As a friend pointed out (and I’m paraphrasing here) there is nothing tragic about Chilton’s death.  That it’s really amazing that Chilton had a wonderful life and inspired so many people.  And that his work spoke to and for so many of us.

When I think back on my relationship with Alex Chilton’s work, a couple of things stand out.

Jim and Matt

Almost 20 years ago today I walked into a little music store in Mission Kansas called Midwestern Music Company.  I was (did I just say “was?”) a typical, horrible guitar player, looking for a distortion pedal to make me sound better.  So I was naturally intimidated and scared shitless by this whole process and the guys in there.  While the tall, long-haired dude brought me a yellow Boss distortion pedal to try, the shorter blonde guy with thick glasses just watched me.  When I shit my way through some chords he sort of laughed and walked back into the back room.  I can’t remember if I ever bought the yellow pedal (I don’t think I ever actually bought anything there) but I do know the whole experience ruined me from going back in there for a good six months.   In those six months I managed to get a copy of Big Star’s #1 Record.  I listened to it, gushed openly over every note, and learned to play every riff I could.  So when I went back in to that little music store the first thing I did was play (badly) the opening riff to “Feel.”

The blonde guy with the thick glasses leaned inside the doorway to the back room looking at my hands, took a slow drag of his cigarette, and, breathing in, said “Big Star.  Cool.”  – no laughing, this was deadly serious.  That is how I met and came to be friends with Jim Strahm and Matt Kesler.  Over the next several years we talked Chilton, Westerberg, Clem Burk, The Beat, and all these great pop musicians.   My relationship with Jim and Matt and Midwestern Music kept me playing music and writing songs to this day.  Always at the foundation of our musical relationship was Alex Chilton.   It’s safe to say if I hadn’t heard Chilton and Big Star I might never have met some of the most important people in my life.  He embodies that one thing music does for so many of us; it is a thing through which we form long-lasting relationships; through which we fall in love with the people in our world over and over again.

Jody Stephens

Several years ago, again almost to this day, Juj and I took a trip to Memphis Tennessee.  It was right around my birthday and we took the dogs.  I was dead set on visiting Ardent Studios.  So, one afternoon we went.  I walked in and told them woman, “yeah, um, I was hoping to have a look around.  I’d like to record here.”  She smiled at us a smile that said “we get this all the time,” and picked up the phone; “Hey.  There’s a gentleman here who would like to look around?  Okay.”

She hung up, “Joe will be right up and he’ll show you around.”  And in walked this tall guy who looked so familiar.  He said “hey, I’m Joe.  Wanna look around?”  I said sure, awestruck to be in Ardent Studios.  He said he had a few minutes before an important appointment and he could show me the place. First we saw the “A” control room and said “yeah, this is where REM recorded Green and the Replacements mixed whatever that album was in here.”  Next he showed me the “B” room “now in here is where Westerberg puked on the ceiling.”  and he pointed to the top of a 20-foot wall “RIGHT over there.  You can see it.”    We both stood there in silence staring at the stains on the ceiling.  Me: “How in the hell….?”  Joe: “Yeah.  I . . . I have no idea.”

We walked around a little more and talked about Studers and consols, kitchens and Jim Dickinson.  And he apologized for having the cut the tour short but he had a commitment.  When we walked out to the lobby it was empty so Joe grabbed a folder with the Ardent Logo on the front and a business card and handed them to me.  We walked outside and he looked at a woman standing in the parking lot and said “There you are.” Juj was playing in the parking lot with two huge Collies who immediately turned and ran up to Joe.  Turns out the woman was Joe’s wife.  The two had a date to take the dogs to the park and they both apologized again for having to “be so short.”

We chatted a few more minutes about things to do in Memphis.  I told him I was a huge Big Star fan and he said “oh, if you’re in to those guys there’s a place called Shangri-la records over here that has a bunch of posters and records and stuff.”  He was gracious, asked me to call him if I ever needed anything or was coming back in town and the two of them told us a few other things to do in Memphis.

Juj and I got back in the car and I looked in the folder.  The business card read “Jody Stephens – Studio Manager.”  I was stunned.  ”THAT WAS FUCKING JODY FUCKING STEPHENS!”  Jody Stephens had just given me a guided tour of Ardent Studios, and I was so star-struck by the place that I didn’t even recognize the man (I’d only seen pictures of him from almost 30 years prior).  He never once said anything about himself, Big Star or anything.  He never expected that I should recognize him even as I gushed over his band that changed my life.  This was Jody Stephens — his big important appointment was with his wife and dogs.  The kindest, most unassuming musician I’ve ever met.  The fact that he and Alex Chilton stayed friends throughout their life — when musicians with far lesser reasons for egotism and anger can’t even stand to be in a city together — says all you need to know about Chilton and Stephens as people.

I owe a lot of my life to the people I’ve met through music — I’m no different than anyone else in this regard.  I’m just really fortunate that I’ve been able to fall in love over and over again with the world and the people in it and that Alex Chilton’s music helped me hold on to that world, and those people.

Thanks, Alex, for all of them.

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against unbelievable odds
It gets so hard in times like now to hold on
But guns they wait to be stuck by, at my side is God

And there ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

There’s people around who tell you that they know
And places where they send you and it’s easy to go
They’ll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row
But you know you don’t have to, you can just say, “No”

There ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

I’ve been built up and trusted, broke down and busted
But they’ll get theirs and we will get ours if you can

Just to hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against strong odds
It gets so hard at times like now to hold on
Well, I’ll fall if I don’t fight, and at my side is God

And there ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Songwriters don’t make history; they sing it. And if the song isn’t pretty — if it’s too loud, its message is mixed, its tempo is feverish, and its tone is threatening and ominous — look at the life around you. History is singing. Don’t try to stop the song. Right or wrong, the song is inevitable. It’s a photograph. And all of us are posing for it.

