This week was not the kind of thing you can just blog away about. But in a sense, the best way to write about the the injury I feel, is to build the week up.
Lately I have been in a pincer between forces well outside my comprehension, let alone control. And that’s unpleasant. We like to think we have a thing called freedom of choice, and that a destiny shaped by will is a destiny superior to one directed by the slavering shibboleths that have been boiled down in the pit of your subconscious...you don’t want your abject need running the show, that’s for sure. But there are times when our safety is challenged, and we are picked up by the Eagle of Bad Shit, and that fucker can hold us, let us go, stash us away, at will. And you just have to go along for the ride. You think you’re tough? Until fate, the universe or whatever decides to makes a sucker punch...little hungry dogs nip a chunk out of your ass and scurry back out of sight. You laugh, and then realize...woah...I’m losing a lot of...blooooooooo.....d..you’re dead, and the joke’s on you. Oblique strategies indeed.
So, on one hand, I’ve never officially recovered from my illness that beset me...when exactly? Sometime shortly after I got back from Australia, the change from summer back to winter got me sick. That simple. Even before I went to Vienna, five days after getting home, I had swollen glands and such. Fair enough. But then singing with The Disciplines...that’s just provocation--the yelling, the sweating, etc. The jig was up already. By the next weekend, I was seriously sick. And the German doctor who gave me a shot of cortisone said the shot overrides your body’s better judgement and turns off your immune system. That’s why your throat starts working again...your defenses, formerly rigid, go all limp. She predicted I would get an infection from that point, and she was right. But she had put me on antibiotics in anticipation. But, still, a day or two later, I was coughing up green crud and feeling pretty drained. Since then it’s been a slow climb back to health, but oddly, being at home this week, it was slipping backwards. My cough returned, the green crap returned. And my energy level was just depleted. I was really planning on jamming hard in the studio and busting out all the mixing for
Hannah Gillespie’s album in the 5 days I was home but I didn’t even come close. For one thing, I had to divide the days between the massive amount of communications needed for the various Posies, Big Star, Disciplines and solo work I do; then there are all the things that I need to do while I’m home--not the least of which is spend a little time with my family, and take care of Aden when Dom is working--but also do family shopping, get Aden to school, go my Pilates classes, therapy sessions, etc; then there’s interviews, several a week usually. And normally, by working til 3-4am and getting up at 7.30 (when I need to get up to get ready with Aden for school) I can cram in a good 18-hour day and make some progress. Not this time. I was finding it pretty difficult to even stay up til midnite, and also, my workflow was just slow in general. The results were good, tho--the first mixes of Hannah’s music have been excellent. But, I’m just not quick at the moment.
Wednesday morning I had the pleasure of having former Seattle-ite
Terry Lee Hale, who lives just outside of Paris now, come over and play some dobro on one of Hannah’s songs. I knew Terry Lee well back in the day, we played shows together in the early days of the Posies, and Terry Lee was the original booking guy for the Crocodile Cafe, and of course the first band to ever set up on the stage of the Croc was none other than we’s truly. But here in Paris, since Terry is in les banlieus we are in effect worlds apart. Plus I’m gone a lot. But, it was great to have TLH come give some flavorful licks on a very important song on Hannah’s record, and after he left, I went straight into mixing the song. I worked on it til about midnite, sent a work-in-progress mix to Hannah, and went to bed.
Thursday morning. Began like others. I woke up, got dressed and took Aden to school with Dom. We went to have breakfast at our usual spot. Time to get to work. So, I went home, and Dom went to the cafe across the street to shoot the merde with some friends. I logged on to see if Hannah had any comments about the latest mixes. I connected our ADSL, logged into gmail and set about doing something else. It was about 9:15am at this point. BTW I turn my cell phones off at night to avoid people who can’t fucking understand the concept of a time zone. They were still off--I usually keep the American one off the whole time I’m in France. Anyway, as my gmail inbox came into focus across the room, I noticed a whole lot of white had filled in during the last 8 hours. Emails stack up from newest to oldest. So, the first one was from my friend Carsten in Germany saying...”I am sure you’ve heard by now, but let me just say how sorry...” WTF? I read on. And then...saw #AlexChilton as a leading trending topic on Twitter. And then...my hands started to shake, and my pulse shot up to like 300BPM. The evidence was overwhelming, and not a hoax. While I was sleeping
Alex Chilton had died of an apparent heart attach while en route to the hospital. Age 59.
