Alex Chilton

[CliveWalkerWingWizard]

Abother one gone - superb voice and songwriter particularly with Big Star (had a big influence on blur)
I believe he was only 17 when this one was released.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD9mCp8SifM

RIP

 

[cheshunt seagull]

I only discovered Big Star in the 90s but #1 Record and Radio City are a perfect soundtrack to a summer's day.

A massive talent. R.I.P.

 

[medicine man]

'|Discovered' him through listening to This Mortal Coil, who covered a few Big Star choons. Been having a Big Star day in honour of his talents, RIP indeed.

 

[shoreham moonraker]

I thought he died in about 1974?

 

[Marc]

any relation to Tom? (BTCC)

 

[The Large One]

Love is a river running soul deep...

BTW, I think this one was in an ad recently.

[yt]Z5xORduJt9Q[/yt]

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Oh dear. My Uncut magazine will have to devote the whole of the next edition to this one!

 

[in_the_sand]

I thought he died in about 1974?

He got better

 

[Gwylan]

I'd already done the Alex Chilton RIP earlier in the day but he was such an amazing talent, this doesn't merit a 'fixtures'. Just another chance to say how upsetting the news was - he'll be missed.

 

[blue'n'white]

Real shame - very talented man
Will we ever see the like of bands like Big Star again ?
RIP

 

[Trufflehound]

RIP

I was too young (just) to know about them at the time, and only found them after the event. But their influence can still be heard in American bands right down through the ages: REM, Gin Blossoms, Lemonheads, Wilco... etc etc etc...

 

[Gwylan]

RIP

I was too young (just) to know about them at the time, and only found them after the event. But their influence can still be heard in American bands right down through the ages: REM, Gin Blossoms, Lemonheads, Wilco... etc etc etc...

I remember playing Big Star to friends in the mid-70s and no-one wanted to know.

They're one of those bands like Velvet Underground and Can who didn't generate great sales but were massively influential.

 

[Trufflehound]

I remember playing Big Star to friends in the mid-70s and no-one wanted to know.

They're one of those bands like Velvet Underground and Can who didn't generate great sales but were massively influential.

All my mates' big brothers were into British prog rock, so around 1975 (when I was 13) I got steered into things like Pink Floyd, Wishbone Ash, King Crimson, Steve Hillage/Gong and what have you. (However, I am proud of the fact that even at that tender age I was still able to clock ELP as being pretentious shit...) I only discovered American stuff like the Velvets in retrospect after people like Television and Talking Heads turned my word upside down a couple of years later and I started reading about their influences. It was also a relief to discover there was life on the other side of the Atlantic beyond Hotel f**king California.

 

[Gwylan]

All my mates' big brothers were into British prog rock, so around 1975 (when I was 13) I got steered into things like Pink Floyd, Wishbone Ash, King Crimson, Steve Hillage/Gong and what have you. (However, I am proud of the fact that even at that tender age I was still able to clock ELP as being pretentious shit...) I only discovered American stuff like the Velvets in retrospect after people like Television and Talking Heads turned my word upside down a couple of years later and I started reading about their influences. It was also a relief to discover there was life on the other side of the Atlantic beyond Hotel f**king California.

I discovered the Velvets when they were played on late night radio and they played Murder Mystery. It sounded like such an infernal racket that I had to find out more about this band.

I can't remember how I discovered Big Star but they (and Todd Rundgren) kept me sane when music c1973 - 1976 was shockingly bad.

There's another thread about football before the Internet but I think music before the Internet is a more interesting topic. These days, I can switch on Last FM or Spotify and the whole world of music is before me. Thirty or forty years, there was the Radio 1 playlist, the odd pirate radio and sod-all else.

 

[medicine man]

I thought he died in about 1974?

You could mean Chris Bell, also of Big Star, who died in a car crash in 1978.

 

[Trufflehound]

There's another thread about football before the Internet but I think music before the Internet is a more interesting topic. These days, I can switch on Last FM or Spotify and the whole world of music is before me. Thirty or forty years, there was the Radio 1 playlist, the odd pirate radio and sod-all else.

Around 1976 I was listening to Radio Caroline, which was all right, but I seem to remember they played listeners' favourite top 30s all the time, and every single one had Free Bird and no.2 and Stairway to Heaven at no.1...

Later that same year I started reading NME for the first time and reading about all these new bands that - growing up in ultra-conservative Kent - I never had a chance to hear at first. But to this day I still think the covers of the first four issues I bought were a remarkable reflection of the changing times:
1) Bunny Wailer
2) Rod Stewart
3) Led Zep
4) Sex Pistols

I still cite January 1977, and listening to John Peel when he played Marquee Moon for the first time, as possibly the single most important and pivotal moment in my life that didn't involve a woman. I like to think I never looked back since.

 

[Gwylan]

Around 1976 I was listening to Radio Caroline, which was all right, but I seem to remember they played listeners' favourite top 30s all the time, and every single one had Free Bird and no.2 and Stairway to Heaven at no.1...

Oh those days....two of my most disliked songs of all times

Later that same year I started reading NME for the first time and reading about all these new bands that - growing up in ultra-conservative Kent - I never had a chance to hear at first.

But that was the point. You could read about these bands but it was really hard to hear them - they weren't on radio and only the odd shop stocked them. By 1977 I'd discovered Fine Records in Brighton Square, which stocked interesting vinyl and, more importantly, let people spend hours in the shop listening to them.

 

[Questions]

I remember a time when I was in the west country having tea and scones in a delightful little tea shop run by two old dears in what seemed like their seventies when who should they put on the CD player but The Velvets with Reed telling us the story of Heroine and how he was waiting to put 'that spike into his veins'. Always struck me as the last sort of record I would have expected to hear in there.


I once heard Lenoard Cohen singing Suzanne on Lille railway station as well on a seperate tract.

 

[Trufflehound]

By 1977 I'd discovered Fine Records in Brighton Square, which stocked interesting vinyl and, more importantly, let people spend hours in the shop listening to them.

Spinning Disc in Tonbridge (where I was lving at the time) was my saviour. I used to buy singles by bands I'd never heard of simply because I thought the sleeve looked interesting, of they were on indie labels like Rough Trade. I was rarely disappointed when I played them.

 

[Gwylan]

I remember a time when I was in the west country having tea and scones in a delightful little tea shop run by two old dears in what seemed like their seventies when who should they put on the CD player but The Velvets with Reed telling us the story of Heroine and how he was waiting to put 'that spike into his veins'. Always struck me as the last sort of record I would have expected to hear in there.

That's a wonderful story - perhaps the two old dears were the local dealers. The tea shop would have been a great cover.