Robert Christgau's Music Criticism Blog - Expert Witness - MSN Music

Cotton Mather/Oasis

Oh--You Mean Those Beatles

By Xgau Apr 13, 2012 5:37AM

Cotton Mather: Kontiki (Deluxe Edition) (Star Apple Kingdom)

Pieced together in 1997 from impulsively conceived, doggedly recorded scraps of DAT and four-track by Austin mastermind Robert Harrison and a Memphis tape wizard who loved how Big Star the band was, Cotton Mather's second album caught the attention of some British Beatles fanatics d/b/a Oasis, who brought them over to open and even generated some U.K. sales. While allowing his vocal resemblance to "John Lennon with a Southern accent and a head cold," Harrison's extensive notes don't cite the Beatles much even though "My Before and After" resembles "Ticket to Ride" more than its supposed inspiration "(Reach Out) I'll Be There" and "Private Ruth" echoes "For No One" straight up. Harrison is no more a genius than Noel Gallagher, so though the lyrics aren't spaced-out gibberish or obvious pap, they're unequal to the music‑-which definitely beats, for instance, the last three songs on the first Big Star album, and even more remarkable, kind of makes you appreciate Oasis. (N.B.: I'm recommending the Deluxe because it's new and much cheaper, not because I expect ever to listen to its alternates and new ones for anything except the research I presume is now complete.)  B PLUS

 

Oasis: Stop the Clocks (Sony BMG '06)

One of the many things I never got about this band was where the Beatles were. Where was the ebullience, the wit, the harmonies, God just the singing, and, uh, the songwriting? Cotton Mather made me understand that when Oasis say they love the Beatles they really mean they love the post-Help!, pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles. Since that span encompasses Rubber Soul and Revolver, many would say tally ho, but (a) not me 'cause I love the Beatles start to finish and (b) only if you're writing songs as good as, uh, "We Can Work It Out." Instead Oasis, meaning loudmouth bro Noel Gallagher, write songs that resemble "We Can Work It Out" in thickened texture and momentum but not depth or charm, then add arena size in the swagger of the drums and the bigged-up vocals themselves. This band-selected best-of‑-two discs lasting 87 minutes, like an old-fashioned double-LP except it's only 18 tracks‑-capture their sonic moment as fully as any freelance music historian needs. A 2010 package repeats 11 of these songs and adds 16 others‑-too many, I say. Also, it omits the opening "Rock 'n' Roll Star." If ever there were guys whose message to the world is summed up by an opener called "Rock 'n' Roll Star," it's these bigheads. B PLUS

 

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267Comments
jeff melnick (jmel64)
Apr 14, 2012 10:12AM
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As long as we're talking about Alex Chilton, can I just say that I recently put on that first Carmaig DeForest record for my 22 year old and he really liked it.  Thought it had that elusive Only Ones/Violent Femmes vibe he so craves.

As long as we're talking about record store finds, I'll mention that I read Mystery Train in the early 80s and then spent a good bit of time looking for Sly and the Family Stone's Riot.  Coupla years later I was visiting my brother in San Francisco and he took me to Berkeley because he knew I'd like to go used record and book shopping there.  First place we went into, staring right at me, was a clean copy of the original pressing.  It was a nice grail/Greil moment for me...

I just looked at the inner sleeve, which has ads for a number of other Columbia records, including a collection of Malcolm X speeches and a Ray Stevens best-of.

Cam Patterson
Apr 14, 2012 9:23AM
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Since we're talking about Radio City, it first showed up on my radar around 1982 when I got the Xgau 70's book. It was out of print by then so I searched every used record store for years. 
Yeah, what John said. I tracked down vinyl copies of the Big Star albums at around the same time. I got the first two by mail via Goldmine and 3rd at a record show in Nashville. It's hard to explain in the digital age how difficult, but thrilling, it could be to track down out-of-print albums in those days. (My greatest find by far was an original vinyl version of Egon Bondy in mint condition with the big booklet for $3.)

