Customer Reviews

Like Flies on Sherbert

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great album. It's about how music is played as opposed to beautiful musical ideas. It's about interaction and willful screwups. Most Big Star fans don't like this album, recorded at various studios in Memphis around 1978 and originally released, on LP, in the fall of 1979 (those original LPs of "Sherbert" numbered only 500). There's more verve, insolence and real musicianship here than in just about any release since the 1950s. Alex Chilton has been quoted as saying that "Like Flies On Sherbert" is his masterpiece, and who are we to argue? Plus drummer/monologuist Ross Johnson's tale of drugs, Soft-Tex and Elvis, "Baron Of Love Part 2," is worth the price of admission, as is "Hey! Little Child" and the amazing "Hook Or Crook." This album is the Memphis spirit, as live as you would wish to have it. Just remember, when you listen to this crazy quilt of obscure covers from artists as disparate as Ernest Tubb, Jimmy C. Newman, and K.C. and the Sunshine Band, that a guy named Elvis did something quite similar with odd material back in the '50s. And for all the supposed indisicipline of the performances, these are great musicians just having a good time, Memphis-style. Don't miss it. I got a love to go...

This is the album that divides Alex Chilton fans. On the one hand, there are people who revere the Big Star albums as the ultimate revisionist take on British-Invasion and west-coast pop music. "#1 Record" and "Radio City" certainly derive from the Byrds, Beatles, Zombies, Who, Kinks, as well as from the Beach Boys and Moby Grape. And the Big Star albums are untouchable. On the other hand, there are fans who, in my opinion, get the bigger picture and see how "Like Flies on Sherbert" and other solo works by Chilton ("Bangkok," "Walking Dead," "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It") are the next step past mere reverence for the admittedly storied past.

I'm of the opinion that "Sherbert" is one of the great albums of the late '70s, or indeed of any era. As a corrective to the mere reverence I referred to earlier, it's unbeatable; and of course it fits in with the so-called psychobilly of bands like the Cramps. Yet "Sherbert" is unique because it combines a lingering affection for the somewhat naive products of men like Ernest Tubb and Jimmy C. Newman with a desire to reveal the rather unpleasant or at least geographically and romantically fraught realities that lie beneath seemingly artless songs like A. P. Carter's version of an old Civil War song, "Lorena," that later became, through some alchemy, a song about slavery called both "Way Down in Alabama" and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena."

Many, including the obviously challenged folk at AMG, simply dismiss this album. Goodness gracious, what delicate sensibilities one must have to be offended by the twanging guitars and sprattling synthesizers of "Sherbert." And merciful heavens, sometimes the singing is a bit out of tune, and on the brilliant cover of K. C. and the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes," Chilton even starts singing a bit early, and he didn't correct the mistake. Of course, "Boogie Shoes" is such a sacred object, such a classic, that the desecration is unbearable.

There are a few other artists who, having recorded such sublime and well-crafted pop music, have chosen to bare their souls in such a manner while remaining essentially unknowable; and few who have been brave enough to take a romp through the pop-music past in a way that actually shows respect for it. What I think the detractors of "Sherbert" miss is that true respect is not always solemn.

This record was originally released in late 1979 on Sid Selvidge's Peabody label, in a limited editon of 500. Aura Records released it in a sonically inferior version, in 1980, leaving off Ross Johnson's "Baron of Love pt. II" and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena," and replacing them with "Boogie Shoes." There have been various reissues since then. This reissue restores the original tracks, keeps "Boogie Shoes," and adds something kind of sick called "Baby Doll" and an instrumental version of a Cordell Jackson tune. The record was produced by Jim Dickinson and makes a nice companion piece to his early-'70s classic "Dixie Fried," which mixed covers of Carl Perkins, Furry Lewis and Bob Dylan for a somewhat similar listening experience.

There are only a few albums that are greater than the sum of their parts. Even a collection of great songs (for example, Dylan's Blood on the Tracks) is in the end just a collection of great songs, whereas the type of album that I'm talking about is, in the end, a totally unique experience. Albums of this type include Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Charles Gayle's Touchin' on Trane, Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity, Junior Kimbrough's All Night Long and the album that I'm reviewing, Alex Chilton's Like Flies on Sherbert. I feel no need to defend this album against the many criticisms that have been leveled against it-either you get it or you don't. From Baron of Love through the cataclysmic ending of the title track, the listener is given the rare opportunity to witness the quirky, yet passionate impetus at the root of Memphis music. Like Flies on Sherbert is for Memphis music what John Water's early movies are for the underbelly of Baltimore: Both combine parody of and passion for their subjects to such an extent that the line between the two is thoroughly blurred. To some listeners this is irritating. To me it is exciting.

