Customer Reviews

Like Flies on Sherbert/Live in London

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People who revere Big Star like to dump all over this album, but to me "Like Flies on Sherbert" is an immediately likeable rock and roll classic. "Boogie Shoes", the opening track just grabs you with Chilton's cool delivery of a missed vocal cue, followed by fat rock and roll guitars and a bright-sounding piano. The rest of the LP is mostly great, with some exceptions: "I've Had It" sounds like of a bunch of extremely drunk people trying to jam to an early 80's Stones song, and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena" tries to get by on pointing out that country music is hokey (well, duh), and would be much better handled by someone understated, like, say, Beck. "Girl after Girl," on the other hand, sounds like an insincere tribute to Fabian or Elvis, but Chilton's vocal is so well-executed it doesn't matter if he's being deliberately schlocky or not. Everything else is just as uneven, but overall it's refreshingly unpredictable rock. The squeaky-clean production works surprising well with the generally loose and sometimes sloppy playing of the musicians.
"Live in London" rocks even more, but alas the audio is a just-average club recording, so the real meat of these songs doesn't quite come through. "Bangkok" opens the set with a garage-punk thrash, followed by a cool, lock-downed beat of Otis and Carla's r+b hit "Tramp". Chilton charms throughout, but things sound a little too muddy to ever make you forget you're listening to a club recording. If you're an Alex Chilton fan, though, you'll probably end up listening to it as often as I do, which is often.

This record is a stone cold classic in my opinion. Yeah, it's messy, sloppy, drunk and all over the place but that's what makes it different and cool. If you dig the Stones at their most intoxicated or Tav Falco you will enjoy this record.