I heard so much about Chilton going totally off the rails after Big Star, how his solo albums were mess after ramshackle mess, how he gave up writing songs worth listening to. Now that I finally managed to track down his solo music, I don't get those criticisms at all. Without a doubt, the early albums are, uh, rough around the edges, but the music and attitude aren't that far removed from what we was doing on Third, an album which I consider to be an artistic triumph. I may wish that he wrote a thousand more songs like "Thirteen" or "O My Soul," but he didn't, and griping about what didn't happen is pointless. I am glad he was able to spend the rest of his career doing whatever he wanted because he deserved nothing less.
I don't have a lot of post-Sister Lovers Chilton, just A Man Called Destruction and the recent From Memphis to New Orleans compilation. I like it all a lot, partly because I think my tastes are somewhat similar to Alex's. Some of the covers are wonderful ("Sick and Tired," "Make a Little Love," "Thank You John") and once in a while he could still come through with a biting original ("No Sex," "Guantanamerika," "Thing for You", "Don't Know Anymore"). So there's lots of worthwhile music there, and it generally has an attractive mellow humorous atmosphere that's very different from Big Star. But I think anyone who enjoys the latter should find lots to enjoy in Alex's later solo stuff.
Has anyone ever been broken by the music industry as bad as Alex Chilton? After Big Star Alex was on a huge death trip, wandering back and forth from Memphis to New York and recording whenever/wherever he felt like it. A lot of work has been done by Omnivore in the years since his death trying to catalogue every instance of him hitting a studio with his buddies. Of the stuff released during his lifetime, Bach's Bottom is a fascinating listen though I think calling it a good record is stretching it. Its various releases have been complicated by 1) the fact that it was a drunken studio lark with only the vaguest pretenses of being a legitimate release 2) Alex fell out with producer/bankroller Jon Tiven and may/may not have tried to kill him, 3) Tiven took his revenge years later by overdubbing terrible metal guitar over a bunch of the tracks for the CD release and 4) like most recovering addicts would, Alex seemed disturbed by the whole project and had no real interest in revisiting it other than writing some begrudging liner notes. Trying to find the "legit" Bach's Bottom takes some legwork and you're better of getting the Singer Not the Song EP as it collects the best of the sessions, anyway. Like Flies on Sherbert is Death Trip Alex allowed to have his head in the studio to a degree even more than on Bach's Bottom, with more of the same results. He at least seemed to be more deliberately going for a teenaged, amateurish aesthetic with this one... and it works! Tons of charm to this one, actually. I like the Peabody version that opens with Ross Johnson's Baron of Love, Pt. II, a track that has little to do with Alex other than it was recorded on his time but is a funny little artifact nonetheless. He apparently made one last go of a pop career in the late 70s and started shopping around his version of "legit" demos in New York, but there were no takers and he was no longer capable of the discipline necessary to keep up another sustained effort at stardom. The Windows Hotel and She Might Look My Way "Elektra" demos are most associated with this effort, but I'm willing to bet All of the Time was probably written with better things in mind. I feel like She Might Look My Way is the the great lost Chilton song, there's some nice overdubbed harmony vocals and weird descending synth lines that float in and out of the track but otherwise it's as together and structured as Alex would ever get after the collapse of the last Big Star record. I think everything after Flies is more or less ignorable wedding music by a burn-out. I don't understand people who try to find enjoyment in those records, it asks way more work by the listener than any pop-rock record should. Alex seems to have acquired some sort of Chet Baker fascination in his last years, and tried to remake his aesthetic around some sort of soft-pop crooner ideal. Alex Chilton was no Chet Baker. I've always suspected than this shift was motivated by orneriness as much as anything. Sorry if this post is a little unfocused, Alex Chilton's solo career tends to depress me.
