The Year: 1972
The Album: Big Star,
#1 Record
Who It Influenced: REM, The Replacements, Weezer, The New Pornographers, Yo La Tengo,
Elliott Smith
The tragic
death of Alex Chilton has sent a torrent of sadness throughout the music world. For a whole generation of indie bands —one we could broadly refer to as 'the 90s'— Big Star wasn't just a key influence, but someone who they utterly treasured.
The work of Chilton could be heard everywhere, from
Elliott Smith's spartan balladry to Weezer's bruising exuberance. With his passing, SXSW 2010 has been tinged with a sense of loss unexpected in its tenderness.
"People had no idea how much emotion would hit them," Lou Barlow (of Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, etc) told the
Associated Press, speaking of the feeling in Austin. "It was like a tidal wave."
Though Chilton lived to 59, he will be eternally 21 on Big Star's classic debut LP,
#1 Record. The album found some sort of weird fame in recent years as the record that spawned "In the Street," the theme-song to syndicate sitcom
That '70s Show. But, for me, and for many, this Big Star album is best remembered for its tender sentiments of nostalgia and loss; as echoed in Chilton's most eternal tune, "Thirteen."
Sad news today that Alex Chilton, the legendary leader of the legendary Big Star, has died, aged 59, of a suspected heart attack. Chilton complained of feeling ill at his home in New Orleans on Wednesday night, and was taken to hospital, where he died shortly after. His death comes mere days before a reformed Big Star was scheduled to perform on Saturday night at SXSW.
Chilton —pictured here outside of CBGBs in 1977— first found fame as the 16-year-old frontman of the rock'n'roll group The Box Tops, scoring a #1 single with "The Letter" in 1966. He was only 21 when he wrote Big Star's timeless debut,
#1 Record, a chronicle of the dark side of teenage stardom that effectively minted 'power pop' as a genre.
Chilton is survived by his wife, Laura, his son, Timothy, and the hundreds of bands he has influenced.
Photo © Godlis
This year, the internet has been literally heaving with consternation concerning the identity of mysterious viral-video identity Iamamiwhoami. An elaborately-executed, evidently-expensive, carefully-choreographed marketing campaign shrouded in secrecy, the
series of amusingly arty videos have driven know-it-alls mad with their deliberate anonymity.
Scuttlebutt has suggested an array of Swedes —Jonna Lee, Lykke Li, The Knife— and, crazily, Christina Aguilera as possible perps, as well as English electro sirens Little Boots and Goldfrapp. I'm guessing it's far more likely to be an unknown (or, at least, a new collaboration) than a known name, but, still, when recently speaking to Alison Goldfrapp about her latest LP,
Head First, I thought I'd at least see how she felt about the assumption some have had that the Iamamiwhoami mystery was marketing for her new record.
"I've seen one, some thing where some girl's like licking the tree,"
said Goldfrapp in the interview, mockingly, of the Iamamiwhoami videos. Claiming it was "not [her] aim in life" and a "futile exercise" to deliberately try to create confusion, she merely shrugged at the prospect of being misidentified. "Perhaps if someone was associating us with something really nasty or slanderous, then I might get upset. But, mostly, I just don't care. If people want to say we're behind that girl-licking-the-tree video, that's fine."
SXSW 2010 is here! Lord, is it here. Roughly six billion bands have descended upon Austin for the world's most ridiculous onslaught of music, marketing, and general glad-handing. From Wednesday through Saturday, shows will go on at all hours, buzz will build, names will be made, and Mexican food will be eaten.
The ridiculous proliferation of performers —official count 1800-ish, so consider it 2000+— means that any kind of exhausting overview of SXSW is impossible. My water-tight list of
10 Bands to Watch at SXSW may be a good —nay,
great— place to start, but, really, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Neither you nor I have enough time to write/read a rundown of every act I'd recommend from the SXSW slate, so I've thrown together this handy tip-shit for anyone trying to navigate the Austin orgy. As always, day-shows are the way to go, the French Legation Museum is the nicest place to see people play, and 6th St. at night is somewhere no sane human wants to be. And, here are my highly-subjective selections for bands to witness, broken down into handy tiers. (PS: You're welcome!)
Definitely:
Abe Vigoda, Ólöf Arnalds, Julianna Barwick, Best Coast, Danielson, Drawlings,
The Drums, Dum Dum Girls,
First Aid Kit,
Fool's Gold,
Freelance Whales,
Get Back Guinozzi!,
Pepi Ginsberg,
Here We Go Magic, Inlets, Javelin, Jeremy Jay, JJ (pictured!), Le Loup,
the Love Language,
Magic Kids,
Memory Tapes, Mi and L'au, the Morning Benders,
Mountain Man,
Oy,
Pill Wonder, Pree,
Princeton, the Ruby Suns, Salem, Sally Seltmann, Alina Simone, Smith Westerns, Suckers,
Surfer Blood, Tanlines, These Are Powers,
Toro y Moi, Trembling Bells,
Sharon Van Etten,
Warpaint,
Jenny Wilson, Zola Jesus
Probably:
Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Paraiso UFO, The Antlers, Arborea, Bear in Heaven, Blessure Grave,
Blue Roses, Bowerbirds, The Chapin Sisters, Ora Cogan, Cotton Jones, Crystal Antlers, Kimya Dawson, The Dutchess and the Duke, Efterklang, Elephant Parade, the Entrance Band, Roky Erickson with Okkervil River, Explode Into Colors, Fanfarlo, Frankie and the Outs, Grass Widow, the Happy Hollows, Inca Ore, Sarah Jaffe,
Japandroids, Cate Le Bon, Liars, Magic Magic,
Holly Miranda, My Tiger My Timing,
Oh No Ono, Pearl Harbor, Pocahaunted, Ra Ra Riot, Real Estate, Anni Rossi, Seabear,
She and Him, Sleep Whale, Still Flyin', the Strange Boys, Tamaryn, Thee Oh Sees, Twin Sister, UUVVWWZ, The Walkmen, Washed Out, Woods,
The XX, XYX, Yeti Lane
Maybe:
Aa, Acrylics, Adventure, Avi Buffalo, Bachelorette, Banjo or Freakout, Born Ruffians, Bruce Peninsula, Califone, Chew Lips,
Choir of Young Believers, Class Actress, The Coathangers, The Crayon Fields, Dengue Fever, The Depreciation Guild, Diamond Rings, Marianne Dissard, Finn Riggins, Free Energy, The Fresh & Onlys, Rebecca Gates and the Consortium, Grooms, Happy Birthday, Harlem, Hudson Mohawke, James Husband, Jonna Lee, Les Savy Fav, Let's Wrestle, Light Pollution, Local Natives, Lullabye Arkestra, Male Bonding,
The Middle East, Anaïs Mitchell, Nice Nice,
No Age, Jackie Oates, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart,
Phantogram, Plants and Animals, Quasi,
the Rural Alberta Advantage, Savoir Adore, She Keeps Bees, Shelley Short, Slaraffenland, Smoosh, Sonny and the Sunsets, Katie Stelmanis, Stricken City, Summer Cats, Surf City, Tape Deck Mountain, Titus Andronicus,
The Very Best, Via Tania,
We Were Promised Jetpacks, Zaza
Photo © Malin Bernalt
