i thought skylars cover of thirteen (accompanied by django and brett) was the highlight of the evening in dc, personally. she/they absolutely nailed it, and thats not an easy song to properly capture.

Shakespeare wrote:i thought skylars cover of thirteen (accompanied by django and brett) was the highlight of the evening in dc, personally. she/they absolutely nailed it, and thats not an easy song to properly capture.

They've had some practice getting it right. This is much of the same crew doing Kangaroo a couple of years back. They did Thirteen as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ramctwbOi0

teleburst wrote:

Shakespeare wrote:i thought skylars cover of thirteen (accompanied by django and brett) was the highlight of the evening in dc, personally. she/they absolutely nailed it, and thats not an easy song to properly capture.

They've had some practice getting it right. This is much of the same crew doing Kangaroo a couple of years back. They did Thirteen as well.

Nice. This is Skylar silencing the crowd with "Woodstock" last year at the NC Music Love Army's album release show at the Cradle.

Silencing the crowd is right.

Local videographer extraordinaire Dan Schram has just uploaded a few clips to his YouTube channel as well, this is one of 'em.

Mike Mills: “I discovered Big Star the same way I discovered much of the music I love ­— by listening to Peter Buck’s record collection”
As "Radio City" and "#1 Record" get stellar reissues on Tuesday, R.E.M.'s Mills reflects on their lasting genius
MIKE MILLS


Big Star (Credit: Merlyn Rosenberg)

Check it out. Free Big Star Third show on the square in Athens. Plus The Glands!

http://flagpole.com/blogs/homedrone/pos ... shot-nov-8

Skyler and Ken doing Dream Lover from the LA Big Star tribute the other night. More to come. Shot by the writer Chris Willman. More to come. Any sound issues were present at the gig according to Chris.

I was wondering what Aimee Mann's role was going to be. As much as I like Aimee (and that's A LOT), I was skeptical about how she would have fit in.

I shouldn't have worried.

A Man Called Destruction by Holly George-Warren (the Alex Chilton bio) - One of the better books of its type that I've read but in the end it had kind of the opposite effect on me. I was pretty sure before, but now I'm certain that it's a mistake to learn more about artists I care about. The tidbits (e.g. who a song is about) and insights (i.e. some new musical or artistic perspective) gained are too often offset by learning just how naked the emperor really is.

The book is well researched, pretty well written, enthusiastic about its subject and contains numerous new to me facts and insights on a variety of topics. That sounds like and is meant as a solid recommendation. But it turns out that after he grew out of his cute and charismatic prodigy stage, Chilton was pretty much of an asshole in some really disturbing ways. The author seems to think that his last couple of years (as human being as opposed to artist) redeems him; I wasn't as impressed. So figure out what you care about before picking this one up.

x posted to the books thread

Once I was out drinking with a friend of mine who is a university prof, who had just finished correcting a bunch of papers on "Life of Pi," and all he could do was complain about how when he read that novel, he really hated it and now that he had read 40 papers on it, he fucking despised it. He ranted about "Life of Pi" for like an hour straight... Never have I ever been so curious about a book, so of course the next day I went to the 2nd hand bookstore and bought a copy.

I'm guessing that you didn't intend for your comment to be a back-handed endorsement, but now I'm all, "Ooooh, I wonder what Alex Chilton got up to that put Beantown off so badly..."

I love Big Star and I saw Alex Chilton perform solo a couple of times in the late 80's. He was pretty much everything I love about a musician/performer/dude in general; really smart, really funny, with a razer sharp, self-depricating wit, full of interesting cultural references and of course he came with a repertoire of some of the best songs ever written (in my opinion), which he executed beautifully... So that also factors into why I would like to read the book.

I do wonder though, why people choose rock musicians as ethical/moral role models. It just seems really misguided to me.

Have you read many bios on professional athletes? Because I think they're even worse. I have a friend who worked for a couple of years for a sports radio station and sometimes he had to travel with the MLB players. He said that they were the most disgusting, stupid people he had ever encountered and that the richer the player, the more vile. He now abjectly refuses to watch baseball. He will not do it ever. It makes him sick. His background is in music too. He said the badboy musicians didn't hold a candle to the badboy MLBers. Of course there are always exceptions and there are some nice baseball players.

Anyway, I am now super curious about that book. One of my dreams is to have a big, fancy, red bay mare one day, so I can call her September Gurl. I wonder if the book will change that for me. Will I read it and be all, "I'm not associating my fancy pony with something that douchebag wrote?" I doubt it, but I won't know till I read it.

PonyGirl wrote:I'm guessing that you didn't intend for your comment to be a back-handed endorsement, but now I'm all, "Ooooh, I wonder what Alex Chilton got up to that put Beantown off so badly..."

