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"...Unbelievable Odds..."
You would have to call a 4CD 96-song blow-out given over to the plant-a-tune-in-a-film-darlings BIG STAR - a winner. With a whopping 52 Previously Unreleased and their only known video footage - "Keep An Eye..." was always a shoe-in for unsightly stroking of male goatees in scholarly abandon. It's not all genius in my books, especially that droning "3rd" album that dominates CD3, but there's more than enough goodies in-between the output cracks to warrant five-stars.
Also, September 2009's "Keep An Eye On The Sky" has had its detractors because if you want to actually hear the 24 songs that make up their utterly brilliant first two albums - you get only four from "No. 1 Record" and nine from "Radio City" - all other cuts represented by Alternate Versions, Demos, Single Mixes or Live Material. That has irritated some, but Rhino have countered by saying that reissuing what is widely available in top notch George Horn Remasters elsewhere anyway was not part of the game. So they've gone for the unissued splurge instead. Luckily we get the whole of "3rd" (called "The Third Album" in the UK) - their rare and difficult third LP of original material recorded in 1975 but unreleased at the time only to see light of day in late 1978 on both sides of the pond (PVC Records USA, Aura Records UK).
But make no mistake - this Rhino compilation is a labor of love - you can feel it in the presentation, the audio, trying to dissemble the notorious lack of documentation at Ardent Recording Studios, finding that footage on enhanced CD4. So let's deal with what we do have...details maestro please...
UK-released 15 September 2009 - "Keep An Eye On The Sky" by BIG STAR on Rhino 8122-79858-7 (Barcode 081227985875) is a 4CD Remastered Box Set with 98-Songs (52 Previously Unreleased Audio Tracks Plus One Video on Enhanced CD4) and a 102-Page Booklet. The original US Edition on Rhino R2 519760 (Barcode 081227985875) was also issued 15 Sep 2009. Both versions were subsequently reissued 24 Nov 2014 in the USA (Rhino RF2 519760) and 12 February 2015 in the UK (Rhino 8122-79562-0) with the same packaging and tracks. "Keep An Eye On The Sky" plays out as follows:
CD1 (79:32 minutes):
1. Psychedelic Stuff (Original Mix, 1968) - CHRIS BELL
2. All I See Is You - ICEWATER
3. Every Day As We Grow Closer (Original Mix) - ALEX CHILTON
4. Try Again (Early Version) - ROCK CITY
5. Feel
6. The Ballad Of El Goodo
7. In The Street (Alternate Mix)
8. Thirteen (Alternate Mix)
9. Don't Lie To Me
10. The India Song (Alternate Mix)
11. When My Baby's Beside Me (Alternate Mix)
12. My Life Is Right (Alternate Mix)
13. Give Me Another Chance (Alternate Mix)
14. Try Again
15. Gone With The Light
16. Watch The Sunrise (Single Version)
17. St 100/6 (Alternate Mix)
18. The Preacher (Excerpt) - ROCK CITY
19. In The Street (Alternate Single Mix)
20. Feel (Alternate Mix)
21. The Ballad of El Goodo (Alternate Lyrics)
22. The India Song (Alternate Version)
23. Country Morn
24. I Got Kinda Lost (Demo)
25. Back Of A Car Demo (Demo)
26. Motel Blues (Demo)
NOTES:
All tracks by BIG STAR except where noted
Tracks 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22 and 26 PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED
Tracks 2, 3, 19, 24 and 25 first issued on the 2008 UK CD compilation "Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story" on Ace/Big Beat CDWIK2 273 (Barcode 029667427326)
Tracks 5, 6, 9 and 14 are from their debut album "No. 1 Record" released April 1972 on Ardent Records ADS-2803 in the USA (no UK release).
