First published January 2006

Original MC5 bass player Michael Davis is musing on the popularity of this years rock’n’roll reunions. “The Dolls, the Stooges and now us – I think people are attracted to the source. People want to look back and see where it all came from.” Michael plus original drummer Dennis Thompson and guitarist Wayne Kramer are in London as DKT/MC5. Also present at the reliably tatty Columbia Hotel are guest vocalist Mark Arm (Mudhoney) and guest guitarist Nicke Royale (Hellacopters). Sadly not present are departed MC5 lead singer Rob Tyner and twin lead guitarist Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, although Michael pays tribute to them: “I hope Rob and Fred would be happy with what we are doing with the legacy of the MC5. As the DKT we are treating it with honour.” The previous evening had seen a screening of the new DVD “Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5”.  A MOJO-invited audience were treated to a highly entertaining documentary on the lives and high times of the MC5, followed by a Q&A with Wayne, Michael and Dennis. There was much reminiscing from both band and audience about the last time they’d played England in 1972 – getting bottled off by 60,000 pissed-up Teds at the Wembley Rock’n’Roll Revival show and surviving Phun City, Worthing’s answer to Altamont (read all about it in Mick Farrens excellent autobiography “Give The Anarchist A Cigarette”). At the heart of the new DVD is 60 minutes of footage from the first DKT/MC5 show, filmed at London’s 100 Club last March with celebrity guest vocalists such Lemmy, Dave Vanian and Ian Astbury. Thankfully the DKT/MC5 set at the Astoria that followed the screening was celeb-free, allowing the core band to demonstrate how tight they’ve become on this world tour. Augmented on stage by singers Lisa Kekaula (Bellrays) and Kate O’Brien, DKT/MC5 delivered a long, varied set bearing out Wayne’s belief that “the MC5 has always tried to honour the audience – we believed it was the artists responsibility to upgrade the audiences listening taste. Playing Sun-Ra’s Starship as our second encore was a deliberate decision to stretch the thing out a bit and show all facets of the band. We write a new setlist every night, we wanna play all the material but you can’t play it all every night so it rotates through – depends on who the special guest might be that night. In San Francisco Roy Loney from the Flamin’ Groovies came up with the band, the only time on this tour we’ve played Tutti Frutti”. Wayne handled lead vocals with aplomb on Rambling Rose and Rocket Reducer (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa), whilst Nicke did equally well on Tonight and The American Ruse. Michael did a great job on early single I Can Only Give You Everything – “there’s a  certain type of song that I gravitate towards, kind of poppy chord songs.“ The bulk of the set was sung by Mark – on his own for Sister Ann (with kazoo ending), Call Me Animal, Over and Over and I Want You Right Now and duetting with Lisa on Shakin’ Street, Kick Out the Jams and a fabulous slow version of Ray Charles “I Believe To My Soul”. Incredibly the MC5 never released an official version of this song despite Michael’s comments that “it was a one-two punch we had in the old days, finishing our set and setting up Black To Comm”. Although the MC5 have a reputation as total rabble-rousers it was the slower songs that moved me. Wayne is clear – “I don’t think you can hammer people over the head with 150BPM all night – we always had a broader view of what we were trying to present.” Lisa really convinced on the slow blues “Motor City Is Burning”, and she and Kate duetted up a storm on first encore “Let Me Try” . Lisa even managed to make me like The Human Being Lawnmower for the first time, as well as sporting a bigger Afro than even peak-era Rob Tyner. Michael and Dennis were a sprightly rhythm section. Wayne machine-gunned the audience visually and sonically whilst Nicke was more Fred than Fred in his moves and in his licks. But as he says  “I play like this with my own band, and I moved like this before I saw footage of the MC5. But I am playing a white Mosrite like Fred Smith, its kind of nerdy.” The stereo guitar conversation between Wayne and Nicke at the conclusion of set closer Rocket Reducer demonstrated just how well their playing meshed. Back at the Columbia Wayne is philosophical about how he can play under his own name at the Garage to only 40 people, but virtually sell out the Astoria as DKT/MC5. “The MC5 is a brand and Wayne Kramer is not. Sometimes those 40 or 50 people are just the people I am looking for.” He explains how come Levi’s have their name all over the DVD. “Rob Tyners widow and the artist Gary Grimshaw sold out the MC5’s trademark to Levi’s without our permission. When some British journalists called my wife and manager  Margaret Kramer and she realised what had happened she was able to take a real bad situation and apply some creative energy and say ‘If you guys are really into the MC5 why don’t you really make something happen?’