http://youtu.be/sTSJYZyouek&w=560
Replacements – “Alex Chilton”
Pleased To Meet Me
1987
The reaction to Alex Chilton‘s passing has been surprising in its intensity. I think it’s fair to say that it hit fans much harder than anticipated. One perverse upside — and it really has been positive — has been the impressive number of high-quality remembrances. He clearly affected so many people so profoundly that it’s been oddly comforting to read so much well-articulated fondness and respect. If nothing else, it’s been welcome to revisit some of rock’s most life-affirming moments, like Alex singing with The Replacements. Seriously, how can you not be in love with that song?
To supplement the eulogies I already posted, here are 3 podcasts that serve as wonderfully thorough overviews of Chilton’s music career including and subsequent to Big Star. We get Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Bach’s Bottom, Box Tops, Cramps, Feudalist Tarts, etc. Do yourself a favor and download the MonkeyBeat and Ledge podcasts. Years from now, when you’ve turned your kids onto Big Star and they’re starting to get punk rock, they’ll love you for these.
ALEX CHILTON PODCASTS
MonkeyBeat 39: R.I.P. Alex Chilton
The Ledge, Episode 14: Alex Chilton Tribute
The Cherry Blossom Clinic with hostess Terre T
The great, enigmatic, Bill Fox
With your Chilton jones addressed by multiple sources, I’m going in a different, but related direction. I have recently become an unabashed Bill Fox fan, in part because he reminds me of the perfect combination of Alex Chilton’s acoustic Big Star songs with GBV‘s Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout circa Bee Thousand.
I’m warning you now, Fox will kick your ass upside-down with folksoulfulness. He only has 2 albums — Shelter From The Smoke and Transit Byzantium — but both are deceptively brilliant and freighted with emotion. Lo-fi, occasionally shambolic, some songs with a band, some without, totally unassuming in its brilliance. Heartbreaking stuff.
Bill Fox – My Baby Crying
Transit Byzantium, 1998
Amazon
Bill Fox – My Baby Crying
Bill Fox – Appalachian Death Sigh
Shelter From The Smoke, 1997
Amazon
Bill Fox – Appalachian Death Sigh
Bill Fox – Let In The Sun
Shelter From The Smoke, 1997
Amazon
Bill Fox – Let In The Sun
Loving the Bill Fox stuff. Now I gotta go spend money I don't have on music I apparently desperately need. Thanks!
One of my fondest Chilton memories was a piece I read in some Midwestern fanzine. The writer had actually seen them live back when the first album had just come out. He said that Big Star was the only one of those Seventies Midwestern power pop bands who played in jeans and t-shirts and looked just like the guys who worked on your car. Probably the only band on planet earth in 1974 who did. I'm already missing that…
another radio show that is a good tribute to Alex Chilton from my pal Jeff Breeze who was involved in booking famous Mizzou Big Star reunion show. It is a show on our great local station in Boston WMBR.
http://pipeline.wmbr.org/archives/lrc-alex-chilton-tribute-march-23-2010
It isn't up for too long.
@Biskit – Thanks! The more LX the better.
@Yoder – I'm reading Barney Hoskyns' history of rock 'n' roll in Los Angeles, Waiting For The Sun. If he's even 3/5 accurate, I don't know if any of those Laurel Canyon and music biz jackoffs would've been able to mentally process a band in jeans and T-shirts in 1974. They would've been like the apes at the beginning of 2001, ultimately retreating to the cocaine lair.
@Melvin – Fox is more of a traditional folksinger, but there's something about him that reminds me of Mike Nicolai. Nuff said.
thank you for the introduction to Bill Fox & his earlier band, The Mice. there is a lot to learn from this blog.