empire Records soundtrack. Because, y’know, why not?

‘El Goodo’ is a big, big song - easy to overdo, and extremely difficult to sing convincingly - but by 1995, when this was recorded, Evan Dando had been through some shit. So a journeyman’s song (written, lest we forget, when Chilton was 21 at the very oldest) gets simply sung by the bubblegrunge star with the Marlboro Man’s voice. No whistles, no bells, no attempt to recreate the gossamer feel of the original. Just Evan Dando telling Alex Chilton’s story.

There’s another cover I want to talk about too, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Alex Chilton - Bangkok

doomandgloomfromthetomb:

Making Lots of Friends

“I think this is a very lively bit of radio!” So says Alex Chilton happily on this half-hour tape of a 1978 KUT-Austin broadcast, presumably made in the very wee hours of the morning. Chilton could’ve easily substituted “lively” with “inappropriate.” Delightfully inappropriate, I think — though the easily offended should probably just move on. From the Nazi Christmas song “Riding Through The Reich” to his hilarious DJ trolling (which the host takes in good humor), this is Alex at his most absurd. Don’t take it too seriously, he’s just fucking with you! He even takes a bathroom break at one point. There’s some fun music here, too — the whole thing makes a nice companion to the sonic anarchy of Like Flies On Sherbert, which Chilton was in the midst of creating at the time. Also of note: a Cramps cover. Rock hard! 

Download

crowdedthoughtsandcrookedteeth:

I never travel far, without a little Big Star

entangulated:

Obscure joke #13