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Alex Chilton - Alex Chilton's Lost Decade (1985)

Track listing:
  1. Bangkok
  2. Can't Seem To Make You Mine
  3. Walking Dead
  4. Take Me Home & Make Me Like It
  5. Free Again
  6. Come On Honey
  7. I Can Dig It
  8. Just To See You
  9. Toe Jam Sugar Blues
  10. Special Friend Larry Davis
  11. How Long Grady Whitebread
  12. Bus Trip Grady Whitebread
  13. Torso Tourninado Scott Adams
  14. Games Scott Adams
  15. Trouble Scott Adams
  16. Mojo Man Scott Adams

Notes


Lost Decade is a document of recordings Alex Chilton made during the 1970s as both solo performer and producer. "The Artist" half features the brilliantly sloppy "Bangkok"/"Can't Seem to Make You Mine" single, a couple of outtakes from the chaotic Bach's Bottom period, and four songs from a post-Box Tops, pre-Big Star session. Three of these early solo tunes later turned up on 1970, but were subsequently re-mixed. Only a diehard would notice the difference, but then who else would search out this collection? The majority (if not all) of the other tracks have since re-appeared on various (and less expensive) Chilton releases over the years. "The Producer" portion features rare recordings produced by the artist, in which he often lent a hand instrumentally as well as vocally. The unremarkable blues- and country-flavored numbers will do little to satisfy the faithful (though the rockin' bluegrass of Grady Whitebread's "Bus Trip" does have its moments), but the side devoted to Scott Adams will fascinate, as it foreshadows the producer's own loose solo material. Chilton seems to have been particularly influenced by Adams' vocal style, and the desperate honesty in lines like "the trouble is nobody cares" would find a home on the then work-in-progress, Third/Sister Lovers.