Thank you very much, ladies...
Ladies.
Now what?
Well,
you want to talk about.
All right.
Like Big Star,
things like that?
Okay.
Well, what's the story
behind the "Third" album?
There was a lot of turmoil
involved in recording
that album, wasn't there?
I mean, you went
into the studio
and is that what caused
the break-up,
was it recording
the third album?
Shit, no.
No, it was just, um, you know,
we broke up
after the first album.
After the first?
Yeah, has anybody
here ever heard Big Star?
We should play Big Star
for them before
we talk about Big Star
is the thing, you know.
I mean, we're already playing
Alex Chilton's solo records.
They are very wonderful.
However, now we're gonna
talk about a band
I used to play with that, um,
changed
a lot of peoples' heads.
Rock Writer's
of the World,
a lot of it's a blur.
We had meetings.
I think we elected
like a president.
The whole premise
was to unionize,
but the real reason for this
is they wanted us
to see Big Star.
I can't even say
that I remember
everything about the set
except that, you know,
they had a bunch
of rock critics dancing
which is beyond a miracle.
They were... they were just
unbelievably great.
Then we became closer
and something weird happened,
something that really
transformed him.
He didn't think
it would be this good,
none of us did.
It was one of those
seminal moments.
Rock 103, WZXR, Memphis.
Good morning to you,
this is Randy Beard.
Some of you probably
weren't really
too much into Rock and Roll
when Big Star was here
in Memphis in '72, '73,
but they have reached
a cult status.
# You know it's all right
# We've got all night
It seemed unusual
that you could hear an album
that was so incredibly good
and people didn't
really know the music.
It was amazing.
This is Fresh Air.
My guest is Alex Chilton.
He started his career
as the lead singer
of the Box Tops
and he formed
his own band Big Star.
Many singers, songwriters
have been inspired...
And after Chris Bell
split the band,
Chris went over to England
and while he was there recorded
a considerable
amount of material
at Air London Studios with...
It's a strange history.
You have to do
a lot of explaining
of who this band is.
All of these people
in that Memphis community,
it feels like an odd connection
and collection of people.
Those couple of records,
they are such masterpieces.
They are so pristine.
And if you only
knew that side,
you would know
the whole history.
All the problems
with distribution
and the record
not getting out there.
They really were kind of
on their own island.
It's that isolation that creates
the uniqueness, you know.
To me Big Star
was like some letter
that was posted in 1971
that arrived in 1985.
You know,
it's just like something
that got lost
in the mail, really.
It felt more personal to me.
It felt like it was your own.
You could feel like
Fleetwood Mac was your own.
Whatever, however,
whatever quality it was,
it belonged to the world.
There's a sadness to it
because those were
some of the best records
made in that decade
and they just didn't get heard.
Sometimes lack of success
forces you deeper
within yourself
and that to me
is the best thing
about the Big Star story.
Well, I guess
the best way to set up
the Big Star story
is the '60s in Memphis
and what was going on.
Yes, of course, the impact
of the British Invasion
what had been just
a handful of garage bands,
all of a sudden,
there were bands everywhere.
I wasn't particularly aware
that Memphis was
one of the places
where Rock and Roll
got invented,
because
they would have contests
on the radio all the time,
well, you know,
"Who's the best,
the Beatles or Elvis?"
I pestered my parents
till they bought me a bass
and started playing
in a little garage band.
Back in the '60s
there were so many kids
and neighborhoods
were such a big deal
that you could field
a baseball team,
a football team,
and you could also
field a band.
I was 21 years old
when we started
that commercial studio
and I probably
looked to people
like I was about 16.
There was no reason
for those people to think
I knew what I was doing.
When I was in
junior high school,
we were making
recordings in my house.
Every kid was going out
and buying
a guitar or a drum set
or something
and starting a band.
So we had, you know,
plenty of guinea pigs
to experiment on
and then we would go
and have 45 records pressed
and we'd try
to sell them locally
and actually
had fairly good luck.
And I was asked to join
a kind of successful local band
who made records.
So it was just
something
that was easy to fall into.
The first time
I saw Alex Chilton,
I guess he was
11 or 12 years old.
Now Alex was
what I call an art brat.
His mother ran an art gallery.
His father was
a hobbyist clarinet player.
Bill Eggleston,
the Memphis art photographer
had given him peyote
and he was running around
with his eyes
spinning like that
and his hair sticking out
and I thought, "Well, this kid's
gonna have a unique life. "
I got sent to Central
for one year
in the 10th grade
and Alex was
in my geometry room.
And I noticed that, you know,
Alex, he's not here today.
And then the next
geometry class
I said, "He's not here
again today. "
You know, what's going on?
And, where is Alex, you know?
# Give me a ticket
for an aeroplane #
# Ain't got time
to take a fast train #
He says he was 15.
I think he was 14.
The second time
he ever sang in a microphone,
he recorded "The Letter"
and as they say, you know,
the rest was history.
STAX had been
re-equipping their studio
which before 1966 had
had very primitive equipment
and we happened to buy
our mixing console
and our first
multi-track recorder
from the same company.
So almost immediately
we started to get
all of the overflow work
from STAX.
So instead of recording
high school bands,
we were recording
Booker T and the MGs
and Isaac Hayes sessions.
It was a little daunting.
You know, if you wanted more
staff or more engineers,
you had to train them yourself.
I actually set up sort of
a little recording school
at the studio
and when I walked
into my office,
there was somebody
sitting behind my desk
in my chair with their
boots up on my desk,
smoking a cigarette.
And I said,
"Who the heck is this?"
Chris and I were at MUS,
the best boys' private school
in Memphis.
What they wore
and the music they were into,
he very much
rebelled against it.
And I kind of
picked up on that.
We were interested in
how to get the textures
and the fuzz-tones
and how to sound like
Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page.
You know what, if somebody went
through the recording school
and we thought they were doing
some pretty good music,
we'd give them
the key to the studio
and say when it's not
being used
you can come in
and record your ideas.
Chris was not so much
an electronics guy,
he was a sonics guy.
"How do we get this
piece of equipment
to get this sound
that I've got locked
into my head?"
Jimmy Hendrix had happened
and the Yardbirds
were happening
and I remember
when Chris and those guys
played in the school cafeteria,
I was, like, wow!
I mean, here's
some of these guys
that are really actually out
trying to do this stuff. "
Chris and I just
really hit it off
because we were interested
in these same things.
We were pretty
inseparable in those days,
you know, because we actually
lived with each other
in college.
I was sort of an audiophile
and I had stereo equipment
that was better than
most people had.
So a lot of times people
would wind up in my room.
A really curious thing,
Chris always had a full-body,
purple aura every time
he would do an acid.
We all would say,
"Whoa, what is this all about?"
You know?
Andy and Chris
had sort of convinced people
that they were expert
drug tasters or whatever.
I think, you know, they were
pretty high most of the time.
He came back
a very different person.
I remember we were
in the living room
of his mother's house
and he had on the wall
a framed gold record
for "Cry Like a Baby"
and the label had peeled off
of the 45 records
and was laying down
in the corner
of the frame like a dead bug.
Alex really liked that.
Chris and I came back
to Memphis
and we both had our fill
of going away to college,
no car, having to live
in a dorm room,
we can't play music,
no place to develop
your pictures.
You know, it was
really a drag.
So Chris and I started
working on Chris' back house.
We got what musical equipment
we had and moved it back there
and started playing
a little bit.
So we said, "Well,
we need a drummer. "
I said, "Oh, well, I know
this guy, Jody Stephens,
who I played with back
in the 9th grade. "
When I was a teenager,
I felt like an oddball.
Music was something
that made me feel
like part of a community.
Chris and Alex and Andy
and John Fry,
it's a society of oddballs.
And Alex had already
made enough money
that his parents had put
in some kind of a trust fund
and he went and bought
his own car
and drove it around
and he was kind
of surviving off
being or having been
a professional musician
which was a big mystery to me.
