Sometimes It Sucks to Say Goodbye

Alex Chilton
December 28, 1950 – March 17, 2010

I got the news that Powerpop god Alex Chilton passed away just before I went to bed on Wednesday night. I'm still in a state of shock. 59 years is a short life span in this day and age. Sure, the rock n' roll lifestyle doesn't lend itself to longevity, but something tells me that Alex's days of hard partying were past him. The bottom line here is that I idolized Alex Chilton, and I'm disappointed that he's dead. Most disappointing of all is that I know he had another masterpiece in him somewhere.

I'm not here to write about the history of Alex Chilton's life music. That's been done countless times over the course of the last few days, and in many cases, done very well. Not to mention, if you're reading this blog, you're probably rather familiar with it and don't need me to recap. I honestly don't know what I'm here to do. I just know that one of my heroes is dead and I'm kind of bummed about it.

I'm really glad to say that I got to see Big Star play once. If only the 'modern era' lineup (Chilton, original drummer Jody Stephens, and Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow from The Posies) played more frequently, I would have seen it more often. But once is better than never. I saw them at the Southern Comfort Music Festival at Centennial Park in May of '06. The Flaming Lips headlined day 2, and Big Star went on right before them. It was a great set. They played all the hits you would expect from #1 Record, Radio City and Third and then some. They did of a cover of an obscure bubblegum song called "Patty Girl" originally recorded by an Ohio group called Gary and the Hornets. It was fantastic. In fact, the only complaint I had about their performance was that they only played one song of 2006's In Space.

Chilton's body of work is enigmatic, if not bulletproof. Though predominantly known for their biggest hit, "The Letter", which was recorded when Chilton was just 16 and went on to become a number one record, The Box Tops did some pretty cool shit in their day. It was blue-eyed soul with a psychedelic twist. "Cry Like a Baby" hit number two in February of 1968. That track has a sitar on it. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there weren't any other white boys in Memphis in the late 60's releasing records with eastern instrumentation on them. And then at age 20, he formed Big Star. That's just amazing. The guy gets a huge taste of commercial success as a teenager, then goes on to form one of the biggest cult bands this side of The Velvet Underground. All of this before he turned 21. You could say this his output past the age of 25 or so is inaccessible, or in some cases bad, but that doesn't change the fact that he crammed a long career's worth of classic songs into just a few years.

As for Big Star, what needs to be said? Big Star is easily one of the five best American bands that ever got together. Sure, they were largely ignored during their original run, due to poor marketing and distribution, but it would seem that almost every single person that was able to get their hands on a copy of #1 Record went on to form a band, and most of them were good, unlike The Velvets, who spawned plenty of good bands, but also a lot of self-indulgent, pretentious artsy crap. The Replacements, R.E.M., Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet. These are just a small sampling of the artists who owe a great debt to Chilton's work. Pretty impressive, no? Hell, I wish Westerberg would write songs about how great I am. Not to mention, pretty much all of the Big Star material is timeless. Most of the songs from those albums wouldn't sound out of place if they were released today.

I really don't know what else to say, so I'll start wrapping things up. I wanted to write something about this while it was still fresh in my mind, and I've been so busy lately that I was afraid that I wouldn't get a chance if I didn't do it now. Suffice it to say that Alex Chilton was a true genius; he was a phenomenal singer, one of the best songwriters and lyricists I've ever heard, and his guitar chops were sneaky great. The man had more pop sensibility in one of his nose hairs than all of the combined members of Kings of Leon could ever imagine having, and he never lost it. Listen to the opening track of Big Star's 2006 LP, In Space. It's called "Dony", and it's amazing. He still had it until the very end. I firmly believe that he had another epic album in there somewhere, he just needed the right set of circumstances to bring it out. I guess we'll never know.

Alex, you were a motherfucker from the beginning to the end. You had success when you were too young to handle it, couldn't find it when you were actually looking for it, and then you stopped giving a shit and just did whatever you felt. You were the embodiment of everything that was good about rock and roll, and you will be sorely missed. Your impressive musical legacy will live on forever. To paraphrase your disciple and my other hero Paul Westerberg, I'm in love with your song.