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man, that made me sad. big star were one of my favourite bands in my teens. been strumming the chords for kangaroo a load recently... RIP brother...

placeholder wrote:I'm pretty crushed by this. Not sure what to say about it. I'd only started listening to his solo stuff over the past few years, though I've loved Third for a really long time.I've been blasting Like Flies on Sherbert all morning.I was looking forward to seeing Big Star at the Overton Park shell in a couple of months.Requiescat in pace, Mr. Chilton.Man, me too. My wife is positively inconsolable. We were super-stoked to see that they were playing the Shell on my birthday. Jesus Christ, placeholder. I move to Memphis just in time to see one its worst-ever winters, and the deaths of Jim Dickinson and Alex Chilton. What a bummer.

I had some Big Star/Chilton experiences back in the mid-nineties due to the band I was in at the time. We had some 'business' dealings with the reconstituted Ardent Records via Jody Stephens, who is an incredible guy, really wonderful person and great drummer. We had some really amazing experiences in Memphis back in those days that I can't hardly believe, thinking back on them now. Chilton could be very friendly and he was always nice to our drummer who really worshipped him. We saw him perform a few times and he was great: sang the songs faithfully and gave his all. He was a really good guitar player, I remember being impressed by that.He is an icon in Memphis, as is Big Star so I know there is serious mourning going on there.What a shock. Does anyone know what his health status was or what happened? He didn't always look super healthy and seemed a bit fragile.RIP

Good reminiscence from Chuck Prophet.

I have absolutely no stories about Alex Chilton-- except how his music made my own day-to-day life that much cooler.Damn, this is fucking terrible and completely unexpected.

rocker654 wrote:ERawk wrote:Does anyone feel that as they get older, the world becomes more foreign as the people that made it more bearable die?Yes. I couldn't have said it better.

I was always impressed at how he could put chords together. He could turn the simplest chord sequences in something magical.

ERawk wrote:Does anyone feel that as they get older, the world becomes more foreign as the people that made it more bearable die?Alien, even. The world grows dark as the torches are dropped and beaten out, one by one. The new Illumination is yet faint, and best perceived by the young one with newly-opened eyes and untried voice.(That's from memory and I probably butchered it)

Just want to add my voice here. I listen to music made by this man on an almost constant basis. This death thing, we're all sick of hating it. Thanks, Alex, and I wish you could know that you'll be parts of all the important people I ever meet.

Aw, too young. To be honest, I didn't recognize his name at first. I thought this had something to do with those Chilton Auto Manuals... heh! RIP.