I'll second Milo on the Scruffs. All kinds of bands listened to Big Star, but few managed the off-balance guitar highwire act like the Scruffs did.

Martin Miller: +1
Mark926
Apr 14, 2012 9:21AM
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Hi folks, seeing Oasis pop up so unexpectedly sent me to the compilation I made around the time Clocks was released. At the time I had deemed them so longer an affront and I couldn't get "Lyla" out of my head. I called the compilation "Signifying Nothing: Oasis 1994-2005" in honour of Xgau's quote for the Psychedelic Furs comp Should God Forget: A Retrospective "All it does is go around on its track and sound good--surprisingly good, considering how meaningless it is, and how inexorably it descends toward sounds-bad". Sums up Oasis pretty well too. Anyway, I dutifully hit the torrent sites and downloaded their entire discography including singles and B-sides and began wading and weeding. I came up with what I think is a pretty solid disc one and a difficult disc two that I've never been entirely happy with. Those 'Be Here Now" tracks are too fiching long...anyway, here goes:

Disc One

1-Rock n Roll Star

2 - Live Forever

3 - Supersonic

4 - Cigarettes and Alcohol

5 - Slide Away

6 - Roll With It

7 - Whatever

8 - Don't Look Back In Anger

9 - Step Out

10 - Up In The Sky

11 - Hey Now

12 - She's Electric

13 - Morning Glory

14 - (It's Good) To be Free

15 - Champagne Supernova

16 - D'Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman

Disc Two - never truly completed but here are the tracks I have

Acquiesce

The Hindu Times

Mucky Fingers

My Big Mouth

Lyla

Going Nowhere

Put Yer Money Where Your Mouth Is

Fade Away

Fade in Fade Out

Little James

Be Here Now

All Around The World

The Masterplan

Eyeball Tickler

Yeah, I know, I left out Wonderwall..I've never liked that song although I once knew a girl who tried to convince me that it was about the Weeping Wall of Jerusalem...

 

 

 

 

Greg Teta
Apr 14, 2012 9:08AM
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Thanks Irene-I tried it. The message received said something about an

expired page, blah, blah, blah. I'll try again.

PS  Could be I'm simply best represented by the avatar -as shown.

John Smallwood (jcsmall63)
Apr 14, 2012 8:57AM
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Since we're talking about Radio City, it first showed up on my radar around 1982 when I got the Xgau 70's book. It was out of print by then so I searched every used record store for years. I realized that not many copies were made and those that bought it were not parting with it. Finally in around 1986 or so it got a reissue as an import. And of course it was as great as I had imagined all those years of searching. in an age of instant downloading it's hard to imagine waiting 4 years to hear something but there you go.
Joe Lunday
Apr 14, 2012 7:58AM
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Really enjoyed your two posts, Martin.  (Please post more.)  Can you tell us your sources for those Chilton solo tracks?  I think I've got a lot of the legit stuff, but I don't know about bootleg sources. 
Not. Milo. Miles.
Apr 14, 2012 7:48AM
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(earlier)

Hollywood Brats
(knew more about the Dolls than any hair-metal outfit)

(now)

Scruffs
(vintage only)

Joris Geerts
Apr 14, 2012 6:14AM
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Nice how everyone is talking about Bg Star, it's a band that has been taken up a lot of my listening time at the moment. 

#1 Record is very good and nicely varied record. From Chris Bell's unique vocals to that nice little ''India Song'' it stands as a record with ambition and passion. But then they released the masterful Radio City. I cannot describe how much I love that record. It's so warm and sweet but it also has a certain thoughness. Songs like ''September Gurls'', ''Life Is White'' and ''Daisy Glaze'' got me pretty moved just by thinking about them. Finally Third/Sister Lovers is from what I've heard very haunting, it the realized sound of a band that is falling apart. 

