A conversation with Jody Stephens from 1998
The Ringo Starr of Memphis talks about how Big Star became your favourite band's favourite band, his entry into alt-country supergroup Golden Smog, and his day job as a Christian-rock A&R man
Welcome to stübermania, where I dig into my box of dust-covered interview cassettes from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to present bygone conversations with your favourite alterna/indie semi-stars (and the occasional classic-rock icon). This is a newsletter in three parts: The Openers (links to recent writings, playlist updates, and/or other musical musings), The Headliner (your featured interview of the week), and Encores (random yet related links).
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THE OPENERS
Cool TV show alert: The New Vibes is a new eight-episode music-documentary series spotlighting emergent indie musicians in the Hamilton/Niagara area, including Pink Is Black (the new project from Anishinaabe shoegaze phenom Zoon), local jam-band heroes Golden Feather, and stübermania favourites cute (whose episode just happens to feature an introduction from yours truly). If you’re in Hamilton, there’s a preview screening on May 8 at 7pm at the Playhouse (177 Sherman Ave. N.); admission is free, but you’ll need to reserve a ticket here. The series will then have its broadcast premiere May 29 on TV1, available on the Bell Fibe TV or the Fibe TV1 app. Here’s a preview of what to expect:
This would also be a good time to remind any Hamilton-area (or Hamil-curious) readers that I also publish the #hamontlive newsletter, which delivers local concert listings to your inbox every Thursday.
Eliza Neimi’s recently released Progress Bakery has been a springtime staple here at stübermania HQ, and she rolled into Into the Abyss last weekend with a stellar backing band—flautist and second cellist included—that rendered her DIY prog-pop ditties both more expansive and abrasive. I was especially taken with the droning, jammed-out version of her 2022 track “Murphy’s”—and after I whipped out my phone to capture the band mid-flight, the song took a turn I was certainly not expecting:
I suppose I shoudln’t have been too surprised, given the ongoing efforts to rehabilitate Nickelback’s punching-bag reputation. That said, Chad and co. seem all too eager to piss away whatever sympathy and goodwill they’ve acquired in recent years.
After a week of slacking, I’m back with some new additions to the stübermania 2025 jukebox:
Stereolab, “Melodie Is a Wound”: I liked the first teaser from Stereolab’s upcoming comeback album, Instant Holograms on Metal Film, well enough, but this seven-minute stunner packs in everything you could possibly want from the groop: cosmic cocktail-lounge melodies, anti-capitalist rhetoric, jazzy breakdowns, and a glorious extended outro that sounds like “Ping Pong” given the “Jenny Ondioline” trance-jam treatment.
Matthew “Doc” Dunn, “Tally Ho!”: Toronto’s foremost space cowboy (and former U.S. Girls sideman) is set to release Love Raiders on June 2, and while this lead single is not a cover of the namesake Clean classic, it hits similar heights of indie-rock ecstasy thanks to its cowbell-clankin’ groove, southern-fried power-pop hooks, and dizzying guitar swirls courtesy of guest shredder J. Mascis.
Tunde Adebimpe, “The Most”: Even TV on the Radio’s most upbeat tunes were always fueled an anxious energy, but this psychedelic synth-pop delight from Tunde’s solo debut, Thee Black Boltz, radiates pure joy—no more so than when he slips in a mid-song snippet of Wayne Smith’s digital-reggae classic “Under Mi Sleng Teng.”
Artificial Go, “Circles”: Answers the question, “what if C86 came out of Cincinnati?” If you’re still vibing with the latest Horsegirl record, this dog-themed dose of absurdist indie-pop makes for a fine digestif.
Public Health, “Goblets”: On their debut single, this Hamilton quartet lay down a doomy death-disco rhythm that never loses its cool even as it gets swarmed by a merciless Sonic Youthian squall.
Ellis, “little kid”: On the eve of her North American tour, Hamilton’s Linnea Siggelkow drops a stand-alone single that forges a satisfying middle ground between the crystalline confessional pop of last year’s no place that feels like and the more enigmatic, post-shoegaze atmosphere of her earliest recordings.
