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

I never had a nice couch, but I’ve spent hundreds of hours listening back in the control room, head back, exhausted, wondering, listening, hoping. Jim Dickinson’s ideas, arrangements, and outright theft of so many great records probably inspired me more than Michael Jackson or Les Paul combined. RIP Jim. You’ll be missed.

This week we begin tracking for a new recording. Of fourteen songs we’ve written over the past year we’re recording eight. That’s mostly because I’m pretty quick to punt a song if I don’t like it. That’s not to say that the songs of the Mendoza Lie are supposed to be musical masterpieces. Quite the opposite. The Mendoza Lie is mostly about abandon, hook, and id; in short, a departure from the whole music composing thing.

Imagine Wipe Out versus I Guess I just wasn’t Made for these Times.

So when we first set about recording these songs we were sort of limp about it. Things weren’t tight, or confident, or even deliberate. That was about six months ago. With this recording we’re a lot more deliberate, and concise. The tempos are a bit faster. The tones a bit more brash.

Every recording project is a new experiment. Whether it’s with the technical aspects of micing technique, and placement, or the more artistic aspects of songwriting and arranging, or the craft elements of instrumentation. In addition to being an experiment, it’s also a fluid process. So, things don’t always come out the way you might have expected. Hopefully, that’s a good thing.

In the upcoming weeks I’ll hopefully have time to write about this process. Please stay tuned.