Conclusion: #1 Record sounds like a band with a lot of ambition, Radio City like a band in its prime and Third like a band that is dying. Of course these are only my own observations
Michael Tatum
Apr 14, 2012 1:50AM
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How much do I love Radio City?  Enough so that fifteen years ago I sold the Stax two-fer and bought the Italian import with Radio City alone on it -- duplicates the front and back cover in a digipak.  Sounds better than the domestic did at that time.  One of this Beatle fantatic's prized records.
martin miller
Apr 14, 2012 1:48AM
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I agree with you ,Cam, that Rhino Records Chilton  comp is pretty incomplete . I'm curious as to what you would program on your comp. Here is my list for 70's era solo Chilton:

 

1. The EMI song

 

2. Take me Home and make me like it

 

3. All the time 

 

4. Singer Not the Song

 

5. Everytime I close my Eyes

 

6.  She might Look My way(Elektra demo for Karin Berg)

 

7. Shakin the world (Elektra demo for Karin Berg)

 

8. My rival(Elektra demo for Karin Berg-prefer this to the Like Flies  verson; I'm particularly fond of the farfisa sound on it.)

 

9. Bangkok

 

10. Can't seem to make you mine

 

11.  The Summer Sun(Chris Stamey song produced  and performed with Chilton)

 

12. Where The fun is (Chris Stamey song produced  and performed with Chilton- both of these productions  deploy some of pop deconstructionist methods I described earlier to beautiful effect and would probably be the last recorded evidence of Power Pop Era Chilton)

 

13. Holocaust  live 1978 recorded with the Cossacks- kinda rockin version of the song-very different from the original

 

14. Past, Present and Future  live 1978 recorded with the Cossacks(Shangri-las​ cover)

 

15. Baron Of Love 2

 

16. Rock Hard 

 

17. Hook or Crook

 

 

Somewhere out there is a bunch of recordings made with Stamey and the Cossacks at Trod Nossel studios that were slotted for release  on Ork Records that I am particularly interested in hearing but were somehow 'misplaced'. Among these recordings  is a version of Handyman that was shelved due to the  James Taylor version that was released around the same time.  Anyone heard any of these recordings.

 

I hope all is well with everyone and look forward to reading your commentary!!

martin miller
Apr 14, 2012 1:46AM
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Hi Everyone!

 

Radio City is my fave record of all time and, after reading all the cool comments, I'm eager to add my 2 cents into the mix. In regard to Chilton's guitar playing , I consider it  to be the missing  link  between Reed/Morrison and Verlaine/LLoyd and later Malkmus/Kannberg style of playing/interaction . He managed to take the Velvet's angular/conversation​al minimalism in their more poppy/calmer moments (listen to  Story of My Life  or I'm Set Free) and transposed it to a single guitar and girded that with his love of British invasion music. (Speaking of which-Have you guys heard the Lesa Aldrige  cover of Story of My Life- I believe Chilton is playing feedback guitar on it if I'm not mistaken)To me , the distance between Life is White or You Get What You Deserve and Venus De Milo or Elevation  is indeed very short.   I also  think  that Chilton was a  deconstructionist at heart.  As his career progressed, the records became more deliberately spontaneous and less planned out or composed . He honestly believed that the spirit of Rock and Roll was anarchic and untutored and records like Like Flies on Sherbert and The Singer Not the Song  ep  reinforce  his commitment to this concept. Where the concept of deconstruction really applies is in Chilton's  disregard to prevailing Arena Rock  orthodoxy at the time these records were made. In this, his affinity  with New Wave could not be more clearer- one can even interpret  Chilton's motives as being a  bit reactionary like many of his  fellow  punk/new wave  compatriots. However, to these ears, Radio City  strikes the perfect balance between respect for you elders and setting out on the new frontier with a tuning fork to the future. 

 

 

Much as I love #1 Record, there is somewhat of a Crosby, Stills and Nash taint to some of the  folkier songs on Side 2. Maybe, it's the arrangements-there is a version of  Watch the Sunrise floating on the web from a '78  concert with Alex & The Cossacks that's  much more compelling(kinda sounds like Murmur era REM IMO).  Try Again sounds uncomfortably close to Isn't It a Pity  for me to truly appreciate it- Bell would go on to perfect this type song on  I Am The Cosmos . 