Slow Reader, “Devon Sawa”: One more Hamil-jam for you. Slow Reader is a newish quartet featuring Tori Tizzard (formerly of Jessy Lanza’s live band) and David Nardi (ex-Dirty Nil, Ancient Shapes, Daniel Romano’s Outfit), and the lead single from the upcoming Soft Eviction (out May 16) is lovably nostalgic both in its early-’90s-indie throwback sound and in its totally-crushed-out lyrical nod to the titular Vancouver-born star of Final Destination. (And if that isn’t enough of a Canadian Heritage Moment for you, the flipside features a crunchy cover of Elevator to Hell’s “Why I Didn’t Like August ‘93.”)
THE HEADLINER:
A conversation with Jody Stephens
The date: November 10, 1998
Publication: Eye Weekly
Location: I was at home in Toronto; Jody was on the phone at Ardent Studios in Memphis
Album being promoted: Golden Smog’s Weird Tales
The context: Like many late-stage Gen Xers, I discovered Big Star in the early ‘90s through the many artists they influenced—Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, and The Lemonheads, to name just a few. I don’t believe in God, but for this ‘90s alt-rock kid, Big Star essentially functioned as an invisible, benevolent, yet all-powerful force that seemed to touch the hearts and souls of everyone I admired. By the time I got to speak to their drummer Jody Stephens in 1998, I had already interviewed close to a hundred artists, but this was the first time I interviewed someone who came out of the original ‘70s classic-rock era, and who seemed like a mythical figure to me. When I dialled the number to reach him at Memphis’ legendary Ardent Studios, I remember having a genuine pinch-me moment where I thought, “who could’ve imagined I’d one day be talking to a member of Big Star on the phone!?! I’m just a guy living at my parents’ house doing an unpaid internship at a local weekly, and here I am talking to a legend!”
But all that nervous anticipation dissolved the instant Stephens got on the line and exuded the sort of affable Southern charm that made you feel like you were speaking to a kindly old uncle (though, at the time, Stephens was just 46—i.e., four years younger than I am now.) Unlike his bandmate Alex Chilton, who always seemed to have a conflicted, arm’s-length relationship with Big Star’s legacy, Stephens felt nothing but gratitude for the cult that kept those Big Star records in the collective consciousness decades after they were first released to commercial indifference. The impetus for this conversation was Stephen’s recruitment into Golden Smog, the alt-rock supergroup featuring the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris and Marc Pearlman, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy, and Run Westy Run’s Kraig Johnson. Naturally, the interview also presented an opportunity to nerd out over Big Star lore—though I didn’t expect our chat to begin with a discussion about Christian-rock bands that sound like Stabbing Westward.
So what do you do at Ardent?
I manage Ardent Studios.
Is the Ardent label still active?
The mainstream label is not still running. It was for two or three years, and then we ran out of money a couple of years ago. We thought we had a financial partner and that kind of slipped away. So the mainstream label went under. But about the same time we started the mainstream label, Pat Scholes and Dana Key started Ardent Contemporary Christian Music. We had Big Tent Revival, whose first two sold over 100,000, and Smalltown Poets, who sold over 100,000. And this group called Skillet that I'm looking for a mainstream deal for. It’s kind of like Stabbing Westward or Gravity Kills. Amazing record. And it's not so overtly Christian in its lyrics.
The Christian-rock market seems really huge right now…
It's not a huge one, but it doesn't cost a lot of money to market stuff there.
…but it's completely under the mainstream radar.
Oh god,I mean, there's this group called Audio Adrenaline that John Hampton produced and they sell 500,000 records and nobody had ever heard of them, including me. And DC Talk—they sold a million and a half. Their new single is pretty amazing. I've just heard it once. But it’s like, all of a sudden, this music can compete. There are people in this genre now that are really super-talented people, unlike what I heard 10 years ago.
But there’s always going to be that belief that rock ‘n’ roll is meant to be secular.
Oh, people are scared to death of Christian rock. I’ll play it for A&R people, and some people will say, “hey, man, this is just great music. I don't care what they're saying.” And then some people go, “well, it's not for me,” just based on the nature of the lyrics, I don't know—in some respects, it's a harder potato than gangsta rap, you know? Which is kind of weird to me. But at any rate… hey, things are good! I joined Golden Smog in December of ‘96!
Well, that is the reason for this phone call. You guys are coming to Toronto on December 2nd to The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
I’m excited! I've never been to Toronto, so I hope I get a chance to look around.
Although you are coming here in December…
Well, I've got a big-ass down coat, so I plan to stay warm.
