Alex Chilton “A Man Called Destruction”
What. The. Fuck. Happened?
After decades of searching for answers to that question, I think it’s time to admit that we got it all wrong. He wasn’t what we hoped he was. Not that any of it matters now, but maybe what we thought was Alex was really Chris. I just don’t know. But, having revisited Alex Chilton’s 1995 “return to form,” “A Man Called Destruction,” it’s clear to me that all of those signals, glimmers and clues we ascribed from his solo albums were merely projections.
It’s hard to admit. It’s not easy to give up the ghost. But, I simply do not believe that Alex was a tortured genius or a should-have-been star. Was he talented? Of course, he was. But he was more so a sad, beat up man who never rediscovered that magic that he might not have had in the first place. Alex Chilton was in Big Star. Yes. But he was not Big Star. Big Star was a band. And their sound, on the basis of the evidence, might have been more the sound of Chris Bell than of Alex Chilton. It’s impossible to gather what happened along the way. Was it the arrested development from his early Box Tops fame? Was it drugs and booze? Was it Chris’ death? Was it the exorcism that was “Sister Lovers”? Was it the broken promises?
Though I will never know, I am resolved to end my search. Even after his death — after the mourning and hagiography — I can no longer grade Alex Chilton on the Big Star curve. If anything, I am convinced that his brilliant flash, was a product of Chris Bell’s pixie dust. It took a few years to wear off. But, when it did, it was gone forever. And by 1974, Alex Chilton was lost, without his former superpower. For years, he struggled to find it. He released a string of albums that were fine — maybe, possibly, potentially great if he’d had more time and tried a bit harder. He had an unlikely, rockabilly romance with Tav Falco’s Panther Burns. Eventually, mercifully, he found some financial success as a nostalgia act. And then, he died before he turned sixty. It’s a shitty story for almost five decades.
In the shadows of all of this tragedy, “A Man Called Destruction” was supposed to be a bright light. The relaunched Ardent Records — yes, that Ardent Records — brought him back to Memphis to record with a tight, but very able band, complete with a horns section. Chilton had pulled his head just slightly above water with the help of the Big Star and Box Tops reunions. His legend had prospered. And, for the first time since the 1970s, he wrote more than half of the tracks on the record. The promise of a “comeback” sounded not entirely crazy.
Turns out, it was not crazy — it was hopeful. And wrong. “A Man Called Destruction” is a Southern Rockabilly record, with flavors of Jazz and Rhythm and Blues. Chilton does most of the guitar work, which is nifty in the way that he could play a sturdy retro-lead and then let it fall apart like his instrument had one too many drinks. His voice is in good form here, as well. Although fragile, Chilton’s vocals always had an elastic quality which stretched from the baritone of “The Letter” to the tenor of “I’m In Love With a Girl.”
While the singer is mostly fine, however, his songs are underdeveloped to the point of being undeveloped. At its occasional best, the band is having fun with Rockabilly in the way that Jonathan Richman, The Blasters or Barrence Whitfield and The Savages did. Unfortunately, even at his best, Chilton’s work is not the equal of any of those artists. For many years, it was convenient to suggest that he was playing with the form or with his own myth — that he was deconstructing a sound buried deep beneath the crystalline power pop he made with Big Star. Well, I think that was just plain wrong. Alex Chilton is making an honest go at something here and that something is really just “OK.”
Chilton wrote or co-wrote six songs on this album. But one is simply a fun, three minute guitar romp called “Bioplexity” and one is a ninety second read on Chopin’s “Funeral Dirge,” called “It’s Your Funeral.” “Devil Girl,” the college radio single from the album, is just an undercooked 60s Jazzy Soul track. The band grooves fine and the singer sounds healthy, but everything has an unfinished quality to it. When it ends, you find yourself wondering, “is that it? That’s the single?”
Much of the album has this “are you sure you’re done with that” quality. The band is pro. They could pay Alex Chilton fan service in small venues with low stakes. But, on record, it’s all just meh. the mix is muddled, often leaving the drums plodding out front. Not a single song delivers the payoff we all so desired, both for our own perseverance, and, moreover, for the artist himself. There is no revelation here. There is no salvation.
That being said, among the above average rhythm and blues are a couple of unpolished gems. There is his earnest cover of Jan and Dean’s (co-written by Brian Wilson) “The New Girl In School” where we are reminded of how much fun Alex might have been fronting a Surf band or messing around with Beach Boys covers. The other winner — in fact, the closest the album gets to a triumph — is the Italian rockabilly song, “Il Rivelle,” which races ahead, with a reckless joy that we don’t expect from the singer. You can almost picture Chilton in some club on the Amalfi Coast, anonymous but happy, wowing the locals who have never heard his name. He sings (as translated):
I like speed I am a frantic jazz player
I would like to dance because I feel rock
I am rebellious
I do not like this world that does not want fantasy
I am rebellious
In dressing in thinking in love my little girl
But I find a little of happiness
Dancing rock
While it remains unclear whether Alex Chilton ever found peace, he almost found Power Pop one last time. The album’s closer, “Don’t Stop” has a terrific riff, worthy of Cheap Trick, if not Big Star. For half of the short song, you almost believe that our tragic hero is going to break through into...something. But, he peters out. The song loses momentum midway through, and then stumbles into some drum fills and feedback before finally retreating. He tears up the promising idea as quickly as it came to him. Whether he was being ironic or sadistic or whether he had just run out of ideas, I’ll never know.