CD2 (79:42 minutes):
1. There Was A Light (Demo)
2. Life Is White (Demo)
3. What's Going Ahn (Demo)
4. O My Soul
5. Life Is White
6. Way Out West
7. What's Going Ahn
8. You Get What You Deserve
9. Mod Lang (Alternate Mix)
10. Back Of A Car (Alternate Mix)
11. Daisy Glaze
12. She's A Mover
13. September Gurls
14. Morpha Too (Alternate Mix)
15. I'm In Love With A Girl
16. O My Soul (Alternate Version)
17. She's A Mover (Alternate Version)
18. Daisy Glaze (Rehearsal Version)
19. I Am The Cosmos - CHRIS BELL
20. You And Your Sister - CHRIS BELL
21. Blue Moon (Demo)
22. Femme Fatale (Demo)
23. Thank you Friends (Demo)
24. Nightime (Demo)
25. Take Care (Demo)
26. You Get What You Deserve (Demo)
NOTES:
Tracks 4 to 8, 11 to 13 and 15 are from their second studio album "Radio City" released January 1974 in the USA on Ardent Records ADS-1501
Tracks 19 and 20 are the A&B-sides of a 1978 US 45-single by Chris Bell on Car Records CRR6
CD3 (72:03 minutes):
1. Lovely Day (Demo)
2. Downs (Demo)
3. Jesus Christ Demo)
4. Holocaust (Demo)
5. Big Black Car (Alternative Demo)
6. Manana
7. Jesus Christ
8. Femme Fatale
9. O, Dana
10. Kizza Me
11. You Can't Have Me
12. Nightime
13. Dream Lover
14. Big Black Car
15. Blue Moon
16. Holocaust
17. Stroke It Noel
18. For You
19. Downs
20. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
21. Kanga Roo
22. Thank you Friends
23. Take Care
24. Lovely Day
25. Till The End Of The Day (Alternative Mix)
26. Nature Boy (Alternative Mix)
NOTES:
Tracks 7 to 12, 14 to 18 and 21 to 23 are their third studio album "3rd" due for release 1975, but belated issued March 1978 in the USA on PVC Records PVC 7903 as a 14-Track LP and August 1978 in the UK as "The Third Album" on Aura Records AUL 703 in different artwork and with a different rearranged track listing (only 12-songs).
The US 14-Track LP "3rd" can be sequenced using the following tracks from CD3:
Side 1: Tracks 17, 18, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 23
Side 2: Tracks 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 21 and 22
The UK 12-Track LP "The Third Album" can be sequenced using the following from CD3:
Side 1: Tracks 10, 11, 7, 19, 20 and 22
Side 2: Tracks 9, 8, 17, 16, 12 and 21
CD4 (69:53 minutes):
Live at Lafayette's Music Room, Memphis, Tennessee, January 1973
1. When My Baby's Beside Me
2. My Life Is Right
3. She's A Mover
4. Way Out West
5. The Ballad Of El Goodo
6. In The Street
7. Back Of A Car
8. Thirteen
9. The India Song
10. Try Again
11. Watch The Sunrise
12. Don't Lie To Me
13. Hot Burrito No. 2
14. I Got Kinda Lost
15. Baby Strange
16. Slut
17. There Was A Light
18. St 100/06
19. Come On Now
20. O My Soul
ENHANCED CD Content:
1. Thirteen (Alternate Mix Video)
Roughly the size of an oversized seven-inch single, the card box is admittedly way too flimsy for its own good. Inside is a foldout card slipcase with colour photos of the boys in the band on each flap (CDs inside slots) - ALEX CHILTON, CHRIS BELL, JODY STEPHENS and ANDY HUMMEL. But the meat is in a gorgeous 102-page booklet that goes for it - the grocery chain across the street from the studios called BIG STAR (complete with star neon) that they took their name from graces the cover. Inside are five distinctive parts - A Message From John Frey their Producer at Ardent (Page 3) - Big Star: The More You Learn, The Less you Know by Robert Gordon (Page 7) - The Great Crusade Birthing The Cult Of Big Star by Bob Mehr (Page 42) - A Certain Magic: Track Notes by Alex Palao (Page 67) and Credits (Page 96).