I was reading an interview you did about two years ago, right before you joined Golden Smog, and you were talking about the Big Star days and how Alex Chilton and Chris Bell had trouble getting along, and you said you didn’t think democracy in bands worked… but now you're in a band that has five key songwriters…
Don't believe everything you read! You know, I still think that, although in this particular instance, I think it works. And I think that the number of different writers contributing is a plus. But there are certain decisions that have to be made, and given the number of people in the band, you can't always get a consensus—not everybody's going to agree with everything all the time, and you just have to have enough respect for that person making that decision. And I think there's a tremendous amount of mutual respect in this band.
When Golden Smog first started, it was pegged as a side project for everyone involved, but does it feel like it’s become a proper band?
I'd like to think of it as a real band. You know, it’s more of a scout troop. I think Gary Louris said it best when he said, “some people go hunting, some people play golf together, and we have a band—we get together with the band and it's our way of showing that we care about each other without having to say it out loud. That's what this band is to me, even though we don't see each other very often. We started the record in 1997—we did 10 days in January of ’97—and we did six more days in February of ‘98. And then some overdubs. All the tracking was done here in Memphis at Ardent, which I'm really proud of.
It still sounds pretty cohesive, considering you guys are all over the place.
Yeah. There's still a feeling of belonging, even though we don't see each other very often.
How did you get the gig initially?
I’ll make a short story long! I met Danny Murphy in the elevator at the Mondrian in L.A., and so we had, like, 30s between floors to say hello. And this was three or four years ago, maybe. And then I met Jeff Tweedy backstage at Irving Plaza when Wilco played with Johnny Cash, and that was just about two and a half years ago. And then, ironically, when Noah left Golden Smog, it was Marc Pearlman that said, “hey, why don't we call Jody Stephens?” I had never met Marc or anybody else in the band, for that matter. So I get a call from [Golden Smog manager] Maggie [McPherson], and Maggie says, “Hey, would you like to join up?” You know, I had seen Golden Smog play a couple of songs at South by Southwest and kind of dug it. Everybody was having a good time. So I asked for a CD and it sounded great—it had a sense of humour—and so I said, “sure, I'd love to.” And then I talked to Gary and Danny, and both of them emphasized having a good time. The great thing was the money was ever talked about. The goal of this band was always about having a good time. And I thought, “gee, what a novel idea in this day and age!” The next thing I know, Maggie was calling me and saying, “gee, you guys need to make a decision about this thing,” and so there was this implication that I was already in the band—it was never really made official.
There was no initiation ceremony.
Yeah, no one said, “now you're now an official member of Golden Smog.” All of a sudden, I'm having to make band decisions! It was all very cool. And then I went up to Chicago and the band was playing at Lounge Ax the night before and New Year's Eve of ’97 and I sat in on a couple of songs and, you know, I stepped in the room with those guys, and there wasn't a stranger among ‘em. It was just this incredible sense of belonging. I never felt like an outsider.
Most of the guys in the band I've been playing for well over 10 years. But was there still a sense that you’re the elder statesman and they’re the kids?
Not with me! I look up to these guys. I feel like the inexperienced one in the band, if you want to know the truth because. I don't do this every day. When I have gigs coming up, I go over to the drum shop and rehearse and go to the gym and work out. I have a certain sort of regimen that I do to get ready for these things, but I don't do it on a daily basis.
Do the other guys pester you for old Big Star war stories?
Oh, you know, we talked about some things—naturally stories kind of come up when you spend time with people. But it's funny—I just found an old Village Voice. It was at my mom's house, and it was from March of 1974 and it had the ad for Big Star at Max's Kansas City, and it said, “with special guest The Butts Band,” which was The Doors spin-off—it was all the guys from The Doors except for Jim Morrison. And it also said “introducing Ed Begley Jr.” He was a stand-up comic. That’s kind of a neat little story, but a lot of dark things kind of stick in my memory about Big Star too.
Well, the reason I asked that question was I read an interview with Greg Dulli from Afghan Whigs and he said hanging out with you was like hanging out with Ringo Starr.
Where was that interview?
Raygun magazine, I think, around the time Gentlemen came out.
Good god almighty! Afghan Whigs are the hardest working band—I mean, hardest-working white band—in show business. They put on the greatest show on Earth. Greg Dulli is, for me, like John Lennon. He's just this amazingly creative guy. He's just one of the few people I know that can plot out a show like that. He’s bright enough to kind of think those things through, but yet he's creative enough that he makes it all spontaneous.