How can anybody do that?
Surely you don't
make money doing this.
We're just doing this
'cause it's cool, you know.
Alex's life was
so far off the chart,
no real pun intended,
while Chris was
having to clean out
the pool on Saturdays.
And I think he felt like
such a victim
because his father made him
clean out the pool.
We would stand out in front
of the old building
of our National.
Well, what do you want
to do now?
Well, you know...
Chris would say
get Alex in the band.
Chris was very...
I think he knew
what he wanted in terms
of band members
and he had this
pretty specific idea
about what this band
would sound like musically
and how all these pieces
would fit together.
Should I use this mic?
Mm-hmm.
I still don't hear
myself through the phones.
How about now?
Uh, yeah. Wah.
And which way should I be
standing in relation
to this mic?
In front of it.
We had sort of weaseled
our way into Ardent a little bit
and we actually were allowed
to go into the studio
late at night,
starting to put down,
no kidding, real tracks.
I even think we got
our very own private
full-blown reel of tape.
We'd just been using
scraps up till then.
Want to put on
some back-up
before it's late.
So we don't have
to do it at the end.
Got a light?
They're over there.
The bands I'd been in
prior to Big Star
didn't have access
to a studio
in that very beneficial time
of evolving as a musician
and being able to do
that in a studio.
Once you step into that
and kind of discover
what you can do creatively,
I don't know that there is
any kind of feeling like it.
# When my baby's beside me
We should have done
"When My Baby's Beside Me"
acoustic.
One, two, three, four...
Very quickly we became
sort of an organic thing.
We jived with each other,
we bonded.
I think a little bit less vocal
and a little bit more guitars
A little less of the other
vocals
The focus was original music.
Alex and Chris
were creating music
that was as relevant
and connected
as emotionally to me
as all this cover material
that I had been doing.
Those two were like
a couple of comets
or shooting stars
or something like that.
Jody and I were
kind of caught up
in the bow wave
of Chris and Alex.
Tell me when.
Now.
I didn't get to hear
much Big Star music
because they usually
wouldn't write in the studio.
When they showed up
with the first songs
for "#1 Record,"
they basically
had the arrangements
completely together the way
they wanted to do them.
They came in, they set up
as a four-piece band
in the studio,
everybody playing
on the basic tracks
simultaneously
and that was the first time
I was hearing those tunes.
Rolling.
# Years ago my heart
was set to live, oh #
# But I've been trying hard
against unbelievable odds #
Sitting down to go through
"The Ballad of El Goodo"
it seems like we'd run
through that song one time
and then the next time
it just all clicked
and it was pretty much realized
the way you hear it
on the album.
# And there ain't no one going
to turn me 'round #
# Ain't no one going
to turn me 'round #
Even just hearing the tracks,
two guitars, the bass,
and the drums, I said,
"You know,
if they've got any lyrics
that are halfway decent to go
with this, we've got something. "
# Ain't no one going
to turn me 'round #
Al Bell at STAX
came to us and said,
"STAX would like
to have a Rock brand.
Would you be interested
in having
Ardent Records be that brand?"
And I said, "Well, of course. "
Chris knew that
that was coming.
I told him, I said,
"You know, if you guys
get a good album together,
we've got a good vehicle,
I think, for putting
some of this music out. "
I can't get over
how really nice
the mellotron sounds on that.
This one wouldn't make
a bad single probably.
I think the name Big Star
was just desperation.
We needed to have a name
and nobody could
think of a name
and when we were
sitting out in between
the old shack on National
and the actual
storefront studio smoking
I don't know what,
smoking something,
and there was, of course,
the Big Star grocery store
right across the street.
You know, we could have been
jinxing our future
by calling ourselves Big Star
and our first album
"#1 Record. "
I do remember feeling
really uncomfortable
with the name because
it was so pretentious.
You want me to do that?
Yeah, I like that.
I would normally turn most
of the overdubbing to them
because Chris could engineer
plenty good enough.
You know, I had
other work to do.
I wasn't particularly anxious
to be there 24/7, so.
Before all that got
too awfully far along,
the move
to Madison Avenue occurred
where Ardent moved
from their little storefront
on National Street
over to this big
wonderful new studio.
They just did
everything technically
that you could imagine doing
and there's still studios
to this day,
I'm sure, that don't hold
a candle to it.
I felt like I'd walked
into the Disney World
of music at that point.
John Fry likes
toys and equipment,
things like that,
so we had the first mellotron
in the United States.
We had George Harrison's
keyboard.
It had come in for service
and been swapped out,
so we ended up
getting his Moog.
Ardent provided, you know,
a real high-tech environment
and when STAX started
doing really well,
there was an overflow
of business.
I think Terry did
The Staple Singers one
which was a great record.
So that kind of work
was going on over in A Studio
and we sort
of staked out B Studio
as our own little space.
Big Star just spent
a lot of time in there
finishing up that first LP.
# Don't give up on me so fast
I had a little bit
of an attitude back then.
You know, when I would
walk through the room
and I would hear them
working on something,
you know, they struck me
as a little amateurish.
You know, I already
had it in my mind
what something would
end up sounding like,
you know, if Brian Wilson
has got his hands on it
or Phil Spector
or George Martin.
I remember hearing "#1 Record"
after it was mixed
and just being floored,
just floored.
# Girlfriend,
what are you doing? #
# You're driving me to ruin
It's 9:29 on WMC-FM Memphis
and speaking of Big Star,
a couple of members
of the group are here,
Andy Hummel
and Alex Chilton are with us.
A lot of excitement
about this album.
Is the album out yet
in the stores?
Yeah, the album should have
hit the stores today.
"#1 Record" is the very first
from Big Star
and you won't forget, will you?
Here it is only January
and you're getting an awful lot
of critical acclaim
for your new album.
Yeah, that's nice.
I hope it sells.
We got great reviews
from "Cash Box"
and "Billboard"
and "Rolling Stone. "
That was looking good.
You know, in a way
the "Backhouse Crew"
moved over to Ardent
and I was part of that crew.
We shot some film.
We all loved music
and we'd hang out together
and then I was asked by John
to do the art and advertising.
It was pretty exciting,
especially getting the album.
Great front cover that
Carole Manning shot
and the back
that I think John Fry
actually wound up
shooting that.
Chris persuaded John
that I needed to be aboard
because we were all
going to be a success
and if I couldn't
be in the band,
I needed to be there.
And with my college
radio experience
he would like to have somebody
focusing on
Big Star all the time.
Chris was a master manipulator
and I wanted, you know,
something to do
and so Chris found me
as a willing participant.
Yeah.
Tell me about
the Ardent family.
Bizarre.
We've got a big
new studio here.
We're a real company.
We're not operating out of
anybody's backyard anymore.
We've got
a big label behind us.
Yeah, you're damn right,
there were expectations.
I realized that it was
a matter of probabilities,
but for Chris it was
100% certain
that this thing was going
to all take off.
After all these years of
just listening to music
and just looking at the covers
and studying everything
about a Beatle cover,
it was like a dream.
We were so fortunate
to have landed in this spot
doing this that I think
we kind of thought,
"Well, this is how life is. "
Will not be able to appear,
now, Friday, August 25th
at the auditorium plan to see
Cactus plus Rory Gallagher
and special guest stars
Bloodrock.
Tickets are $3.50.
I worked at Pop Tunes
from 1970 to 1973.
On every other
aisle in the store
were two record players
so people could listen
to the music.
Saturday afternoons,
there would sometimes
be everything
from John Lee Hooker,
you know, to Led Zeppelin
and Ray Coniff,
all blasting at one time.
Ardent and STAX naturally
always got
preferential treatment.
When Big Star showed up...
I mean, I even remember
where it was on the floor.
It just didn't look like
a Memphis record.
Big Star came out of the gate
with a kind of finely-tooled
precision.
