Trying to stay cool...

If you haven't checked it out, go to the Ardent site and get a copy of the new EP from the Big Star tribute in Memphis last year with John Davis from Superdrag. John's performances came early in the show but they set the bar high and were never topped despite the strong talent that followed. My good friend and esteemed critic Parke Puterbaugh was with me at the show and agreed with that opinion. Shortly after the weekend I emailed John Fry and suggested that John Davis , Jody, Ken, and Jon do some recording with the legendary Fry behind the board. Probably will never happen but this will give you a taste of what could be...

I recently "discovered" Dom Mariani (DM3), an power pop titan from Australia. These are some of the things you miss when you're raising a kid, working, and looking after aging parents. His song "Just Like Nancy" is absolutely killer and the original version would be worthy of Radio City if only he'd taken the time to write a great bridge for the song. Regardless, it's been at the very top of my playlist this summer.

Next week I'm going to see Bob Dylan and Leon Russell. In the latter half of 1971, that would probably have been my dream concert (along with a double bill of The Who and Jethro Tull). I was (and have remained) a huge Dylan fan but had no hope at the time of ever seeing him live (have since seen him many many times). On the other hand, I'd just seen Leon Russell in a converted bowling alley in Buffalo NY with Freddie King opening. It was about a week after the Concert for Bangladesh and Leon just killed the place. I remember walking out of this low-ceilinged sweat box with my Levi's soaked through. So 40 years later I get my wish. From what I've been able to tell, the return of Charlie Sexton has given Bob a much needed jolt (the band after Charlie and Larry Campbell left was mundane to say the least) and there's some new dimensions to his performance (more singing at the mike with no instrument). Regardless, I regard seeing Dylan as I did seeing Miles Davis. You should feel fortunate just to be in the same space with him for a few hours.

A reader inquired about my reference to Austrian economics giant Ludwig Von Mises in a recent post. Yes, in October of 1970 (I was a freshman in college) I attended a conference where I got to hear Von Mises speak in a small conference room to about 30 people. It made a huge impression. He talked about the need to have a national currency maintain a consistent value i.e no inflation of deflation. As I recall, he held up a ruler and essentially said that if a foot didn't maintain a consistent value of distance, every building would eventually collapse. And if a dollar (pound / mark / whatever) didn't maintain a consistent value, it too would eventually collapse. Not exactly rock and roll, but heavy none the less...

http://ardentmusic.com/products-page/tshirt/

I'm sure that most of you are FB friends with Ardent Studios (a must for Big Star fans). But in case you missed it...Ardent is now offering official Big Star t-shirts at their site. If you're like me, you've looked at those bootleg shirts on eBay and held off thinking that the only thing worse than having no Big Star shirt is to have a cheezy knockoff. But now you can get the real deal. Mine hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I can tell you that any t-shirt I've gotten from Ardent, going back to A Man Called Destruction, has been super quality. Father's Day is right around the corner and what would be better for the Fourth than a shirt with a big star. Order today!

Who doesn't love a good Brian Wilson story ? Here's one I heard last week from a friend of mine...

In the late 80s a friend of my friend – a veteran writer of network television comedy – was over at Brian Wilson's house when the phone rang. Brian answered and talked for a bit in the next room. When he came back he explained, "That was folk music's Bob Dylan."

How great is that? That he thought that he needed additional info to identify Dylan, as if the name wasn't enough, and then chose folk music...in the late 1980s! I can almost see Brian saying it with that sort of talk out the side of his mouth thing he does. Well, "That's surf music's Brian Wilson."

I think that Alex C. would have gotten a kick out of that story....

Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday....

I usually ignore these sort of supposed "milestones" but all the Bob talk got me thinking a bit.

For starters, I've been a huge fan of Dylan since 1965. The first time I saw him (1974) was almost a quasi-religious experience (I never thought he would tour again). Since then I've seen him at least a few dozen times if not more. I've been backstage at a number of Dylan shows since 2001 (have never even sighted him except the time he drove by on a motorycycle) but have a few good stories out of it all. I firmly believe he's one of the great artists of our time. Right at the top.

While pondering how lucky I've been to be in the same room with Bob Dylan and witness him creating in the moment (a few years ago it was from ten feet away in a small club in Toronto), I started to think about who else I've been in the same room with that could truly be deemed to be a giant...someone who changed the course of history in their field and will be remembered for generations.