So the first time I heard Golden Smog, they were doing a fairly earnest cover of Bad Company’s “Shooting Star,” and to me, Bad Company was this big arena-rock band that felt like the antithesis of what Big Star were about…
I don’t know, “Shooting Star” is a great pop song to me. And that's what Big Star were about and I think that's what Golden Smog’s all about. It's all about great pop songs, and I'll go anywhere a great pop song takes me.
Well, us critics like to separate what's cool from what's uncool. In the ’70s, did you consider the bands that we now call “classic rock” as the enemy, or is that what you were aspiring to?
I don't know that I was such a huge fan of Bad Company, but I was a huge fan of Free. I thought Free were a pretty darn amazing band, just incredible songs. Big Star probably covered some Free songs—we didn’t do any next-generation stuff. Paul Rodgers is one of the greatest, most soulful rock voices out there. I always like that. But Golden Smog is sort of unpredictable. I could see them doing “Shooting Star” and not so much in an arena-rock way, but in a Golden Smog way.
Do you get a sense from the other guys in the band that playing in Golden Smog is a huge relief for them, where they can escape the expectations of being in Wilco or Soul Asylum?
Sure. We never had those sort of tense moments that may come about in bands on major labels where you're deciding what to do to make your record more market-friendly. I don't know that there were ever those real kind of tense moments over the creative aspects of that thing.
I can only imagine Jeff Tweedy is feeling a lot of pressure to follow up the last Wilco record, which made every critic’s Top 10 list. In Golden Smog, he can be a little more anonymous…
I don’t know… I never felt any pressure to live up to anything, doing this record.
And is Golden Smog a way to establish a new identity for yourself that isn’t so tied to your past?
Gee, I hope it doesn't preclude that, because I Ioved being a part of Big Star. And Big Star will do dates in the future. It's interesting, I was at the drum shop one day here at Memphis, and I was talking to one of the guys there, and, because the only time they ever see me at the drum shop is when I have a gig coming up, he said, “do you have a Big Star gig?” And I said, “no, it’s Golden Smog,” and I was telling them a little bit about the band. So I went to rehearse and I came back out and there was a customer that got in there and overheard my conversation with this guy, and he said, “I just heard you say you're in Golden Smog—I'm a huge Golden Smog fan. I can't believe I'm meeting somebody in Golden Smog.” And I thought that was really cool, when he said, “wait till I tell my friend Joe that I met someone in Golden Smog!”
You've entered a new phase.
Yeah, I think it's very cool. People that like Golden Smog, love Golden Smog, and people that are into Big Star are really into Big Star. Not that either band makes any money, but it sure is a lot of fun being in bands that have that sort of impact on people.
So is this your first full-fledged band since Big Star?
I was in bands in between Big Star and now—this group called The Suspicions that were sort of a full-tilt punk band, but had real melody. Pop-heavy, but real aggressive. And I played drums with this guy named Keith Sykes, who was sort of a singer/songwriter here in Memphis. But nothing that had any kind of national exposure.
How long have you been working in Ardent?
At this capacity, since ’87. It’s an interesting story—I called John Fry, who's the owner and founding father, to tell him that I put him down as a reference on a résumé that I had submitted to someone, and he said, “that'll be fine—I’ll say something good about you.” But then he called me the next day and he said, “gosh, I don't know why I didn't think of this, but we have a new position here and we need someone to wave the flag for Ardent Studios and go to New York and L.A. and establish relationships there. We hope to start a production company.” So I interviewed three times with this real straight guy who was head of our video department at the time. And, probably to this guy’s objection, John Fry hired me anyway, and I'm glad he did—it's been an amazing job. I was really lucky.
So you always stayed involved in music over the past 25 years?
Oh, you know, there was a time that I went back to school and actually I got a degree in marketing from Memphis State. I always liked going to school anyway, so I went in and finished and got my degree, and that probably helped somewhat with this job.
So when did you start getting a sense of Big Star's lasting impact?
In the 80s, I heard that Mike Mills and Peter Buck were saying really nice things about Big Star. And then when I started at Ardent in ’87, The Replacements were in the studio here doing Pleased to Meet Me. Jim Dickinson was producing and John Hampton was engineering. It's funny, I didn't really hang out with him at all because I was kind of shy about knocking on the door and thinking, “you know, these guys are in there working. I shouldn't bother them.” But it wasn’t until I had been here a week or two or three that I heard that they were Big Star fans. Maybe they would start late—like four or five in the afternoon—so some days I'd only be here an hour or two while they were here, and so our paths wouldn’t cross. But yeah, there was The Replacements and people like Greg Dulli and Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream….