. It was Alec Samways (Levi’s London PR) idea to stage a promotional gig at the 100 Club in London, film it and get Levi’s to pay for it. “ More legal shenigans surround “Future Now –  A True Testimonial”, a long-gestating film about the MC5 which reportedly contains some stunning footage but now appears unlikely to be released, largely because of a falling out with Wayne. “We wanted FutureNow to be the filming unit for the DVD but they viewed anything other than their film as a threat. No–one is more disappointed than I am that the film is not out.” Similarly threatened are the extensive range of quasi-legal MC5 live and unreleased CDs released over the last few years by a plethora of small labels including Alive / Total Energy, owned by former-manager John Sinclair. “Over the last few years we’ve been reining all that stuff in, having them deleted from all these little labels. We want to unify our work and have some control over the quality. Some are good, some ain’t so good – “Do It” isn’t even us, it’s the Rob Tyner band! We’ve cherry picked all the best bits for a 6 CD set that will be coming out soon on Easy Action, our UK label.” Michael is unsure about plans for DKT/MC5 beyond the current tour “I don’t know, we haven’t discussed anything specifically”. There might be something released from the shows. “We’ve recorded almost all the gigs, we’re looking and listening – depends if there is anything that really sparkles.” He doesn’t feel that much has changed since they started in 1965. “I didn’t have a clue back then and I still don’t. We were just trying things out, we just went for the things that appealed to us, in our bobbed haircuts and Carnaby Street clothes. I’d do anything that allowed me to make music and that’s where I’m at today.” The vintage footage in the new DVD produces a more philosophical response from Wayne. “I have reflected on the guy that I see in that footage. A young man – ebullient, happy, dancing, long-haired – who seems to have the world at his fingertips. And he has no idea of what’s around the corner, no idea the depths to which he’s about to fall. Months away things are going to go terribly, terribly wrong and then its going to take decades to get back to the spirit that the young man had, before drug-addiction and alcoholism carried him on the road that was not a happy road. I see this today in most of the young people who are pursuing fame, this idea that if I achieve this fame I’ll be delivered and I’ll have this good life. And this great lie that we manufacture in Hollywood and sell to the world. Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with wanting to be an artist or a musician. But the pursuit of fame – ‘man I’m going to be big, I’m going to have it all’ – is very damaging and doesn’t get talked about a lot.” “The MC5 really was an experimental band. As much as we were trying to be pop successes our roots were in avant-garde performance art, agit-prop and street theatre. We never had a hit single, we never were at the top of the charts, we broke up 150 years ago and here we are doing this world tour to packed houses just on the strength of the people wanting to hear this music.” And if you think that is just failed rockstar jive then buy the DVD, select the original live promo film of Kick Out The Jams made by John and Leni Sinclair and marvel that a band as vibrant, incendiary and righteous as the MC5 somehow failed to connect with the success they so richly deserved. DTK are truly a celebration of the MC5 and for that reason are worthy of your time and your money. For further information Michael recommends the MC5 Gateway at http://www.makemyday.free.fr/mc5.htm (“it’s awesome”). “Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5” is out now on DVD (Image Entertainment / BMG).

