Count me as another big fan.
I came to Big Star through another criminally unknown band, The Replacements. Their song “Alex Chilton” from the album Pleased to Meet Me caused me to do some research to find out just who the hell Alex Chilton and Big Star were. Thankfully, back in the 1980s Niagara Falls had an excellent indie record store called Poptones whose perpetually stoned owner, Frank, was a walking encyclopaedia of pop, punk and underground music with excellent contacts in the industry.
The parallels between the two bands are interesting. Neither band were able to achieve a mainstream breakthrough, although they both wrote excellent, incredibly catchy music. However, they seem to have directly influenced a huge number of musicians, many of whom went on to far greater wealth and fame.
Personally, I still prefer Paul Westerberg’s stuff to Alex Chilton’s but it’s a very, very close race.
Big Star got a lot of coverage in the UK music press about ten years back via teenage fanclub, a decent Scottish band that were big favourites with Melody Maker and NME. Apparently the Big Star influence was overwhelming (not listened to a Big Star album mesel), I remember a review of the Teenage Fanclub album ‘bandwagonesque’ saying something like ‘you’ve made a great Big Star record, lads; now go away and make a great teenage fanclub record’. Anyway, it seemed to resurrect the reputation of Big Star with UK music fans a little bit, interviews with Alex Chilton started to appear and indie clubs at the time threw out the odd Big Star track.
Oh yeah. I really, really like Teenage Fanclub, but the Big Star influence on bandwagonesque at times was, as you say, overwhelming. If you’re going to be heavily influenced by something, however, you can do a whole lot worse.
Me too, but if he wants a village to be raped and pillaged he’s going to have to ask someone else.
I think Third is just as brilliant as Radio City, if not more so. #1 Record is good too, but miles behind the others.
I also really like I Am the Cosmos.
I never travel far
Without a little Big Star.
–the 'Mats.
[sub]Bastard. I start a Laura Nyro thread and it immediately sinks. You do Big Star and there’s already 29 replies.[/sub]
Yep, count me in, been a fan for many decade moons. I think Alex Chilton brought a really singular attitude to pop music of the time of Big Star; the lonely misfit art guy, maybe a rudimentary Slacker. He wrote pop songs, was pretty angsty,but sharp, a nice shading. He still holds up with that now, and I always love the surprise of seein’ which Chilton will be onstage. In some past shows, back in the 80’s he could be right on time musically, but rather aloof to the crowd. When at home in Memphis or New Orleans, he was just havin’ a lot more fun.
My favorite Chilton performance was at an opening for the Easley Recording Studios new building, in Memphy. He sang, solo, this version of “People Who Need People” that was just so howling and awful that it was great.
Chris Bell, well, what would he have become if that auto wreck hadn’t claimed him?He really had a true sweet pained open heart, and could translate that into song. “I Am The Cosmos” is one of my Desert Island discs. “You and Your Sister” is an incredibly beautiful aching song.
Some tangents with that group of Memphis musicians later: Chilton produced some great recordings of The Cramps, and there’s a lot of exchange with Tav Falco and Panther Burns, then, auxillary gal band The Hellcats, and The Country Rockers. You could also spin off to Jim Dickinson’s Mud Boy and the Neutrons, his son’s Luther and Cody’s Mississippi Allstars, NOLA band The Iguanas, and then, a whole heaping bunch of Memphis and North Mississippi blues musicians that inspired them all.
Damn, I’m homesick now.