Alex Chilton: Dusted In Memphis (And Elsewhere 75-80) (Bangkok Productions/1980)

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