So here's my list...Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Bob Marley, Paul McCartney, and Ludwig Von Mises. I've left out a lot from that category, including the Stones, Who, Springsteen and many many more. All sorts of jazz musicians (Sonny Rollins for starters) and rock (sorry Clash). And yes, Alex Chilton.

And what about Ludwig Von Mises? Look him up...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgKgvrWj5fo&feature=related

Here's a brief snippet of Pete LaBonne playing solo piano recently. Although he started out playing keyboards in soul bands around Buffalo in the late 60s / early 70s, he switched over to guitar and in about six months had pretty much mastered the instrument and created his own unique style. But he can still play the keys for sure...

I hope to be posting some rare mp3s related to Alex Chilton over the next week. But only if I can find some inexpensive and easy way to host them on a third-party site and then link them to Blogger so that when visitors click on them, they play immediately without going to the third-party site. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. If I can work this out, you'll hear some cool stuff...

Below are four never-before-seen photos of Alex in action at McVan's in Buffalo in June of 1979. I didn't even know these photos existed until a few weeks ago. They were taken by the late Lynn Adams, a photographer and part of the Buffalo music scene back then. She passed away several years ago and right before this past Christmas her mother called a friend of mine and told her that she was going through Lynn's archives and came across some photos that might be of interest. Included were photos of Buffalo appearances by Patti Smith, Blondie, and Iggy Pop along with these photos of Alex.

I find these photos to be really captivating and not because I was standing a few feet to Alex's right. These shots were taken very early in our set...probably in the first song. It was really hot that night and within a few songs we had taken off everything but our t-shirts (see photos in the book). I love how Alex has a pencil behind his ear. Combined with the sport jacket, he looks like he's about to settle in for an afternoon of reading and taking notes. Here we were, playing twenty-plus songs with no rehearsal at a time when Alex had a reputation for chaos and yet there's an analytical look to him that lets you know that there was a lot of method behind his purported musical madness. In the book I describe how Alex and Peter LaBonne started to trade solos in the first song (Bourgeois Blues) and things really started to click. You can almost see Alex start to listen to what Peter was doing and say to himself..."This is going to be a pretty interesting evening..."

A few random notes...

http://bigstarthird.com/ If you haven't been to Chris Stamey's site for his Big Star Third project, head on over right now. A must read (and follow). Thanks, Chris ! (One of the little sidebars I left out of the book was that in October of 1977 I was in NYC for a month and went to Chris's apartment twice to interview him for Big Star magazine. He was playing with Alex at the time. The interview never ran because Bernie Kugel ran out of money for the magazine. Less than two years later I would get to play with Alex because Chris had walked away from a semi-chaotic gig in Austin with Alex, leaving the opportunity for my friend Peter LaBonne to jump onstage and start the wheels rolling. And many years later, Chris's then girlfriend, who remembered me coming to the apartment, married a really good friend of mine, Erroll. Erroll worked at the New York Public Library with a woman I'd gone to college with. One day he mentioned that he had a friend (me) who had this friend named Peter who made all this wild music. His co-worker flipped out because Peter was her cousin. You got all that? A lot of strange intersections of lives going on...)

On Grammy day, I'd like to say that I wish producers like T-Bone Burnett would take five years off. I'm sick of these guys who have a sound (which gets the critical seal of approval for supposedly being "retro") which they then impose on the artist or at the very least surround them with. Sort of like setting a gemstone in jewelry you create. The recent Gregg Allman album sent me over the edge on this. I respect Greg mightily. Love the ABB. His first solo album (Laid Back) is a classic. But I want to hear Greg's band (killer) with Greg picking the songs and then the producer bringing out the best from the band, not the producer calling all the shots with his pet legend of the month subjected to a predictable smooshy swampy sound of cool vintage instruments and amps. It's like a great looking meal that in the end doesn't satisfy. Which I guess is why I like producers / engineers like Jimmy Miller, Andy Johns, Glyn Johns, Bill Szymczyk, George Martin, and John Fry. The guys who made the band sound great on their own terms.

I just got a batch of previously unseen photos of Alex performing at McVan's. Will scan and put up a few soon. There's a great photo of Alex performing with a pencil behind his ear. The photos were taken during the first song we played (Bourgeois Blues) as he still has on his sport coat and sweater. It was really hot and we were soon down to t-shirts. You can almost sense Alex looking over at Peter during one of his first solos and thinking "hmmm....this is going to be a fun night."