Why were so many people so profoundly affected by the passing of Alex Chilton? Here's a thought: The musician
was the voice of at least a subset of a generation. Call it the "spent a chunk of the 80s/90s rewinding the cassette of Radio City and waiting for that boy/girl to call generation." Most of the folks above, I would guess, are older than 35 and younger than Chiton himself. But not that much younger. Chilton was born in 1950, and he was 59 when he died. With better living/luck/genes, he might have seen his threescore and ten, but he was not, by any means, a talent cut down in the flower of youth. If you are a member of the generation I mention above, the people in the bands you like are starting to die not because of heroic abuse of drugs/alcohol, but because they are getting old. Unfortunately, that means that any one of us could be next. That's the scary part.There's more.
Rock 'n roll won't make me immortal? KEITH RICHARDS LIED.
Alex Chilton - Dead.
Keith Richards - Still Alive.
!?!
Instead of RIP and instead of PDBD, I'd like to suggest AWPAD = All the Wrong People Are Dying (cf. the Styrenes).
Right? Getting off work and coming home to this is heartbreaking. Time for emergency under-the-bed-bottle-of-Beam and some moping.
I think Chilton knew a thing or two about the heroic abuse of alcohol and drugs, and we do not die of old age at 59. Otherwise, a nice tribute.
Heavy drug use wears your heart out fast. Yeah, some people are genetically programmed to kick a fast bucket around 60, but years of coke/heroin/booze/cigs all together and either the valves or the arteries or the arrhythmia will get you (or all of them).
I would (once again, here on the interwhoots)like to thank that overzealous doctor who mis-diagnosed me with a mild heart murmur when I was in my early 20's and scared me away from the hard stuff. Let's see how fast the white wine and goat cheese does me in.
I'm hungover on this. This guy meant more than I guess I realized--and I kind of obsessed on realizing it.
Part of being so hooked into Alex's gestalt was the "undiscovered genuius" part of it--he was constantly lurking on the periphery of that "most underrated" cadre of influentials, that spawn of Velvet Underground whom faux cogniscenti clung to in order to feel they 'owned' something bright and special that few others knew of--in other words, he drew high water among that particularly annoying rank of Snot, the Record Snob.
And what can I say? I was/am one. Somewhere along the way, though, the fact he was a peculiar genius (who never made a spectacular recording after 1974, sayeth the Snot) got inside the membrane of the heart, and so along with all the other drippery, I find real tears.
But you get what you deserve.
16 when he recorded 'The Letter.'