Big Star, Complete Third, 2016

Album Review

By Henry Lipput

When Big Star released their first album, #1 Record, in 1972, the band consisted of Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens, and Andy Hummel. In 1974, Radio City came out; and Chilton, Stephens, and Hummel were Big Star. Recording sessions for another album began in the fall of 1974, and Chilton and Stephens were the last men standing.

When recording was completed on what would be the last Big Star album, it still didn’t have a title; and it didn’t have a track listing (although producer Jim Dickinson and Chilton had agreed on a first and last song). Dickinson and John Fry (engineer on this recording and producer on the band's previous two outings) put together a song sequence and made a test pressing of the album. They visited record companies across the country to try and drum up interest in the disc but were met with comments like, "I don’t have to listen to that again, do I?"

Normally, this would signal the end of the road for a record. However, Big Star had developed a small, but devoted, following; and, in 1978, around the time that Alex Chilton began his new career as a singer of rock and punk material that had little connection with his earlier music, the indie label PVC put out the album which was simply titled Third.

In the '90s, as people who had heard the album started to create a buzz about it, Rykodisc released the album as Third/Sister Lovers (both Chilton and Stephens had been dating sisters at the time the album was recorded). Using the same master tapes as PVC, Rykodisc's track listing was slightly different (and both are different than the test pressing), and they used the other songs that had been mastered as bonus tracks.

In 2009, Rhino Records released the 4-CD Keep An Eye On The Sky box set which chronicled Big Star's career including recordings made by the band's leaders Chris Bell and Alex Chilton before they teamed up. The box also included some demos for songs from Third, many of which were being heard by fans for the first time.

And this is were Omnivore Recordings comes in. In 2011, on Record Store Day, the company released copies of the test pressing that Dickinson and Fry had put together. Rough mixes and demos came along on the soundtrack for the Big Star film Nothing Can Hurt Me and the Record Store Day "Jesus Christ" EP (a song from Third and Chilton‘s Christmas song).

Having spent 10 years searching for more demos, mixes, and outtakes from Third, Omnivore has just released Complete Third, a three-disc, 69-song collection -- every recording from Third known to exist including 29 songs that have never been heard.

The box also has a booklet with an essay by long-time rock journalist and Big Star fan, Bud Scoppa, as well as comments by Jody Stephens and fans of the band and the album such as Ken Stringfellow (of The Posies and who, along with Chilton and Stephens, was part of the Big Star reunion in the '90s) and Chris Stamey (of The db's and producer of some of Chilton's records in the '70s).

Complete Third is a comprehensive listen to an album that was initially dismissed and is now revered as a classic. It's obvious that a lot of care has gone into this project. All of the music, demos, mixes, and masters that were recorded more than forty years ago, sound terrific.

The first disc eases listeners into the work. We hear most of the songs that will be used on the album through Chilton's acoustic guitar and voice demos. It's a nice first look at songs that would become dark, but still beautiful, in mixes and the final masters (Disc 2 sequences mixes for "Kanga Roo," "Holocaust," and "Big Black Car" together). Throughout, there are also lovely, positive songs like "Take Care," "Thank You Friends," and the gorgeous "Blue Moon" and Stephens's "For You."

Disc 2 is made up of rough mixes by Dickinson and Fry. You can hear the difference between mixes and masters in "Oh, Dana" (Dickinson did the rough mix). An even better example of how things progressed is "Big Black Car" which, over the course of the three discs, is presented as a Chilton acoustic demo, a demo with the band, a Dickinson rough mix, a Fry rough mix, and a final master.

The sessions for Third have been described as chaotic by many of those who participated, and this is made clear in "Pre-Downs," an edited version of the nearly 30-minute banging and guitar noodling that would become "Downs." There's also Chilton and his girlfriend Lesa's take on The Beatles' "I’m So Tired" and Chilton performing "Baby Strange" by T-Rex.

The third disc is made up of the final masters. Omnivore based the order of the masters in this set on their test pressing release but also included the other masters (many of which Rykodisc used as bonus tracks). You can also sequence it yourself.

Complete Third is out now on Omnivore Recordings.