The whole time
we were promoting Big Star,
STAX is sending over
posters of Isaac Hayes
"Hot Buttered Soul,"
totally distracted towards
where this big acceptance
and this big sales
were coming from,
but that's just a microcosm
of what was going on
in the whole industry.
All the resources get put
behind the big sellers,
guys that have the potential
to become the Elton Johns
of the world.
I make 50 calls a day
to radio program directors
and they'd say,
"Well, you know,
if you got any records
in the stores,
I mean, we're not getting
any report of any sales. "
What's going on?
You know, we've got
all these great reviews.
STAX seems behind it.
The record's great.
You know, what is
going on out there
and that's "out there"
is such a netherworld,
you know.
You don't know
what is out there.
# Be my friend
You know,
we were all frustrated.
Picking up "Rolling Stone"
magazine and it says,
"This is the greatest stuff
we've ever heard"
and, you know,
nobody is buying it
and you can't find it
in a record store.
People would call from
different parts of the country
and just say,
"Where can I find this record?
I just heard it on my
local radio station. "
At some point
a decision was made
that we really needed
more promotional help,
which, in fact, is probably
not what we needed.
Probably what we needed
was distribution help,
but John was brought in
on a retainer
and hired to sort of coordinate
the promotion effort.
It was like
they kind of needed
somebody to beat
a drum and light a fire.
I got through to more people
when the Argent record,
"Hold Your Head Up,"
when that was out,
because when I said Ardent
they thought
I was saying Argent.
And then, "Ooh, yeah, hey. "
Al Bell wanted to have
more of a presence
in the Pop market
or the White market
or whatever
you want to call it.
But I never got
a sense of how they planned
to forge a beach head
in the Pop or Top 40.
There was always a band.
So I would be lugging
around my 15-year-old,
14-year-old brother
with amps and PA systems
and what-have-you.
"#1 Record" was being
recorded the year
that I was in France
when I escaped Memphis.
And it was at that time
I remember being home
and Christopher played me
on his stereo,
up in his room, "#1 Record. "
# Won't you let me
walk you home from school? #
I'm not ashamed to say
but I cried.
It was just, you know,
this is your kid brother
and you've known
all these years
how he had progressed
and what he wanted.
And it was like, "My God,
you've come out
with something. "
I don't know...
It wasn't the Beatles
but it was damn good.
It was great.
Things started
going sour for Chris
when he started reading
reviews of "#1 Record. "
It was such a large part
of his kind of creative vision
that when the press started
coming back
and focusing on Alex,
I think he thought
he might have to live
under that shadow
from that point.
# Rock and Roll
is here to stay #
# Come inside
where it's okay #
I'm sure that was a factor
and, you know,
his emotional problems
that he started having
around that time.
I mean, the guy,
he poured his heart
and soul into this thing
so I guess
he felt kind of betrayed.
Chris is in every way
a tragic figure.
But you're dealing
with a reality and a fantasy.
Big Star never had
to face the big mirror,
you know, just staring yourself
right in the face
night after night,
trying to pay
for the damn bus, you know.
I mean, so the fantasy
which all starts
when you're strumming
your tennis racket
in front of the mirror,
you know,
the fantasy was able
to grow until it blew up.
# If it's so, well,
let me know #
# If it's no, well, I can go
Late in the day
he came by the studio
and was arguing with me
and he stomped off and left
and I... you know,
I went home and, you know,
I got a call
from Richard Rosebrough
who was down
at the studio and said,
"Chris is back up here
and he's erasing
the multitrack tapes
for '#1 Record. '"
My father with incredible
understatement
and euphemism picked me up
at the airport
around Christmas time
of '72 and said,
"Well, we've had
some trouble at home. "
He apparently took
a bunch of pills
of some kind and wound up
in the hospital.
So that was a... sad day.
Well, what do you think?
Very nice.
One, two, three, four...
# You feel sad
# And I got mad
and I'm sorry #
I love "#1 Record"
and I think it's probably
one of the most peculiarly
sequenced records,
because it starts off
with all this bravado
of "Feel" and, you know,
"In the Street,"
you know, and it's got these
really great, you know,
"Don't Lie To Me,"
these moments
and then the record
just sort of slides
into this kind of melancholia.
I mean, "Watch the Sunrise"
is sort of like this
last glimmer of hope
that sort of sparkles
a little bit,
you know, right before
it just totally fades out.
# I can feel it,
now it's time #
By '72 I'd started
sending reviews in
and I was getting
published here and there.
So I was starting
to get on mailing lists
and I would get
the occasional album
in the mail
which was very thrilling
to get an actual record album
in the mail for free.
And I opened it
and that, you know,
that laminated cover
with the neon sign,
it was a eureka moment
hearing "#1 Record"
for the first time,
an absolute
life-changing moment.
I played it. It would end.
I'd play it again.
I really remember
hearing Big Star
clearly for the first time.
I was in Silas Creek Parkway
in North Carolina.
I'd just gone
through the light.
"Baby's Beside Me"
came on the radio.
I was driving
an old Thunderbird
and I started going way over
the speed limit really quickly.
It was really exciting.
Big Star had a song
in the Top 10 or Top 20
anyway in my hometown
and I thought
this was the same
all over the world.
I knew the people
over at WTOB and the DJs
would make extra money by
selling their promos... records.
I probably bought
all their copies
for a dollar
and that meant
that they didn't even
have copies to play.
So I probably
wrecked the chance of
Big Star getting
any more famous in Winston.
Okeedoke.
These are books
which I can't...
don't have room for...
oh, Spector, I loved him.
And now
these are the Beatles
and then Big Star's
got a section
and of course KISS
which I'll never listen to
but you got to have it.
Ooh, Sinead O'Conner,
I love her.
She's so serious, you know.
I've got like,
Dance and Techno
and House in these cases.
I'm into hits.
I love hits, no matter
where they come from.
This is the Rock Writers'
Convention
where Big Star performed.
I put a page ad in "Billboard"
and then flew in,
oh, hundred or so
of the leading music
publication people back then.
Rolling Stone, of course,
Circus, Crawdaddy,
Cream, Fusion.
When you came up
with this idea
for the Rock Writers,
was that a real earnest thing
that you just thought
that they needed
a union or something?
Very much so.
See nobody ever...
They just thought,
"Oh, this guy in Memphis wanted
everybody to see Big Star. "
That was
definitely part of it but,
no, they needed
some sort of organization.
Hard as hell to get paid
and nobody really
respected them at the time,
but they sure do now.
The day before
my birthday in April of '73
I got this package in the mail
and I just flipped.
And it was just,
"I'm going to get
invited to a junket. "
I remember they called
"Creem's" office and said,
"We're going to take
everybody. "
And I go, "Everybody?"
"Creem" magazine,
we made $22.75
on the weeks we got paid.
It was like
we'd won the lottery.
What exactly
we hoped to accomplish
was open to debate,
but we all had a ticket,
a hotel and freedom
to run around Memphis.
# I wish I could meet Elvis
They put us in a school bus
and they made this big deal that
we were going to go to Graceland
and maybe see Elvis.
I remember seeing the gates,
you know, with musical notes
and they came out and said,
"Elvis has left the city. "
Elvis is not there.
I vividly remember
looking over,
you know, Lester Bangs
and Richard Meltzer,
the two of them
are standing there
pissing through the gates
at Graceland
and I just thought if this
isn't what it's all about,
I don't know what is.
I just sort of showed up
for the second day
and they gave me a press pass
and I met Lester Bangs.
He was doing so much speed
that... and he could barely talk.
He just went, "Mm-hmm. "
This is perhaps
the most bland time
in the history
of western civilization.
Now the difference
between this and 1967
is stupefying.
Lester Bangs came out
so irreverent and so clever.
He never treated musicians
like they were
any different than us.
There was the sense
that the edifice
of Rock and Roll
had gotten a little unwieldy.
That resulted in records
that had lost
some passion perhaps.
In about 1971,
that's when I started
to really hate hippie shit.
