Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Big Star
Live
(Rykodisc, 1992)
Saluting the late Alex Chilton, unplugged.
First a warning: not everything about this 1974 WLIR radio session is brilliant. Big Star ride in off the back of Radio City - their second album, destined to be another commercial letdown - and are breaking in a new bassist, John Lightman, following the departure of Andy Hummel. Perhaps as a result, the ensemble performances of the band's rockers, September Gurls especially, are curiously disconnected, the joins painfully visible under Alex Chilton's too-quiet guitar. After five tunes in this vein a reluctant Chilton is buttonholed by DJ Jim Cameron for an interview that will have other duel-scarred Chilton-interrogators cringing in recognition. As if enveloped by a shroud of disillusionment, Chilton is asked to recall his teenage days in The Box Tops. "Pretty scummy," remembers Chilton. "...About as scummy as now."
Yet what follows is as exquisite a four-track run as I can think of on any rock album. With Lightman and drummer Jody Stephens on a break, Chilton pours all his weariness and sensitivity into solo acoustic versions of The Ballad Of El Goodo, Thirteen, I'm In Love With A Girl and Loudon Wainwright's Motel Blues, each more heartbreaking than the last. Goodo's intimations of autobiography - "I've been trying hard against unbelievable odds" - are starkly haloed, Thirteen's volatile mix of innocence and obsession poignantly present in Chilton's lonely voice: "Won't you tell your Dad, Get off my back / Tell him what we said 'bout Paint It Black". Motel Blues is, perversely, most revealing of all: a vignette of existence on the road lent vivid reality, with its final, desperate plea to a young groupie - "Come up to my Motel room and... save my life" - somehow utterly believable and utterly sad. At 23, this was Chilton's life. It was all that he'd known, and he didn't like it one bit.
This was always the most troubling thing about Chilton. He was too burned, too early, and Big Star's subsequent cult status arrived too late to convince him that there was any worth in it. The one time I interviewed him, in 1994, his reticence to discuss, or even acknowledge Big Star, made me assume he was f___ing with me. But I now understand what I should have known then: that it wasn't about me, it was about him. Was he ever happy? More than ever now, I hope so.
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 4:00 PM GMT 26/03/2010
Further Listening
Big Star – #1 Record (Ardent, 1972)
Big Star – Radio City (Ardent, 1974)
Big Star – Sister/Lovers (Rykodisc, 1992)
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Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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Comments
Comment on this post
Had this album for, I guess, twenty years. It's cracking. A really high quality live record. One of my favourite live albums. The acoustic set is perfect and Alex Chilton is brilliantly self-deprecating throughout. Motel Blues is a Loudon Wainwright song (I think) but it's sung here with such integrity and such sadness that Chilton inhabits it totally. I have always loved Big Star's saddest songs the most...
Posted by Anonymous at 5:41 PM GMT 26/03/2010 Report Abuse
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RE: Anonymous
Motel Blues is hardly a revealing glimpse of the dark confessional writing of Alex Chilton. It's by Loudon Wainwright.
Posted by Loudon Wheelwright at 9:45 AM GMT 27/03/2010 Report Abuse
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@ previous poster - both the author and first poster acknowledge that Motel Blues is a Wainwright tune, but both comment on the believability of Chilton's version. Bother to read properly before you get all smugly anal. Twat!
Posted by Me at 4:05 PM GMT 31/03/2010 Report Abuse
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This album was my intro to big star almost 20 yrs ago and i still play it weekly. I agree the acoustic set is stunning and the version of el goodo definitive. Don't write off the two full band sets though. The second in particular is fantastic especially daisy glaze and back of a car with chilton's underrated guitar playing and stephen's dynamic drumming to the fore. And you can hear the audience being slowly won over too (all twenty of them by the sound of it!). RIP alex
Posted by Heavyblinker at 7:38 PM GMT 08/04/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
This album was my intro to big star almost 20 yrs ago and i still play it weekly. I agree the acoustic set is stunning and the version of el goodo definitive. Don't write off the two full band sets though. The second in particular is fantastic especially daisy glaze and back of a car with chilton's underrated guitar playing and stephen's dynamic drumming to the fore. And you can hear the audience being slowly won over too (all twenty of them by the sound of it!). RIP alex
Posted by Heavyblinker at 7:39 PM GMT 08/04/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
This album was my intro to big star almost 20 yrs ago and i still play it weekly. I agree the acoustic set is stunning and the version of el goodo definitive. Don't write off the two full band sets though. The second in particular is fantastic especially daisy glaze and back of a car with chilton's underrated guitar playing and stephen's dynamic drumming to the fore. And you can hear the audience being slowly won over too (all twenty of them by the sound of it!). RIP alex
Posted by Heavyblinker at 7:40 PM GMT 08/04/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
This album was my intro to big star almost 20 yrs ago and i still play it weekly. I agree the acoustic set is stunning and the version of el goodo definitive. Don't write off the two full band sets though. The second in particular is fantastic especially daisy glaze and back of a car with chilton's underrated guitar playing and stephen's dynamic drumming to the fore. And you can hear the audience being slowly won over too (all twenty of them by the sound of it!). RIP alex
Posted by Heavyblinker at 7:40 PM GMT 08/04/2010 Report Abuse
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Comment on this post