I had one of those need to buy everything by this guy phases after getting a US Ardent Radio City on cut out in the U.K. in 1976 for 99 p. I pestered the guy at Virgin Records in Nottingham and he found me the one out of multiples they had that didn’t have a cut sleeve. So...... I bought the Singer Not the Song EP, Bangkok 7”, One Day in New York City. All patchy but with flashes. Third US and U.K. pressings. Genius. Like Flies on Sherbet. Genius. Saw him in May 1980 in London the night Live was recorded. Drunk and sloppy. I carried on for a while after that. The Dusted in a Memphis original boot was great but that was historic stuff. Finally gave up at Feudalist Tarts. One great song - Paradise - but that was it for me. I guess the stuff immediately after Radio City was blighted by drink and drugs. After he cleaned up it never had that spark/edge for me. Sad loss. Sorely missed. I’ll love him forever for “You Get What You Deserve”.
"He apparently made one last go of a pop career in the late 70s and started shopping around his version of "legit" demos in New York, but there were no takers and he was no longer capable of the discipline necessary to keep up another sustained effort at stardom. The Windows Hotel and She Might Look My Way "Elektra" demos are most associated with this effort, but I'm willing to bet All of the Time was probably written with better things in mind. I feel like She Might Look My Way is the the great lost Chilton song, there's some nice overdubbed harmony vocals and weird descending synth lines that float in and out of the track but otherwise it's as together and structured as Alex would ever get after the collapse of the last Big Star record." I just finally this week put on last years RSD Black Friday " My Rival EP", and it was more interesting then I expected. It includes all the tunes mentioned above, and was engineered by Chris Bell ( the liner notes explains the story). I agree it's his last ditch effort to write pop music. Also man, are there a lot of versions of All The Time, none of which he seems sober.
Yeah, the My Rival EP is curious. A three-sheets-to-the-wind Alex breaking all of his best toys to make some sort of nebulous point to Chris Bell, who thinks they're going back into the studio to start things up again. Dark stuff. He at least seems to be trying to get a "real" take of She Might Look My Way for whatever reason. Windows is pretty straight as well, although that song is so slight that doing a straight take is kind of a joke in itself.
So glad you mentioned this one. It’s a one of a kind performance. Set all sound quality issues aside and just get it.
I told these stories before so if you have read them bare with me. I've met Alex Chilton two times , both of which were wonderful experiences which I know was not considered the norm. The first post in the thread is a good demonstration of what you could get from Alex. The first time was early nineties . Rhino had just released the 19 Years compilation in which I feel in love with and was all that I played for that week. Coincidently he was playing at a Chicago suburb summer festival , playing a oldies set with Billy J Kramer and others I don't remember . I waited for him , and when he got out of the rented car I asked him to sign my cd. "Sign it!, I'm just glad someone bought it!," and then proceeded to talk to me for a couple minutes smiling. I asked if he had heard that The Replacements had broken up ( he probably didn't give a ****) . He just was a very nice guy to me and was probably happy to see the compilation had made the stores. He performed 2-3 Box Top tunes , and really enjoyed himself backing the other musicians. 8-9 years down the road I met him backstage for a Box Tops show at the House Of Blues in Chicago. A drummer I played with was in the opening band and got me backstage . There was a small group of us , and I noticed Chilton had very little interest in interacting with the other Box Tops only to do so when he got paid. About seven of us smoked a joint ( so yes I got high with Alex Chilton) , and the topic of gospel music came up and he was trying to remember a new artist and I brought up the correct name. He gave me a approving look, and later when he walked down the stairs he asked how I knew that ( I worked at a record store and to this day I'm cursed to remember infantile minutia when it comes to music. One other story of the HOB show. I had only seen perform through the years with him on a guitar, so it was really odd to see him just as a frontman moving up and down the stage. Classic Chilton announcement : " this next I wondered why we did it back then, and why we are doing it now".It was the Moody Blues " Nights in White Satin". I would go with his solo recordings with top tier being Flies Like Schubert ( the VinylLovers version on LP is really good and me appreciate that some of the chaos was more constructed then would think), and 1970 ( which is a variation of Rhino's Early Years cd that I had first). I tend to like Cliches and Set as well . High Priest has energy and some good songs but could use a extra musician to fill it up. The others YMMV.