I mean, I liked
radical politics,
but I saw hippies as just
mainly getting high
and "Let's...
let's get high and ball. "
I gave my life
to Rock and Roll music.
It had been taken away from me
just as I was getting
old enough to really enjoy it.
You know, everything
got bloated into heaviosity.
It started becoming
more product and less art.
I guess
we just thought like
we were trying to reclaim
that attitude
that had been there
at the beginning of Rock,
you know, stripping
everything back to
where it all started from
and let's try this again.
I remember there was
a meeting the morning of,
I think, the second day
where we were supposed
to elect a president
of the organization
and draft minutes
for the meeting,
but it was anarchy.
It was like that clich#,
like herding cats.
We didn't want
to be organized.
You know,
our gift was chaos.
The last night
they had a big concert
with the acts
that were on Ardent.
The rock writers
were just yawning and going,
"Yay, this is horrible"
and then Big Star came on.
The flower
that had blossomed,
when I heard "#1 Record,"
re-blossomed.
They were just great.
As soon
as they started playing
all the rock writers
started dancing
and Richard started
taking his pants off
on the dance floor
while Big Star was playing.
So he danced in his
tighty-whiteys for a while.
I had seen Big Star
a number of times before then
and they never got
that kind of response.
No one ever adored them,
this hand-picked
perfect audience.
That was really, to me,
where we all came together.
I still marvel at the fact
that Ardent Records
paid to get 140 rock writers
in the same place.
Something was forged
in that ridiculous moment
of a record company
trying to organize us.
No one forgot those few days.
I mean,
not a whole lot of business
got accomplished then,
but it certainly was
a galvanizing point
for the whole
Big Star thing.
Coming off the performance
at the Rock Writers' Convention
certainly had instilled
a new confidence in me
and my perception is
that the band had been kind
of on hiatus prior to that.
So we were all pretty
charged about it.
That's a neat sound.
Okay, you're rolling.
Hey, John, turn up
the bass in the headphones.
Even before
Chris left the band,
they had already started
writing some more songs.
I was glad
that the band decided
that they wanted
to make another album,
but things were
a little different.
Nightclubs and liquor
by the drink in bars,
you know, you can almost
see the geography
reflected in "Radio City. "
Memphis did not get liquor
by the drink until August '69.
There was a great
hue and cry saying,
"This is going to turn the youth
of Memphis into degenerates.
There's gonna be bars
on every corner. "
Well, guess what?
Fridays was the cornerstone bar
and you saw some crazy,
crazy people
who probably
if say liquor or drugs
or sex had not
brought them together
they would never have been
in the same place,
much less the same
moral universe.
Everybody, who was
in the least bit
interested in raising hell,
would be there.
Typically we were.
Oh, my God, yeah,
we'd probably
drop a couple of ludes
and then have drinks
and then go from there,
probably to Fridays
and then
probably to a liquor store
and then probably to oblivion.
When we would party,
I mean, where do we go?
We'd go back to the studio,
'cause we were having
so much fun.
Fry would find us wrapped up
in drum blankets
on the floor of the studio.
Big Star will be playing
at Max's Kansas City
from tomorrow through Monday.
It's in the city.
STAX cut a deal to be
distributed by Columbia.
So when we went to New York
it was another attempt
to get attention,
to meet with the man
who negotiated
the deal with STAX.
That took a long time
to set that up.
We had to buy
a beaucoup of airtime.
One, two, three, four...
That was a showcase.
So anybody
that had been in Memphis,
any of the New York people
or I mean, I know,
I sat at the bar
between Richard and Nick.
They were like this
reluctant rock band,
yet there they were with that
ironic name, "Big Star. "
Those of us
that were writing
or trying to write
about them knew
that we were gonna have to
go through the magazine route.
Unfortunately,
I think to some of us
the prospects
of helping somebody
get big was not really
what we were hoping for.
We wanted them to be
a tiny band
that everybody listened to.
This is taking
a bit of a left turn.
This is probably the best song
to me on "Radio City. "
That second album to me,
it was just one of those...
almost the perfect record.
All the songs had a sensibility
and a feel and a certain
kind of, um, a mystery.
This was not a record
that revealed itself fast.
When you listened
to these songs,
they were complicated.
You got to feel
the emotional depth
and angst
that was within the band.
I look at "Radio City"
as a transitional record.
It's the pristine brilliance
of the first record,
but it's the beginning
of the unfraying
and the sound of falling apart.
# You're gonna die
# Yes, you're gonna die
# Right now
Love that ending.
Uh, those last few chords
that Nick Lowe later stole.
When you hear a really
great guitar sound,
that sounds really unique,
like even just at the beginning
of "September Gurls,"
the way the guitar sounds
right at the beginning,
that sound, it's one
of the things that's just,
you know, it's like osmosis
and it just kind of goes
right into you.
# September gurls do so much
# I was your butch
and you were touched #
# I loved you,
well, never mind #
I think "September Gurls"
is probably
as close to a big hit
as they would have.
It's a good hit.
And, you know,
the fact that it wasn't
on every radio station
in America is, you know,
the target practice
of the music business.
You know,
sometimes you just miss.
There is that you would tag
things with "City. "
If you're in a Rock and Roll
band "Rock City,"
if something bad happened
it'd be "Drag City. "
And "Radio City,"
we all thought this was
a radio-friendly album.
Columbia was
gonna be our savior
and we now had a real
distribution company.
But they didn't give a damn
about Ardent Records.
It was a different game,
you know.
They were used
to dealing in tonnage.
For STAX to get picked up
and distributed by Columbia
was supposed to be going crap.
Well, it's a comedy
of errors here
but shortly after the STAX
distribution deal,
we get word that Clive Davis,
the man who negotiated
the deal with STAX,
is being investigated
for improper spending
on his expense account
and they fired him.
The offices of STAX here
are closed.
A lot of other problems
have also plagued the firm.
The latest came yesterday.
A judge declared the firm
officially bankrupt.
I was already
feeling the pressure
of having to make
the eventual decision
of school or band.
Having
that decision in my head
was causing me
to sort of morph
away from the band
quite a bit.
So my departure
from Big Star
had started back that early.
Obviously, Chris had already
departed and Alex...
that left Alex
kind of on his own,
Jody being Jody.
And so the boys club,
if there was one was kind of
falling apart at that point.
John Lightman
is our brand new bass player.
He's only been with us
about 3 weeks.
He's a fine man.
And this is Jody Stephens
back on the drums.
We often played to rooms
that were almost empty
and I felt really awful
for how disappointed
they were in the lack
of response that they got.
It was sort of chaotic
at Ardent
and the future
was all unknown.
It was sort of in limbo.
We had a rehearsal
set up there.
Jody and I arrived at 2:00
and we waited and waited
and about 5:30
Alex comes sauntering in
and he says "Well, here I am,
but I don't have my guitar.
What do you want to do?"
So, you know,
that would be a typical day.
And then after a while
of this sort of thing
going on Alex said to me,
"My attitude about music is
I could take it or leave it. "
I met Chris in '75.
I was working in CBS Records.
He was over
with his brother David,
looking for a deal
and there was a guy called
John Tobler,
who was our head of press there
at the time
and I was like
the in-house photographer.
There was rumor
that, you know,
in working with Geoff Emerick
and if he could show
anything that he'd done
with Big Star
it would be amazing.
And we were looking
forward to it.
He was very
kind of intense, shy.
Fortunately
he had David with him,
so he could be the mouthpiece
and talk
all that business nonsense.
John would put
David in contact
with various people
in various record companies.
Unfortunately, sadly,
as we know that he never
got a deal for it.
He was drinking a lot,
an awful lot.
Steadily it became kind of more
and more depressing.
And, you know, I was
taking him here and there
and wherever
to show him something
and maybe get... you know,
show him a good time.
I can always
get inspired by environment.
When I was taking pictures
and especially of him,
because I've always
had a dramatic side,
was quite aware
that difficult times
can be translated
into great photography,
great music.
