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I Me Mine
- B. E.
- Buffalo, New York, United States
- I'm a writer, consultant, and jazz concert producer (most recently, for the Art of Jazz Series at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) living outside Buffalo, New York. I started out in college in the early 1970s producing concerts while attending Hobart College in Geneva, NY. Those were the days when you could book Springsteen for a couple of thousand dollars. After college I reconnected with a high school friend, the wildly talented Pete LaBonne (more on him in future blogposts) and we formed the Blue Reimondos, the first new wave / punk / alternative / call it whatever band in the Buffalo area. We weren't together that long but we spent a lot of time listening to Big Star. One fateful night in Austin TX in 1979 Peter crossed paths with Alex Chilton and thus the seeds for the book were sown. Using my concert producing experience and Peter's brief contact, we called up Alex in Memphis and offered him $300 and the proverbial ticket for an aeroplane to fly up from Memphis and play a gig with us (the picture above is from that show - I'm on the right) to play a gig with us backing him up at the legendary McVan's Rock Castle in Buffalo. That was just the beginning...
1 comment:
A devastating loss. Thank you so much for coaxing Alex to talk about Big Star--his words and yours are a great comfort to me this morning.
I'm not getting past this one for a long time.
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