Meanwhile... I'm Still Thinking » Big Star

Remembering Alex Chilton, Part 4

sfaubert — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:31:44 +0000

This’ll be the last one…

Alex Chilton’s death is a difficult one to get a handle on. Grief takes on a life of its own, and sometimes you really don’t know what it is you’re grieving about.

In the 70s Alex’s music re-wired my mind in ways that no other artist did at the time – at first the songs were bright and shiny, but with words that conveyed yearning and confusion. Later on the music became messy and confused and the words, desperate. It was exactly like real life, and maybe the reason this hits some of us so hard is that we watched this guy get knocked to the mat over and over and still manage to get back up and keep going.

It just seems that (like all of us) he deserved to someday be old and happy, and he didn’t make it to the finish line because his body gave out on him. His artist life reflected our private lives in so many ways, and it’s a little scary to think that we can have so many ups, downs, struggles and successes, loves, hopes, satisfactions… and then nothing.

He already wrote about the nothing part, so in a way I guess he’s prepared us a little for that, too.

My kids have “I’m In Love With A Girl” on their iPods (thanks, House) and can sing along to “In The Street”, and we will have an Alex Chilton appreciation night soon – wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if another generation got re-wired the same way we were.

Hold on

Remembering Alex Chilton, Part 3

sfaubert — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:41:17 +0000

If you ever got to see Alex Chilton perform, chances are pretty good that you saw him do something wacky.

A couple that I was there for:

During a Panther Burns show at the Peppermint Lounge in NY I watched him spend a whole song trying to take his jacket off without undoing his guitar strap. The jacket won that particular battle.

At Maxwell’s in Hoboken he was doing a version of the Shangri-Las “Past, Present and Future” and just when he said “Shall we Dance” and the band crescendoed he popped a string on his guitar, screamed “Awwww SHIT!” and (if I remember correctly) stopped the song. After changing the string he and the band started back up at exactly the point in the song that they had left off.

For wack-factor nothing will ever top his performance at a club in Brooklyn in the early 80s, and I hesitate to even write about it because it probably represents a low point in his career. The fact that he was ultimately able to rise from these ashes where so many before (and after) couldn’t makes this a testimonial to his intelligence and resilience.

The show was going to be about a block from where I was living, and so I called everybody I knew telling them that they had to see this guy. I probably got around 25 or so people rounded up – my sister came from Malone, my cousins from Connecticut, and lots of friends from Brooklyn and New York showed.

It looked bad right from the start – when we got there Alex wasn’t backstage somewhere, but slumped in a wooden chair on the stage wearing an old smoking jacket and dark glasses. For the half hour or so before the show actually started he just sat there rummaging through the pockets of his jacket looking for something (a cigarette? guitar pick? matches? a note?) he never found. My ex-girlfriend Joan wondered what was going on and actually went up there to talk with him but he was unable or unwilling to engage in any way.

The band finally walked out and it was a good one: Jim Duckworth on guitar and the amazing Jim Sclavunos on drums. They launched into “Bertha Lou”, Alex got out of his chair, walked over to the mic (no guitar) and started singing.

This was not the Alex Chilton I’d seen so many times before. There was no interaction with the audience or with the band – it was just some shell of a guy trying to get through a night of rockabilly covers without doing too much damage, and by the end of the show the club had emptied except for the people that I had brought and about a dozen others.

For good or for ill, those of us that were left called for an encore and I guess we got one. Alex went over to Duckworth, said “Gimme that,” grabbed the guitar and put it on. Without so much as a glance at the band he started playing “The Letter”. As soon as the rest of the band had caught up with him (“Anyway” at the end of the first chorus) he stopped, dropped the guitar on the floor and walked off stage.

As theater it was one of the most incredible shows I’ve ever seen but it was very sad, confusing and painful to watch. My sister, cousins and friends knew that they had just been through something, but weren’t sure what and didn’t want to talk about it. My cousin Walter though, would ultimately get every album he could get his hands on that was connected with Chilton in any way – Alex at 10% was still compelling enough through the haze to win over at least one new fan.

I’d see Alex again a few years later – clean, coherent, funny, playing guitar and dancing (the Bangkok Walk!) – so obviously this story has a happy ending of sorts.

Remembering Alex Chilton, Part 2

sfaubert — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:36:00 +0000

Brrrrrriiinngg

“Hello?”

“Hey Shane, it’s Joan. Guess what? I just met Alex Chilton!”

“Wow, I can’t believe it! What did you talk about?”

“Nothing much, but he asked me out.”

“Well, you gotta go.”

“You’d be OK with it?”

“Absolutely! It’s Alex Chilton!”

“Well I already said yes.”

“Oh.”

So my girlfriend went out with Alex Chilton. She didn’t have much to say about it afterward except that he was a really nice, funny and sincere guy who was quite sure that it mattered that she was born in September. They never went out again, so I guess the December Boys thing must have been tough to shake on a first date.