And when he saw that picture,
we talked about using it
possibly for an album cover.
I purposely cut him off
just below the knees
and with the background
that we had,
make him look like he was kind
of floating in the ether.
When we walked
this road with Bob Dylan,
he said "Jim, a man could do
a lot of thinking here. "
And Jim said,
"Bob, I'm thinking
all the time. "
10 years before
he ever played on
"Time Out Of Mind"
with Bob Dylan,
he told me
that we had to get out
of the big fancy house
we lived in,
what he called
"suburban squalor,"
and get to Mississippi
and move in trailers,
because otherwise Bob Dylan
would get the wrong message.
The idea of living in trailers,
I'd never considered that,
but it worked out fantastic.
It was our second honeymoon.
Jim wasn't interested in things
that were real
put together or polished or...
He was more interested
in the forces of nature.
Here's a good symbol
of Jim's philosophy of art.
It's said that the song
"Dock of the Bay"
was written on this piano
by Otis Redding.
We turned it into
what is known as yard art,
a magnificently manufactured
musical instrument
subject to the forces
of nature.
There's one thing
I learned from Jim
is that everything is important.
You might say that is
the most cluttered room
I ever saw,
but it's his ambience
and it's his sonic genius
that's in here.
Jim's background was theater
and he learned early on
that a play comes together
and very intense
and real friendships
and enemies
are formed that basically
only last the life of the play.
He learned about
how to be part of a cast,
a cast of characters.
You made a point earlier
that Memphis music is what it is
because it's done
differently than anywhere else.
People that have made
Memphis music in the past
wouldn't even have
the opportunity
to make music
other places,
from Elvis... from before
Elvis to Robert Johnson.
What happened
in Memphis in those years,
so much had fallen apart,
yet this was coming
together in a way
that nobody could predict
or understand
what the outcome
could possibly be.
It was full of energy,
creativeness and always,
always trying to push
the envelope
and "Stranded in Canton,"
we definitely did.
That was our scene.
I was stranded in Canton.
Revolution!
I used to go to shows
and see Jim Dickinson.
I saw Big Star playing.
Alex, he and Lesa,
introduced me to a social set
where there were
a lot of disconnected,
messed-up people.
I felt right at home.
I said,
"I found my social set. "
There was some sort of thing
that happened
with this group of people,
especially around
Bill Eggleston, the artist.
The standard artistic equation
for that scene was
horror equals beauty,
beauty equals horror.
If say something felt terrible,
if something
sounded out of tune,
if say something was just wrong,
then somehow
that could become beauty.
Alex, Jim,
and Bill Eggleston,
all... for me, that's all
the same body of work.
For me it's just
visual and musical.
And Bill thinks of himself
as a musician
as much as he thinks of himself
as a photographer.
Jim was a man
who respected tradition.
He talked about
knowing truly great men.
These are the truly great men
who helped him
make the music of the spheres.
This was his shrine.
The boys and I put him
front and center.
Jim always said
that the part of the recordings
that he claimed were the space
between the notes.
That's where he wrote
his signature.
And I think
of all his recordings,
he succeeded in the space
between the notes most
with "Big Star Third. "
I worked with these
other legendary producers
and saw that the people
who were the heaviest,
were,
in fact, doing the least.
But that's the way
you pull it out.
It's not your record.
It's their record.
The producer's name goes
at the bottom of the back
in the smallest typeface
known to man.
And that's the way
it should be.
We all had keys to the studio
at that point.
Alex would come into the studio
in the middle of the night
with Lesa,
his girlfriend
and the muse of the record,
whose importance
cannot be overstated.
I come in one morning
and he's got this little evil
grin on his face
and he said, "Well,
Lesa and I cut
something last night
I want you to hear. "
"Okay," I said.
So he plays me
"Like A Kangaroo"
which is just 12 string,
acoustic 12 string
and vocal.
I said "Yeah, Alex,
what do you hear on that?"
And he says, again
with the evil grin he says,
"Well, why don't you produce it,
Mr. Producer?"
# I next saw you
# You was at the party
But you could hear
how he grew up out of the chaos.
That's the space
that I don't think anybody
had given him before.
# I came against
A lot of different things about
how Alex thought about music
were changed
by his influence from Jim.
Alex would be
showing someone a song,
for instance,
showing how the guitar went,
maybe needling
around a little bit,
and then
they hear Dickinson say
"You know
we were recording.
That's it, we got it. "
And they'd say, "What?
You know,
you were recording that?"
And he'd say
"Yeah, and it was great, great,
I wouldn't change a thing. "
There was
a sense of how do we get
to complete spontaneity.
The was
a little tendency to be
kind of sonically
deconstructive
and it was pretty clear to me
that he didn't have
much interest
in trying to tailor anything
to have commercial appeal
or to be radio-friendly.
I thought it had
become an Alex album.
I thought
it was an Alex album.
All of those records
from "#1 Record" through
"Radio City" to the "Third,"
Alex was the commonality.
He was the common point
of all of them.
And as they progressed
they became more Alex
records than Big Star records.
You know, it just...
it became such
a different scene at that point
in terms of where Alex
was going musically,
in his personality.
It got painful for John.
And he did reach the point
where he said
"Jim, I know
you're not finished,
but you've got to mix
what you've got,
because
I can't do this anymore. "
# Hey, child,
will you come on down #
The mix is half of the record
and Alex was excluded,
because he would
have ruined it.
# Morning says to idle on
# And stay clear off
the street #
# On the wing
and on the land #
I've worked with guys
who were supposed
to be the real guys
and none of them
were as good as John.
He would treat classical cello
and sheer distortion, equally.
You know, they were
both equally musical,
you know,
paint that he was pushing
around the canvas.
# Stroke it Noel
It really is this
amazing reflection
of where Alex was at that time
and that lifestyle.
But whether
I wanted to sustain
that kind of emotional
lifestyle is...
it wasn't for me.
What was the lifestyle?
Oh, it was
kind of self-absorption
and self-focus
and drugs and alcohol.
# Driving in my big black car
# Nothing can go wrong
You know,
everybody was kind of down
and depressed then.
You got to remember
our biggest studio customer,
STAX had just gone
out of business,
also leaving us
without a distributor
for our record label and,
you know, we were
kind of wondering
was Memphis music
now going to implode
and we're all going to be
unemployed.
The band had fallen apart.
Alex and Lesa were going
through this soap opera
that was their relationship.
The record was about
deteriorating relationships.
That's what the record
was about.
# Nothing can hurt me
# Nothing can touch me
# Why should I care?
# Driving is a gas
# It ain't gonna last
When I came over here
to start working,
John was showing me
around the place
and there was
a humongous loud noise
coming out of studio A
and I was prepared for...
I don't know
what I was prepared for,
but I opened the door
and it was just Chris
behind the console,
running the tape machine,
punching himself into record
and out of record and singing
and doing all of it by himself.
He was more concerned
about his solo stuff
and getting that right,
whatever definition of that is
and had worked on it forever.
The way that Big Star
was presented to me,
it was always
"Alex, Alex, Alex,"
and I didn't realize
until I heard Chris' solo stuff
how responsible he was
for the whole sound of the band.
Chris just lost interest
in bands,
period, and he just
wanted to hear
his songs not translated.
He was incredibly
frustrated
with the fact that he couldn't
find anybody at a record company
who would support his music.
I mean, he went
over to England to do
remixes with Geoff Emerick,
to get his music
in line with something
that someone would appreciate
and he wasn't achieving
that to the least.
# I'm off the street
# and don't know
Chris came to a very settled
faith in Jesus Christ
as Lord and Savior.
It made
a big difference in his life
and it made
a big difference in mine.
Music was still his great gift
and he knew it
and he wanted to do
whatever he could with it.
But nothing topped God.
For him to be
singing a song about
"You got to give
your life to Jesus,"
you know, it was like,
God, Chris, that's...
I never knew he had
that element, you know.