Was it strange to hear of people from England and Scotland talking about Big Star? At that point did you figure those records were long forgotten?
Yeah, I had but they just kind of kept resurfacing. I went to England in ’78, and that was probably the first sign. You know, Nick Kent? The legendary writer? I ran into Nick Kent on the streets in London and it was a summer day and he had on this pink leather suit and I was just thinking, “wow, that's got to be just blisteringly hot.” But we were talking and he mentioned something about the Big Star WLIR broadcast being pirated there along with the Third album. So that gave me some indication. And it turns out, the first release of the Third album was in England on Aura Records, and that came out in ’78, and then there was a double album that EMI International did of the first and second records—that came out in ‘78. And I just happened to spend three months in London at that time.
So what is the proper tracklist for the Third album? I’ve got the Ryko version…
I don't know that anybody ever sat down and did a proper tracklisting, but I think that’s the proper one, because I think Jim Dickinson put that together.
I know there was a version that ends with “Holocaust” as the last song, and apparently Alex wasn’t happy with that, because it ends the record on a total downer.
Ha ha. I don't know. I've heard conflicting stories and I never really got into it.
So was the Big Star reunion a few years back instrumental in getting you back on the drums again?
It was, because I hadn't played for four years. That [Big Star reunion] was in April of ’93, and in January of ’93, Matthew Sweet called me and asked me to come play on his record, Altered Beast. But I didn't find out if I was going for sure until, like, two or three days before, and I hadn't played drums for years. So I went out and I thought, “well, I’ll be in a studio, I’ll get several attempts at it.” Man, I think it took me 11 hours to do a song.
So it's not like riding a bike…
After four years, you know, mentally you can sort of do it, but physically, it's a tough kind of ball game to get back into with regards to coordination and everything. But I think they took the best of three performances and edited them all together. They were just amazingly patient. Matthew's a sweetheart, and Richard [Dashut], the guy that produced the record is a really nice guy. So when I got this call about Big Star playing at the University of Missouri, I thought, “you know, if I do this, I've really got to rehearse,” because I knew the consequences of not rehearsing yet.
So did you invest in a Soloflex machine?
Actually, I didn't start going to the gym then, but I started practicing, and I'll tell you, the first song I did onstage in Columbia, Missouri, I figured out that I didn't rehearse enough. My hands were cramping and my forearms locked up. I trudged through it, but now I go to the gym all the time, so that when I do start playing again, at least physically, I'm in pretty good shape.
Big Star were considered Anglophile outsiders in Memphis, whereas Golden Smog are a little more in line with American southern musical traditions. Are you still a big Anglophile, or do your tastes lean more rootsy now?
It doesn't matter to me—as long as I connect with the song, I'm having a good time, and those guys write some great songs. Maybe it's all in the delivery, but I think Golden Smog writes pop songs. In Big Star, you know, Alex and Chris and Andy wrote pop songs. I have an allegiance to great songs—pop songs that have some sort of emotional depth to them. I guess you could say The Archies were a pop band, but there’s not a whole lot of emotional depth there.
What was it like to record in Ardent again with Golden Smog? Obviously, you’ve been working behind the boards there for a while, but how did it feel to get behind the drums there again?
The anticipation of it was kind of weird. But I settled into it pretty easily. Everyone was so accommodating. And the material was there—the way that Gary played lead guitar and the way the melody lines were arranged, it made it easy to play along with. It made it easy to come up with parts.
Would you say there’s a distinct Memphis vibe that makes its way into records made down there?
Oh gee, I think there is. I think the stuff that’s done here is just a little more soulful maybe than other places.
Have you heard the latest Mudhoney record that Jim Dickinson did?
It was done here at Ardent! Actually, to be correct, a lot of it was done in Seattle, and then they came here and they worked on it some more, and I'm not quite sure what they did here in Memphis, whether they cut tracks or if they just did overdubs, or maybe they did all that, of it Hampton actually mixed anything. I’ve got to get the album. The reviews I've read have been really good. Jim's just a wonderful guy to work with.