No, I didn't intend my negative comments to be a back handed endorsement nor were my negative comments meant to take anything away from Chilton's artistry, which I enjoy as much as ever. I also praised the book pretty highly. I would not discourage anyone from reading it as long as you know what you're getting into. Kind of the same as Gone Girl (the book; haven't seen the movie). I recognize the great writing but I couldn't stand the characters; doesn't make the writing any less great. I've listened to more big star and chilton since finishing the book then I did in, say, the 3 months prior. And of course I recognize that saying "don't do that" or "that's bad" is more likely to encourage than discourage the warned against action/behavior. If I didn't know it before, I can assure you that raising 2 boys brought the lesson home many times in many ways

Really, I was trying to raise the question, does knowing more about the musicians you like/love increase your appreciation of their music? And the answer for me is no. There are a lot of books to be read and I've pretty much decided that music bios as a category are a low priority. And unless the book is by an extraordinary writer or garners wild praise as being far beyond the ordinary, the same goes for books about ballplayers. (As opposed to books about the individual sports; i love reading great writing about baseball and basketball in particular).

There's a lot of informed (and some non-informed) discussion around here about how the lives of Hood and Cooley are reflected in their songs. I never really listened to music in that way and it's been an interesting and enjoyable learning experience for me. I guess what I'm saying is that while there are interesting insights to be had and while I've enjoyed being educated in the way I have been, I'd rather not know and just have my own reactions to or interpretations of the songs, even if they're factually incorrect.

In any case, please do let me/us know your reactions to Chilton as described in the book and whether you think I've mischaracterized him.

beantownbubba wrote:Really, I was trying to raise the question, does knowing more about the musicians you like/love increase your appreciation of their music? And the answer for me is no. There are a lot of books to be read and I've pretty much decided that music bios as a category are a low priority. And unless the book is by an extraordinary writer or garners wild praise as being far beyond the ordinary, the same goes for books about ballplayers. (As opposed to books about the individual sports; i love reading great writing about baseball and basketball in particular).

So you'd rather read books about sports than about athletes. Makes sense. The best books about musicians (and writers) are the ones that give you some insight into the art.

"Really, I was trying to raise the question, does knowing more about the musicians you like/love increase your appreciation of their music?"

Sorry for not being on topic with regard to Big Star but this is a great question. Off the top of my head this varies by musician

-Jerry Garcia: No, I dug him and his music more before I learned what a crappy father and husband he was. And how he had Steve Parish do all his dirty work. Not cool. And his stint as full out junkie in the mid 80s is something I wish I didn't know. Listening to shows from that period its hard to seperate that fact from the music (made tougher hearing those haggard vocals). But everytime I read or listen to one of his interviews he still makes me smile. Dude was huge. Bigger than the music. But I didn't need to know all the crap about his personal life.

-Keef: absolutely: After reading Life what really stands out is that homeboy's ALL about the music. Everyone knew Keith was going to die of excess and all people talked about was Keef as junkie, but from his book, keef spins it that he used junk to help him focus on getting a song written. But reading about his evolution on the 5 string open tuning and the pace at which these songs came pouring out of him? It almost brought a tear to my eye. Even in his darkest moments he was all about the rock and roll. Or so he says

-Levon Helm- Same as Keith. Always loved him as a drummer and singer (and one hell of a singer/drummer!) but once I read This Wheels on Fire I gained such a better appreciation of the man and his love for music.

-Clapton: My opinion on him didn't change after reading his book. Super talented musician who had a real ugly few decades w drugs and booze. Dude shreds on guitar, end of story.

-Ginger Baker: After seeing his documentary I wasn't sure what to think. Deranged mad man, totally insane and also a total bad ass behind a drum kit. one of those "sure, I suppose that makes sense"

After watching the Big Star film again about 6 weeks ago I have been on a bit of a BS listening binge recently. I never had the albums on vinyl, having first of all the "twofer" which compiled the first two records (I then bought the individual CD's which were re-released a couple of years back), and the Ryko release of Third. I rectified that last week, and now have all three albums on vinyl. Third is possibly my overall favourite (although that can change on a daily basis), so it was interesting to hear it with the different running order from the Ryko CD. I think I prefer the Ryko running order, but that might just be because of familiarity. Any thoughts on the running order?

Outtakes from Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me:

Yesterday in Athens

http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/12/14/big-star-cambridge-performing-arts-center-march-31-1974/

Perhaps a repost, but a worthy one...

this thread needs to be added to aotw feature list.

Chris Stamey's tribute to John Fry.

Thirteen and September Gurls are just amazing songs.

Without them, no Teenage Fanclub.

There are dozens of bands who would not exist without the intro alone for Kangaroo having been recorded.

Please don't tell my lady. I think I am in love with Skylar Gudasz.

^^^^^ It's all the bootleg Big Star you could ever want...and then a whole lot more.

Mike Mills: why I love Big Star
The R.E.M. co-founder will perform with an all-star lineup in Los Angeles this week playing Big Star’s most revered album, Third/Sister Lovers – the culmination of a lifelong love affair with the cult band


Big Star in the 70s: (l-r) Jody Stephens, Andy Hummel and Alex Chilton
Photograph: GAB Archive/Redferns

Due in October.