It wasn't just as easy
with Chris as to say
I've been born again
and to live that life,
to accept it completely,
you know.
I think there were things
that troubled him,
not about religion,
but about other aspects
of his life that didn't...
like the two didn't really
balance each other out
or complement each other.
# You should've given
your love to Jesus #
# It couldn't do you no harm
He once told me,
"You should do drugs.
It takes away
your sexual urges. "
I have a feeling that drugs
and then religion, obviously...
had a way of keeping
any of that at bay.
There was a part of Chris
that to me
seemed like
a highly combustible
blend of whatever substances
he was in-taking,
whatever was his baggage
concerning his sexuality
and born-again Christianity.
It was like all of this stuff
mashing around.
I heard about it.
I heard about
a lot of that stuff.
Thinking back on it,
I could see
that he was searching,
which could explain
the religion thing.
It could explain experimentation
of one kind or another.
It could explain drugs,
you know, travel,
whatever, you know,
you're searching, you know.
I was sent out on an assignment
for "The Village Voice"
and I met Alex the day
he had just moved
to New York from Memphis.
As I got to the place
Lesa was leaving
and he started
crying on my shoulder.
This is from the first session
we did.
He was living up
in Little India then.
He was very sweet,
very Southern.
He had a copy of "Radio City"
and "Here's some of my music,"
you know.
Despite claims to the contrary,
you know, he'd done something.
A guy named Terry Ork,
Ork Records said
"Well, we've got this project.
Alex Chilton might be
coming up. "
This may be my second week
in New York.
He called in and said,
"Do you want to play with Alex?
Could you put together a band?"
Nobody knew what would happen,
but they knew
that television had gotten
a real record deal
with a real label
and it seemed like,
you know, this is kind of crazy.
I've only been here
a couple of weeks.
# Here's a little thing
that's gonna please ya #
# Just a little town down
in Indonesia, Bangkok #
I asked him at one point,
"Why don't
you write more stuff
like you did with Big Star?"
And he just said, "I can't.
I can't write that way anymore. "
He realized he could write
a different kind of lyric.
He could write a lyric
like "Bangkok"
that was a witty Algonquin
Round Table kind of thing
and I don't think that that
unattainable muse mechanism
was the way he wrote songs
anymore after Lesa.
Punk gave him an outlet
where he could
get a lot of his anger out
from the debacle
of Big Star
being totally ignored.
And I mean,
that would create
a certain amount of bitterness
and anger
and I mean it was a nice place
for that to fit in.
You like Punk Rock?
Not in the least.
Well, never mind
the "Sex Pistols,"
then, Byron,
here come "The Cramps. "
Charles Raiteri
reports on the Rock and Roll
werewolves
from the Black Lagoon.
Alex saw the Cramps at CBGB's
and came back
talking about it the next day
and he loved it.
It was, you know, Memphis
but New York at the same time.
I had heard that it was
a performance art project
that had gotten
a following as a band.
They were ghouls,
you know, deliberately ghouls.
When The Cramps came here
in September of '77,
Lux and Ivy and Nick,
I mean, they stopped traffic.
People would go...
"What the fuck are you?"
For me that was Memphis
Rock and Roll 20 years later.
Not Rock music,
not retro-rockabilly,
not Punk Rock,
that was Rock and Roll.
Memphian Alex Chilton
well-known in the Punk world
is producing
The Cramps album,
not from this old board.
This is the board
which first recorded
the man many consider to be
the first rockabilly punk,
Elvis Presley.
Well, yeah,
I think it makes them
feel good to be in Memphis,
you know, down here
where all the music
that they have
collected for so long
and like so much came from.
I just love
those up-tempo waltzes.
You know, there were people
in several other areas
reaching for Punk Rock
and reaching for a new,
you know, aggressive,
cutting-edge
denial of the past
and we were too.
Yeah, Punk Rock
was different in Memphis
than it was in other places.
# Lonely days are gone
# I'm going home
# My baby just
wrote me a letter #
It was at the
Beale Street Blues Festival
that Memphis first realized
it had a Punk in its midst.
Alex, are you being
punkish on stage?
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
# Rock on
# Rock hard
# Ripples
# Rock hard
# Nipples
# Rock hard
# Purple
I think
the Memphis Pilgrimage
was just the natural thing
to do for us at that time
because
I had met Alex in New York
and then Chris Stamey,
of course, was playing with him.
It was summer.
We were like,
let's do something.
And the thing
we're gonna do
is instead of going to the beach
we're gonna go to Memphis.
We also had the idea
that we were going
to meet Chris Bell.
We were going to try to.
We were just
a little curious about him
and he was more mysterious,
'cause, you know,
he sort of disappears
from the Big Star
story early on.
It was like, you know,
kind of like hanging out
with the Beatles for us,
because those records to us
were as good
as any records on earth.
I guess we were probably
like every year
we got a little more
into them in a way,
like realizing just
how good they were,
thinking more and more about
how they did them and stuff.
And then, of course,
this picture
on the back is great,
because
they look pretty cool
and looks like
they're having a good time
and you have
to love Jody's jacket.
You cannot beat that.
We had
a bit of information about
which Danver's
restaurant Chris Bell
was working at and found it
and went out there.
Well, Alex told us
where to find Chris.
Did he?
Yeah, he said,
"Yeah, he works out
at this Danver's in... "
Germantown or something?
Germantown or whatever it was,
the suburb.
And sure enough,
we went out there
and he was wearing
the little two-corner paper hat
and didn't seem
particularly glad to see us.
Well, we passed a note back,
you know, through the person
at the counter, you know.
And he came out looking
completely bamboozled like,
"You want to see me?"
Yeah.
Alex had invited us
to go stop into the studio
because he was having
a listening session.
He was making
an album that became
"Like Flies on Sherbet"
and we kept like
bugging Chris Bell,
who was really reluctant to go.
He really did not want to go.
And we finally bugged him
long enough
that he agreed to go.
And Chris Bell sat in the corner
and was really, really uptight
and Alex just
kind of said hi to him.
But we did wind up
staying there
right after he beat it
out of there...
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Chris left as quick as he could.
Yeah, it struck me
that those two probably
hadn't seen each other
in a long time
and it was perfectly cordial
but it wasn't
exactly comfortable
and so we were the enzyme there,
I guess.
Yeah.
And I felt a little bad
about it later
because I hate to have
thought that Chris
thought we just wanted,
you know, to get to Alex
because Alex was sort of the...
I mean, there was a little bit
of a Lennon/McCartney thing.
There was a magnetism
Alex always had
and I'm sure he felt that.
# Oh, little fool
# Oh, you know that
thing in school #
# Baby, you're my...
This is anti-music,
is that right?
This is
an anti-musical environment.
We'd like to do...
The Panther Burns
would like to do one more tune.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
But that may be the worst sound
I've ever heard
come out on television.
The loveliest pictures...
Thank you very much.
That's what you want though,
I'm assuming.
Well, the best of the worst.
You're really very bitter,
aren't you?
I'm not bitter about anything.
I get exhilarated
by this kind of music.
Why don't you introduce
the band members to us?
This band is Panther Burn.
And we have on synthesizer,
Eric Hill,
Ross Johnson on drums,
Rick Ivy on trumpet,
Axel Chitlin on lead guitar
and Gustavo Falco
on guitar and vocals.
We'd like to do one more tune
which is a rock and roll tango...
Gustavo, we're not quite
ready for it, okay?
Okay.
We're gonna take another
break here on "Straight Talk"
and we'll be to the studio
in just a moment.
There was Muddy Waters,
there was the Rolling Stones,
now there's...
The Panther Burns.
Oh, yeah, I mean,
we're obviously underground.
# Home of the brave,
land of the free #
It was art damage.
That was the concept to perform,
entertain, and to provoke.
I thought that part of rock
and roll was gone.
I didn't think really
you could do anything
that would truly be offensive
and sure enough, you could.
You still could.
