This year's Record Store Day spawned a
number of interesting releases. One of which was Complete
Columbia
from Memphis, TN cult legends, Big Star. On April 25, 1993 Big Star
reunited to play at University Of Missouri. The band hadn't played
together since early 1975, and given Chilton's inclination to dismiss
the band in interviews it was surprising to even drummer Jody Stevens
that the reunion ever happened. Fortunately, it did. The two students
who were in charge of the Spring Fling concert at the University Of
Missouri were huge Big Star fans and called Jody Stephens, at Ardent
Studios (where Stephens still works). He agreed to do the show if
Chilton would. To everyone's surprise, Chilton agreed.
The
Posies' Jon Aur and Ken Stringfellow, filled in the line-up to
replace the late Chris Bell on guitar and the (now) late Andy Hummel
on bass, respectively. The band played a great, if sloppy,
performance. Legendary music journalist Bud Scoppa, a huge fan of the
band, was at this time head of A&R at Zoo Records, recorded the
show and it was released to favorable reviews. The album cover
artwork is something of a reference to the Radio
City
artwork and even features a photo from William Eggleston (who also
took the photo that adorns Radio
City).
The RSD release is the first domestic vinyl release of the album and
contains six additional bonus tracks from the show. Upping the number
of tracks to 21 over the 1993 CD's 14. It's an excellent and
must-have release of any Big Star fan.
This was a pleasant surprise. I didn't even know about this until I wandered in to a local record store and saw this item staring right back at me in the Record Store Day/Black Friday section of 10" vinyl by the counter. Apparently, this is a taster of the forthcoming Complete Third box set coming out in 2016. This is the third Big Star release on Omnivore Records in the last few years (the others being the Nothing CanHurt Me soundtrack and Live In Memphis) and by all accounts they've done right by Big Star fans.
What's on it? It 's the album version of the now-semi-holiday classic "Jesus Christ", the demo version of "Jesus Christ" (which made it's debut on the Keep An Eye On The Sky 2009 Rhino box set). Two untitled instrumentals by Chris Bell (that were in the Nothing Can Hurt Me documentary). A demo of "Big Black Car". "Thank You Friends (TV Mix)". And "Another Time, Another Place & You"
"Another Time, Another Place & You" is something of a holy grail amongst Big Star fans as there is still some debate as to who plays on it, when it was recorded and what it's intended purpose was. Even the songwriting credits are somewhat mysterious. It was co-written with sometime drummer Richard Rosebrough and either Chris Bell or Alex Chilton. The credits in Nothing Can Hurt Me attribute it to Bell/Rosebrough while this record credits Chilton/Rosebrough.
These songs were the some of the last that band recorded (either demos or studio cuts in 1974 for the legendary Third album, and/or the Chris Bell tracks). It's a beautiful looking blue 10" EP and it sounds beautiful as well. It comes with an mp3 download card. The cover art comes from a 1973 Ardent Records promotional Big Star poster. It's so nice that these rare tracks are finally becoming commonplace for all to obtain and are out on various releases for Big Star obsessives like myself to pick up.
If you're a Big Star fan and a vinyl connoisseur, this item is just waiting to be purchased by you.
Alex Chilton had been a teen idol in the mid-late 1960's with blue-eyed soul band The Box Tops. He'd then been a power pop innovator in the early 1970's with Big Star. He then embarked on a long and sometimes controversial (amongst fans) solo career. The first release from his post-Big Star period was the Singer Not The Song EP released in 1977 on Ork Records. This was recorded in Memphis and was produced by rock critic Jon Tiven in 1975, and was released in its' entirety in 1981 as Bach's Bottom (a play on "Box Top"). But these recordings aren't really representative of the first true solo music Alex made with his first solo band.
Alex moved to New York City in February of 1977 and formed a band with Chris Stamey on bass (later of The dB's) and Lloyd Fonoroff on drums. Shortly thereafter Fran Kowalski joined the band on keyboards and they became known as Alex Chilton & The Cossacks. They regularly performed at CBGB's, Max's Kansas City and The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club. They were approached and courted by Elektra Records' Karin Berg, whom Alex had known for some time. Elektra funded recording sessions that were engineered by John Klett at Trod Nossel Studios in Wallingford, Connecticut with the hopes of signing the band.
These sessions yielded unique and interesting recordings of "She Might Look My Way" (which Alex had co-written with Tommy Hoehn), "Shakin' The World", "My Rival", "Windows Hotel", "A Little Fishy", "All Of The Time" and a cover of The Seeds' "Can't Seem To Make You Mine". Sadly, Elektra passed on these recordings deeming them "too uncommercial". This is a great shame as it is an excellent document of where Alex was at during this stage of his career (he wooed the critics during his time in NY, but not the major labels). Two recordings that were in fact released that Alex had recorded with Chris Stamey at Trod Nossel - the fantastically produced "The Summer Sun" b/w '"Where The Fun Is", released as a Chris Stamey single (produced by Alex, he also plays guitar, drums, percussion and shares vocal duties with Chris).
The Dusted In Memphis bootleg contains six of the seven Cossacks songs (omitting "All Of The Time"). Other songs included are a rough mix of "Lovely Day" (an outtake from Big Star's Third which eventually came out on the Keep An Eye On The Sky box set), "Baron Of Love Part Two" which appeared on the Peabody Records version of Like Flies On Sherbert in 1979 and "Take Me Home And Make Me Like It" & "The Walking Dead" (both later appeared on the Razor & Tie version of Bach's Bottom, the latter in an edited form). The Cossacks material (excepting "Little Fishy") later appeared in digital form on (also a bootleg) Beale Street Green.
"My Rival" was re-recorded in a drastically different arrangement and released on Like Flies On Sherbert and "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" was re-recorded an released on the B-Side of Alex's "Bangkok" single in 1978. A live version of "A Little Fishy" came out on the Japanese-only release One Day In New York. "She Might Look My Way" came out of Tommy Hoehn's Losing You To Sleep album.
Allegedly, the only copy of these recordings that anyone associated with band had was lost in the house fire that claimed Alex Chilton's mother's life. If this is true, and the masters have been lost, it is truly a great, great shame as these are possibly the best post-Big Star recordings of Alex's long solo career.
If you find this release, I high recommend you pick it up.
Here's the video review:
Special Thanks to: Ardent Records, Stephanie Chernikowski, Michael O'Brien & Allan Tannenbaum
