This Boy Wonders

Given that my last update was inspired by hear­ing a Big Star cover, it’s only fit­ting that last Wednesday’s tragic news about Alex Chilton (Big Star’s lead singer and song­writer) should bring me back to the blog.

Big Star was the first band whose albums I ever sought out based on good reviews. In the years before mp3s and blog­ging, they were this myth­i­cal band that rock crit­ics wrote about in rev­er­en­tial tones. I’d be intrigued by what I read about them, dis­ap­pointed that I couldn’t hear what I was read­ing about.

I finally got my chance to hear in the early 90’s. Like most music that’s had an impact on my life, I dis­cov­ered Big Star’s in a round­about way, start­ing with a chance pur­chase of the arche­typal “dif­fi­cult third album,” Third/Sister Lovers at a Cheapo Records in St. Paul, MN. I remem­ber tak­ing the disc back to my dorm room, putting it in my dis­c­man, press­ing play, and being awed by the off-kilter com­bi­na­tion of rock swag­ger, pop pret­ti­ness, and sonic chaos within.

That fol­low­ing sum­mer, I worked my way back­wards to their first two albums, which are also pretty much back-to-back great stuff. I also dis­cov­ered the work of foundng mem­ber Chris Bell, who left the band after their first album, but went on to record his own unjustly ignored pop-rock mas­ter­piece “I Am The Cos­mos” before dying in a car crash in the late 70’s. But, as good as it all is, it could never com­pare to my first taste of Big Star.

Third/Sister Lovers is often described as a dark and despair­ing album, and it earns that rep­u­ta­tion with dev­as­tat­ing tracks like “Holo­caust.” There’s a milder, more melan­choly streak in it as well, and I think that’s what hooked me. Chilton sang as an out­sider observ­ing oth­ers in “Night Time” and “Kanga Roo” while hid­ing from the world in “Big Black Car.” Even when he was being vio­lently defen­sive on songs like “You Can’t Have Me,” you could feel the wounded roman­tic behind the facade. In one of the few straight-ahead love songs on the album, “Blue Moon,” he sounds resigned. He’ll carry a torch for­ever, so it doesn’t mat­ter if his love even knows he exists. For an 18-year-old intro­vert hop­ing (and fail­ing) to meet the girl who would make his life com­plete, this was heal­ing balm. Even as a 35-year-old (whose “soul mate quest” has thank­fully found its res­o­lu­tion), the album still speaks to me.

Dri­ving home the other night, it was sur­real to hear snip­pets of “Night Time” and “Thir­teen” on NPR dur­ing a Fresh Air seg­ment in his mem­ory. Alex Chilton may be gone, but at least his music is still here.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

I’m con­sid­er­ing chang­ing the name of this blog — to what, I’m not sure. Spring will be here soon, and as the Earth itself begins to blos­som again, so do my ideas and thoughts, in ways that are less con­ducive to shar­ing via Twit­ter or Face­book. I’m look­ing for a blog name that “pops” a lit­tle more than what I’ve been using.

Any and all sug­ges­tions will be entertained.

And yes, this does mean new posts are com­ing. Be on the look­out in the next few days for far too many words on Alex Chilton and Big Star. Beyond that, who knows?

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

Carla and I are lean­ing against a rock on Church Street in Burling­ton, VT, enjoy­ing the unsea­son­ably warm Novem­ber day. The scene sur­round­ing us is a per­fect cross sec­tion of hip­pie and hip­ster, col­lege kids and dropouts. Peo­ple rush in and out of cafes, book­stores and the occa­sional chain retail monstrosity.

We’re eat­ing warm, fresh ket­tle corn that we just bought from a street ven­dor. A busker is play­ing vaguely famil­iar cov­ers nearby, then starts strum­ming a B flat to E flat chord pro­gres­sion that reminds me of a Big Star song. He vamps on the chords for a minute or so, until he starts to sing:

“Won’t you let me walk you home from school?”

We stay for the whole song, after which I drop a few dol­lar bills in his case.

“That was for play­ing ‘Thir­teen,’” I tell him.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]