Are you keeping a close eye on what’s going on in music? Like, were you aware of the Afghan Whigs before they asked you to sing backing vocals on “Now You Know” on Gentlemen?
Well, here's a story about the Afghan Whigs. I went to go visit a guy named Al Smith at Atlantic Records—this was four, five, six years ago. And I said, “Al what are you into? And so he played me some things, one of which was the Whigs and I thought, “that's incredible—what a great band.” And then two weeks later, I go to Los Angeles and I sit down with David Katznelson and we have a little meeting and he says, “do you want to go to dinner and then go see this friend of mine’s band?” And I said, “sure, sounds great.” And so at dinner, I said, “who's the band?” And he says, “it’s the Afghan Whigs.” So we went to see the Afghan Whigs at Club With No Name out in L.A., and I had to stand there for an hour and a half and wait through the first two bands, but the Afghan Whigs were amazing. Greg Dulli comes out with this sharkskin, double-breasted suit jacket, no shirt. He looked like Frank Sinatra walking up to the microphone. He lit a cigarette, and just had this amazing presence. So that's where I met the Whigs, and Greg and I struck up a friendship, and then they wound up coming to Ardent. So I was a huge fan already.
Do you find most people your age don’t really pay much attention to newer music and just want to listen to their old Stones records?
Yeah, I do. Outside the studio and outside people in music, nobody my age knows anything about what's going on right now except for what they read, or what they see on Entertainment Tonight.
So how much touring do you plan to do with Golden Smog?
I go to Minneapolis on the 29th and return to Memphis on the 13th of December.
That seems reasonable…
Yeah, but it’s a tough little tour there.
How old are we now, if you don’t mind me asking?
I was born in ’52, so I’m 46.
I guess Big Star were never a touring juggernaut in their day...
No, we weren’t. We went out for three weeks once, but it was like we were doing three gigs a week. We went to New York and did four nights at Max's and then I flew back to Memphis to see Joni Mitchell, and then I flew back up to Boston and we opened for Badfinger one night, and then we drove over across Canada and then down to maybe Cleveland and Cincinnati… We played a couple of Agora clubs. We also played Syracuse and Utica, New York… It wasn't an extensive tour. We never had a booking agent. We never really had a proper manager. It was just whatever the label actually put together for us.
So after all these years, are you ready to get back in the van?
Well, I think it's going to be a grind. It's going to be a challenge for sure. I’m looking at the schedule now… We do the second and third of December in Toronto, and then we go to Philadelphia and play there on the fourth, we play the fifth in New York, we go back to Philly to do a radio show on the afternoon of the six, and then on the evening of the sixth, we do a Vin Scully radio show in New York.
The baseball broadcaster?
Apparently, he's a local radio hero that has a pretty cool live radio show. He’s on WNEW, and I've heard what he does doesn't even fit NEW’s format anymore, but he’s got such a strong following that he keeps his show. Then we play Northampton, Massachusetts on the seventh, Boston on the eighth, DC on the ninth. We drive to Chicago on the 10th, pay Chicago on the 11th, Minneapolis on the 12th, and then I come up on the 13th. I should be pretty good by the end of this tour!
ENCORES
The one thing I remember about that Golden Smog show at the Horseshoe in December 1998 was that they closed with a cover of Neil Young’s “Revolution Blues,” which has remained a setlist staple for the group:
Coincidentally, a week after that Golden Smog show, Alex Chilton was scheduled to play a Toronto show with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at the Phoenix—but he canceled at the last minute and was replaced by Danko Jones.
I wouldn’t get another opportunity to see Chilton and Stephens perform until March 2010, when they were set to perform as Big Star at Austin club Antone’s on the final night of South by Southwest. But shortly after I landed in Austin on the opening night of the festival, the news broke that Chilton had died of a heart attack at his home in New Orleans. The triumphant reunion show instead became an impromptu tribute concert, with an all-star cast of singers—including Evan Dando, John Doe, Mike Mills, and Curt Kirkwood—belting out Big Star classics. (Former bassist Andy Hummel also turned up to sing his lone Big Star vocal turn, “Way Out West”; sadly, he died of cancer just four months later.) This would also be the last time I attended SXSW after going for 10 straight years, and in hindsight, the Chilton memorial was a perfectly bittersweet way to bid adieu to the festival—one last salty salute to a rock ‘n’ roll iconoclast who personified the outsider spirit that SXSW once represented, before the festival entered its Doritos Stage years.
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