Tag Archives: Ardent Records
RADIO CITY’S TRANSMISSIONS AT 50 AND BEYOND: A chat with Big Star’s co-founder/drummer Jody Stephens
In the more than half a century since their inception, demise, and rebirth, the Memphis-bred rock band Big Star have been revered as everything from anachronistic power pop avatars to iconoclastic cult legends making introverted music in an extroverted era. So iconoclastic were they, in fact, that Big Star actually had to break up to […]
CHRIS BELL’S PURE POP COSMOS: Big Star’s Other Bright Light
News that a biography and at least three vinyl compilations of the work of Big Star co-founder Chris Bell are coming out this year — including “The Complete Chris Bell,” a massive six-LP (!) retrospective due July 7 by Omnivore Recordings (the same folks who’ve issued some tasty Big Star releases in recent years, including […]
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 […]
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 