cryptique Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/big-star-to-play-on-following-chiltons-death_1136130I figured this would probably happen. Jon and Ken have handled a lot of the lead vocals over the years anyway. It'll still be a heck of a show, though obviously not the same without Alex. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Oil Can Boyd Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 OpEd piece from Paul Westerberg in tomorrow's New York Times March 21, 2010Op-Ed ContributorBeyond the Box TopsBy PAUL WESTERBERG Minneapolis HOW does one react to the death of one’s mentor? My mind instantly slammed down the inner trouble-door that guards against all thought, emotion, sadness. Survival mode. Rock guitar players are all dead men walking. It’s only a matter of time, I tell myself as I finger my calluses. Those who fail to click with the world and society at large find safe haven in music — to sing, write songs, create, perform. Each an active art in itself that offers no promise of success, let alone happiness. Yet success shone early on Alex Chilton, as the 16-year-old soulful singer of the hit-making Box Tops. Possessing more talent than necessary, he tired as a very young man of playing the game — touring, performing at state fairs, etc. So he returned home to Memphis. Focusing on his pop writing and his rock guitar skills, he formed the group Big Star with Chris Bell. Now he had creative control, and his versatility shone bright. Beautiful melodies, heart-wrenching lyrics: “I’m in Love with a Girl,” “September Gurls.” On Big Star’s masterpiece third album, Alex sang my favorite song of his, “Nighttime” — a haunting and gorgeous ballad that I will forever associate with my floor-sleeping days in New York. Strangely, the desperation in the line “I hate it here, get me out of here” made me, of all things, happy. He went on to produce more artistic, challenging records. One equipped with the take-it-or-leave-it — no, excuse me, with the take-it-like-I-make-it — title “Like Flies on Sherbert.” The man had a sense of humor, believe me. It was some years back, the last time I saw Alex Chilton. We miraculously bumped into each other one autumn evening in New York, he in a Memphis Minnie T-shirt, with take-out Thai, en route to his hotel. He invited me along to watch the World Series on TV, and I immediately discarded whatever flimsy obligation I may have had. We watched baseball, talked and laughed, especially about his current residence — he was living in, get this, a tent in Tennessee. Because we were musicians, our talk inevitably turned toward women, and Al, ever the Southern gentleman, was having a hard time between bites communicating to me the difficulty in ... you see, the difficulty in (me taking my last swig that didn’t end up on the wall, as I boldly supplied the punch line) “... in asking a young lady if she’d like to come back to your tent?” We both darn near died there in a fit of laughter. Yeah, December boys got it bad, as “September Gurls” notes. The great Alex Chilton is gone — folk troubadour, blues shouter, master singer, songwriter and guitarist. Someone should write a tune about him. Then again, nah, that would be impossible. Or just plain stupid. Paul Westerberg, a musician, was the lead singer of the Replacements. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
The Inside of Outside Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 OpEd piece from Paul Westerberg in tomorrow's New York Times This op-ed piece reminds me why I dug Alex Chilton. And why I dig Paul Westerberg. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
myboyblue Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Leave it to Westerberg to lighten the mood. Great story. By the by, I sure hope someone captured this and they look to formally release it. Big Star tribute set list (with lead vocalist in parentheses): 1 Back of a Car (Jon Auer)2 Don't Lie to Me (Jon Auer)3 In the Street (Kurt Kirkwood)4 I am the Cosmos (Jon Auer)5 When My Baby's Beside Me (Chris Stamey)6 Big Black Car (M. Ward)7 Way Out West (Jody Stephens vocal, Andy Hummel guitar)8 Daisy Glaze (Ken Stringfellow)9 Jesus Christ (Mike Mills)10 For You (Jody Stephens)11 I'm in Love with a Girl (John Doe)12 The Ballad of El Goodo (Sondre Lerche)13 Thirteen (Jon Auer)14 Feel (Ken Stringfellow)15 Thank You Friends (Chuck Prophet)16 Nightime (Evan Dando solo)17 Try Again (Amy Spease)18 September Gurls (Susan Cowsill, Watson Twins) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Westerberg's piece was really nice. Glad they published it. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cracked & hooked Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Man, this makes me want to move to Memphis just so I can vote for Cohen. Ditto that. How flipping cool is that? I hope PW sees it. Thanks so much for sharing it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cracked & hooked Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 This op-ed piece reminds me why I dug Alex Chilton. And why I dig Paul Westerberg. I was out running yesterday morning (in shorts and a tank top, oh blessed spring!) and wondering about PW and how we was taking this. I was wishing that there was a way for him to check in on this, and for us to check in on him. I was perusing the Times after my run and lo and behold! It was so good to hear from him. