Loving this; Big Star

donbot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A73VEoUdb8k

DrCornelius

Can I be the first to congratulate you on posting that. I got into Big Star late and I’m forever grateful to the 2 music nerds who recommended them. Their first 3 albums are fantastic

Check out the Netflix documentary on them if you haven’t already. Pretty moving stuff 

donbot

Yeah, only scoped them about 12 months ago and totally love that track. Will defo check out the Netflix doc. Cheers for that.

If anyone has recommendations for other stuff in a similar vein, I’m all ears!

oh_pollo

Saw them live (well, that Posies/Big Star version) about 20 years ago. One of my favourites, there's nobody quite like them. Jody Stephen's playing on those first two records is just perfect.

UnclePsychosis

donbot said:

Yeah, only scoped them about 12 months ago and totally love that track. Will defo check out the Netflix doc. Cheers for that.

If anyone has recommendations for other stuff in a similar vein, I’m all ears!

not entirely the same but Teenage Fanclub basically took the Big Star sound and updated it. Check out the Grand Prix and Songs from Northern Britain LPs.

Mike Mills and Peter Buck have always been very vocal in their love for Big Star but that inspiration probably isn't *quite* so obvious in the REM material.

JezWynd

donbot

All good stuff so far. Just watching the documentary will check out these suggestions after. Keep em coming 

lasermonkey

My introduction to Big Star's music was the two covers (Holocaust and Kangaroo) on the first This Mortal Coil album back in 1984, despite not actually knowing who they were by!

It was a combination of a bad review of Teenage Fanclub's Bandwaggonesque which said something like "congratulations, you've written the fourth Big Star album. Now go and write one of your own" that made me seek out Big Star. I bought first two albums from Parrot Records in Cambridge and have been a fan ever since. 

It came as something of a surprise that two years later, Big Star had reformed and were playing at the Reading Festival. I pretty much went to every other gig they did over here. Knowing a couple of the guys in The Posies meant that I'd often get AAA passes and got to see them from the side of the stage several times. Alex had a reputation for being a cantankerous bugger but I found that if you treated him like you would any other human, he'd be fine. Jody is probably the nicest guy in the whole of the music business. With any luck, I'll be catching up with him in a few weeks. Awesome drummer, too. Ain't no one can push a beat like him!

donbot

Well that was sad. I’m not really one to reflect on what could’ve been, but seems like a lot of wasted potential in the Big Star story. Still, I’m just gonna listen to what they did and enjoy it. Maybe learn a few of the tunes I really like. 

donbot

Cool story Lasermonkey. Looks like I should check out Teenage Fanclub. I generally listen to a lot of Vai, Yngwie, The Aristocrats; difficult stuff to actually play (for me anyway!) So finding music like this that isn’t beyond my reach, I enjoy and sounds good is great. Just recently discovered rockabilly via The Stray Cats too.

 Feels like I’m getting to the point in guitar playing where I need to find other players to learn from and jam with instead of sitting at home playing bits of tunes and moving on to the next one. 

UnclePsychosis

donbot said:

Cool story Lasermonkey. Looks like I should check out Teenage Fanclub. 

Everyone should check out Teenage Fanclub. 

Grand Prix in particular is an absolute masterclass of songwriting. 

MagicPigDetective

UnclePsychosis said:

donbot said:

Cool story Lasermonkey. Looks like I should check out Teenage Fanclub. 

Everyone should check out Teenage Fanclub. 

Grand Prix in particular is an absolute masterclass of songwriting. 

Agree. 

Thirteen..... so good Teenage Fanclub named an album after it. A beautiful song

https://youtu.be/pte3Jg-2Ax4

gringopig

.

UnclePsychosis

For me its Try Again that gets me every time. 

That chord sequence.... ooooooooooft. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hWWuDuFrvY

BeardyAndy

I discovered Big Star when Josh Scott made their self titled album record of the week on the JHS channel and have been well into them ever since.

Freebird

One of my favourite songs, saw them live too when they toured the album..

Freebird

And if you liked that..

MagicPigDetective

Freebird said:

One of my favourite songs, saw them live too when they toured the album..

Yeah, alcoholiday will always be one of my favourite songs, as will Bandwagonesque be one of my favourite albums. 

Freebird

MagicPigDetective said:

Yeah, alcoholiday will always be one of my favourite songs, as will Bandwagonesque be one of my favourite albums. 

I bought Bandwagonesque, Loveless & Screamadelica all on the same day. Those were the days! 

donbot

May order Bandwagonesque tomorrow. Seems decent  

MagicPigDetective

Freebird said:

MagicPigDetective said:

Yeah, alcoholiday will always be one of my favourite songs, as will Bandwagonesque be one of my favourite albums. 

I bought Bandwagonesque, Loveless & Screamadelica all on the same day. Those were the days! 

No way! I bought Bandwagonesque and Screamadelica on the same day (xmas 91, HMV Chester). I was 15 and they changed me forever.