Keep An Eye On The Sky 4CD Box Set (Rhino)

First Published December 2009 It is 1978. The setting is an upstairs bedroom in the Surrey suburbs. Outside the punk wars are raging. Inside we have a twenty-one year old college drop out with a complicated personal life, reduced to once again living with his parents. He pulls out from his Virgin Records carrier bag a new double Stax LP re-release of some obscuro band that Max Bell and Nick Kent have been raving about in NME. One play of Side One, Track 2 is enough to create an instant fascination – angelic harmonies, a lead vocal of weary sincerity and guitars that sparkle. Nick Kent cried when he heard this song ‘The Ballad of El Goodo’ on the radio as he thought it was from the Byrds re-union LP and that McGuinn had rekindled the magic. The Byrds hadn’t, but Big Star had. Thirty-one years later I am still a fan. I now know a bit more about how Big Star came to record three extraordinary LP’s at Ardent Studios in Memphis between 1971 – 1975. If the record-buying public had actually heard theses records at the time of release the name of the band would have been factual rather than ironic. Instead the band’s reputation has grown steadily in the intervening period, fuelled by celebrity endorsement, record releases and three excellent books from Robert Gordon, Rob Jovanovic and Bruce Eaton. Inevitably some of the mystery has been dispersed, displaced by hard and rather sad facts – the total lack of sales, Chris Bell’s tragic death. Alex Chilton’s wayward solo career. Why do Big Star still matter? It’s the songs, stupid. The partnership of Alex Chilton (guitar/vocals) and Chris Bell (ditto) produced harmonic, inventive tunes with heartfelt lyrics and economical arrangements underpinned by Andy Hummel on melodic bass and Jody Stephens on rock-steady drums. Big Star’s lack of commercial success means that these songs have not been played or anthologised to death and so still sound fresh today. Certainly having Bell as his song writing partner bought out the best in Chilton. Every track save ‘My Life is Right’ on debut LP Number One Record was credited to Chilton/Bell and some of the best songs on the follow-up Radio City were Bell/Chilton co-writes, whatever it said on the label credits. Album number three Sister Lovers was written by Alex on his own and it shows: some great songs, but lacking that extra melodic invention that Chris added. Chilton has subsequently written alone, with progressively diminishing results. Now we have the career full stop that is the box set. John Fry, legendary audiophile ‘executive producer’ at Ardent, has ensured that all tracks are presented in phenomenal clarity so that greater sonic detail is revealed on familiar material. Ever the gentleman John is keen to share credit with Adam Hill at Ardent and Alec Palao. Says John Fry “Andrew Sandoval from Rhino actually supervised the mastering. I did have the opportunity to approve it, and I liked it very much. It seems to preserve the dynamic range of the music, avoiding all this ‘how loud and squashed can I make my CD’ stuff. If you want it loud, just turn up the knob.” Across the three studio CDs there are only a couple of previously unreleased out-takes – a heartfelt acoustic version of Loudon Wainwright’s ‘Motel Blues’ and the intro to ‘Thank You Friends’ which extended becomes a track in its own right as ‘Manana’. Instead we have numerous demos and alternate versions such as a raunchier live-in-the-studio, twin-drummer take of “In the Street”. Alec Paolo’s excellent track notes suggest that there were no further out-takes from these sessions. CD1 contains Number One Record plus some associated tracks. Of these the demo of ‘I Got Kinda Lost” makes a strong case for inclusion on the original LP: such is the high level of quality control exercised by Ardent that even their demos sound good enough to release.  ‘Country Morn’ is ‘Watch The Sunrise’ with new lyrics, a track first released as a flexi by Judith Beeman’s Back Of A Car fanzine. CD2 has a cache of Chilton acoustic demos for Radio City, all fully worked out in terms of melody and lyric – the sort of thing Townshend used to present to the Who. Had Bell stayed in the band then his ‘There Was A Light’ should have ended up on Radio City. Also on this CD is the extraordinary single version of Chris Bell’s ‘I Am The Cosmos’, together with its acoustic B-side ‘You and Your Sister’. The latter is particularly affecting as it was the last track that Chilton and Bell recorded together. ‘I Am the Cosmos’ is a desperate plea for help, sugared by a neo-psychedelic swirl of a backing track and swathed in gorgeous harmonies, ‘You and Your Sister’ a delicate acoustic lament framed by a sympathetic Bill Cunningham string arrangement.  CD3 covers the Sister Lovers sessions and is the most haphazard, although solo acoustic demos of ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Holocaust’ show Chilton at his most delicate and devastating respectively. CD4 was recorded live at Lafayette’s Music Room, Memphis over three nights in January 1973. This is the first legal release of live material featuring the line-up of Chilton, Stephens and Hummell and it completely refutes the suggestion that Big Star could not cut it live whilst outclassing all other previous live Big Star releases. These gigs were recorded by microphones placed in the crowd. Luckily as Big Star were supporting Texas soul-band Archie Bell and the Drells the apathy of the audience results in a remarkably clear recording, especially noticeable in the acoustic part of the. Of particular note is a Stephens-driven version of Gram Parson’s ‘Hot Burrito No 2’ and a completely re-arranged ‘ST 100/6’, which is followed by a rave-up on the Kinks ‘Come On Now’. The band make an extraordinary amount of noise for a three-piece and combine precision and passion, sounding like the Who live circa 1968. With a generous twenty tracks the release of this disc alone would have justified the box set. In addition to all this great music the box set includes lengthy and well-informed essays from Robert Gordon and Bob Mehr plus a whole slew of cool photos. Whatever Rhino are asking for this release, it’s a steal – here is everything that made Big Star one of the handful of truly great rock’n’roll bands of our time.