There are fantastic photos of heroes like Chilton by his Big Black Car in Tennessee's Shelby Forest in the summer of 1973, a promo photo as threesome in 1974 by Front Street - by the Mississippi River with the BIG STAR neon logo hanging from a tree, loads in the studio, outtakes from the Radio City cover photoshoot, Chris Bell's solo 45-single "I Am The Cosmos" and of course track-by-track annotation (where possible). But truthfully, the audio is what takes your breath away too when you clap ears on this ANDREW SANDOVAL and DAN HERSCH Remasters. Over on Disc 2, it opens with three demos - mostly acoustic - and they sound amazing. Or shuffle up to "What's Going Ahn" (Track 7, CD2) and the glorious production whomps your speakers with audio most bands would quietly kill a close relative to attain. They even have photos from the live stuff on Disc 4 at the Lafayette Room in 1973. It's a typically exemplary compilation from reissue champs Rhino of the USA doing their forgotten sons and their musical legacy proud. To the tunes...
While I will never want to hear the 1968 Chris Bell solo cack that is "Psychedelic Stuff" ever again - it's an indication of how good this release is that even a slight 'alternative mix' to "Try Again" on CD1 by the band is greeted by my soppy noggin with tears and chills. A version first showed on the July 2003 American CD compilation for Rock City as "Rock City" on Lucky Seven Records - a rare disc too. You can hear Chris Bell's serious melodic chops deep inside Icewater's rather good "All I See Is You" too. Then the count-in to an Alternate of the stunning "Thirteen" - it's acoustic picking clean and clear and gorgeous to behold. You can unfortunately hear why the Alternate of "My Life Is Right" didn't work, but then again you get a winner in the beautifully done "Give Me Another Chance" - a different mix that rivals the officially released version.
You're then reminded of the first time you laid tired lugs on the strum of No.1's "Try Again" - wow! The audio on this sucker is astonishing - John Fry's production values shining like an Abbey Road Remaster. Fans will enjoy the 'Single Version' of "Watch The Sunrise" (issued February 1973 in the USA on Ardent 2904) - what a tune and why wasn't it a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young type crossover hit? And I wasn't prepared for good the No. 1 closer "St 100/6" would sound as an 'Alternate'. Fans will also notice that the Single Mix proper for "In The Street" is a Bonus Track on the 2009 CD reissue for "No 1. Record" only and is represented here in 'Alternate Single Mix' form.
Three Demos open CD2 of which "Life Is White" is gorgeous, but its the audio bringing out their musicality that gets you time and time again - "Radio City" track "You Get What You Deserve" being a primo example of all these elements colliding in one glorious racket (dig that so subtle guitar solo and the crystal clear drums) - 10cc mates with Todd Rundgren and The Byrds and its offspring is playing in your living room. There's a great gruff guitar nastiness to the Stonesy Alternate Mix of "Mod Lang" and a huge almost overwhelming jangle to the Alternate of "Back Of A Car". Deep LP cuts like the so-pretty yet so-sad "Daisy Glaze" sound anew while who can deny the sheer Power Pop glory that is "September Gurls". And is there a more beautiful song - "I'm in Love With A Girl" flooring all the pretenders in its acoustic path - finest girl in the world indeed.
I must admit that I never know what to do with "I Am The Cosmos" - it's swirling production and stoned faraway Chris Bell vocals - half of me thinks its a glorious mess while the other half wants the song to get its act together. No complaints about the acoustic guitars in the B-side "You And Your Sister" - stunning audio and more than a touch of that old Big Star magic shuffling around its 1978 Beach Boys soundscape. Fans with lose it for Tracks 21 to 26 that tail-end CD2. Both the Demos of "Blue Moon" and their cover of The Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" are thrilling stuff and again with shocking audio clarity. Each is just acoustic ditty essentially (no dates are given) but with intimacy abundant - emotion raw - stuff like "Nightime" as lovely as you could want a Demo to be.
After the abject and hurtful commercial failure of "No. 1 Record" in 1972 and its follow-up "Radio City" in 1974 - it was hardly surprising (though no less gauling) that the band found themselves with record number three and no one wanting to release it. Recorded n 1975, Page 89 of the booklet devotes a whole page to the Ardent Recording Studios letter from John S. King to Martin Cerf at the Phonograph Recording Magazine telling him that test pressings for their latest offering are enclosed (probably done February 1975 with white labels and Stax matrixes) which they would 'peddle' in the L.A. area the second week in march. But the wildly unimaginatively titled "3rd" (or "The Third Album" as it was known in the UK) would have to wait until 1978 to see the light of day. I mention all of this because CD3 is dominated by its darker disjointed presence.
