SXSWORLD

Th ank You Friends: New Film and All-Star Live Show Salute Big Star by John Morthland third is widely considered more a solo album of the other key member. Plagued by record company distribution and promo- tion problems, the fi rst two albums (#1 Record and Radio City) sold in the dozens, while the third (alternately known as Th ird and Sister Lovers) wasn't released until nearly four years later. In short, this is not exactly the raw material for a great roc- kumentary. Unless the band in question is Big Star, the cult favorite of virtually everyone whose cult favorite isn't the Velvet Underground. Formed in 1971 in Memphis, when Alex Chilton, formerly of the Box Tops, joined with guitarist Chris Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel, Big Star has been growing steadily in stature and mythology since its dissolution; the fanaticism cuts across every generation that has followed. Before then, Southern bands had to be clearly rooted in blues or country to earn a listen. But Big Star, rooted in mid-'60s British Invasion pop—the melodic fl air and vocal harmonies of the Beatles with the guitar crunch of Th e Who, skewed slightly by the confl icting visions of Chilton and Bell—is now recognized as the godfather of alternative and indie rock, an inspiration and/or infl uence on everyone from R.E.M. to the Replacements to the dB's to Elliott Smith. And the band is the subject of Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, which the SXSW Film Festival will screen, in work-in-progress form. Th e screening will be followed by a concert featuring the fully-orchestrated songs of Th ird/ Sister Lovers put together by Chris Stamey, the solo Chilton's bassist and protege in New York City during the '70s. With so little actual history to go on, the movie relies heavily on talking heads such as Th ird producer and elder statesman of Memphis mavericks, Jim Dickinson, who points out that the band's records and T he band played fewer than a dozen gigs in their day and made just three albums in three years; one of the key members left before the second was done, and the The original Big Star lineup: (L-R) Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, Chris Bell (seated) and Jody Stephens devotees—and not the band itself—represent the true Big Star story. Other interviews are with critics who saw a temporarily reunited Big Star perform at the 1973 Rock Writers Convention in Memphis; such critics kept the band's name alive until the groundswell of fans began emerging. Dickinson, who died in 2009, was fi lmed and interviewed by co-producer (with director Drew DeNicola and Oliva Mori) Danielle McCarthy, who started the movie alone before bringing DeNicola in to direct. Nothing also features 20 minutes of silent 16mm footage from #1 Record rehearsals and sessions; Bell and Hummel had hoped to use it to make what would have been "proto-videos" for "Th e Ballad of El Goodo" and "Th irteen." ("It's disjointed stuff but you see all the guys so it's pretty interesting," says John Fry, who recorded the band at his Ardent Studios, and whom McCarthy calls "the gatekeeper of all things Big Star.") Th ere are also lots of stills by Memphis photographer William Eggleston, whose hyper-realistic color shots of ordinary life and objects made him a controversial fi gure in the '70s art world. According to McCarthy, the fi lm was pretty far along Big Star Third concert at Mason Hall in New York City 28 before she approached the notoriously interview-shy Chilton about talking on-camera. "He was a real gentleman about it; he'd say, 'I wish I could help you but I just don't do this sort of thing.' Th en he'd say he'd think about it more" she recalls. SXSW ORLD / M ARCH M USIC 2012 CONNI FREESTONE COURTESY OF DANIELLE MCCARTHY

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