Big Star RADIO CITY: New Book

Oh, man, I can't wait for this. Thanks for sharing that Bruce. Do you cover the Radio City outtakes? I'm keen to know what Knoxville really is..

 

Thank you for that!!!

 

According to the Ardent archivists, there are no known outtakes of RC. When they had enough for a record, that was it. The two Alex solo songs at the end pushed the album above the respectable 32 minute mark.

Knoxville is actually Daisy Glaze. Just the working title for the song. So the track list you see in the Javonovic book for Knoxville is really for Daisy.

There's another speculated outtake called Out of Gas Again (the track sheet even has a star on it that they used for Big Star sheets). That's a demo of a song by Ardent staff producer Joe Hardy, most likely with Alex and Andy on the recording. It's an amiable sort of country rock tune. Definitely not a Big Star tune.

 

Ah, thanks for that Bruce. So that instrumental backing track on the What's Going Ahn boot must date from the #1 Record sessions then?

 

Great stuff Bruce. No problem is mixing me with Steve. That happens often.

I'm with the others in being anxious for this book. Amazon hasn't gotten copies yet. Anyone know of a retailer who has them?

 

It's so cool to have the book's author chiming in. Great stuff. Thanks Bruce.

 

Guess so.

It's such a fun album, too ...

 

Amazon sent me an email last night updating the delivery estimate to May 13. So hopefully next week.

 

The author here checking in:

Book is now in stock at Amazon and will ship. Thanks to all for your patience.

As you might guess, I really love to talk about his topic so feel free to post questions etc. Also, as noted in an earlier post, I have a blog running with additional material and photos.

Sam Berger just checked in with me in a post here. He was a good friend of Bill Poczik who'll you get to meet in the first pages of the book (recommended that I listen to Radio City) and then later on (he played a pivotal role in how I ended up playing with Alex Chilton in 1979). Bill sadly passed away a few years back but he was really a driving force behind rock and roll in Buffalo, sort of like Jeep Holland was in Detroit. Sam and I spent a few wild nights in a studio in Boston in 1981 jamming out on some tunes that included Rock Hard from from Flies On Sherbert.

Keep those cards and letters coming!

 

Bruce...Good (and wild) times they were. How great to hear that you got Bill in the book. He would really dig that.

 

Forgot the answer Chris M's question regarding the timing of What's Going Ahn:

The best guess (and there was a lot of guesstimating going on due to the lack of session records at Ardent) and conflicting memories is that WGAhn was recorded after the formal sessions for #1 and before the formal sessions for Radio City – when the band was in unofficial limbo more or less.

I spent a fair amount of time in the book trying to get to the bottom of whether or not the band actually broke up after Chris Bell left. The consensus was that they didn't break up, they just weren't doing much. The environment was such that people in the Ardent orbit were always experimenting and doing different projects without any long term plan (the "midnight recording program" as John Fry calls it that yielded She's a Mover and Mod Lang). My feeling is that Alex had written What's Going Ahn and had the arrangement laid out and one day when the studio was set up and John Fry was available they decided to give it a go and see how it turned out. You can do those sort of things when you own the studio.

The infamous Rock Writers Convention was pivotal in kick-starting Radio City but no one recalls a moment when the band had actually called it quits. They had just scattered a bit in the aftermath of #1 and the departure of Chris. John King dreamed up the convention as a way to give the band a reason to move forward and Alex recalls a specific conversation with King (Ardent promo man) where he agreed to get on board for what became RCity.

 

I'm glad this book has been published--I've been awaiting its appearance for a while. I feared that the title had fallen into the same void that sucked in the promised 33 and 1/3 titles on London Calling and Tusk.

I'll definitely pick up a copy!

 

I've had a few questions / concerns as to whether or not the book wanders far off topic or is more about the author than the record / artist in question. Rest assured...if youre a Big Star fan, there's no filler. And all the material comes from interviews I conducted, research I did first hand with the Ardent archives, or my own experience playing with Alex. I only used previous works on the topic as sort of a baseline to work from but I started fresh and verified everything in the book as best as I could.

 

This sounds great, Bruce. I look forward to reading your book. There's nothing necessarily wrong with going off topic, as some of the 33 1/3 books do. It's that some handle it well, and others don't. It sounds like your book is the kind of background information that Big Star fans have been waiting for though.

 

You're absolutely right that going off topic can work – as long as it stays interesting and somehow connected to the album.

And perhaps my favorite book in the series is the one about Music From Big Pink. For those of you who haven't read it, it's actually a novella told from the point of view of a Canadian kid who goes to college in NYC and then drifts up to Woodstock and ends up being a low level dealer in The Band's orbit. I thought that it was absolutely brilliant. I've visited Big Pink and I thought the book really took me inside it.

The bestselling book in the series is the one about the Neutral Milk Hotel record. I enjoyed the book because to paraphrase the Kinks, it gives the people what they want. New information or a fresh perspective about a record they love.

 

I'm very surprised that the title on Neutral Milk Hotel is the biggest seller. I would have thought that The Beatles Let it Be would have been more popular. But it's because of the former that I bought In an Aeroplane.

 

I think that a part of the equation is how much more info is out there about the band or album in question. Beatles = lots of material. NMHotel = not much at all. So a 33 1/3 title was really a significant contribution to coverage of the album. I also bought the NMHotel album because of the book.

