Re: (TV) Alex Chilton

[AndrewMFC@aol.com]

My Alex Chilton story:
It's the late 80's early 90's...  Alex is touring the county fairs and 
tractor pulls circuit with a version of the Box Tops (!) complete with an 
annoying MC-slash-backup singer guy.   He is booked to play a suburban park 
near me on the same evening as the wedding of a close friend of mine.   The 
reception begins to die down, so sloshed to the gills, I drag the spouse and 
a couple of friends to the park, which was all of 10 minutes walk away, to 
catch the show.  It's an awful set-up: the stage is one of those tin can 
trailers-on-wheels thingies and my 60 watt home stereo put the sound system 
to shame.  Though it saddened me to see the great man reduced to these 
circumstances, I could not resist the urge to shout for Big Star songs, which 
were clearly NOT on the set-list that night.  Alex gets a bit rattled when he 
sees a party of four drunks, all in fancy evening dress, heckling him from 
stage left.  After about the third request for Daisy Glaze, the compere 
fellow puts down his tambourine, leaves the stage, and comes down to tell us, 
politely I must say, to shut the f*** up and that Alex would be sticking to 
Box Tops songs.  In my best Foster Brooks imitation, I replied that the 
geriatric lawn chair brigade present would possibly remember "The Letter," 
but that Alex should just kick the rest of his band off the stage, such as it 
was, and play an acoustic set of Big Star and solo songs.  The guy is about 
to lunge at me.... and Alex plays a single chorus of September Gurls, as if 
to say "Happy?  Now shut up!!"   We were, and we did.
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