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Sweet Papa Crimbo Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 September gurls do so muchI was your butch and you were touchedI loved you well never mindI've been crying all the timeDecember boys got it bad.December boys got it bad. September gurls I don't know whyhow can I deny what's insideeven though I'll keep awayWay we'll love all our days.December boys got it bad.December boys got it bad. When I get to bedlate at nightthat's the timeshe makes things rightooh when she makes luv to me September gurls do so muchI was your butch and you were touchedI loved you well never mindI've been crying all the timeDecember boys got it bad.December boys got it bad. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jff Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Leave it to Westerberg to lighten the mood. Great story. By the by, I sure hope someone captured this and they look to formally release it. Big Star tribute set list (with lead vocalist in parentheses): 1 Back of a Car (Jon Auer)2 Don't Lie to Me (Jon Auer)3 In the Street (Kurt Kirkwood)4 I am the Cosmos (Jon Auer)5 When My Baby's Beside Me (Chris Stamey)6 Big Black Car (M. Ward)7 Way Out West (Jody Stephens vocal, Andy Hummel guitar)8 Daisy Glaze (Ken Stringfellow)9 Jesus Christ (Mike Mills)10 For You (Jody Stephens)11 I'm in Love with a Girl (John Doe)12 The Ballad of El Goodo (Sondre Lerche)13 Thirteen (Jon Auer)14 Feel (Ken Stringfellow)15 Thank You Friends (Chuck Prophet)16 Nightime (Evan Dando solo)17 Try Again (Amy Spease)18 September Gurls (Susan Cowsill, Watson Twins) Video and photos courtesy of Pop Candy: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2010/03/sxsw-remembers-alex-chilton-with-a-star-studded-tribute-includes-pics-video/1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bobfrombob Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 I was talking to [Wilco leader] Jeff Tweedy after Alex died,” Stephens reported. He said that Alex was Alex all of his life, which very few people got to do. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/03/the-alex-chilton-panel-at-sxsw.html#more The Alex Chilton panel at SXSW: "Those whom he touched, were touched immutably" March 21, 2010 If the Big Star show that became a tribute to the late Alex Chilton on Saturday in Austin had the weight and solemnity of church, the panel about the band and its lost leader offered the insight and revelation of the best kind of school. Neither setting might have been sought out by the iconoclastic artist they honored, but each added something to the necessary process of mourning and commemoration for Chilton, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack Wednesday, before he was to depart for Big Star’s showcase at South by Southwest. If I’d had to choose one event to attend, it would have been the panel. As soothing as it was to hear Chilton’s best-known Big Star songs performed by musicians who’d worked to bring his hidden but crucial role in indie rock’s history to light, listening to stories from intimates that painted a larger picture of the man was more revealing and rewarding. Chilton wasn’t just a genius writer of Beatles-inspired power pop songs. He was a lifelong epicurean and cultural adventurer who sought to brighten the corners of American popular music through his own work. With a father who played jazz and a mother who ran an art gallery out of the family manse, Chilton found his path early and never strayed from it. "The house was a center of culture,” said Jim Frye, the owner of Ardent Studios, and, as panel organizer and music journalist Bob Mehr put it, the “George Martin” to Chilton and Big Star partner Chris Bell’s Lennon and McCartney. “From a very young man, he had a lot to draw on. And he kept that going; you would never see him without a book and a couple of newspapers.” Frye, beamed in through a Skype feed, joined Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and original bassist Andy Hummel, “Big Star 2.0” members Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, and power pop scene veterans Tommy Keene and Chris Stamey to remember Chilton from that arts-soaked childhood until the end of his 59 years, when he was living with his wife, Linda, in an old house on the edge of the French Quarter, jamming with local jazz and R&B elders and teaching himself transcriptions of baroque classical compositions on guitar. “I was talking to [Wilco leader] Jeff Tweedy after Alex died,” Stephens reported. “He said that Alex was Alex all of his life, which very few people got to do.” What does this mean? A lot, in the music business. Chilton’s early success as the teenage singer for the Box Tops could have resulted in a career like that of Kinks leader Ray Davies, with ups and downs but more commercial success than Chilton enjoyed. Instead, Chilton responded to typical music-industry banality