Centesimal Post--Big Star's 3rd/Sister Lovers--Everybody Goes,Even Those Who Fall Behind

Thank you Alex and Jody

Hooray! Not a lot of people reach 100, but I did it. I credit red wine and lots of boredom. I took a little time thinking about my topic, as I wanted this post to have a little more resonance. But it wasn't really that hard a decision after all.

Big Stars 3rd aka Sister Lovers is an insanely brilliant and inspired album. Many consider this to be a solo album of Alex Chilton packaged as Big Star to help sales (the band was down to Alex and drummer Jody Stephens then), which is actually funny because of the lack of commercial success the band had seen in their time. If you saw the highly entertaining movie Adventureland, Kristen Stewart was a "cool" girl, who Jesse Eisenberg noticed had a copy of Big Star's Radio City in her home. The kids from That 70's Show were screaming along to Cheap Trick's version of In The Street. But all that stuff is historical fiction. Nobody was listening to these guys, and even when they existed stores couldn't get a hold of the vinyl to sell, despite critical adulation in mainstream music magazines.

Years and years after the fact I think I found a cassette of Sister Lovers in a Caldor for 1.99 and I played that thing until it self-destructed in my car. Heavy heavy rotation. Don't misconstrue this--believe me, I'm not trying to portray myself as some hip dude who was ahead of the times. I only wish I had heard this sooner. When I heard Rykodisc was reissuing the album in intended song order, remastered with extra songs, I jumped on it right away. I also picked up the Live Album and the Chris Bell solo anthology that they also put out at the time. This album is in my top 5 albums. I love the craziness, the inventiveness, the what-the-hell-lets-try-this experimentalism, the raw human emotions. I even like the things that don't work, but 90% of what was thrown against the wall stuck. And I always root for an underdog. People love #1 Record for its precise and perfect Beatle inspired songs. Others laud Radio City for its more free and easy recording and September Gurls and Back of A Car. Let's just say we're all all right here. In my view, they did very little wrong.

Big Stars 3rd was put together by Chilton, Jody Stephens, producer Jim Dickinson and a cast of session musicians and friends. There are moments of profound beauty, and moments of unadulterated rock and roll excess. Some of the songs here are the most harrowingly sad visions in rock history. After two great albums that fell with a thud, that did not elevate them into the pop stratosphere, maybe there was nothing to lose here. It was no doubt a rough and chaotic time for Chilton. But he delivered a real masterwork that was not issued in any form until several years after recording that was a break from being the Memphis Beatles.

The album begins with the hedonistic Kizza Me, which is pure rock and roll on the level of the Faces, or middle period Who. The drums thunder and the piano riffs are an integral part of the track, a marked departure from the first two albums. If you viewed this as a stab at the 70's commercial market, the next song is a sea change from the opener. Thank You Friends is a southerny string soaked pop experiment with prominent female backing vocals. The tone is pretty sarcastic as far as I can see. Chilton has a great George Harrison styled guitar solo in this.

The third song is Big Black Car which is the first of the extremely bleak melancholy tracks here. You have lyrics here like

Nothing Can Hurt Me...

Nothing Can Touch Me...

Why Should I Care?

Driving's A Gas...

It Ain't Gonna Last.

It's a piano ballad, as is Holocaust, which is an emotional black hole of a song. It's the darkest, most unflinchingly blunt and tragic song I know. But it also amazingly beautiful. The creepy guitar and strings interplay are reminiscent of the early Velvet Underground with John Cale, probably not accidentally. The song is hard to listen to. It begins,

Your eyes are almost dead

Can't get out of bed

and you can't sleep

You're sitting down to dress

And you're a mess

You look in the mirror...

In interviews, Chilton played down the importance of Big Star--perhaps it was too painful a period for him to think of in positive terms. That is when he wanted to discuss the band at all. And lyrically he compared himself unfavorably to his musical idols. Musically these songs were good, but in terms of content they were juvenile. I could not disagree more. When you hear a song like Holocaust you see that he is tackling some of the deepest situations human beings have to endure, in a most profound way.

The eccentricities of this album manifest themselves early. Jesus Christ is a straightforward religious Christmas song, with a jaunty piano intro and a saxophone solo. An odd choice, but it's a good song. After this is a low key poignant cover of the Velvet Underground's Femme Fatale, featuring guitar work by famed Stax session guitarist Steve Cropper. The tender vocals by Chilton are quite different from the Teutonic gruff delivery of Nico. But still and odd choice, until you realize that this album was cobbled together at a later date. Probably a combination of formal recordings and late night tomfoolery at Ardent Studios.