Remembering Alex Chilton, Part 1

sfaubert — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:51:51 +0000

Back in 1977 I went to see Alex Chilton at CBGB in New York. The band at the time included Chris Stamey and a drummer (can’t remember who it was) and Alex walked on stage with a fanzine in his hand that said “Big Star” on the front cover. He then played a wonderful set that included “My Rival”, “Shakin’ The World” and (I think) The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”, which Stamey seemed to not want to do. After the show I got up the nerve to ask him if he needed or wanted a keyboard player in his band and he said he’d give me a call, which he did.

Alex was really friendly and talkative when we spoke – he had a Brian Eno record playing in the background, and he talked a lot about astrology, watching the sun rise (not the song, I don’t think) and the Beach Boys. When he asked me what my style of playing was I told him the first thing that came into my head, which was “just like the piano on ‘Morpha Too’!”, which wasn’t a lie, but probably wasn’t the smartest answer I could’ve come up with.

For his band he said he wanted someone that had a Farfisa organ, at which point I made another mistake and told him I didn’t have one but that I’d be sure to go and get one. He said he’d give me a call when he was ready to audition keyboard players and we said goodbye.

I went out that weekend to a music store on Long Island and bought a really (really!) used Farfisa Professional, but the call to audition never came (I wouldn’t have called me back either) and the next time I saw Alex’s band he had added Fran Kowalski on organ.

The set that night included “Chopsticks.” It was kinda great and kinda horrifying, but it hurt to watch because I so wanted to be the guy on stage, even if it meant playing “Chopsticks.”

A blown opportunity for sure, but the silver lining to that particular cloud was the Farfisa – an instrument that lasted me through two bands and is still functional despite missing knobs, sticking keys and being held together by yards of duct tape.

It was just a 20 minute phone conversation, but Alex Chilton somehow managed to be kind enough and influential enough to change the musician part of me for good.

Goodbye Alex Chilton

sfaubert — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:53:51 +0000

Alex Chilton died yesterday, March 17th, 2010.

This is a tough one. Condolences to family and friends everywhere.

Big Star-Third/Sister Lovers

sfaubert — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:00:17 +0000

Keepers:

Kizza Me
Thank You Friends
Jesus Christ
Femme Fatale
O, Dana
Holocaust
Kangaroo
Stroke It Noel
For You
Nightime
Take Care

Third/Sister Lovers

Big Star-Radio City

sfaubert — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:00:11 +0000

Keepers:

O My Soul
Way Out West
You Get What You Deserve
Mod Lang
Back Of A Car
Daisy Glaze
She’s A Mover
September Gurls
I’m In Love With A Girl

#1 Record/Radio City

Will It Go Round In Circles

sfaubert — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:19:31 +0000

After my first year of college I took my first road trip without my parents or sister – it was a short one (Malone to Utica) and it was just me and my life-long swimming hole friend Gary. Once we got there, we found a college dorm with a couple of couches we could sleep on in the lounge and then went out on the town. Gary had one place that he absolutely HAD to show me, and that was a strip bar called (this is for real) the Hotsy Totsy Club.

Up until the night I walked into that bar, my only experience with that sort of thing was decidedly 2D, and as it turns out I was ill-prepared for actually seeing these girls in person and in motion. Gary and I were at a front table to the left of the stage, but we could’ve sat anywhere – there were only two other people in the place. When one of the dancers came out and started twirling her tassels (first to the left, then to the right and then in opposite directions) to Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round In Circles” I knew it was time to leave before any other songs got associated with images I didn’t particularly want to remember. Gary must’ve seen the look on my face, and was kind enough to take me to a more familiar setting – a club where girls with their clothes on generally say no.

The next day we went to a record store and I bought Big Star’s “#1 Record” and George Harrison’s “Living In The Material World” – one on the basis of a review in Rolling Stone magazine and the other because, well… it was by a Beatle. I listened to them both as soon as I got home. I put on Big Star first, because I always like to save what I think will be the best for last, and was just blown away – it was poppy, but strange, messy and unpredictable. It shimmered, tried its best to be happy (and failed) and forced me to listen again. George Harrison didn’t have a chance after that, and the dull post-Spector thud that would become his signature sound just couldn’t cut through the crystal impression that Big Star had left on me.

First impressions are important. First road trip? Not bad, but I’ve never really looked forward to one since. First visit to a strip club? Awful, and although my moral sense isn’t exactly pristine I’ve never gone into a place like that again. “Will It Go Round In Circles” and tassels will forever be linked in my mind, and whenever I think I want to hear “Give Me Love” I’ll wind up playing “Ballad of El Goodo” instead.

Big Star-#1 Record

sfaubert — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:00:51 +0000

Keepers:

Feel
The Ballad Of El Goodo
In The Street
Thirteen
The India Song
When My Baby’s Beside Me
Watch The Sunrise

#1 Record/Radio City