and narrow-mindedness by constantly testing himself and his audience, going further into tricky spaces. Big Star is usually talked about as a great band cursed with bad luck and contentious interpersonal relationships, but Hummel remembered Chilton and Bell working well together in the early days . “You had a couple of really alpha guys, but during that period they worked together really well,” he said. Frye added that the making of Big Star’s first album was a “happy, optimistic time.” As the 1970s wore on, things went wrong. The Memphis scene collapsed after Stax Records went bankrupt. Chilton suffered a bad romance and a “decadent” personal phase, as Mehr put it. With Bell and Hummel gone but Stephens still on drums, he eventually made “Sister Lovers/Third," the most adored Big Star album. Emotionally uncompromising and somehow both raw and elegant, the songs on “Sister Lovers” show the full potential of post-Beatles American rock. No one got it. “We took 'Sister Lovers' to every record company,” Frye recalled. “Nobody would touch it. It was like it was radioactive. I remember what [Warner Bros. executive] Lenny Waronker said: “Jim, this music disturbs me deeply.” ('Sister Lovers' found a European release in 1978, but was a kind of secret treasure, shared mostly on homemade cassettes, until Rykodisc rereleased it in 1992.) Discussing “Sister Lovers,” the many music writers and hardcore fans in the room chuckled knowingly, secure in the sense that we were all smart enough to get this “difficult” record. But Chris Stamey, the musician, producer and independent record man who helped bring Big Star to indie rockers’ attention, objected. “It’s very sophisticated music and solidly played and recorded,” he said. “I would like to have Carl [Marsh] redo the orchestration and perform it. It’s the concert music of our time.” Stamey met Chilton in punk-sparked late 1970s New York, when he came to promote some solo music and ended up sleeping on a cot in Stamey’s for months on end. They worked hard, and Stamey learned a lot, the younger guitarist and songwriter recalled. Chilton played regularly at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City; inspired by Lou Reed, he started writing more story songs. “It was not a drunken weekend that lasted a year,” Stamey said. During this time Chilton started becoming known for pulling out lost rough diamonds from the dirt of American pop and performing them, something he kept doing even when Big Star reunited just a few years ago. Stephens remembered playing a reunion show and Chilton vamping the band into the doo-wop chestnut “Duke of Earl.” He couldn’t believe they were playing that song, he said, but it sounded good. “Alex rarely did things arbitrarily,” Stamey said. “You just might not have the key to the code.” The unctuous soul number “What’s Your Sign, Girl?” for example, became a favorite because Chilton actually cared about astrology. Though he was famous for being a tough nut to crack, this group of friends and colleagues remembered Chilton as complex but never inconsistent. His inability to fake emotion may have been a downfall in the glad-handing music business, but ultimately his bandmates appreciated it. The backstage scene after a not-so-great gig was tough for Chilton, Stamey recalled, but he came up with one-liners to deal with it. “He’d say, ‘It couldn’t have been better!’” Stamey cracked, and the other players on the panel guffawed. Always full of surprises, whether getting into noise rock with Tav Falco's Panther Burns in the late 1970s or crooning “Volare” in front of bunch of confused hipster clubgoers a decade or two later, Chilton remained uniquely baffling until the end. He apparently loved performing with his oldies act the Box Tops at events like the Italian Fair in Memphis; though he sometimes scoffed at the cult of Big Star, he enjoyed the reunion, and Auer and Stringfellow heard through the grapevine – Chilton wasn’t much for direct compliments – how much he appreciated them. Auer smiled, remembering a time he’d asked Chilton to chose between several songs during a rehearsal. “Amongst,” Chilton replied. Auer wasn’t sure how to respond. “It’s 'amongst,' when there is more than one choice,” the stickler said. “Not 'between.'” Alex Chilton lived a life “amongst,” and those gathered to honor his memory gave full voice to that variation. The panel ended with a remarkable e-mail message from Tav Falco, the Wildman singer and performance artist whom Chilton roped into a band in 1978 in Memphis. It read, in part: “Godhead on the one hand, destroying angel on the other….Lord help you if you were caught in between. His tones were golden, and he knew that…better than anyone. Was he resentful because he had given so much, and had received less than the key to the temple of abiding good fortune and fame immemorial? Was he content in his rickety 18th-century cottage on the edge of the French Quarter surrounded by a cognoscenti of musicians who celebrated him as we do now? Did he draw all that he could take from his talents? Did he quaff draughts of indolence? The answers mean little, and the questions even less. What