Big Star frontman Alex Chilton sadly passed away in 2010, but not before recording three awesome album with Big Star, producing The Cramps’ debut and paving the way for much of the indie/alternative music of the last thirty years. Seminal is probably an overused word (and I’m probably as guilty of that as the next blogger), but it really applies here.
October 14 sees the release of Electricity By Candlelight, a live album recorded at New York’s Knitting Factory in February 1997. According to the press release ‘The album is a really intimate affair, the power failed at the show early on and the club announced the gig was cancelled. Refunds were given out and the majority of folk started to leave. A few hardcore fans stayed behind, as did Chilton himself, he borrowed an acoustic guitar from an audience member and began to stum, what resulted was over an hour of etheral music, played in the darkness, thinking on his feet, interacting with his fans – lucky it was all caught by super fan Jeff Vargon who was in the crowd with his tape deck and mic!’
The tracklisting for the album is as follows:
‘Last Bouquet’
‘Step Right This Way’
‘Let’s Get Lost’
‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E
‘Raining In My Heart’
‘Lovesick Blues’
‘Girl From Ipanema’
‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’
‘Motel Blues’
‘Someone To Watch Over Me’
‘Footprints In The Snow’
‘Case Of You’
‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’
‘Surfer Girl’
‘Solar System’
‘I Walk The Line’
‘If I Had A Hammer’
‘You Can Bet Your Heart On Me’
The soundlcoud link below reveals that it’s raw and intimate on four of the songs offered to us as a sampler: ‘I Walk The Line,’ ‘Motel Blues,’ ‘Someone to watch over me’ and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice?’