A Short Chat with Alex Chilton

In July Big Star played a rare London gig, supporting Tindersticks at the ‘Serpentine Sessions’ three-night event held in Hyde Park. With only 55 minutes onstage the band were forced to play to their strengths with the result that the set-pacing problems exhibited at the August 2008 Shepherds Bush gig were absent and the band were in fine form. After the gig we chatted to John Fry about the box set and about the plans for Rhino Handmade to issue an expanded version of Chris Bell’s I Am The Cosmos CD. The ever-amenable Jody Stephens came over to say hello but then headed off for an early night since he had to be up at 430am for the plane back to Memphis. Part-time Big Stars Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow were nowhere to be seen but lo and behold Alex was hanging out in the outdoor bar, complete with Diet Coke and a cigarette holder – dry, wry, urbane – the James Stewart of Rock’n’Roll. Alex belied his reputation by being excellent company. He has no plans to write or record new material, feeling with the record industry in the state it‘s in at present there’s not much point, plus he only really writes songs to a deadline. A discussion on royalties revealed that Alex does now get money from sales of the three Big Star records, but that this is dwarfed by royalties earnt by the use of ”In The Street” and other tracks in That Seventies Show on US television. Alex confessed that what he is really into at present is baroque and that he would like to do some composing, possibly for a film soundtrack. Only when conversation turned to Bruce Eton’s new book on Radio City did Alex get narked on the basis that Bruce had included personal stuff in the book that they had agreed was off-limits.