matters is that those whom he touched, were touched immutably. His legacy is of the mind, of the soul, of earthly pleasure, and of just and lost causes. He left us that redeeming spark of wit and flame to keep us going when we were hovering down in the foxhole of doubt and uncertainty and dodging the adverse missives of Lady Luck…comforted in thinking that Alex would have liked that, or he would have appreciated this, or he would have been elated by this or that, or let’s do it the way Alex does it. His opinion, his tastes, his love is what matters in the end.” - Ann Powers Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hardwood floor Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 hey bob from bob ... thanks for sharing that what a nice piece great to hear tommy keene was involved. i don't know if anybody's music more closely captures the spirit, melodic sense and guitar crunch of big star tommy is a god Quote Link to post Share on other sites
solace Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sQGbICAZfs Sondre Lerche & Jon Auer rehearsing 'The Ballad of El Goodo' in their hotel room before the SXSW tribute last Saturday. this is absolutely fantastic Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jff Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sQGbICAZfs Sondre Lerche & Jon Auer rehearsing 'The Ballad of El Goodo' in their hotel room before the SXSW tribute last Saturday. this is absolutely fantastic First of all, damn you for 1. rekindling my GAS for an Epiphone semi-hollowbody, and 2. reminding me of my regret for getting rid of the one I used to own. Second, thanks for posting that video. The most important music revelation I've had in the last several years is realizing how much I love harmony and background vocals, and that revelation hit me listening to Big Star's first album (and that song, secifically) last summer for the zillionth time. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cryptique Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 It should also be noted here that Jon Auer is a full-fledged guitar god. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SarahC Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 First of all, damn you for 1. rekindling my GAS for an Epiphone semi-hollowbody, and 2. reminding me of my regret for getting rid of the one I used to own. Second, thanks for posting that video. The most important music revelation I've had in the last several years is realizing how much I love harmony and background vocals, and that revelation hit me listening to Big Star's first album (and that song, secifically) last summer for the zillionth time.That video was awesome. Re- the harmonies .... I was listening to #1 Record the other day, and was hit in the face with that too. Harmony is what makes music sparkle after all. Good stuff. Also, Sondre Lerche is adorable. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
calvino Posted April 7, 2010 Share Posted April 7, 2010 Here is a rather long article from The Times-Picayune regarding Chilton's life in New Orleans. At least twice in the week before his fatal heart attack, Chilton experienced shortness of breath and chills while cutting grass. But he did not seek medical attention, Kersting said, in part because he had no health insurance. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cryptique Posted April 7, 2010 Share Posted April 7, 2010 How many great artists have died for lack of health insurance? Depressing as hell. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jff Posted April 7, 2010 Share Posted April 7, 2010 Depressing as hell. It really is. I can't bring myself to read that article yet. Just hearing about him not having insurance immediately put a sunken feeling in my stomach. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
embiggen Posted April 7, 2010 Share Posted April 7, 2010 unFUCKINGbelievable! this makes me very very angry! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Moss Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 unFUCKINGbelievable! this makes me very very angry! This! And that video of Lerche and Auer is so cool. What a ridiculously good song that is. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Really nice article. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
KevinG Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 One year ago today, we lost one of the best song writers. Stereogum has a pretty nice article here. I had forgotten. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jff Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 One year ago today, we lost one of the best song writers. Stereogum has a pretty nice article here. I had forgotten. Wow, doesn't feel like a year yet. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
embiggen Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 can't believe it's been one year. terrible. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PopTodd Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Wow, doesn't feel like a year yet. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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