I saw the Boxtops at a casino in Des Moines, IA, c1999. After the killer show, and I mean KILLER…Alex simply walked into the crowd. I talked to him for maybe 5 min. It was awesome. I told him that the “Ballad of El Goodo” was my favorite song. The man started singing the song to me! Seriously. Then he started taking about Chris Bell. It was one of the most crucial moments of my life. Alex Chilton was a good man. I love this band like a brother. Long Live Big Star!!!!!
Looks like the movie he deserves. His legacy really, really, really needs to be snatched away from all these numbskulls who think that he was some sort of failed indie rock guru. He wasn't "washed up" in the least. He was having a ball.
I met Alex Chilton after a show in the late 80s. I was a drunk kid trying to talk about Big Star, etc. He was not interested. When i finally spoke about the drummer Doug Garrison, he lit up and began talking non stop about Doug!
I love the analogy of 1 hit wonder going downhill from there but the real success grew as he was free to be himself and explore music how he wanted. So punk rock
Never forget the night at Bimbo's in SF, when I hopped onstage and changed a string Alex had just broken on his guitar, while he and the band played another song with him using his second guitar. They played 2 nights, amazingly. This is around 1995, touring with his trio.
There were precisely two acts that I would go out of my way to see every time I possibly could. Every show was different, unique and spontaneous - even if the set lists happened to be the same, although I'm not sure they ever were. I started to follow both acts obsessively within a year or so of each other, 1985/86/87, buying everything I could lay my hands on - rarities and imports, spin-off bands, other performers they collaborated with or produced. The first was the Mekons (c. "Fear & Whiskey"). The second was Alex Chilton (c. "Feudalist Tarts"). Needless to say, with Alex I worked my way back to the 3 Big Star studio albums and then soon after the WLIR broadcast, all of which was amazing. Perfection itself, pretty much, purdy & pure, brilliantly produced. But ... those Big Star records never ever altered my deep, dark love for what Alex was doing in the mid-80s with Doug Garrison on drums & Rene Coman or Ron Easley on bass. Funny, but I never managed to work up the gumption to go see the reformed Big Star line-up perform. I liked their new records okay, but they were never more than a pale reflection of the old ones. The shows Alex put together with his regular band never felt like they were trying to recapture something from the past: they were all about the present moment, the music they were making then & there, even if they were covering Nina Simone or Slim Harpo or Cordell Jackson. Except for a few giddy falsettos like the one in "Oogum Boogum" - wonderful stuff! - most of the time with his solo act Alex sang in his natural register, and his voice was never more beautiful. With Big Star he was constantly pushing his range into the upper registers, and although it was exactly what those songs needed, his later work touched me even more. Ditto for his guitar. I miss you, my friend. "Thanks for Being So Nice" looks fab. I'm anxious to see it ... and hear it, of course.
AC was past all the broken promises and music industry B.S. after the Box Tops experience. AC was, "Show me the money, or go away," He could smell B.S. a mile away and chose to be a bit lazy and do what he wanted when he wanted to do it.
Alex was 16 when "Letter" hit #1. He had an early taste of "success" in the music business. Everyone who thinks that getting a hit will make them happy, found out the hard way, that it just don't work that way.
Alex was someone whose name I'd seen over the years but whose music I never listened to, other than the Box Tops songs. Thanks to YT & Spotify, this has changed. Fascinating personality & music; he certainly followed his muse. All the best with the doc.
I LOVE that Alex sang The girl from Ipanema. I've been listening to alot of older songs (I'm 59ish) and was captured by the same song last night and this morning. Feeling like I'm on vacation...(please order me a cocktail) darn, time to go to work. Also listening to the Box Tops, The Letter...Love the old songs!
I saw Chilton playing guitar with Tav Falco one night .It was 1984? in Athens Ga we were waiting and waiting at Broad Street 40 watt ,when they finally showed up at
Very cool the footage of the 'Bangkok demo'! Alex charted 12 Ernie K-Doe songs for me pre-Katrina (and admired the Toussaint writing), I hung a couple French doors for him and not only was he a true gentleman who didn't suffer fools, he was a musical genius who could spell weird chords on either guitar or piano. We all (in N.O.) miss him turrbly. RIP, brah.
I got to see Big Star play at First Avenue in 2000(?) with Slim Dunlap opening. Slim played his usual amazing set, jabbering between every song about how great Alex and Big Star were, and how big a thrill it was to be opening for them. Alex and Co played a great set. After the show we waited to get a minute with Alex, and my friend, who I don’t think had heard more than a couple of their songs before that night (and certainly didn’t know the level of misanthropy Alex was capable of) said to Alex, ‘Baby, you’re a star.’ I’m sure I turned green while waiting for Alex to verbally cut my friend friend down to size…but he seemed to get a kick out of it, and tragedy was averted. He never gave you what you expected, but more often than not, at least in my case, it was exactly what I needed