Q&A with John Fry and Jody Stephens

If Stax had got its act together and No 1 Record had been a huge hit how would the band have reacted? John: Stax had its act together far more than Columbia, their new distributor, did. If they had noticed the music and the band more, it could have been a different story. We got critical acclaim and FM airplay. Availability of the albums was spotty, at best. We never got the AM airplay that you needed to have for a single song to connect with a large audience. Also, the booking and touring component just was not there on the level need to combat some of the other deficiencies. Most folks are elated by success, as far as success can be defined. One might readily assume that the band would have been delighted by immediate commercial success. However, Alex had already had a good deal of experience with success, and it seemed to me that he was unimpressed by it. Jody: Looking at the name of our band, Big Star, and album title #1 Record, a reference to an album chart position, I would say we were pretty optimistic and we would have been elated if #1 Record really would have been a  #1 record. Big Star has been successful in many different ways, just no  “hit” records. One of the successes for me is that it did lead to a great career in music here at Ardent Studios and some wonderful relationships. What do you remember about the Lafayette gig on Disc 4? Jody: The audience wasn’t there to see Big Star. They were there to see Archie Bell and The Drells. A little uncomfortable…one or two people might clap after we’d finish a song, but as a result of that I think we all played with a heightened sense of determination. How does it feel seeing gigs full of people singing along after all these years? John: It feels great to me. At the Hyde Park show, there were two young guys behind me who were just singing along with every song, going off on the music, and having a great time. That’s the outcome you want anytime you work on a record, even if you have to wait for it for a while. Jody: Those people that come to our shows and sing along define our success. They always put a smile on my face. That energy from the audience is what drives me to keep practicing and playing live. Alex says he wasn’t involved in putting together the box set at all. Is that right? John: I informed him of the plans and sent him copies of all of the content, but he never commented on it, either positively or negatively. If he were around today would Chris Bell be part of the Big Star line up? John: I like to think he would have continued with his music, but he might well have chosen another direction professionally. That’s what happened with Andy, although he continues to play for his own enjoyment. Jody: If Chris were around, I would love to think he would be a part of the Big Star line-up. Although, just as it was his decision to leave the band in 1973, it would have been up to him to decide whether or not to be a part of what we are doing now. What was your favourite Big Star line-up? John: The original 4-piece line up, and I’m not necessarily talking about the songs or the sound. I’m talking about the climate. We were all together, happy, and optimistic. I prefer to think about those days than some of the harder times. Jody: Chris, Alex, Andy and me. There was always some sort of electricity in the air as we made that first record…first times are usually fraught with the most emotions. But there were many cool things about being in a three-piece band making our second record, Radio City. What are your feelings about In Space, the 4^th studio record released in 2005? John: I had no role in it other than the fact that it was recorded at Ardent. I think has some very good material and performances. It probably missed some of the attention it deserved, as by the time it was being released, Ryko was in the process of being sold and many of the staff were leaving. The guys need a break from imploding record labels. Jody: I am pretty proud of that record and would say that it is a great snapshot of where we were as a band in 2004. Ryko allowed us the opportunity to make a record the way we wanted to, which was pretty much just to walk into Ardent Studios and see what happens. There were no demos. We wrote and recorded a song a day and the outcome is a record that, while a challenge to make, is a pretty fun record to listen to. Does anyone have a tape of the gig you played at the Rock Writers Convention in May 1973? Can you remember anything about the gig? John: I am not aware of any recording. Richard Rosebrough and I were running the live sound, and we did not make one. It was quite a night – free booze and 100+ stoked rock writers. Jody: The whole rock writers convention was a good time. I was 20…there were parties and free food and drink. I think it was the first time we played to an audience that actually knew our songs and were fans of the band. Everyone seemed to abandon themselves to drink, the music and the moment. How about a DVD? Is there any video material in the vaults? Maybe the re-union show that made the ‘Columbia’ CD? John: There is some professionally shot video from Columbia, some of which was edited into song clips by Marius Penczner, who worked in our video department at the time. There is also about 22 minutes of 16mm film, shot by Andy and Chris, probably in 1972. There will be a short clip from this footage, edited to 13 minutes on disc 4 of the box. The Oxford American magazine on their film issue DVD used another short clip from this footage recently. We’ll try to make as much of this material available as possible in some form, given rights and licensing issues to the Columbia audio. I doubt there is enough video to justify a commercial DVD, but we’ll see. What tracks didn’t make the box set? John:  #1 Record and Radio City are not there in their entirety, as alternate mixes or versions have been substituted for certain songs. If it turns out that there is a sufficient body of worthy material remaining, we will come up with a way to issue it at a later date. And finally…where did the title for the box set come from? Jody: We were all trying to think of a title and John Fry suggested I look through song titles and lyrics. I got to ‘Stroke It Noel’ and what I initially thought was the line “Keep an eye on the sky.”  I submitted it as a suggested title and everyone liked it and it stuck. Well, the line actually turned out to be “Keepin’ an eye on the sky.”  Seems I wasn’t listening close enough. We all decided to stay with “Keep an eye on the sky.” The line just seems to work.

