Comments on: Why we loved Alex Chilton http://snarkmarket.com/2010/5406 The stomping grounds of Tim Carmody, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It's a long-running conversation about media, journalism, technology, cities, culture, design, books, music, movies, the future and the past. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:58:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Paco Ahlgren http://snarkmarket.com/2010/5406/comment-page-1#comment-9583 Paco Ahlgren Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:57:18 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=5406#comment-9583 In 1989, my band was booked to play a show in Savannah, Georgia. I was twenty-years-old. We were opening for Alex Chilton, and I couldn’t have been more excited. Big Star is still one of my all-time favorites… For weeks, I dreamed about what I would say to Alex (obviously, since we were both musicians, I could call him by his first name). When the long-anticipated night came, and I saw him enter the club, my mouth went dry. He unloaded his gear on stage, set up, and did a very short sound check. Then he sat at the bar. I walked up and introduced myself: “Alex? My name is Paco. I’m with the other band.” He smiled and shook my hand in a patient, tired kind of way. “It’s nice to meet you.” “You’re one of my biggest heroes.” He smiled again. “Thanks.” “I noticed your amp is pretty small. Why don’t you have a bigger setup?” He looked at the stage. “Is that your amp up there on top of all those speakers?” I smiled proudly. “Yeah. It’s pretty badass.” Alex Chilton chuckled at my comment. “You’ll get over that.” http://www.pacoahlgren.com/alex-chilton-rest-in-peace/ In 1989, my band was booked to play a show in Savannah, Georgia. I was twenty-years-old. We were opening for Alex Chilton, and I couldn’t have been more excited. Big Star is still one of my all-time favorites…

For weeks, I dreamed about what I would say to Alex (obviously, since we were both musicians, I could call him by his first name). When the long-anticipated night came, and I saw him enter the club, my mouth went dry. He unloaded his gear on stage, set up, and did a very short sound check. Then he sat at the bar.

I walked up and introduced myself: “Alex? My name is Paco. I’m with the other band.”

He smiled and shook my hand in a patient, tired kind of way. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You’re one of my biggest heroes.”

He smiled again. “Thanks.”

“I noticed your amp is pretty small. Why don’t you have a bigger setup?”

He looked at the stage. “Is that your amp up there on top of all those speakers?”

I smiled proudly. “Yeah. It’s pretty badass.”

Alex Chilton chuckled at my comment. “You’ll get over that.”
http://www.pacoahlgren.com/alex-chilton-rest-in-peace/

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