 

 

 

Sister Lovers  is where the deconstruction process  takes full bloom and still bears remarkable results.  Kangaroo was basically recorded on a dare with Dickinson  prodding Chilton to take the full plunge into chaos.  What's so interesting about this 'chaotic'  record is how, in hindsight,  the  seemingly conflicting  sounds and timbres seem orchestrated and dare I say it,fully realized .   Pete Doherty would certainly learn a thing or 2 from this record. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joey Daniewicz
Apr 13, 2012 10:19PM
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Favorite Big Star?  One of the final five albums I cut from my 25 Favorite of All Time was Radio City, nearly included for being packed enough to overwhelm me but brief enough to always make me consider just straight up playing it a second (third?) time.  An under-recognized fave: "Life Is White," where every strum of the guitar swiftly jabs at my gut.

Along with Dookie, it was probably the last album I was thinking about before I voted.  Favorite line: "She's a schemer, and she makes me mad."
Cam Patterson
Apr 13, 2012 10:02PM
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I love it for many reasons, but perhaps most of all--the guitar! 
One fact that is often forgotten is that Chilton was basically learning to play guitar during the Big Star years. This had the consequence of creating a collision between guys hashing out their tunes in a studio that was well worn in and had the capability to grab an audibly dynamic guitar sound with a band that was reaching for musical inspiration with every fractured chord their untested fingers stumbled on.

There's no sense I've gotten that Chris Bell was pushed out of the band (and he had far more influence on my beloved Radio City than is generally appreciated), but Chilton needed him a lot more on the first record. Exit Chris Bell and Alex's mad wavering beauty comes to the fore.

Another comment related to Chris Bell. Alex Chilton, for all his wacky gifts, wasn't much of a collaborator. He was either doing his own thing or comfortably in the back seat of someone else's thing. Bell never fully removed himself from Chilton's orbit after he left Big Star, and it's an interesting parlor game to imagine whether he could have pulled Chilton toward a more productive muse through the years. I get the sense that with Chris Bell in the mix, the oldies-show version of Big Star might have been a full-on restart.
Joey Daniewicz
Apr 13, 2012 10:00PM
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Dunno if we already played the "best Oasis songs" game, but I can't stick my neck out enough for "Don't Look Back in Anger."

Oddly enough, a few days ago I did some investigating of watershed guitar pop albums from the nineties.  Much more than when I was seventeen and hated these blokes, I quite enjoyed (What's the Story) Morning Glory?  I enjoyed it more than Weezer '94, though, no contest (though I prefer Pinkerton, no contest).
Ryan Maffei
Apr 13, 2012 9:30PM
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I'll throw in my vote for Radio City as the easy best Big Star -- which bar Cam I'd've figured everybody around here thought -- because short of adequate detailed descriptors (like Wrens Pavement VU best Beatles 'tweens and the like, the sort of aural magic the Biggies conjured up defies imprisonment by English), I find it to be the most CONVINCING Big Star album. Turning up the ear focus, to me the teeny weenie boppy elements of #1 Record have always felt a little on the contrived side, whereas the arty fey baroquey aelements of thinner-than-the-res​t Third have always rang a little too lightweight. Additionally, Chilton & his increasingly decreasing friends were always served best with a side of sarcasm; his straight-up sincerity only makes total sense for me when the melodies are supertriumphant, a la "El Goodo", so the meandery stuff on side two of #1 verges on the sorta-syrupy -- it's like much better Raspberries, which isn't good enough to beat rock 'n' soul paradise Radio City. And speaking of such stuff (syrup), for a record (3rd) that's supposedly all about quiet-storm/silent-s​unlight subversion, "Blue Moon" epitomizes a throughline of sentimentality for which microscopic points oughta be docked. 3rd's music is hella (and often hellishly) beautiful, sure, but I know there's something to the fact that I find "I Am the Cosmos/You And Your Sister" considerably more harrowing than "Holocaust", and a far more (that word again) convincing evocation of strung-outitude than the boring (I said it!) "Big Black Car". (Now, "Dream Lover" outfreaks 'em all, but I don't count that one and neither should you! Where's your sense of discographical purity?!)