First Published January 2006

Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer are remarkably polite and good-humoured considering that they have got up at dawn to drive from Belgium to Islington where their band the Posies is playing a one-off London gig at The Garage. Over a pre-gig tandoori Ken and Jon were happy to talk about the part they play in the latest incarnation of Big Star, where John plays guitar and Ken handles bass and keyboards in support of original band members Alex Chilton (guitar, lead vocals) and Jody Stephens (drums).

Jon and Ken first made their admiration for Big Star public in 1992, when they released a single on Pop Llama featuring a faithful recreation of “Feel’ from the first Big Star LP ‘Number One Record’. The other side was a cover of the then-obscure “I Am The Cosmos”, written by Big Star co-founder Chris Bell  prior to his tragically early death in 1978. Even the singles sleeve is a recreation of the ‘Radio City’ back-cover, with the Pop Llama label logo redone to resemble that of Ardent Records. Why the homage ? Ken: “ We did it to see how they did it – sort of reverse engineering. We got a great response to it.” Jon suggests a more market-orientated strategy “We knew that certain people in the business or who love a certain type of music would respond to it because they’d be in the know. It led to us getting together with Pop Llama and then pretty much everything else.”  The Posies went on to a career that peaked commercially with the Geffen LP “Frosting On The Beater’ which included power-pop classic ‘Flavor Of The Month’. Tonight the Posies are promoting their new Ryko record “Every Kind Of Light”, their first studio release after a nine-year hiatus.

In 1993 Jody, impressed by ‘Feel’, suggested Jon and Ken as the missing links that would allow him and Alex to play live gigs under the Big Star brand. One of their first gigs together was recorded and released as Columbia and they have been touring the same set pretty much ever since. Seeing Alex, Jody, Ken and John recreate live the stunning songs from the first three Big Star LPs was an unforgettable experience for me, and I suspect for many others who saw them at Reading Festival and the Clapham Grand (both 1993) and more recently at the London Mean Fiddler (2001). However there is a law of diminishing returns here as Alex refuses to vary the set.  Jon: “We’ve tried to introduce other songs into the set but Alex seems to feel that all the songs we do from the Big Star records are the only ones worth doing. Alex knew ‘I Am The Cosmos’ straight away and it’s not on a Big Star record so he’s paid attention to it at some point.” Ken elaborates “When we started working with Alex it was like a process of elimination. He tells you what he doesn’t like. There were songs that we wanted to do that he didn’t want to sing so we ended up singing them. He didn’t sing ‘Feel’ originally – he didn’t want to do ‘Back Of A Car’, which is bizarre to me.  Or ‘O My Soul’ -‘If you guys want to sing it I’ll just stand back here and play’. It’s weird how he steers things.”

But wait…there’s more – last years ‘In Space’, a new Big Star studio record and  their first in 30 years. Was it recorded to allow the live set to incorporate some new songs ? Ken: “I’ll debate that. That would be a fringe benefit but I don’t know how we’re going to play these new songs live. You’d think it would be easy to do. But its like the new Posies record – when it was time to play the songs live I didn’t have a clue what I’d played on the record. I haven’t thought about how to play the new Big Star songs at all so I suppose in a couple of weeks we’ll need to do a round of emails and say ‘hey what are we going to do? “Jon:  “I was talking to Jody and we’re going to meet up and do these Big Star shows pretty soon and we haven’t rehearsed. I think we’re going to show up and be prepared to have anything happen on the spot. I don’t think we’re going to get too many instructions on that. I reckon if we play anything off the new record it’s going to be the cover (‘Mine Exclusively’, originally by The Olympics), we have done that live.”

So in a mere three weeks the Big Star will be playing live gigs in Sweden, Holland and Belgium to promote ‘In Space’. But no UK gigs ? Jon: “For whatever reason Mr Chilton has deemed Great Britain off-limits. Which is unfortunate for many reasons. One –  it would be fun to play here. Two – we’ve had some incredibly good offers to play, including All Tomorrow’s Parties to play one of the first two Big Star records all the way through – prestige, lucrative. But that would require us to play Songs That We Don’t Play. Alex doesn’t really explain stuff. One year we had an offer to do the New Orleans Jazz Festival but Alex didn’t want to play in New Orleans that year, even though he lives there. Who knows ? Mystical criteria are involved.  Alex also does shows with the Boxtops, and gets more money than he does doing Big Star shows. He really gets down and has a real good time, dancing and singing – the chameleon aspect of him.”

