Big Star has a deep and fascinating catalogue as arguably the founders of power pop (if you for some reason don’t include the Beatles, Stones, and Who). Further, the Nashville band was the bridge between those legendary groups and the explosion of power pop in the 80s, with the likes of the Replacements and R.E.M. MOJO Magazine recently had a great feature, and here of the best info nuggets from it:
- Leader Chris Bell was sexually fluid, which probably isolated him a great deal at that time (the 1970s) and place.
- Co-leader Alex Chilton, before he died, surprisingly said he didn’t think much of Big Star.
- They were shunned on one trip to New York by a record exec as “Beatles wannabes.”
- While the record label pushed back their #1 Record release several months, the band got antsy, with Andy Hummel punching Bell in the nose and Bell retaliating by breaking Hummel’s bass into three pieces. Then, Hummel poked holes in Bell’s guitar. Bell bought a new guitar and charged it to Hummel. Real healthy band. No wonder they didn't last long.
- Part of the problem with Big Star never being as big as they should have been was that Ardent’s publicity department did a good job securing lots of positive press, but people couldn’t find the album stocked in stores.
- Bell left before the excellent second record, Radio City, although some of the songs had been co-written by him, and Hummels’s exit made their third, Third/Sister Lovers, essentially a two piece.
- In 1978, Bell’s car hit a telephone pole and he died instantly. This was after he had taken up working in a restaurant.
- In 2010, Big Star was set to play a reunion show at SXSW when Chilton unexpectantly died and soon thereafter Hummel died of cancer.
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