Opening CD3 on a lighter note is another gorgeous acoustic demo - "Lovely Day" which first surfaced on the "Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story" CD set from 2008. The demo of "Downs" introduces the electric guitar - choppy strums and harsh lyrics. Twelve-string opens an unrecognisble "Jesus Christ" (a lighter song than its title suggests) while piano and melancholy vocals fill the deeply sad "Holocaust" - Chilton's voice a mixture of child/adult hurt. The Previously Unissued Alternate Demo to "Big Black Car" features both acoustic and light electric guitar with doubled vocals. Tracks 6 to 25 are essentially the duo of Alex Chilton and Jody Stephen accompanied by additional musicians. The shimmering cover of the Velvet's debut album classic "Femme Fatale" is nice, but stuff like "O, Dana" and "Kizza Me" feel like they don't fit in anywhere and it's not surprising to me that no-one wanted to release this.
"You Can't Have Me" is inflicted with awkward horns flitting in and out - "Nightime" softening the scene with acoustics and echoed slide guitar notes that 'dance' like the eyes of the girl he's admiring. "Dream Lover" comes off the 1985 PVC CD for "3rd/Sister Lovers" - a druggy heavy love song with deft string-arrangements that grows on you every time you hear it. The general aimlessness of the album is summed up in the drippy "Big Black Car" while the almost unfinished demo sound of the piano in "Stroke It Noel" feel like a man far too close to death. The second of the "3rd/Sister Lovers" takes comes in the Tom Waits-sounding "Downs" - a depressing fall from the musical grace of before. Love the distorted electric guitars of "Kanga Roo" that then combine with acoustic strums and floating mellotron notes - the song almost like a drunk let loose in the studio. "Thank You Friends" at least does a stab at a hit - its Pop feel undermined by openly antagonistic lyrical jabs.
"3rd" comes to a close with "Take Care" - but again Chilton sounds like Kevin Ayers too stoned to concentrate. A decidedly mixed bag - CD3 ends on two differently paced cover versions - a raucous very Big Star-sounding stab at The Kinks' 60ts anthem "Till The End Of The Day" - an Alternate Mix that is Previously Unreleased - while the 50ts standard "Nature Boy" gets a piano and voice-only jab. I'll admit straight up that "3rd" has always been a blot on their copybook legend for me - an album that just doesn't work because it feels like falling apart disgracefully. Which brings us to the uplifting live set...
The live set (recorded 1973) opens up with a 'Thank You' and they're off into "When My Baby's Beside Me". Although Chris Bell isn't in the line-up, Rhino offers up two explanations for its inclusion. This is the only known live recording apparently out there that features the band that made the first two albums - the second reason being its intact audio quality (not audiophile, but not bootleg either). BIG STAR was a support act to Atlantic's Soul artists Archie Bell & The Drells - so the audience's palatable silent disinterest to a Rock band they don't know is present as they count in tunes without any audience fanfare. You can hear punters talking throughout "The Ballad Of El Goodo" as Chilton slowly grabs their attention with its lovely musicality. There are claps after "Back Of A Car" and even though there's incessant talking throughout the gorgeous "Thirteen" - you can feel the crowd beginning to notice the quality of the songs and the playing. The big twelve-string and tambourine of "Watch The Sunrise" are a little too far back in the mix - which is a shame because the audience noise overwhelms this precious artifact. And on it goes...
Why did they fail? I think the naff artwork didn't help, the name of the group you couldn't quite work out from the first LP's front cover, the piss-poor distribution and the dissolution of Stax adding to it all. A sound that was not the Prog, Funk or Heavy Rock of 1972 - diminishing songs and a third LP that didn't capture the magic of the first two? Whatever you look at it and despite my niggling feelings that I'll never play CD3 or 4 very much at all - "Keep An Eye On The Sky" does more than enough on its other fabulous parts to warrant our adoration.
What could have been - I say buy into what is - and marvel at music that still amazes 50-years after it was laid down by a combo of geniuses in front of and behind the glass booth...
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