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| From | William Rabeneck <largro13@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: audities-digest V3 #537 (14 msgs) |
| Date | Sat, 1 Oct 2005 21:46:36 -0700 (PDT) |
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audities-owner@smoe.org wrote:
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 14:05:08 -0400
From: Dave Seaman
To: "audities@smoe.org"
Subject: Big star shines dimly
Message-ID:
<<< 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. >>>
Okay, let me commit power pop heresy here. I was recently talking music
with a friend of mine who happens to be a fellow aud list member, and he
told me that he would probably be flamed by the list for admitting it, but
he never "got" Big Star. I told him I like Big Star, but not to the extent
that most on the list do.
Which got me thinking, I really can't explain what it is about them that
most everybody here loves. Maybe you have to love them to be able to
explain it. But, I don't know, there are groups I don't love, but can
understand why others do -- for instance, I don't love Dylan's work outside
of a few songs, but have a lot of respect for it. I don't love love pre-72
Elton John, but understand why others do. Ditto Marc Bolan, post 82
Springsteen, Loud Family, Robin Hitchcock, and the list goes on and on. Like
them all, don't love them, but understand why lots of folks go gaga over it.
I guess I feel I "get" them, but my tastes are different.
But, then there's Big Star. I have all of their albums, and listen to them
occasionally (very occasionally, like, say, a few times a year maybe?) But
I don't see the extreme attraction that they hold. I like them, but I don't
swoon over their lyrics, I don't strongly identify with their attitude, I
don't get chills and goose bumps over their melodies, I don't hum their
songs or play them in my head while I'm on the street, I don't feel like
they are singing just to me, I don't frequently desire to pull their CD out
of the stack and into the player, I don't them in the top echelon of classic
early 70s rock/power pop artists (IMO Badfinger, Raspberries, Cheap Trick,
Todd Rundgren, and maybe a few others) -- I guess I DON'T "get" them.
I mean, I want to love them, but so far I just can't. Ya know, it seems
there have been words written about the artists that I DO love, that
encapsulate what it is I love about them. Certainly the best thing to do is
just LISTEN to the music, but sometimes reading a good write-up on the music
can help illuminate, help get me to listen to an artist in a different light
and develop a deeper appreciation. Can anyone out there tell me what it is
about Big Star that makes you think they are/were one of the best? Or point
me to something that's already been written about them, that might lead me
to the light?
Hi Dave and all,
I can only say what first attracted me to them. I'm from a place in Arkansas, roughly one-hundred miles away from Memphis, TN, and I've always been a Beatles fan since I was thirteen. Even though I came of age during the 1980s and went pretty heavy for the Hair Metal thing, I kept up a great love of the Beatles. I wrote songs and did the band thing in my late teens, and twenties, and my personal songwriting style owed a lot to Lennon/McCartney which meant that my bandmates and friends usually didn't understand or respect the influence. My songs were usually considered "alright, but too soft".
When I first read of Big Star, I didn't even realise that they were a band. I read record reviews that said this band or that band was Big Star influenced. I don't know how, originally, but I picked up one of these albums by a Big Star influenced band, and it sounded a lot like the Beatles to me. So then I picked up the next album with a Big Star influenced review, and it sounded a lot like the Beatles to me. I literally thought, for awhile, that Big Star was another nickname for the Beatles, like Fab Four or Moptops, or something LOL! And for a good long while, I picked up all of these Big Star influenced albums, and enjoyed them.
Then in 1993 when "Columbia, MO Live" came out, I read the review and realised that Big Star was actually a band in it's own right. I got that one, and thought that it was alright.
By early 1994, I had been dumped by a longtime girlfriend, who I associated enough with Hair Metal, for some reason, that I wanted to turn my back on Aerosmith, Def Leppard, and that whole crowd, and listen to something different because all of these Hair Metal bands just reminded me of her. By then "Columbia, MO Live", and these albums by Big Star influenced bands had me intrigued enough that I set out to find the studio albums, which were hard to find in Arkansas at the time. But I finally did find them at a collector oriented record store.
I bought the double CD "#1 Record/Radio City", and it was a revelation to me. On "Columbia..." Alex Chilton's voice was older and more creaky, and Jon Auer was singing most of Chris Bell's leads; but on "#1 Record/Radio City", the sound of these Southern boys, from a place that's not too far from where I'm from, chillingly reminded me of my own singing voice, and my own songs. Also, have recently been dumped by a girlfriend, I think that I was in the same wistful at times/angry at times/romantic at times sort of place where many of these Big Star lyrics seem to be. It was an instant "BLOODBROTHERS!!!"-type of feeling. The remastering, and I suspect the original engineering, was so good too, that these albums that were recorded twenty years ago sounded as good or better than other stuff that had been actually recorded in 1993 or 1994; just amazing sound quality; excellent songwriting too! Out of the 24-songs, I really like probably 18 of them, and feel that they are quality songs.
Another hidden factor, that I didn't know until I read the Big Star biography, was that some of their favorite music besides the Beatles was Led Zeppelin, and Free, two bands that were also two of my favorite bands from that era in music. Even though I'm young enough that I didn't discover them, when they were new bands, I had already discovered and had a love for Led Zeppelin, and Free, by the time that I discovered Big Star.
So that's why I like them - they're Southern like me, and they share many of the same musical influences. It would be interesting to find out if a lot of their fans are Southern, I suppose.
And I'm also a little like that other guy, who spoke up earlier, in that I miss the point of the Raspberries. Sure I think that they have a few good songs, but I don't really consider them to be in the upper-echelon of Power-Pop bands like many do.
Peace,
Large
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