Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me Page #4

I don't know...

It wasn't the Beatles

but it was damn good.

It was great.

Things started

going sour for Chris

when he started reading

reviews of "#1 Record. "

It was such a large part

of his kind of creative vision

that when the press started

coming back

and focusing on Alex,

I think he thought

he might have to live

under that shadow

from that point.

# Rock and Roll

is here to stay #

# Come inside

where it's okay #

I'm sure that was a factor

and, you know,

his emotional problems

that he started having

around that time.

I mean, the guy,

he poured his heart

and soul into this thing

so I guess

he felt kind of betrayed.

Chris is in every way

a tragic figure.

But you're dealing

with a reality and a fantasy.

Big Star never had

to face the big mirror,

you know, just staring yourself

right in the face

night after night,

trying to pay

for the damn bus, you know.

I mean, so the fantasy

which all starts

when you're strumming

your tennis racket

in front of the mirror,

you know,

the fantasy was able

to grow until it blew up.

# If it's so, well,

let me know #

# If it's no, well, I can go

Late in the day

he came by the studio

and was arguing with me

and he stomped off and left

and I... you know,

I went home and, you know,

I got a call

from Richard Rosebrough

who was down

at the studio and said,

"Chris is back up here

and he's erasing

the multitrack tapes

for '#1 Record. '"

My father with incredible

understatement

and euphemism picked me up

at the airport

around Christmas time

of '72 and said,

"Well, we've had

some trouble at home. "

He apparently took

a bunch of pills

of some kind and wound up

in the hospital.

So that was a... sad day.

Well, what do you think?

Very nice.

One, two, three, four...

# You feel sad

# And I got mad

and I'm sorry #

I love "#1 Record"

and I think it's probably

one of the most peculiarly

sequenced records,

because it starts off

with all this bravado

of "Feel" and, you know,

"In the Street,"

you know, and it's got these

really great, you know,

"Don't Lie To Me,"

these moments

and then the record

just sort of slides

into this kind of melancholia.

I mean, "Watch the Sunrise"

is sort of like this

last glimmer of hope

that sort of sparkles

a little bit,

you know, right before

it just totally fades out.

# I can feel it,

now it's time #

By '72 I'd started

sending reviews in

and I was getting

published here and there.

So I was starting

to get on mailing lists

and I would get

the occasional album

in the mail

which was very thrilling

to get an actual record album

in the mail for free.

And I opened it

and that, you know,

that laminated cover

with the neon sign,

it was a eureka moment

hearing "#1 Record"

for the first time,

an absolute

life-changing moment.

I played it. It would end.

I'd play it again.

I really remember

hearing Big Star

clearly for the first time.

I was in Silas Creek Parkway

in North Carolina.

I'd just gone

through the light.

"Baby's Beside Me"

came on the radio.

I was driving

an old Thunderbird

and I started going way over

the speed limit really quickly.

It was really exciting.

Big Star had a song

in the Top 10 or Top 20

anyway in my hometown

and I thought

this was the same

all over the world.

I knew the people

over at WTOB and the DJs

would make extra money by

selling their promos... records.

I probably bought

all their copies

for a dollar

and that meant

that they didn't even

have copies to play.

So I probably

wrecked the chance of

Big Star getting

any more famous in Winston.

Okeedoke.

These are books

which I can't...

don't have room for...

oh, Spector, I loved him.

And now

these are the Beatles

and then Big Star's

got a section

and of course KISS

which I'll never listen to

but you got to have it.

Ooh, Sinead O'Conner,

I love her.

She's so serious, you know.

I've got like,

Dance and Techno

and House in these cases.

I'm into hits.

I love hits, no matter

where they come from.

This is the Rock Writers'

Convention

where Big Star performed.

I put a page ad in "Billboard"

and then flew in,

oh, hundred or so

of the leading music

publication people back then.

Rolling Stone, of course,

Circus, Crawdaddy,

Cream, Fusion.

When you came up

with this idea

for the Rock Writers,

was that a real earnest thing

that you just thought

that they needed

a union or something?

Very much so.

See nobody ever...

They just thought,

"Oh, this guy in Memphis wanted

everybody to see Big Star. "

That was

definitely part of it but,

no, they needed

some sort of organization.

Hard as hell to get paid

and nobody really

respected them at the time,

but they sure do now.

The day before

my birthday in April of '73

I got this package in the mail

and I just flipped.

And it was just,

"I'm going to get

invited to a junket. "

I remember they called

"Creem's" office and said,

"We're going to take

everybody. "

And I go, "Everybody?"

"Creem" magazine,

we made $22.75

on the weeks we got paid.

It was like

we'd won the lottery.

What exactly

we hoped to accomplish

was open to debate,

but we all had a ticket,

a hotel and freedom

to run around Memphis.

# I wish I could meet Elvis

They put us in a school bus

and they made this big deal that

we were going to go to Graceland

and maybe see Elvis.

I remember seeing the gates,

you know, with musical notes

and they came out and said,

"Elvis has left the city. "

Elvis is not there.

I vividly remember

looking over,

you know, Lester Bangs

and Richard Meltzer,

the two of them

are standing there

pissing through the gates

at Graceland

and I just thought if this

isn't what it's all about,

I don't know what is.

I just sort of showed up

for the second day

and they gave me a press pass

and I met Lester Bangs.

He was doing so much speed

that... and he could barely talk.

He just went, "Mm-hmm. "

This is perhaps

the most bland time

in the history

of western civilization.

Now the difference

between this and 1967

is stupefying.

Lester Bangs came out

so irreverent and so clever.

He never treated musicians

like they were

any different than us.

There was the sense

that the edifice

of Rock and Roll

had gotten a little unwieldy.

That resulted in records

that had lost

some passion perhaps.

In about 1971,

that's when I started

to really hate hippie sh*t.

I mean, I liked

radical politics,

but I saw hippies as just

mainly getting high

and "Let's...

let's get high and ball. "

I gave my life

to Rock and Roll music.

It had been taken away from me

just as I was getting

old enough to really enjoy it.

You know, everything

got bloated into heaviosity.

It started becoming

more product and less art.

I guess

we just thought like

we were trying to reclaim

that attitude

that had been there

at the beginning of Rock,

you know, stripping

everything back to

where it all started from

and let's try this again.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes