I'm In Love With That Song

Big Star never made it to Australia. But then Big Star (in their original form) only existed for a brief moment at the start of the '70s. Forming in 1971, the Memphis quartet – Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens – lasted four short years before Big Star were no more. Their recorded output consisted of just three albums and by the last album, Third/Sister Lovers, the only members left were Chilton and Stephens.

For a long time Big Star were an enigma, a band rock critics adored but the public had mostly never heard of. Their albums weren't readily accessible so their brand of shimmering power pop was passed on through word of mouth until the albums were re-issued at the beginning of the '80s.

Stephens, the band's drummer and the only surviving member, is finally coming to Australia to perform Third/Sister Lovers as part of January's Sydney Festival in a night called Big Star's Third. This 'version' of Big Star was put together by musician Chris Stamey, who chased down the original string arrangements for the album with the aim of recreating it live. Then he got Stephens onboard and recruited a band that includes Mike Mills (REM) and Ken Stringfellow (The Posies), both musicians heavily influenced by Big Star.

Though he's still finding it hard to get his head around the idea that Big Star were ever able to make an impact in Australia, Stephens is delighted to be sharing his band with fans on the other side of the world. “How it all happened and the fact that I'm talking to you in Australia and will be playing this music there is, 'How do they know?'” Stephens says. “The internet is one thing but word was spreading before the internet. It was almost like the Pony Express in a way. It was one person handing off to another person and somehow it got around the globe. It's pretty mind-blowing.”

Stringfellow is one of those fans that had heard of the band long before he ever heard any of their music. “The music was impossible to find. I lived in a small town. The record store in town that I went to was pretty much the only one,” Stringfellow explains. “Then around the time my band The Posies began about 1988 we moved from our home town to Seattle, the nearest big town. It was when the European re-issues of Big Star came out. By George that was something. We heard #1 Record for the first time. It was certainly a Eureka moment.

“It had a very nice mix of being melodic, radio-friendly and populist in a weird way with mixing in this really intense, hard to describe feeling of longing and wistfulness that's not the standard fare of pop.”

Stringfellow knows that Third/Sisters Lovers can be a challenging listen and may seem like an odd choice. “That album after hearing the first two, it sort of confused us. It's more adventurous and harder to grasp on first go. But now I would be much more likely to put Third... on to listen to even though I love them all, but the third has the biggest rewards.”

The Big Star legacy is something Stephens is very conscious of. After the death of Chilton in 2010, the impetus to develop the Third/Sister Lovers show took on even greater importance. “The whole thing took on a new mission when Alex died, as a way to honour him,” Stephens says.

“And Chris and Andy as well. There wouldn't have been a third album if it hadn't have been for Chris and Andy. People have told me over the years that record has gotten them through some tough times.

“For me it's a way to celebrate and someone said, 'How do you celebrate songs like Holocaust?' I thought that was a really great question and I don't know how you do that but maybe you celebrate the spirit of that record.”

In Sydney, the ever-revolving list of guests vocalists performing the album will include fellow Sydney Festival attendees Cat Power, Kurt Vile and Edwyn Collins, and local Big Star aficionados Tim Rogers, Kim Salmon and Dave Faulkner.

For Stephens, recreating the album has reminded him of those small moments in the studio when Chilton's musical talent was obvious to all working with him. “Just in the past few months, Adam Hill, who is a producer/engineer at Ardent and the Big Star archivist, pulled the multis out for the Third... album so he could separate those string tracks. I can hear Alex out on the studio floor telling the Duncan Sisters, who came in and did background vocals on Thank You Friend, what to sing.”