I felt he had consciously
distanced himself from Big Star.
There was this
syndrome where,
when Alex is involved,
you create something
that's beautiful,
and then the next phase
is to destroy it.
So Alex told me that Chris Bell
had this crazy song
and told me he had mixed it
with Geoff Emerick
and I started hearing
something about it.
I don't know
if I got much of it.
It was mainly just Alex said,
"It's a great song,
you ought to put it out. "
Alex was just sitting here
and he said it goes like this,
"Every night I tell myself
I am the cosmos,
I am the wind but that don't
get you back again. "
And then Alex just,
like, laughed.
And he just thought
that was so much like Chris.
Like Chris had written
the perfect Chris Bell line.
"I Am the Cosmos"
would never have come out
without Alex wanting me
to put it out.
It was the song, you know.
It was
the perfect anthem to him.
It was a big deal to Chris.
# Every night I tell myself
# I am the cosmos
# I am the wind
# But that don't
get you back again #
# Just when I was
starting to feel okay #
# You're on the phone
# I never wanna be alone
I remember being at Shoe,
a few hours
after Cosmos was mixed,
and I thought "Oh, my God,
that's where Big Star went. "
This just picked up where
what I loved in "Radio City,"
and this just went... here.
It was somewhat overwhelming
to me, you know.
It was really beautiful,
but I was so distracted
by the musical aspect of it.
I didn't really get the lyrics
until probably
the second or third time
that I listened to it.
"I Am the Cosmos," that is
a brilliant song for you.
Somebody
who's just so full of ego
and so full of himself,
he just thinks
he can control the universe,
but nothing he can do
can get this one thing
that he's lost back to him.
# Want you too much
to say no, no #
# Yeah, yeah, yeah
I put it out on my label,
and sent out review copies,
and I always felt like
the world changed a little bit,
maybe it's 'cause the song
is called "I Am The Cosmos"
but never sold many copies.
But it made Chris Bell
very happy, apparently.
I never heard "I Am the Cosmos"
while he was alive.
So, you know, but I can
just speculate on that.
Go ahead.
Well, I mean, I can...
I don't really have much
I can say about that.
I mean,
I can, I can sense his pain.
That's song's painful for me
to listen to.
# I'd really
like to see you again #
# I really wanna
see you again #
# I'd really like to see
you again #
# I really wanna
see you again #
Records I like have
a lot of Ying and a lot of Yang.
You know,
I like for things to be,
you know, kind of,
the way batteries work.
I like the idea
that Cosmos would be
on one side and Sister
would be on the other.
# They say my love
for you ain't real #
# But you don't know
how real it feels #
Chris's voice,
he's pushing
against his limitations.
And sometimes he sounds like
he is one breath away
from evaporating
in front of my ears, you know.
# Your sister says
that I am no good #
# I'd reassure her if I could
Alex's genius happened
because he could so carelessly
throw things away.
And I can tell
that Alex is probably
just tossing his lines off,
but there's something
about the way
that the two of them
sing together on that take.
Half the time I listen to it,
I'm reduced to tears.
# Plans fail every day
# I would
want to hear you say #
# Your love won't be leaving
# Your eyes ain't deceiving
# Fears will soon fade away
# Smile now, don't be afraid
# All I want to do is to
spend some time with you #
# So I can hold you,
hold you #
I used to have this terrible
premonition that Chris
would never grow old,
because he had nowhere to go,
you know.
He had no way out
and I just couldn't project him
into growing to the age
I am now
because he had just no way
to survive into the future.
It was like a shooting star.
It was just something that was...
It had its time
and it was gonna... out.
But sure as hell didn't
make it any easier
when it happened.
# spend some time with you
# So I can hold you
We would just talk.
And it was usually me saying
"Now don't worry about this"
or "Why don't you go
in this direction
and do something,"
like I said, "more normal. "
Just because I just saw him
frustrated and unhappy,
I felt like.
And we'd have some conversations
about religion.
And I know y'all did too.
I mean, Christopher
was a very spiritual person
and talking to me
about going to heaven.
And saying
"By the grace of God,
that's the only way
you go to heaven. "
The night that Chris died,
I was in bed.
All of a sudden,
I just sat bolt
upright in the bed.
I had this overwhelming feeling
that somebody was in the room.
You know,
I expected to encounter
a burglar or something.
And there was nobody
in there at all.
And, you know,
I looked over at the clock
and as I recall it was about
1:30 or 1:35
which was
the exact time of Chris's crash.
And I've never had anything
like that happen
in my life before or since.
I feel almost guilty
sometimes talking about
the music part of it,
because it wasn't my thing.
I can't help it.
I kind of resent it,
'cause it makes me sad.
I mean,
I'm happy for him, but I...
You rather have him
instead of having
the music out there,
I know, sure.
I had heard
one night on the radio,
somebody
talking about all of these
different Rock and Roll people,
who had died at the age of 27.
And, you know,
there was Hendrix I believe,
there was Joplin.
You know, just a long string
of people that died at 27
and they included
Chris Bell of Big Star.
You know, it's like he just
kind of walked into a template
for a Rock and Roll
legend in a lot of ways.
If you look at what happened
with the Big Star records
in 1976,
I would have told you
nothing will ever happen
further about it.
The first rumblings
that we heard
that something was up
and that there was this
cult following building,
were not coming
from the United States.
They were coming
from the UK and Europe.
# We did last week
# Not a thing to do
# But talk to you
I spent some time
in London in 1978,
I'd pick up a Melody Maker,
or a New Musical Express,
and there would invariably be
something about Big Star...
whether it was just
a mention of Alex,
or whether it was a band
in an album review
and they compared them
to Big Star,
or whether it was
somebody back in the kind of,
classifieds looking
for someplace
to buy a Big Star album.
Then I had somebody
call me up and say
"Did you know
that EMI had leased
"#1 Record" and "Radio City"
and that they had
put it out in England
as a double date for one.
Particularly in Scotland,
it's like a nuclear bomb hit.
And, you know,
it was such an influential band.
I was sort of hanging out
with the guys
from Primal Scream
and Alan McGhee
and people
from the Glasgow Scene.
They were all fans
of the Big Star albums.
I think kind of
in the '90s, it's like,
it was established
that Big Star were great.
There'd be most kind of bands
like some would say,
"You never heard of Big Star?"
And by then,
you've heard like 20 records
that are actually
influenced by Big Star.
Uh, this next song is by
mutual favorite band
of ours, Big Star.
It's cult here
and all around the world,
you know, some people have
never heard of Cheap Trick.
They don't even know it's us.
They just know
it's a great song.
When we do play
"In the Streets,"
it's a crowd pleaser.
Yeah, I'm not sure about
when I felt like there was
a Big Star resurgence,
but it might have
just been like
when maybe the REM guys
like talked about them.
It seems like
maybe Pete Buck
was listening to them
or something.
I mean,
he was a real record guy.
You know,
and then it seems like
you started hearing
Paul Westerberg talk about them.
Alex was opening
for the Replacements
and I went over to Alex,
I said, "Look, Paul loves you. "
I said "Please go back
and introduce yourself to him. "
And as it wound up,
Alex produced a demo
that got them signed to Sire.
We want people to know
who Alex is.
Who don't...
never heard of Big Star.
And it's our way of like,
you know,
he doesn't need our help.
He doesn't want our help,
but damn it,
he's gonna get it,
whether he likes it or not.
He was always totally
grumpy about his past
and that which is in a way
to his credit.
I mean, in some ways
I got tired of hearing him
talk about
how terrible Big Star was.
I'm like, "No they weren't.
Shut up. "
You know, isn't it long enough
now that you can sort of,
like, recognize that
a lot of us like this stuff,
even if we are not totally
cool or whatever, you know.
But I can also
really appreciate the fact
that he's really got
that sort of burning artistic,
unsettled thing in his soul
that really made him mean it.
I used
to live up-river in Memphis.
And, uh, Memphis has got...