Please understand that from that moment on, I’ve been speaking about Alex in dozens of interviews--it wasn’t long before NME, Uncut, various US papers were calling my cell phone (which I turned on, and watched with horror as the text messages rolled in, like an endless wave of B52s crapping on my life. Since then I have said so much...I can’t repeat it all here. In the meantime tho...I was alone. I looked out our 3rd floor window and saw Dom in the sunshine, on the terrace of the cafe across the street, laughing with friends. I didn’t panic, but...I was crushed in a vice. Dom came home. I sat her down and told her what was happening. And then, most surreal of all, a previously scheduled interview with a German college radio station started, the house line ringing. The interviewer had no idea what had happened and was just catching up about The Disciplines and Billy & the Firm. I didn’t have the heart to break in and start talking about Alex. I spoke in a kind of fake cheeriness and hung up the phone after 45 minutes. In a way, it was a relief to go into an alternate reality where the fact of Alex’s death wasn’t like a black fog raking across my lungs. Jon was still up, he texted. I called him. Before we spoke I had a temporary thought that there was no way I should get on Friday’s flight to Austin. But even as I dialed his number, I knew we had to. And he agreed. A rough plan was already in shape to have special guests fill a miniscule portion of the empty space that would be so apparent on that stage.
Pilates class at noon. Again, a break in the throb that was taking over my body. Replacing it with another. After I came back home, laying in the bath--not really thinking, or remembering Alex, or running thru memories, but in fact, the response my body chose was adrenalin, for whatever reason. I couldn’t grab onto one clear thought and follow it, they were like minnows, darting to avoid me. I don’t really know how the nite ended. I don’t remember. I packed...I spent a little time with Aden, journalists were already calling. Dom had to go to a work function. At some point...I went to bed. Who knows.
In the morning, I had that weird feeling, that I have only had a couple of times in my adult life--when I woke up in jail, or as a relationship was imploding. Your ears turn on, your eyes start to open. You become aware of your breathing, and maybe you hear a bird chirp or something and you have a wonderful amnesiac period as your OS boots up. And then...the ironclad unavoidable truth hits you--you fucked up, she fucked off, the world is fucked. Maybe I had that feeling Sept. 12, 2001, too. No knowing any better you start off with All is Well and then you remember, with horror...all is NOT well.
I had a cab booked, i got my shit together, Dom, Aden and I went downstairs and Aden and Dom started to head for school. Aden wanted me to carry her backpack and she too had forgotten the world is indeed well and truly fucked at this moment and when I said I couldn’t, I wasn’t going with her, she cried--not because of me, but because she was so desperate to ride her bike w/o training wheels to school and the backpack would throw her off her already precarious game. We calmed her down, Dom came back and took the backpack, we said goodbye, I went to the airport. Of course it was a monstrous line for check in, all kinds of extra security now that the underwear bomb era has commenced-- I was going to buy wine at duty free for some sorrow drowning but no time, I got to the gate, boarded, took a piss before we took off, and slept slept slept til Chicago. Once there, I got to the gate and found the flight delayed by an hour, started to get online but the wifi sucked ass and thus I went for the phone--checking in with Jon (Jody was impossible to reach in light of the news and the calls he must be getting), Mike Mills who was in town already, and my production contacts for Saturday’s show. As I was struggling with basic wifi, a punky young lady with that unmistakably midwestern blend of vintage eyewear and nasally flattened vowels asked if she could use my computer...I said...give it a try, it’s not working well. She didn’t have better luck than I did, but we started talking and she had just gotten the news about Alex as she was just back from Mexico City. It was she who pointed out that Alex’s obit was in the NYT that day, so I bought one.
I landed in Austin. So not ready for this. My driver met me at bag claim and I was deposited at the Radisson. Of course on the 2.5 hour flight from Chicago to Austin there was nothing to eat--the only things for sale were like fucking Pringles and trail mix. I mean, I would have paid $20 for a turkey wrap. And I know I’m not the only one that stupid when he’s hungry. Why can’t the airlines get it together--we don’t care about free food. But when we spend money...we want FOOD. Not the scales that fell off of food. Anyway, one of the only things I was really into seeing was
Jonna Lee, my friend from Stockholm and now that I had landed an hour later than planned, it was panic time. I got it together and chugged up Congress to the Intercontinental Hotel, was directed to Stephen F’s bar upstairs, and she was just getting going. So that was nice. Sound was a little murky, but she was superb. Small crowd, but she wowed ‘em. I was actually relieved that the first show I went to wasn’t a mob scene. I was pretty comfortable with my $16 glass of cabernet (see??) and a lo key setting. My health was falling like a bowling ball in a shaving cream mountain by this time. My voice all
Pleshette’d out. I invited Jonna and her friend from the Swedish National radio to the show and went in search of FOOD. Thank god for Manuel’s. It drew me in with those sultry red neon lights and I sidled up to the bar and ordered shrimps all sizzled up with things and more wine. Julia, who was my contact for this show, took pity upon my and actually walked into the restaurant and delivered me some meds. Bless her. I had this half crazed idea that I could actually get in to the Broken Social Scene show at Parish. And I spoke to friends about meeting there. As soon as I was done eating, I realized there was no way on God’s brown, Texan earth that I was going anywhere but to bed. So I went back to the hotel, patiently waited for midnite to come, and crashed.