In the studio Alex and Jody were very different. Ken “Jody is very patient and he had a really strong idea about what would be the way to go. When Alex never really went in that particular direction I saw Jody biting his tongue quite a bit. Jody is a very peaceful guy, doesn’t seem to worry about much, happy to meet everybody, treats everybody pretty much the same. Jon ”Alex has done more for himself by saying nothing. We do talk to him…but he doesn’t talk to us.” Jon was surprised by the recording process. “I didn’t know what to expect but to be honest I would have thought there would have been more leading coming from Alex. It was amazing to see how much they looked to us to fill in the blanks. It was a fairly democratic process, which surprised me. After doing it my sense is probably that most of the Big Star records in the past were actually very collaborative affairs. Alex always gets the lions share of the credits but Chris Bell has as much to do with it as anybody, he just wasn’t around to carry it on. More of a tragic figure than Alex.” Ken takes up the theme “I think they could have each gone that way. Alex pulled out of his nose-dive, I think he was just one bad decision away from ODing. Maybe Chris was more of a depressive and Alex was more of a ‘I’ll take it out on anyone around me’ type thing. I am really glad I didn’t know Alex Chilton in 1978.”

But today a reformed Alex calls the shots in the studio, according to Jon: “An unspoken executive veto – if Alex doesn’t like something it’s just not going to get by him. It was funny to see the sort of things he really did zero in on, like the classical piece on the record (‘Aria, Largo’), its one of three similar pieces we did. Alex came prepared with full charts for the bass, my guitar parts, there was even parts for the drums “. Ken points out that ‘Turn My Back On The Sun’ is not the obvious Beach Boys tribute that could be expected. “Alex has a love of all things Beach Boys. I thought the lyrics would be good to do a kind of anti-statement, very Alex ‘I’ll turn my back on the sun”. Of course as soon as a Beach-Boys like piece of music appeared Alex’s eyes lit up.”

Were they worried about the responsibility for The Fourth Big Star Record resting on their shoulders? Ken “There were many, many people who would have liked a carbon copy, a remake of the first two records but that was just not going to happen.“ Jon amplifies: “There are elements that Big Star had which we have tried to include but we didn’t try to copy it. You’re gonna want some harmonies on a Big Star record. It doesn’t sound the same but it has some of the same components. The song I had the most to do with (‘Lady Sweet’) I was trying to write my idea of what a Big Star song would be, specifically in terms of the more melancholy ‘Radio City’ material like ‘Daisy Glaze’ or ‘My Life Is White’. It’s a cool experiment to try and create something through the filter of what you think it should be and I think it works.” In contrast to the year-long recording process for ‘Number One Record’, John explains that ‘In Space’ was recorded live and quickly. “Two ten day recording sessions but we weren’t around for the mixing unfortunately. Alex and (producer) Jeff Powell pretty much did the mixing themselves, we got a couple of calls ’Is it OK if we take out all of your stuff?’. There was one thing that got taken off that I definitely would have raised a stink about, we did these call and response vocals at the end of ‘Dony’ and it was a very hooky part in what was already a pretty hooky song.”

Have they read Rob Jovanovic’s book about Big Star ? Ken: “I’ve never read it. I’ll get to it eventually. We talked to him. On the REM tour Peter Buck was reading it. I know it is as good a book on Big Star as could be done.” Jon: “I’ve only thumbed through the chapter about us. It was highly accurate.” What about the cover of ‘In Space’ ? Ken is unimpressed “I was not thrilled by the cover artwork but that was Alex’s favourite out of about 30 rough drafts. There were a couple I thought were better. It is what it is. I will say it is very identifiable. And the title? “ Alex just pulled that out of his ass. I would love to know the reason behind it, but I’m not sure there is one”.