Bradley Sroka
Apr 13, 2012 9:27PM
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I like this Big Star conversation, though I'm surprised by the lack of love for Radio City. I love it for many reasons, but perhaps most of all--the guitar! Beautiful beautiful guitar lines, especially "Way Out West," "What's Goin' Ahn" and "You Get What You Deserve." Also the songs before and after those three.

Greg Morton (GMort)
Apr 13, 2012 9:11PM
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If it's good to be done, it's even better to be overdone, even if half of these aren't Britpop as I think you meant it.

Pulp: "Disco 2000", I mean, "Underwear". Well, "Common People" of course.

Richard Thompson: "Keep Your Distance" or "I Misunderstood". But really, "Read About Love".

Pet Shop Boys: "Dreaming of the Queen", "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing", "A Different Point Of View".

Mekons: "Millionaire", "Wild and Blue", "Funeral", "Waltz", "All I Want".

Killer Shrews: "We Know Your Secrets".

Nick Lowe: "What's Shaking On The Hill", "All Men Are Liars".
John Smallwood (jcsmall63)
Apr 13, 2012 8:49PM
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Great list you got going here, lots of Beautiful South songs come to mind but I'll go with

#20. M People- "One Night in Heaven"

Although any early 90's Brit-pop mixtape should include some KLF.

Forgot Utah Saints "Something Good"

Semi Mike (ShadyShack)
Apr 13, 2012 8:47PM
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20. Placebo- Every You Every Me or Without you I'm Nothing

(ok I know these are 1998 and you said 90-97, so in that case put down one of these then...)

20. Radiohead- My Iron Lung or Just

Raul Roque
Apr 13, 2012 6:58PM
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Passing by to say I'm really enjoying the two big ones: Big K.R.I.T. and Big Baby Gandhi. "Return of 4eva" and BBG's "Mixtape." I know "Rotation" maybe is his most pop-oriented, with a flawless chorus, although "The Vent" is one of the most beautiful songs I listened recently. His last rapping words in this song is marvellous, when he says he never seen a star on a red rug - If we wanna see stars we just look above: to the heavens. I'm not really religious, but It's honestly touching and indeed beautiful. And I knew I've heard his voice before, on "Make My" of The Roots - just discovered now.

Gandhi is poorly lo-fi and really less restrained, but his music is surely exciting. I don't do drugs, but I think I understand why he does and I also usually question myself if I'm supposed to change and what I would lose and what I would gain. I know it's fairly different from his situation, but somehow related. The music of "Been Around Ya Girl" could be a good background for a 80's pop song, but his singing and melodies, at least with me, make me feel so much more independent and acting with my heart, doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong. "White World" just keep me remembering that he said we live in a white world. Here in Brazil, I think this racism problem is questionable, since it's not much usual very serious issues about that, maybe because of bigger diversity, although I know this happening is global, historic and it affects indirectly - if not directly - our society. But I can feel his urgency, in sound format on "Go 2 Sleep." I think he is really smart, actually. But it's certainly a different way of smart. He knows himself so much more than I'm sure of myself. I like his security, even when being confused. What I most like about artists like him or many which I knew from this brief and great time into hip-hop - I know it's cliche - is how true and passionately they are. I like it on music, in general. It's not lazy, blank or intended for stylist proposes. It's their hearts, exposed. They simply say what they feel. And well, who could imagine that it would be a rare thing in our "blinded/blurred" modern times?
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about the blogger

Robert Christgau

Starting in 1967, Robert Christgau has covered popular music for The Village Voice, Esquire, Blender, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He teaches in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, maintains a comprehensive website at robertchristgau.com, and has published five books based on his journalism. He has written for MSN Music since 2006.

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