Is it the same version, as the one here (a guy put this up some time back but didn't know anything about it, or where it came from)?
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It's always good when music trivia knowledge can be used to benefit a particular situation.
Hmmm, that would be interesting if they did "Nights in White Satin," because I've never heard them do that one... despite seeing them on that same tour. Is there any chance you're mixing it up with "Whiter Shade of Pale," which they recorded back in the day and also played on their late 90s reunion tour? Not trying to doubt you, just making sure. That late 90s reunion tour was fun to watch, because it contained all five original members of the band... from the incarnation that recorded "The Letter." Alex was probably the loosest I'd ever seen him, probably because he didn't have to play guitar. There was also less pressure on him to deliver "serious" music, which is what crowds were expecting at the Big Star reunion shows. As a result, he seemed to be having a lot more fun and (like you hinted at) would often make some really funny remarks from stage. Indeed, while I saw him do a Big Star reunion show in May 1999, I think I actually enjoyed the Box Tops reunion show from July 1999 much more, just because it seemed like Alex was enjoying it more as well.
My first reaction: like with many records readily available to me in mid-80s that I never bought from student impecuniousness combined with big bro making me cassette dubs, I deeply regret I own none of the pre-TARTS Alex on vinyl. Here was my judgement on his solo stuff, derived from an obit I wrote on him at the time of his passing: "He toured around the south pretty constantly in the mid-late '80s and I saw him play in Florida nearly 20 times, more than I saw anyone else perform. I'd never miss him. He was then almost totally eschewing what his devoted fans would have wanted of him, playing loose and smooth soul, R & B, and pop covers with mild insouciance. What he was selling, though I don't think he would have put it that way, was his pure Alex Chilton-hood, playing mostly to kids who wanted to be near him rather than hear the specific music he chose to play. He let this eager teen fan buttonhole him in a ****ty motel on Jacksonville Beach one night in 1985 after performing at the Einstein a-Go-Go. He and his boys, Rene Coman and Doug Garrison, put up with me for an hour or so, and he gently rebuffed my intense adoration for Big Star's Third in particular, a record whose gushing and barely controlled waves of anguish, love, and frankly psychotic mania spoke a little too clearly and sharply to a teen me. Oh, all that stuff was just fragments, shapeless, no really memorable songs, he insisted. He wasn't mad at me about it or anything, just amused at how wrong I (and a generation of his fans) were about that record. He never played anything from it in those days. He did what he loved, not what we loved. And that love, and that sense of a dude who was doing exactly what he wanted the way he wanted to, came across; Chilton had the enviable and unshakeable cool of any kid leaning against the hood of a car with his cigs rolled up in his sleeve. He wasn't movin' until he wanted to move, man. The very fact that he refused to revisit whatever soup of Beatles fanatacism, futuristic guitar pop vision, and pure agonizing emotional madness from which Big Star arose made him even more interesting as a living presence for us Big Star fanatics. At least for a while. I think by the mid-90s it became a sly joke that maybe wasn't that funny anymore for any of us, and by then he'd be occasionally giving the people what they wanted touring with revived versions of the Box Tops and Big Star, with the same insouciance. He could be a pro when he needed to be." The whole obit: Alex Chilton, R.I.P. Like a pro, but never really exactly like one, which is why I think both the music and the legend resonated with record collectors with a taste for the outre and underground. He had the convincing and real aura of an actual man, an actual artist, with concerns that we could never quite understand, and when those concerns led to an absurdly straight-faced "Volare" covers, that was even cooler than hearing him play "Back of a Car" again could be. Kind of.
