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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: Big Star - In Space |
| Date | Wed, 28 Sep 2005 07:07:38 -0500 |
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> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 21:50:22 -0400
> From: "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net>
> To: <audities@smoe.org>
> Subject: Re: Big Star - In Space
> Message-ID: <057e01c5c3ce$fdb34230$1d02a8c0@Sparky>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Sutliff" <rsutliff@columbus.rr.com>>
> > And Stroke It Noel is better than ANYTHING you could have written -
> > ever.
>
> Right back atcha, pardner.
I think Bobby's written plenty of stuff that's better than "Stroke It Noel".
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 20:10:04 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Michael Bennett <mrhonorama@ameritech.net>
> To: Stewart Mason <craigtorso@verizon.net>, audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: Big Star - In Space
> Message-ID: <20050928031004.6433.qmail@web81409.mail.yahoo.com>
>
> Hmmm...Stewart's post has unleashed a bevy of
> thoughts.
>
> 1. Alex Chilton's solo records -- quite a mixed bag.
> I dig the 1970 album that was reissued (or was it
> never issued and finally put out in the '90s? Too
> lazy to look). And there are a couple other keepers,
> though most of it is pretty mediocre.
I agree, but I think I'll go one step past what Mike is saying. There are probably people on Audities who, as per Stewart's assertion, do indeed hold it against Chilton that he hasn't expressed any interest over the past three decades in writing and recording variations upon "September Gurls". I'm not one of them. I've seen the man live numerous times in his solo incarnation, and I own most of his solo work. My love of Big Star and of power pop in general doesn't get in the way of my appreciation of his forays into blue-eyed soul (the Box Tops, Mark I), rockabilly (as a sideman in Tav Falco's Panther Burns), garage rock (the Box Tops, Mark II), blues, assorted flavors of old-school R&B, and kitschy martini croonery. A lot of those styles of music are near and dear to my heart, too. What I *do* hold against Chilton is the fact that he often doesn't seem to take those styles seriously enough to do anything more than a half-assed job with them.
In other words, it's Chilton's insouciantly self-destructive approach to his own music that bothers me, not his stylistic choices.
>
> 2. That being said -- is there anything wrong with
> expecting a record called Big Star to sound like Big
> Star, as opposed to something more in line with Alex's
> solo stuff? Stewart seems to imply that there is
> something misguided about that -- I'm not so sure
> about that. However, what I've read about the disc is
> what I did expect. I honestly didn't think Chilton
> would get back to writing pop songs.
I'm of the "let the musician make the music he wants to make" school, so if Chilton wanted to put out an album of Gilbert & Sullivan standards played on gamelan, panpipe, and tuba under the Big Star name it wouldn't bother me. (I wouldn't buy it, but it wouldn't bother me.) What surprises me a little from what I've read about *In Space*, though -- and keep in mind that I have yet to hear one note of the album -- is that it seems like Auer and Stringfellow are deferring to Chilton in terms of the musical approach on this album. They're both very assertive and accomplished musician/songwriters with distinct visions of their own (and distinguished pedigrees of their own, I might add), and I would've figured that going into the studio to create new material would've been their cue that they were now fully-collaborative members of the band. In other words, while I didn't think that Chilton would get back to writing pop songs, either, I did think that Auer and Stringfellow would try to move the band more in that direction themselves by filling Chris Bell's long-empty shoes. After all, it was Bell's songs ("Feel" and "I Am The Cosmos") that they recorded as covers early in the career of the Posies and continue to sing live as members of Big Star.
Again, however, keep in mind that I haven't heard *In Space* for myself yet. I'm just reacting to what I'm reading about it.
>
> 3. Insofar as Chilton rewriting "September Gurls",
> that point is well taken. But then the question
> becomes -- how many good songs has he written since
> the original end of Big Star? Seriously -- his output
> as a composer post-Big Star leaves a lot to be
> desired.
Exactly. And to be fair to Chilton, a great deal of the stuff he wrote for Big Star doesn't resemble "September Gurls" in any way, shape, or form. That's one of the reasons why I like Big Star more than almost all of the bands they influenced that followed in their wake. Too many of them never go beyond rehashing "September Gurls", and one of my laments about power pop groups that constantly name-drop Big Star is that too few of them take their cues from the broader range of the Big Star oeuvre.
>
> 4. In that regard, I didn't include the excerpt, but
> Stewart notes Chris Bell's contribution/influence on
> the Big Star sound -- basically stating that it's the
> dominant part of the sound of the first two albums.
To me, this is obvious -- and it doesn't require Chilton's honest admission that he was emulating his bandmate in order to see it. Anyone who's heard both Chilton's solo work and Bell's *I Am The Cosmos* album has a pretty good idea which one was closer to the heart of the original Big Star sound.
> This gets to the big question -- had Chris Bell not
> passed on years ago, would Chilton get as much credit
> as he does for Big Star?
Good question. But is this the "big question", or is the next one the "big question"? ;-)
Seriously, there's some truth to the notion you're driving at. But Chilton was always the more visible half of the Big Star version of Lennon & McCartney (inasmuch as a cult band that foundered thanks to a dying label, no PR, and insufficient distribution could be said to have visibility), because Chilton had achieved national success as the singer of the Box Tops while Bell was a local Memphis nobody by comparison. Given that, plus Chilton's quirky charisma, it's almost a given that Bell would've remained in Chilton's shadow. If he had lived, I don't doubt for a moment that Chris Bell would've created a lot more great music that I would treasure. I also don't doubt for a moment that he'd be dwelling today in the same ghetto of musical obscurity as are, alas, most Audities favorites.
(But I like to think that David Bash could've gotten him to play IPO!)
Chilton's a cult figure, too, but his Box Tops pedigree and the compelling nature of his strange career (plus a corker of a Replacements homage to him that's at the top of the list of favorite 'mats songs among that band's followers) probably would've led him to be seen as the dominant partner in Big Star even if Bell had lived.
Could it be possible that
> Chilton is really a modestly talented fellow who found
> his mojo with Bell, and then watched it dissipate over
> the years?
I think that Chilton's a pretty prodigious talent. Whether he was patterning his writing style after Bell or not, the fact of the matter is that he's the one who wrote and recorded "September Gurls", not Bell -- not to mention a wealth of other great Big Star tunes. And we're leaving out the other side of the coin, which is that he was one of the most distinctive and admired voices in sixties blue-eyed soul as the frontman of the Box Tops (even though his creative input into that band was limited by producer Dan Penn). Plus, while his songwriting and musical accomplishments over the past thirty years have been fitful at best, there are at least a few nuggets in his solo career that are worthy of repeated spins.
I agree in part with your premise, though, in that I think Chilton is one of those talents who seems to be at his best when he has a collaborator(s) who can rein in his excesses. That's why I hold out hope that this current incarnation of Big Star can do great things if Auer and Stringfellow are properly assertive. Perhaps that's asking too much of them, though; it must be hard not to defer to your idol when you find yourself in his band.
> 5. If this is the best Alex Chilton material in 20
> years, do I really need it?
You're probably the only one who can really answer that, Mike.
Gregory Sager
(who thinks *#1 Record* is Big Star's best album)
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