Alex Chilton Dead At 59

[megowgsh]

Me neither

...and he never heard of you two schmoes either.

[SeattleEd]

Another great musicians shuffles off this mortal coil.
He will be missed and one talented musician he was. He left a mark for many of those interested in good song writing.
Mark Linkous from SparkleHorse was another great writer but his demise was more self inflicted.
I wonder who is next. It's that time for many great musicians to move on. Seems like it.

R.I.P.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I just heard "The Letter" on the way in to work this morning, and oddly enough, they identified the artists as The Boxtops. I guess I never knew that before, but that's my loss.

Chris

[Brazoo]

September Gurls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKSs...eature=related

Back of a Car:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsPKK...eature=related

Ballad of El Goodo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn1t6...eature=related

In the Street (the original version of the "That 70's Show" theme):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT8ihOjOf1g

[Meule]

Me neither....but maybe we can learn something from the thread, eh?

Seems pointless AND disrespectful to
post a mere two negatively connotating words in someone's death thread.

Just my opinion.

Incidentally....I've read up on this guy just now.

You may have never heard of him......but if you have ever watched the credits for THAT 70S SHOW, you HAVE heard his songwriting. How's that?

What's so disrespectful about that? Am I supposed to know every actor, comedian, musician, director, author, ... in the world? I don't know him and I said so, that's all I did. What's with all the negativity here?
And I've never watched that 70's show, so I don't know the song either. How's that?

[huedell]

What's so disrespectful about that? Am I supposed to know every actor, comedian, musician, director, author, ... in the world? I don't know him and I said so, that's all I did. What's with all the negativity here?
And I've never watched that 70's show, so I don't know the song either. How's that?

You may not have meant it...but posting "Never heard of him" in a RIP thread comes across as all the things I said regarding negative connotation
... and even more "negative" stuff that I won't bother to list.

Its pretty easy to deduct why I said what I said...
especially since I basically spelled it out...
If you don't see what I'm getting at, I'm fine to agree to disagree.

[haggis]

I discovered the music of Alex Chilton in the early '90s because I was into a number of bands who were heavily influenced by his work. Became a big fan of Big Star after tracking down their CDs. RIP. Very sad day for this music fan.

[toys2cool]

Never heard of him.
Rich

neither have I, but RIP

[haggis]

What's so disrespectful about that? Am I supposed to know every actor, comedian, musician, director, author, ... in the world? I don't know him and I said so, that's all I did. What's with all the negativity here?
And I've never watched that 70's show, so I don't know the song either. How's that?

If you don't know anything about him, why bother commenting on a thread about him and his passing?

[Brazoo]

Maybe he was hoping people would post examples - at least that's what I thought.

I was actually happily surprised about how many people HAD heard of him - Chilton was never particularly famous. I think most people only knew of Big Star through the bands they influenced. The first time I heard name Alex Chilton was because it was the title of a Replacements song.

In any case if you haven't heard of him now's a good chance to check out his legacy. Hopefully you'll dig it - I do!

[huedell]

Maybe he was hoping people would post examples - at least that's what I thought.

There ya go.

But when someone types so little word-wise....it's like COME on
...if you're really not dumping on the thread then at least "specify"
that you're interested, eh? Because otherwise it basically comes off
"Never heard of him" = "I don't care"
....whether that's the intention or not.

And that would be a fine thing to type I guess, but, really,
the question of "IF you know him" wasn't posed with the thread title, eh?

....this is unarguably a TRIBUTE thread....hey, if there's
something negative you just "have" to say about
the guys work....okay....you say:
"Wasn't much into his stuff but RIP"
you know.... SOMETHING that shows you understand what the thread
was "about"....again, that's just my opinion of board ettiquette....on other boards, I wouldn't feel comfortable explaining this because, frankly, the point
of many other boards IS to be flip and dismissive of any
"call for ettiquette"...I always hope better for this place though

By the way....a few Chilton things I'd like to say:
1) Always knew that "Letter" song....it's amazing that it was brought to my attention today because I LOVE Classic Rock Radio tracks...so that baby's going on my MP3 player!

2) I'm a big Bangles fan and never knew that September Gurls was written
AND recorded by another band.....the Bangles version has been om my
MP3 player for a couple of years now.

3) Always thought that IN THE STREET song was written specifically for
CHEAP TRICK to perform for THAT 70s SHOW after the producers
had so much trouble aquiring classic recordings for the
show title/credits song.
Apparently they finally succeeded (at least with the song part of it)!

RIP

[nvmbrsdoom5]

I'm a big fan of Alex Chilton. I adored the Box Tops and Big Star. His songwriting was a huge influence on all sorts of groups from Cheap Trick to many of the alternative groups of the 1980s and 1990s. "The Letter" is one minute and fifty-eight seconds of pure bliss for me, and I often perform it when I do solo acoustic gigs, just because it's so fun to sing. I never got a chance to see Alex perform live and now I really really regret it.

[Meule]

If you don't know anything about him, why bother commenting on a thread about him and his passing?

Someone posted "Never heard of him" and I replied "me neither", that's it.
If none of you had analyzed and scrutinized a simple reply the way you did we wouldn't be having this arguement

[huedell]

Someone posted "Never heard of him" and I replied "me neither", that's it.
If none of you had analyzed and scrutinized a simple reply the way you did we wouldn't be having this arguement

Scrutinizing simple replies is what this was all about and I'm all for it.

No one ever claimed you were being malicious Thomas.

I don't find the "argument" to be a big deal---just a way to look outside
of our personal posting paradigms...and, notably (obviously),
I wasn't the only one to view your post that way...so, I'd say that much more
makes a case for some validity there to discuss this.

It's all jiggy with all of us I'd venture to say.

[kryptosmaster]

If you don't know anything about him, why bother commenting on a thread about him and his passing?

Wow dude. Talk about over-reacting.
I never heard of the guy. He didn't even rate a listing on Dead or Alive (Yes, a real website) and they list some fairly unknown people at times.
Usually when someone posts a thread about a death it's someone well-known and if not a household name then there is usually an explanation as to what the person was known for.
I never even heard of the band Big Star either so my comment was more of a question of who is this person who rates a whole thread to tell us of his passing.
Sorry to offend you so much.
I still don't know who he was (and at this point I really don't care anymore).
Regards to his family. Death is always sad.
Rich