This is the definitive version of this album. It has been remixed by Jim Dickinson who "produced" the original recording and there are three great bonus tracks. The ghost of Memphis meets the Cramps. If you don't like this album you don't like rock'n'roll. Grade A+

First of all this is not a conventional GOOD or BAD album. It requires too much explaining for most people to even care to "get it". The album was recorded in a few boozy/druggy nights and was mixed on and off for a year according to Mr. Chilton. The musicians were very unfamilliar with the material (and unrehearsed) which was somehow very attracive to Alex. The album kinda makes sense considering Alex's state of mind at the time - having been burned a few times by the music industry by now. He was in a "if anyone's gonna screw this up it's gonna be me" spiteful mind set. False starts, wrong notes and pure lunacy is accentuated in the mix. Even flaunted.

The Replacements boozy tendencies make a lot of sense after hearing this record. You hear the influence right away.

Maybe it's just me but there's something very exciting and even primal in this recording which you simply don't hear much in "music".

Thank you Mr. Chilton

AMG totally miss the point on this record as they do on many other great ones (not really to compare apples and oranges, but SOMETHING is amiss when "Like Flies on Sherbert" gets one star and spice girls records get 4.5!) This is a very good record, with a throrough mix of noise, melody, distortion, blues, spiritual and schmaltz. Recommended to people who think this sounds interesting because it is. The record sounds like a good drunken rant because this is exactly what it is, and i think we all need this once in a while! Ignore AMG and use ... customer reviews, as this give you a much better distribution of comment on what it is about a particular record that is good, bad or indifferent rather than one reviewers point of view who likely only listened to the record once before passing almighty judgement. so there.

I rather doubt that Mr. Chilton would prefer to be thought of as "The Father of..insert obligatory sub-genre", in keeping with that, this self-contained anti-masterpiece gives an irreverant and baffling knod to the musical past, while inadvertantly birthing a thoroughly entertaining deconstructivist-pop hybrid. If you are expecting chiming guitars, Soul Deep harmonies or even a prototypical mish-mash of Chilton originals peppered with select cover tunes (often R & B) then prepare to be mystified. Rocking like The Cramps at times (Rock Hard), blissed-out and often slurring his words (Like Flies On Sherbert), intentionally it would appear, all the while exploring and exploding the accepted boundaries of each vernacular. This record has been called: "..a dreadful disappointment". The playing has been dismissed as "..universally slipshod". It is about time that someone set the record straight. This record is as crucial for the budding "Chiltonite" to own as any other he would make for the following decade and beyond. There are only two other releases (Document and Stuff) from or pertaining to the aforementioned period, both long out of print, both compilations (including large portions of Like Flies On Sherbert and Feudalist Tarts respectively) that would better serve, primarily for the inclusion of equally fine and rare material. This record would prove a blueprint for little if any of his future work. A dazzling, confounding and supremely addled mess of the highest quality.

(Note: Titleing for this album is credited to one Gustavo Falco of Panther Burns fame, who also appears in the film Highway 61)

A great album. When I first heard this CD, way back when it first came out, I thought it was the most horrible thing I ever heard. I actually would play it to friends and say "my god, listen to this!". But, as the years have gone by and my musical taste and knowledge has improved, I have come to hear this album as one of the great classics of the Memphis underground. Sometimes sloppy means loose, and sometimes strange means unconventional means original. Fans of the Cramps, Psychobilly, looser punk and those who truly understand why Stax was great will really enjoy this. Loose, full of humor and often unhinged.

i picked this up on ebay for under $10 (shipping included) the cover of k.c and the sunshine band's 'boogie shoes' kicks serious butt. in fact, i only have heard this once and i like it enough to state that this is my favorite record by either him solo or big star(and just for the record, i love big star's album) this album sounds like the cramps meets big star's sister lovers. you hear elements of the aforementioned bands and on another tune, it kind of sounds like joy division, on another, like brian wilson's album with the beach boys from '77, love you (hence, the opinion of some reviewers that state the album seems unfinished and rough) but in my book, unfinished and sparse is better than boring, too long and overproduced. i am not sure if a.c is responsible for the guitar work on the album, but it rocks, in a velvet underground-esque way. stylistically, it sounds very similar to the cramps or tav falco's panther burns, two neo rockabilly acts a.c produced and played with in the early eighties or maybe like eddie cochran or gene vincent on acid. i was very happy with my purchase of this lost classic. so if you dig all these comparisons i've made, what are you waiting for? get this NOW!!!

Ross Johnson's "Baron of Love pt. II" is missing from this version. A pity, for Johnson's masterpiece provides another glimpse at this fantastically creative time in the independent music sceen in Memphis in the late 70s and early 80s. This work suffers from its absence, and without the immortal phrase "get in here before this stuff coagulates!" none of this makes any sense at all.