 

I picked the book up a local CD shop on Friday, just in time for airplane reading. It's FANTASTIC!! So detailed that I had reread spots just to understand all of the studio banter. The quotes from the band do kind of repeat the points but I'd rather have that than a lot of editing that makes them seem too formal. Having Chilton in there is so amazing - he's like a human Rosetta Stone for the band even if he does contradict himself and the others a little. He claims to not really like Radio City all that much but he also seems to realize its importance to bands that came later. Such an important character in music, finally captured in the Big Star context!!

But Bruce did such a fantastic job of pulling it all together. It could have easily been disjointed and messy but it hangs together extremely well. And the personal experiences that kick off and end the book frame the topic perfectly. In fact, while they're "personal" in nature they never come off as "hey look at me, I'm going to write about myself in this book." The sections at the end that cover working with Chilton give tremendous insight into his working style.

Lots of revelations in the book - like I said, some maybe slightly contradictory (or maybe the word is "inconsistent") but that only adds to the mystique of the band. Which brings me to the best thing: that it never gives away so much information that the mystique is lifted from the band. Knowing that there is still some respect among the members, especially Chilton's respect for his Big Star band mates, is good. I would have been disappointed if Big Star was ever dismissed by the band members as haphazard or some sort of accident. They come off as a well thought out and cohesive unit (even if Chilton did record two songs with other guys).

My favorite part of the book is when Chilton ponders the possibility that Chris Bell stole the original mono recordings master tape. "That would be just like him." That is a wonderful and telling comment given the otherwise heavy amount of reverence given back and forth between the band and David Bell.

I do have some negative points but nothing to do with the writing or the flow of the book... the proof reading (I imagine these things are done on a low budget) is a minor complaint. But what in the heck were the layout people thinking by not making full page photos of the two Rock Critic convention live shots. I can't think of any in action photos of the band (maybe my memory is hazy) but here you have two pivotal photos, dead center on the topic of the book and those photos are microscopic!!! Arrrgggg!!!

Lastly and to your question near the end of the book... you can't change the running order of Radio City. Any change makes that album seem like a garden variety rock album. I find it interesting that Chilton presumes that the running order was chronological but its so unlike a lot of albums with two sparse songs ending it. I listened to it through yesterday and it can't be changed.

Give the book an A. Can't say enough good about it and just having some new info about Big Star is like mana. Great job Bruce!!!

 

Thanks Mark! Really appreciate the thoughts.

I did think it was best to leave in the contradictory remarks rather then make a judgement as to who was really right. I mean, I was thousands of miles away when this all happened! I wanted the book to have the vibe that everyone was sitting around the table talking about the album and you the reader are a fly on the wall. It would be natural to have people remember things differently. Heck, when I get together with my old bandmates from that time period, our memories don't match up either. But hopefully you hear the voices of those involved in your head when you're reading the book. (There were a few times when one band member remembered something entirely different from all of the others and in those instances, I did make a judgement call as to what actually happened.)

There's a lot of good will amongst the band members and participants and much reverence for Big Star (Richard Rosebrough just wrote me "I am proud of my part"). They are all true gentlemen and I felt that it was a privilege just to get to know them a bit. When you walk into Ardent Studios you readily sense that despite all the big smash hits recorded there, Big Star will always be the heart and soul of Ardent.

Unless some hidden treasure trove of Big Star archives comes to light, there's always going to be an air of mystery around the band and I think that's a good thing.

As far as the proof-reading...not my strong-suit. You go over and over and over the pages and still some things get by you. Annoying to say the least. There were indeed outside copy-editors but ultimately the responsibility falls on me and as a I told John Fry, I'd almost rather get a bad review in Mojo (almost, mind you) than have a few careless errors. It's kind of like doing a recording and being so focused on how the track hangs together overall that you miss a really loud squeek on the high-hat. Yikes!

 

About those two photos from the Rock Writers Convention...they're actually lifted from a contact sheet and were pretty fuzzy at that. There were no prints or negatives available. The photographer was Ronni Hoffman who was Richard Meltzer's girlfriend at the time. There were also some shots of Meltzer making his infamous intro. There were a few pictures of Alex at Max's from the same gig as the Andy Hummel photo but those have been seen elsewhere and I was really aiming to have fresh content.

 

I guess I'm putting the proof reading down to the publisher Bruce. I'm a terrible proof reader but everyone knows that the writer can do their own job on that. It's really not a big deal though.

Also, I did figure that the photos are small to begin with but scanning can get them bigger and I think they deserved their own page. But then again I assume that the series is not photo oriented to begin with so its not something that changes my opinion on your wonderful book.

You captured that roundtable discussion format perfectly and its most fun when two people see something differently. I love the style but its hard to do... I'm jealous of your ability keep that flow. A real talent.

It's interesting for me in that Radio City is normally my least favorite of the three albums (#3 among 3 of my favorite records of all time mind you). As always happens a book or a piece of writing elevates the music for me. Still think #1 Record is a stronger overall album but the book got me to see that Radio City is really more interesting.

 

Just heard from Ardent...Big Star box set slated for September 15th. I'll pass along details when they become available.

 

This is great news--such a set is WAY overdue.

 

Sweet! Finished your book yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. So cool to have Alex discussing this period at length. I think you knocked it out the park.

I was pleasently surprised to read that the Radio City era band covered not only covered Hot Burrito #2 but there is a tape of it. Nice to have the Knoxville mystery cleared up once and for all.

Is the 4 song 'mono' demo Got Kinda Lost, There Was a Light, the unheard O My Soul demo and the version of Back Of a Car that is on Thank You Friends? Really looking forward to hearing that version of O My Soul as well as the first version recorded during the Radio City sessions proper.

 

Chris, I thought they said that the mono tape was lost and that the songs were rerecorded?