Alex Chilton has died. Wow. that one punched me right in the gut. There’s a great story of meeting Alex in the comments, you should go read that.
- Props for Alex Chilton from the floor of the House by Memphis Democratic Rep Steve Cohen check it on CSPAN.
- The Chicago Reader.
- Dave Lifton of Wings for Wheels.
- CNN’s The Marquee Blog.
- USA Today’s Pop Candy.
- Huffington Post.
- The Guardian UK.
- MTV.
- Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone.
- NPR.
- Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune.
- The Washington Post.
- The Onion’s A.V. Club.
- The Wall Street Journal.
- Entertainment Weekly.
- Rolling Stone.
- Tommy Stinson tweets about Alex’s death.
- Jim DeRogatis on Chilton’s death.
- NY Times Art’s Beat Blog on his death.
- Pitchfork.
The first time I met Chilton, I was so moved I felt I should give him something as he’d given me so much. I took off my ring that spelled out ELVIS in rhinestones. I loved the thing and he looked puzzled, but it had to be done. Probably ended up in a trash can, but like Replacements, Al Green, and many others, those that make the music that etches into your life deserve a personal thanks.
Thanks, Alex Chilton, you moved me.
That is an awesome story!
The place I work at was sponsoring the Big Star show in Austin this weekend. Very surreal.
My tribute to Chilton can be found here:
http://www.wingsforwheels.net/?p=1385
I spent a cool evening with Alex in the early ’90s when he was playing a gig at the Knitting Factory in Soho. At that time the owners lived in a large apartment above the club & so did a friend of mine who worked for them. We stayed up most of the night talking, playing, enjoying cocktails, food & some herbal refreshment. I ended up falling asleep in the bedroom they kept for visiting artists. I woke up around noon with everyone gone except Alex, who was snoring lightly on the sofa in the great room. I thought this was a very sweet, gentlemanly thing to do, not kicking me out of his rightful bed. No diva he. I’ll always remember his kindness & wit.
So weird… Last night I listened to ‘Please to Meet Me’ all the way through for the first time in like, 5 years? Number 2, such a great tribute. Thank you Alex and thank you Westerberg, T. Stinson, C. Mars.
a huge loss for the music world…Not to steal any thunder from this site, but there is some interesting info on “man without ties” page…a great comment/response from westerberg, news regarding Chilton, and an upcoming interview with Paul in Spin
When Chilton played First Avene in the early eighties, a friend of mine who drummed for that show let me in on a secret: CBS music put out a shitty little cassette called “60’s Top Vocal Greats (BT15880) in 1981 that had re-recorded version of old hits. The Box Tops are represented by The Letter and Cry Like A Baby, which Chilton sings in his 1981 voice. Not a tremendously inspired performance (as you could guess), but it was a cool find for a Big Star fan at the time.
I was one of the lucky ones in that I heard about Radio City when it first came out via multiple positive articles in ‘Stereo Review’ of all places. Thank you Alex for turning my head around with your music.
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