AUSTIN, 3/20
Got up at 11, I think. I don’t know. It was hard to tell. The weather was abysmal--ice cold, pant-whipping blasts of air from apparently every possible direction. Rain had been dumped liberally. I ran to the pharmacy for more meds. Gulped down food from the lobby Starbucks. Headed to the convention center, where I was to appear on a previously arranged panel to discuss Big Star and their legacy...sheesh. It actually turned out to be a good thing. Jon, Jody, Andy Hummel, myself, plus Chris Stamey, Tommy Keene, and the moderator, writer Bob Mehr, with John Fry participating via Skype from Ardent Studios, traded Alex stories in a roughly chronological order about his life, his ideas, his jokes. I found out that he was married and had a son when he was 19. How did I not know that....there was a really good crowd...better than for the panel we did in 2004 with Terry Manning....I mean...it really is true...someone has to die before people realize what he had to offer. Somewhat sickening.
After the panel I collected myself in my room, but also, more emails, more calls. Then we assembled in the lobby and headed to soundcheck. Now,
you’ve read the reviews. You know what took place. Jon did an amazing job of locating and wrangling the special guests while I did my usual logistics/detail work. And Julia, again...saved our ass over and over. Things were pretty disorganized...a daytime party in the venue, Antone’s, seemed to be still in progress when we arrived. But they got it cleared out and and we started setting up. People started to show up for run thru’s and soundcheck. After this, some goddam good barbecue arrived, and we all shared it and I caught up with Mills, and Kurt Kirkwood. When I sorted out the guest list, my work was done...Mills and I took off for a couple of glasses of wine at his hotel, and then we proceeded back at the venue to check out Dwight Twilley, power pop legend from OK. Unf. he didn’t do my favorite song of his, but he rocked out....kind of a real old school kind of show....very enjoyable. During the next band, we had photo ops, and then it was showtime.
A letter from Alex’s lovely wife of just a few months, Laura, was read. So sweet and so true.
We opened with Back of a Car, the three of us only. My voice was far away and weak, but serviceable. Kurt from the Meat Puppets rocked out next to me for two songs, “In the Street” and “Don’t Lie to Me”. Both Kirkwoods were grooving pretty hard on my bass playing at soundcheck. You gotta love that. Chris Stamey joined us for “I Am the Cosmos” and “When My Baby’s Beside Me”. What else...excellent version of “El Goodo” from Sondre Lerche. Evan Dando cradled “Nighttime” in his arms, solo acoustic. Pretty transcendent “Big Black Car” with M. Ward. Mills was ebullient, which lifted things up, for “Jesus Christ”. He gets the award, along with Mr. Kirkwood, for making me smile, if briefly. A friend of Jody’s with whom I was previously unfamiliar, Amy Speace, did a knockout version of “Try Again” with Jon, Evan and I on vocals. I hope *that* got filmed. Pretty stunning. John Doe, Jon and I did “I’m in Love with a Girl”. Chuck Prophet did a devastating “Thank You Friends” Jon a wonderful “Thirteen” and I had “Daisy Glaze” and “Feel”. Now guess what...”Daisy Glaze”: “You’re GONNA DIE. YES, YOU’RE GONNA DIE” “Feel”: “A Feeling like I’m DYING....” I forgot those were coming, and it was pure chlorine in my eyes. Pain like when Tom swallows the grenade he meant to toss at Jerry. Insides blown. The finale was “September Gurls” with the Watson Twins and Susan Cowsill. All sweet as pie. And, so important, but very few reviews pointed it out: Andy Hummel onstage with Big Star, playing guitar on “Way Out West” and bass on “September Gurls”--I played Alex’s licks and solo on guitar and Mills harmonized. All the show was filmed by the crew that had been working on a Big Star doc for some time (and whom Alex had denied permission to film the NYC show...now there’s a tragedy).
And then it was over. the venue was empty, plastic cups everywhere...I was standing alone on the main floor talking to a radio station reporter. I had nothing left. We did it, and we did it well. We did it so well, in fact, that almost no review pointed how the hell a band could lose its main guitarist, singer and creative force and 72 hours later, pull it together and totally recreate the framework of those songs solidly enough for everyone to recognize them and provide solid footing for our guests. I guess it was a compliment in a way.
I went to bed, woke up at various intervals. Jon and his wife Michelle were leaving at 6am but I was up at least to make sure Jody’s transport was sorted. On the way out the hotel at noon, I ran into a friend from Madrid and gave her a ride in my motor pool Tahoe--we stopped at a SXSW best kept secret--the Sunday morning softball tournament with FREE BBQ. My god, was that ever a good idea. At the airport, I hung with friends from Spain, with
Nardwuar the Human Serviette, and others. Short hop to Dallas, long hop (lots of sleep) to Paris.
Got home this morning, saw Dom saw Aden. Hoped to work on Hannah’s stuff but no way....Rolling Stone, various radio stations, went to talk to my shrink and my doctor--how un Big Star of me! hahah. About Alex. My doctor said it was natural my cold got worse those days after the news. And said allergies were a real problem at this moment, esp. in Paris. More meds.
Gotta get up in 4 hours to get Aden to school, hit the pilates class, and fly to China. you got that?
Love
KS
Paris