Finally got around to reading the Holly George-Warren penned biography, and must say I'm in two minds about it. It is well researched, but it feels quite dispassionate and detached. It reminds of Peter Garalnick, or rather my experience of reading him. I think I would prefer this kind of approach to a gushing and over-subjective one any day, but I don't feel the subject comes alive (so far I've got to the end of the Box Tops). It is high on facts but not really on capturing the energy of the person. Any thoughts from anyone who's read it? Admittedly I'm learning a lot of things I didn't know. Where I think it is really strong is in its historical analysis of music in Memphis.
I only ever saw him play live once, but it was a wonderful experience — and it wasn’t even his gig. Chilton played guitar for soul legend Brenton Wood, 2005-04-26, Ponderosa Stomp #4, downstairs at Rock ’n’ Bowl, New Orleans, LA. I don’t know that any audio or video exists, but it was one of the highlights of a very special festival. The Ponderosa Stomp was really something in those pre-Katrina years. A grass roots, word-of-mouth event that was steeped in authenticity and soul. 2005 was my last year at the Stomp. I know it’s gotten a lot bigger since then, but I can’t imagine it has that same feeling that was conjured up at Rock ’n’ Bowl.
He had a band with Chris Stamey on bass and they played out quite a bit. They were a good live band, the times I saw them he was together and seemed to be having fun.
I definitely liked the book tho I read it so long ago, within month of release, I don't trust my detailed thoughts anymore but I walked away liking more than not liking. However, I get you about books about people or artists where you aren't even sure the writer believes that the topic was even worth writing a book about, so dispassionate are they about how they tell the story. That flaw didn't leap out at me in this, but I relate to it. "Why it matters" should inform a book, I think.
I was thinking '77 because Stamey was busy with his own projects after that and that's when I remember seeing the band. Stamey's "Summer Sun" 45 also came out then and I remember buying it from him at a Chilton CBGB gig. It was a very short period of time.
I seem to have just liked the HGW book. Here were my real-time reactions to it on facebook, nothing really critical: "Things I didn't know or had forgotten, from the Holly George-Warren Chilton bio: *Billy Squier was in audience and lent equipment to Big Star at a 1974 Boston show after their gear was stolen *Big Star covered both "Candy Says" and Lou's "The Bed" in 74 shows. Guide me to bootleg audio, someone, please * BERLIN was a conscious influence on the THIRD material. Should have been obvious even to my 16 year old self geeking out over both records simultaneously. *And my favorite detail---Alex in 74 was talking up ROBIN'S REIGN as one of his very favorite records, another sign of a bizarre musico-spiritual connection between fan me and artist Alex---I found that Gibb record curiously compelling, even wrote about it in the book LOST IN THE GROOVES, long before i even decided that I was as obsessive a fan of the Gibbs as I have since become." "Reading Holly-George Warren's new Alex Chilton bio. I swear, unless I somehow got it and then forgot it, that until just yesterday with a wet-fish-in-the-face slap of realization, I never "got" the title of Alex's solo lp Bach's Bottom which I just took for random artsy-funny whimsy of some sort." "Alex Chilton's later, crummier, post-Big Star songwriting apparently a living example of Clive James's clever epigram about how "the problem with bad art is the creator knows exactly what he's doing"---Alex goes on and on in quotes in the HGW book that it was only with "My Rival" that he really learned how to write a song that said exactly what he wanted it to say with clarity and economy!....thank goodness for all those earlier songs in which he was NOT so exactly sure of what he wanted to say and/or hadn't learned to just get out and say it with clarity and economy."
It wasn’t announced, but everyone knew it was going to happen. You can read how it went down here: 4th Annual Ponderosa Stomp, April 2005 I don’t have much to add. The Stomp was a mad marathon of an event, and I don’t remember too much of this night other than the feeling of being in that small, downstairs room, then, later, catching Link Wray upstairs, in what turned out to be one of his last shows before he died.
