Category Accents & Anglophiles
A Banquet of Butterflies for Brian, and the Dawn of the Midnight Rambler
For those who couldn’t make (or afford) the Rolling Stones’ return to Hyde Park in London this month after a mere 44-year hiatus, here’s a little something that’s far cheaper, but just might be as long: my review essay for the cool live music blog and website, Collectors Music Reviews (CMR to friends like you), of a […]
MAYBE IN A BETTER WORLD: Alex Chilton Comes Clean
Alex Chilton still doesn’t get what all the fuss is about. Well, most of the fuss, anyway. Chilton concedes that his celebrated band, Big Star, had “a *few* good songs”, but he also makes a distinction between what he calls “good music and good songs.” The pair of albums the band recorded during its lifetime, […]
HEY 19: Memphis’s Second-Favorite Son Flips The Box Tops and Flies Free Again
To put a cap on the starry sparklers of our July 4 weekend tribute to Big Star, here’s my review of Alex Chilton’s “1970,” an album that was a eureka moment for me when I first heard it. To me, it offered a gaze through a kaleidoscopic looking glass; a peek through the window of transition between Alex’s stint as […]
His Band Opened For Badfinger: A Q&A with Big Star’s Jody Stephens
A Q&A with Jody Stephens/Rolling Stone.com Even if Jody Stephens had never picked up a pair of drumsticks after 1974, he’d still have secured an immortal place in pop history as the drummer for Big Star — one of the most talked about and belatedly beloved American rock & roll bands ever. And although they […]
THE SOLO SOUL OF A BIG STAR: Alex Chilton On No. 1 Records, Radio City Rebounds, And A Third Album That Really Wasn’t
I could barely believe it when he said yes. Well actually, to be more precise, I couldn’t believe it when, after asking whether the evasive, elusive, and reclusive Alex Chilton might possibly consent to an interview with me for my music column in the Boston Phoenix’s Stuff@Night magazine, his publicist checked with the man, called me back, […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 