Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me Page #5

I remember there was

a meeting the morning of,

I think, the second day

where we were supposed

to elect a president

of the organization

and draft minutes

for the meeting,

but it was anarchy.

It was like that clich#,

like herding cats.

We didn't want

to be organized.

You know,

our gift was chaos.

The last night

they had a big concert

with the acts

that were on Ardent.

The rock writers

were just yawning and going,

"Yay, this is horrible"

and then Big Star came on.

The flower

that had blossomed,

when I heard "#1 Record,"

re-blossomed.

They were just great.

As soon

as they started playing

all the rock writers

started dancing

and Richard started

taking his pants off

on the dance floor

while Big Star was playing.

So he danced in his

tighty-whiteys for a while.

I had seen Big Star

a number of times before then

and they never got

that kind of response.

No one ever adored them,

this hand-picked

perfect audience.

That was really, to me,

where we all came together.

I still marvel at the fact

that Ardent Records

paid to get 140 rock writers

in the same place.

Something was forged

in that ridiculous moment

of a record company

trying to organize us.

No one forgot those few days.

I mean,

not a whole lot of business

got accomplished then,

but it certainly was

a galvanizing point

for the whole

Big Star thing.

Coming off the performance

at the Rock Writers' Convention

certainly had instilled

a new confidence in me

and my perception is

that the band had been kind

of on hiatus prior to that.

So we were all pretty

charged about it.

That's a neat sound.

Okay, you're rolling.

Hey, John, turn up

the bass in the headphones.

Even before

Chris left the band,

they had already started

writing some more songs.

I was glad

that the band decided

that they wanted

to make another album,

but things were

a little different.

Nightclubs and liquor

by the drink in bars,

you know, you can almost

see the geography

reflected in "Radio City. "

Memphis did not get liquor

by the drink until August '69.

There was a great

hue and cry saying,

"This is going to turn the youth

of Memphis into degenerates.

There's gonna be bars

on every corner. "

Well, guess what?

Fridays was the cornerstone bar

and you saw some crazy,

crazy people

who probably

if say liquor or drugs

or sex had not

brought them together

they would never have been

in the same place,

much less the same

moral universe.

Everybody, who was

in the least bit

interested in raising hell,

would be there.

Typically we were.

Oh, my God, yeah,

we'd probably

drop a couple of ludes

and then have drinks

and then go from there,

probably to Fridays

and then

probably to a liquor store

and then probably to oblivion.

When we would party,

I mean, where do we go?

We'd go back to the studio,

'cause we were having

so much fun.

Fry would find us wrapped up

in drum blankets

on the floor of the studio.

Big Star will be playing

at Max's Kansas City

from tomorrow through Monday.

It's in the city.

STAX cut a deal to be

distributed by Columbia.

So when we went to New York

it was another attempt

to get attention,

to meet with the man

who negotiated

the deal with STAX.

That took a long time

to set that up.

We had to buy

a beaucoup of airtime.

One, two, three, four...

That was a showcase.

So anybody

that had been in Memphis,

any of the New York people

or I mean, I know,

I sat at the bar

between Richard and Nick.

They were like this

reluctant rock band,

yet there they were with that

ironic name, "Big Star. "

Those of us

that were writing

or trying to write

about them knew

that we were gonna have to

go through the magazine route.

Unfortunately,

I think to some of us

the prospects

of helping somebody

get big was not really

what we were hoping for.

We wanted them to be

a tiny band

that everybody listened to.

This is taking

a bit of a left turn.

This is probably the best song

to me on "Radio City. "

That second album to me,

it was just one of those...

almost the perfect record.

All the songs had a sensibility

and a feel and a certain

kind of, um, a mystery.

This was not a record

that revealed itself fast.

When you listened

to these songs,

they were complicated.

You got to feel

the emotional depth

and angst

that was within the band.

I look at "Radio City"

as a transitional record.

It's the pristine brilliance

of the first record,

but it's the beginning

of the unfraying

and the sound of falling apart.

# You're gonna die

# Yes, you're gonna die

# Right now

Love that ending.

Uh, those last few chords

that Nick Lowe later stole.

When you hear a really

great guitar sound,

that sounds really unique,

like even just at the beginning

of "September Gurls,"

the way the guitar sounds

right at the beginning,

that sound, it's one

of the things that's just,

you know, it's like osmosis

and it just kind of goes

right into you.

# September gurls do so much

# I was your butch

and you were touched #

# I loved you,

well, never mind #

I think "September Gurls"

is probably

as close to a big hit

as they would have.

It's a good hit.

And, you know,

the fact that it wasn't

on every radio station

in America is, you know,

the target practice

of the music business.

You know,

sometimes you just miss.

There is that you would tag

things with "City. "

If you're in a Rock and Roll

band "Rock City,"

if something bad happened

it'd be "Drag City. "

And "Radio City,"

we all thought this was

a radio-friendly album.

Columbia was

gonna be our savior

and we now had a real

distribution company.

But they didn't give a damn

about Ardent Records.

It was a different game,

you know.

They were used

to dealing in tonnage.

For STAX to get picked up

and distributed by Columbia

was supposed to be going crap.

Well, it's a comedy

of errors here

but shortly after the STAX

distribution deal,

we get word that Clive Davis,

the man who negotiated

the deal with STAX,

is being investigated

for improper spending

on his expense account

and they fired him.

The offices of STAX here

are closed.

A lot of other problems

have also plagued the firm.

The latest came yesterday.

A judge declared the firm

officially bankrupt.

I was already

feeling the pressure

of having to make

the eventual decision

of school or band.

Having

that decision in my head

was causing me

to sort of morph

away from the band

quite a bit.

So my departure

from Big Star

had started back that early.

Obviously, Chris had already

departed and Alex...

that left Alex

kind of on his own,

Jody being Jody.

And so the boys club,

if there was one was kind of

falling apart at that point.

John Lightman

is our brand new bass player.

He's only been with us

about 3 weeks.

He's a fine man.

And this is Jody Stephens

back on the drums.

We often played to rooms

that were almost empty

and I felt really awful

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