Well, it hasn't
got a lot of the things
that New Orleans has.
I feel a lot freer here.
You know,
he made his own way
and escaped
his many incarnations,
which I also find
really fascinating.
You know, he came out
of the Box Tops and,
you know,
he could have been
that gravel-voiced singer
forever,
but he made a new start.
For years and years he toured
with like a rhythm section and,
you know, playing Volare.
Volare.
I know these are complex things
with people,
but I didn't think it served him
that well to always be
turning his back
on some of the stuff.
And in his attitude
towards his own career,
I think there was a certain
kind of self destructiveness,
on that level.
# I love the walking dead
# No, I really do
I think he went
through an evolution,
to get to
where he wanted to be.
It isn't necessarily
where everybody
wanted him to stay.
I think that people
would rather have him
still be in the Box Tops,
and people would rather
have him still be in Big Star.
But, you know,
he was a real musician
and a real artist.
Can you like sign it?
- No.
- Thanks, man.
You keep buying
and I'll keep signing.
Alex was always difficult.
Is that at TGI Fridays?
Yes.
For instance, when he reformed
Big Star in '93,
anyone that knew him was shocked
that he did that
because people asked him to.
And if you ask
Alex to do something,
you can bet he's gonna say,
you know, no.
Um, I thought it was a hoax.
They'll be playing
tomorrow night
at the House of Blues
right here in LA,
please welcome Big Star.
# Hanging out
# Down the street
When Big Star reformed
I felt like that was
a gratifying payback
to get in touch with the many,
many, many thousands of people
that were touched by the music,
that were invisible to them.
You know, who were
finding Big Star records
and CDs in little record shops.
Good, Jody.
Not bad. Not bad.
I am so grateful
that Jody is on the planet.
In some ways, you know,
I think he carries the heart
and soul of what we love
about Big Star.
I think he was always
true to something
that was true to him.
It was essential to him.
Being in the band with
Alex and Jon and Ken...
Wow, I've got this
amazing seat
to these great performances
by the three of them.
So it's more about
the three of them
and I'm kind of
a spectator back there.
There's such tremendous joy
in playing with Alex.
You know, there would be
this smile on his face that...
maybe was
a spontaneous smile
and maybe he realized
that he was smiling
and so maybe he stopped.
But...
I've never known
Alex to do anything
he didn't like to do,
so he must have
liked playing
and performing on stage
and playing that music.
The gentleman is recognized
for one minute.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Today I come before you
with a heavy heart
for a friend of mine
and a great friend of music
in the world,
in particular from my hometown
of Memphis, Tennessee
passed away last night,
Alex Chilton.
Alex Chilton at age 16
had a Number 1 hit with
a group called the Box Tops,
a song called "The Letter"
then he had a group
called Big Star.
Big Star wasn't well-known,
they did three albums,
but Rolling stone
put all three albums
in the Top 500 albums
ever produced in America.
He was supposed to play
at South by Southwest
this weekend in Austin.
They are mourning him.
He is an embodiment
of Memphis music,
hard, different, independent,
brilliant, beautiful.
We're lucky
he came our way.
You know, obviously
this has been a difficult thing
and I'll just say, you know,
after the news on Wednesday
about Alex's passing,
my instinct was we'll probably
cancel everything
and that was sort of
the initial impulse,
but after talking
with Jody it seemed like,
you know, the best thing to do
was to play and so anyway,
just tell a little bit
about the show,
just so folks know...
Well, a lot of people
have agreed to come.
You know,
we'll play some of the stuff
we always sang,
but, I mean, everybody...
We've got like Evan Dando,
John Doe, Chris Stamey,
I think we're going to talk
Andy into getting up
and playing on a song,
uh, the Watson Twins,
Sondre Lerche...
Mike Mills.
# Lord, I've been trying
# To be what I should
# Lord, I've been trying
I guess REM
was just getting started.
I mean, I was in college still
and, you know, trying
to sort out all the things
you're trying
to sort out in college.
We were just
forming our band...
and just beginning
to write songs
and trying to figure out
how to go about that
and Big Star was always
a benchmark for me, all my life.
If I could ever make a record
as good
as any of the Big Star stuff,
that's kind of how I felt
I would be successful.
# Lord, I've been trying
They have this legendary status
among musicians, for sure.
When people say Big Star,
it's not an era thing,
it's a band thing.
They're alone,
they're Big Star.
That's one of those bands
like where you go, Big Star.
You don't go,
Big Star and that ilk.
I've listened to his records
on many, many occasions,
but never had to sing them.
You can see that a lot of time
was spent making those records.
You know, they are
a thing of beauty.
It's difficult
to find a weak moment,
there aren't any.
# Won't you let me walk
you home from school? #
It all makes perfect sense now,
when the artist
is in the shadows.
That's the stuff that people
actually want to go and hear.
And Big Star
has joined that club.
They have only made
these three records
and there's a different line up
with each album
and a different
kind of approach.
The thing that holds
the band together,
I suppose, is trying to express
them in melancholy
and something exuberant,
is kind of two extremes.
# A cool jerk
# Oh, I want you
# Like a kangaroo
Well, there's
two separate dreams
have always been in my head.
There was a dream
of really putting out
the best record you could,
and it was just like you wanted
to versus some other dream
which would be being
commercially
successful about it.
I thought about
the former dream
a lot more than I ever thought
about the other dream.
# I see sadness in your eyes
"It has been said that art
should create the sense
that time has stopped.
Big Star transcended
normal escapist pop convention
by creating music
that somehow froze moments
that were concurrently vibrant
and yet startlingly brilliant,
and yet oddly spent. "
It was after
my mother died in this home,
my brother-in-law
noticed some people
in the front yard
taking pictures of the house.
They said,
"We're from New York
and we're fans of Chris Bell. "
That knocked us all out.
Having a very personal
relationship to a band
and especially if the band
doesn't become big commercially.
They were
trying to do something.
They were shooting
for the moon.
There's a certain kind of purity
in terms of what the music
was going to sound like.
It's more an idea
I think on some levels.
It was too individual.
It was too Memphis.
It was unrecoupable
and has never really recouped,
but nevertheless,
it changed music.
They were there waiting like
a little jewel in the earth,
for me to dig them out
and to find them
and to appreciate them
retrospectively.
That to me is a great gift
of recorded music.
My personal viewpoint
on Big Star story
is pain transformed
into beauty.
Everybody suffered,
everybody feels pain,
not everybody turns that
into that kind of art.
It really harkened back to real,
authentic pain,
real authentic loneliness.
Things that would
become alternative music
20 years later.
I'm not sure
where we belonged
and maybe that's why
I wasn't so surprised
when Big Star wasn't
commercially successful.
But it seems to belong now.
# September gurls do so much
# I was your butch
and you were touched #
# I loved you,
well, never mind #
# I've been crying
all the time #
# December boys got it bad
# December boys
got it bad #
# September gurls
I don't know why #
# How can I deny
what's inside #
# Even though I keep away
# Maybe we'll love
all our days #
# December boys got it bad
# December boys
got it bad #
# When I get to bed
late at night #
# That's the time
she makes things right #
# Ooh, when
she makes love to me #
# At nighttime I go out
and see the people #
# Air goes cool
and hurryin' on my way #
# And dressin' so sweet,
all the people to see #
# They're lookin' at me,
all the people to see #
# And when I set
my eyes on you #
# You look like a kitty
# And when you're in the moon
# Oh, you look so pretty
# Caught a glance
in your eyes #
# And fell through the skies
# Glance in your eyes
# And fell through the skies
# I'm walkin' down
the freezin' street #
# Scarf goes out behind
# You said, "Get them away
# Please don't say a word"
# Get me out of here,
get me out of here #
# I hate it here,
get me out of here #
# At nighttime I go out
and see the people #
# Air goes cool
and hurryin' on my way #
# A glance in your eyes
# And fell through the skies
# A glance in your eyes
and fell through the skies #