RIP Alex Chilton

Two of my last three posts have been obituaries. As the guy I eulogized on here last week once sang, "I'm so sick of goodbyes." I was just coming home from a night of St. Patrick's Day revelry with the missus when I got a text from a friend that Alex Chilton had died. It's not at all the way I was looking to end the night.

Just about everyone has heard Chilton's music, even if they don't know it. If you've ever spent any time listening to an oldies radio station, you've heard The Box Tops number one hit from 1967, "The Letter."And even if you've never actually heard Big Star, you probably know their song "In The Street" from the Cheap Trick cover that served as the theme song to That 70's Show. Then again, if you're reading a music blog, you probably already know all this.

I saw Alex Chilton do a solo show at the Exit/In in the early 90s. In addition to being a really cool low tech light show (a flicked cigarette may not seem like much, but it's amazing when you're tripping), it also provided one of my all time favorite one liners. Mainly though it was just great seeing a guy who, though he may have been jaded about the business of music, always had a deep and obvious passion for rock and roll. About a decade later I saw one of Big Star's reunion concerts. The bill also included Superdrag, which meant seeing bookends of Tennessee's greatest pop bands, both geographically and chronologically. Needless to say, it was a hell of a night.

As much as I'm happy to have the memories of seeing Chilton play, mostly I'll cherish the music. If there is finer melodic example of adolescent love than "September Gurls," I haven't heard it.

Big Star - "The Ballad Of El Goodo (Live Acoustic)" (mp3) from Big Star Live

Pants Soup

Anyone who's visited this blog more than a couple of times knows I am a huge Frank Sinatra fan. Much to my chagrin, my fiance prefers Bing Crosby. I guess nobody's perfect.

If anyone has ever been in the market for any Crosby CDs, you tend to find that the only ones that are generally available are either Christmas CDs or compilations that mostly repackage the same dozen songs over and over. In an effort to expand our collection of Der Bingle, I visited one of our local used music emporiums the other day, where I found Top o' the Morning: His Irish Collection. With St. Patrick's Day being this week, I figured it was a timely purchase. And it introduced me to this ditty, which has to be one of the goofiest damn songs I've ever heard. It's also a little bit disturbing. Apparently in Ireland they use the same pots to do laundry that they cook dinner in. Mmmm... soapy.

Bing Crosby - "Who Threw The Overalls In Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" (mp3) from Top o' the Morning: His Irish Collection

RIP Mark Linkous

I remember the first time I heard Sparklehorse like it was yesterday. I was driving home on a Sunday night, listening to Jason Moon Wilkins show on Lightning 100, and he played "Someday I Will Treat You Good." It was one of those musical "oh shit" moments where you are just absolutely blown away. I'm pretty sure I went out and bought Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot the next day. It was absolutely brilliant. Somehow he managed to be rocking, rootsy, and totally surreal all at once. It was like listening to a rock album produced by David Lynch (who would end up collaborating with Mark Linkous fourteen years later on Dark Night Of The Soul). It may have taken him four or five years to complete an album, but the wait was always worth it. Pretty much everything he touched was great.

Unfortunately, Mark Linkous was also the kind of brilliant that when I read that he committed suicide yesterday, I was saddened but not surprised. He had already famously overdosed once, and his lyrics were full of references that made you think he might not be long for this world. Regardless, yesterday the world lost an incredibly gifted artist.

So farewell Mr. Linkous. Here's to hoping you find the happiness in the next life that was obviously missing for you in this one.

Sparklehorse - "Happy Man (Memphis Version)" (mp3) from Distorted Ghost