O, Dana is another remarkable song, an acoustic ballad full of heartfelt testifying and give and take interplay in a relationship. The song is bursting with activity, full of vitality and warmth. Kangaroo is a forlorn late night song, a description of a woman as a woozy dreamy epiphany. Stroke It Noel is one of my favorites with a more Southern feel it and the warmth of the strings. A short songs that feels like a snapshot of a happy memory. For You is another touching nostalgic song with dynamic strings. You can visualize yourself sitting in front of a blazing fire with a loved one on a cold winter day.

You Can't Have Me is one of the great rockers on this album. It's a real basher of a song, with the memorable lines "The drummer said you were not very clean, and I know what he means....You can't have me---not for free". There are not too many songs like this which is a pretty good indication that Chilton had pretty much written off any aspirations to commercial success. Being burned and feeling bitterness, that is a formula he stuck to. He did what he wanted to do. He was first and foremost a performer, a working musician and not a pop idol wannabee.

The last three songs on the formal album are beautiful ballads. The first is the dreamy Nightime, with the imagery of reflective wandering, of being in a state of flux. Caught a glance in your eyes, fell through the skies. Blue Moon is a tremendous gentle love song, the sort of song any songwriter would give his right pinkie to compose. A rare example of the effective use of oboe in rock music. Classic statements of fealty in love are combined with dark undertones. "If demons come,while your under, I'll be a Blue Moon in the sky. The final song, Take Care is a fitting goodbye song for a this record, which takes the listener on a laborious but extremely satisfying journey. In contrast to Thank You Friends, the sentiment on Take Care is pretty sincere. But it also feels like abandonment, like the singer is leaving town and the world he knows.

Andy Jody Chris Alex

In 2009, Rhino Records released a box set of Big Star, Keep An Eye On The Sky, which featured many unreleased tracks from the vaults of Ardent Records. Most notably there are wonderful demos of Alex Chilton performing songs from Third, and the other albums. The stripped down versions of the songs sound beautiful in their bare bones simplicity. If you are a huge fan and you have the studio albums, you will probably need this also. But get those records, and the Chris Bell collection first before you splurge on this.

The Rykodisc Third/Sister Lovers has 5 bonus tracks appended to it. They are okay songs, mostly covers.
They do a nice version of the Kink's Till The End Of The Day, and a ramshackle Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On. There is also the old chestnut Nature Boy, which is done with proper gravitas but seems like an odd song to do at the time. It is a little more understandable today, given his lo fi album of standards Cliches that was released in the 1990's. There is a strange short experimental song Downs, which has been recorded in various levels of tunefulness. The one on this release is the odd atonal version. It reminds me a little of mid-period Wilco and their pop song deconstructions. Dream Lover is an tortured blurry piano ballad, sounding almost like the velvety arrangement was created on medication. Kind of hard to listen to, actually.

Sister Lovers is the finale of Big Star and it is a gloriously unique swan song. I don't have anything in my record collection that is quite like this. It is special and is very different from their first two masterpieces.
Those records are constantly lauded these days, but this particular recording is a very different album and occupies a unique spot in rock history. Big Star was one of the greatest American bands ever, and their music has ultimately influenced two generations of music already. Artists like R.E.M. The Posies, Teenage Fanclub, DM3, The Replacements, Let's Active, Kelly Stoltz, Tommy Keene and a host of power pop bands are all indebted to their music.

Take Care, Please Take Care

In the last year both Alex Chilton and Andy Hummel died. 2010 was a sad year for Big Star and their fans. The only surviving member of the band today is Jody Stephens who works as an engineer in Ardent Studios to this day. Chris Bell died at a very young age in 1978. But music fans around the world will never forget their legacy. It took decades for the group to get their deserved appreciation, but the big secret is fully out in the open today. If you are interested in learning more about their story, Rob Jovanovic's terrific biography would be the best place to start. Bruce Eaton's contribution to the 33 1/3 series on Big Star's Radio City is also highly recommended, as it contains a lot of great insight and interviews with friends, local musicians, and notably John Fry, the owner of Ardent studios. In conclusion, Big Star's album may seem a bit difficult at first, but ultimately you will find it to be one of the great original albums of 70's, in fact of all time.