Arthur Hamilton

Jay Bennett in the studio

Jay’s work on the Wilco stuff was remarkable for what he brought to a band that had previously made pretty good songs, clever lyrics, but the arrangements and instrumentation wasn’t there yet.  Jay Bennett changed all that.  He made Wilco into the band I grew to love, immitate, admire, and emulate.  Summer Teeth continues to be a record I go to whenever I start a new recording project. Jeff Tweedy’s clearly a great songwriter, but what Jay brought to the band in terms of instrumentation, arrangement, is what really made Wilco the amazing band they are today.

Jay died last week while I was on a motorcycle trip and incommunicado.  I came back to town and found a message from a freind mourning the death of Jay.  We don’t know the cause of his death, and clearly Jay was much too young to leave us.  I’d been really enjoying his solo work of late and following a legal fight over the royalties to some music from his Wilco days.  Jay Bennett was a loving man, the night I met him he was so kind and I half-wonder if the idea of suing his old friend and collaborator Jeff Tweedy didn’t really crush him in ways few of us will ever understand.

In the end, Jay Bennett was one of my musical heroes.  He met his end in his studio, Pieholden Suites.  Fitting, I suppose.

We’ll miss you, Jay.

Love, John

When Mac McCaughan, one of my favorite song writers, wrote those lyrics, I don’t think he realized he was describing the plight of a film composer.

Fifteen minutes into scoring The Next American Dream and one thing is certain, one good minute really can last me the whole year.  Without getting too much into the minutia of the process, it’s amazing how far many different directions one minute of music composition can carry you.  A few well-chosen chords, and the right melody can lead you in so many different directions.

The key to the whole thing is finding that one good minute.   Finding the minute in the film, and hearing what it sounds like.  What song it’s singing.  Then, you let that one good minute lead you through the film musically.

I’m not trying to make this sound like it’s rocket science, because it’s not.  It’s not “easy” per se, it’s just that you have to listen.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The urge to focus too much on rhetoric.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Getting in their own way or prideful ignorance. I can’t decide which.

5. Which living person do you most admire?
Today, probably Bruce Springsteen.

6. What is your greatest extravagance?
My studio equipment or my jeans. I can’t decide which.

7. What is your current state of mind?
Contemplative

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Intelligence.

9. On what occasion do you lie?
When I’m writing a song or when someone might get hurt. But those are pretty much the same thing.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The sanctimony.

11. Which living person do you most despise?
Right now, its tied between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. I have no use for hate and insecurity masquerading as entertainment.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Simplicity.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Grace.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“All I’m saying is…”

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Who = Juj

What = music.

16. When and where were you happiest?
Memphis Tennessee, around 1998.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?
It’s almost impossible for me to distinguish between talent and aptitude. But I guess the aptitude or talent to be able to teach.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My inability to teach.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Getting this far.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Hopefully I’ve earned the right to come back as a family pet, a dog perhapse.

21. Where would you most like to live?
Europe, the warm part.

22. What is your most treasured possession?
I would be lost without my 1964 Hofner acoustic guitar.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Not having someone to share everything with

24. What is your favorite occupation?
Janitor

25. What is your most marked characteristic?
Impatience

26. What do you most value in your friends?
Patience

27. Who are your favorite writers?
Richard Powers, Robert Pirsig

28. Who is your hero of fiction?
Chris Pirsig (is that actually fiction?)

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Bob Stinson (is he historical?)

30. Who are your heroes in real life?
My mother. Alejandro Escovedo. Juj.

31. What are your favorite names?
Aeshel. Clara. Napoleon.

32. What is it that you most dislike?
I most dislike lack of empathy.

33. What is your greatest regret?
Taking too much time away from doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

34. How would you like to die?
AFTER everyone else, in my sleep.

35. What is your motto?
always be compelling

Every show I’ve played in this millennium has included a cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog (Hell, I haven’t bought a guitar that didn’t drone G, F#, E as it’s first chords in my hands).  That started as an homage to my friend and mentor, Alejandro Escovedo (who would probably kill me for calling him a mentor).  The tradition gained a sense of urgency and reverence when Al collapsed and nearly died after a show in Phoenix in 2003.  And covering the song took on a new sense of rapture after Al returned to the stage in 2006.  But covering “Dog” wasn’t all just about Al.  Sometimes, you just can’t shake a great hook.

Ron Asheton

For me, Ron Asheton’s guitar playing always had this gorgeous blend of slop and accuracy – I call it the ever-important tension between abandon and unity.  Ron created this tension in every song.  In short, his playing was the living embodiment of the rock-n-roll convention of “living on the edge.”  Countless guitar players copped his approach.  Some even pulled it off, (Johnny Thunders, Bob Stinson, and a few others come to mind).  

Ron Asheton and the Stooges arguably gave rise to more authentic rock bands than any other guitar player/band combination.  It’s largely because Ron Asheton wrote recklessly gorgeous guitar parts paired perfectly with Iggy’s delivery.  For most of us The Stooges are the embodiment of everything good about punk and eventually everything too many indie rock bands never learned or forgot.

The Stooges

Though Madonna did her part, Ron Asheton lay dead  in his home for days never having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Assholes . . . er . . . excuse me, “Fame.”  An indignity those of us not in the Stooges might consider absolutely insufferable, but one I’m pretty sure  Asheton shrugged off and would find completely appropriate.  After all, what fame did the world of mainstream music ever heap on the Stooges that wasn’t brought to them through a TV commercial?  And what more did Ron ever want besides to play?

There’s really nothing much more I can say about Ron Asheton, except, well, So messed up, I want ya here.  

Note to band-mates:  don’t expect to stop covering this song any time soon.