#Lesa Aldridge

[whatsthesound]

Alex Chilton & Lesa Aldridge, "I'm So Tired" (1975)

Sister Lovers is my touchstone album of all, but maybe for that reason -- somehow feeling like digging too deeply wouldn't be a good thing -- had put off digging into Complete Third until now.

But my.... The duets with Lesa Aldridge are really something, suddenly bringing to mind that Alex Chilton never really seemed to ever perform or play with women. And also, all the tapes with her parts were said to have been destroyed by him so of course curious about these fragments....

[rolloroberson]

Big Star - Til the End of the Day

[littlewhispersmokesigns]

Alex Chilton + Lesa Aldridge

[boredout305]

Marcia

Marcia Clifton is the drummer of Memphis' first punk band, The Klitz. After the group initially disbanded in 1980, she made some home recordings with her boyfriend (later husband) Hans Faulhaber. The duo employed a drum machine and recorded on a Fostex cassette recorder. It was a great session, combining Cleaners from Venus-style lo-fi production with danceable post-punk elements that were a hallmark of 1980-1983 underground music. Spacecase will be releasing a limited-edition lathe cut (25 copies) of two songs from this cassette very soon.

Interview by Ryan Leach

Circa 1983 photo by Marion Keisker (yes, of Sun Records/Elvis Presley fame)

Ryan: The Klitz ended in late 1980 when Lesa (Aldridge) moved to New Jersey. What were you doing in that interim period between then and when you started recording these tracks in the summer of 1983?

Marcia: When Lesa left town and The Klitz disbanded, we decided to either go back to college or get a job that wasn’t in the music industry. I had a job managing a boutique. It was a cool clothing store. And that’s where I met Hans (Faulhaber). Hans had recorded with Gail (Clifton) first at Ardent. That would’ve been early in 1983. Hans and I started dating. He didn’t have a home-recording setup like the ones you think of today. He had a little cassette recorder where you had a few tracks.

Ryan: It was a Fostex cassette recorder, not a reel-to-reel tape recorder, correct?

Marcia: Yes. A Fostex cassette recorder. Most of those songs I had already written. But I wrote them more as poetry. I didn’t necessarily want to put them to music. But Hans is a musician. He said, “Well, I can put some music to these, and I have a drum machine.” So, we recorded those in his apartment early in our courtship. We recorded these songs in 1983 and 1984.

Ryan: I didn’t realize that you weren’t actively pursuing music after the Klitz ended.

Marcia: That’s right. I didn’t do anything with music again until we recorded these songs. “Shy Guy” was about a heartbreak I’d had before I’d met Hans. I was the drummer in The Klitz. I’d written some songs, but I wasn’t like Gail (Clifton) and Lesa (Aldridge) who were always recording material or writing songs that we’d perform. When Hans and I started dating, he was the one who said, “Well, maybe you’ve got some songs in you.” To which I responded, “Well, I’ve got these poems…” Only a couple other songs from the batch of recordings I gave you were written afterwards. “This Love” was one of them.  

Ryan: These songs were all recorded in Hans’ apartment, right?

Marcia: Yes, except for “Can’t Decide” and “French Boy.” Lesa wrote “French Boy” and “Can’t Decide” was a song I wrote in 1986. Those two tracks I added later to the recordings you have. The one Sid Selvidge sings was recorded later too.

Ryan: So, you wrote “Week at a Glance,” the song Sid sings on and the one you’re referring to?

Marcia: Exactly.

Ryan: Memphis music has always been underappreciated.

Marcia: Very underappreciated.

Ryan: And an overlooked musician from the Memphis music scene is the late Sid Selvidge. He ran the Peabody label and his record, The Cold of the Morning (1976), is outstanding. How did you meet and get to work with Sid?

Marcia: I knew him from Mud Boy & the Neutrons. Coincidentally, he also had stepdaughters who were my age. His stepdaughter Kathy Spivey was my friend. I went over to their house when I was 14 to hang out. Steve (Selvidge, Sid’s son and musician) was still a toddler. We’re talking about the early 1970s. We always knew Sid as an activist and poet. He was an anthropology professor at Southwestern (now Rhodes College). Sid was always this Midtown enigma to me. I didn’t really get to know him until Mud Boy and The Klitz started playing shows together.

Ryan: Did you ask him to record with you?

Marcia: Yeah, Hans asked him. Sid was the house band for a Memphis bar/restaurant called the North End. He was playing at Jefferson Square first, but unfortunately that place burned down to the ground. This was in addition to Sid’s other musical projects, including Mud Boy. By the time we recorded with Sid, Hans had upgraded from his little Fostex. He was recording more bands. So, he’d invited Sid over. Sid liked the song and the lyrics for “Week at a Glance”.

Ryan: Memphis is a city where music can happen independently, oblivious to what’s happening elsewhere. Nevertheless, bands like the Bush Tetras and Pylon were combining post punk with dance elements and a spartan sound. Were you aware of those bands or do you feel that working with a drum machine had more of an influence on these songs?

Marcia: No. I would say it was more about the technology. I’d heard of those bands, but they weren’t an influence. New wave was definitely going at that time. I think it was more a sign of the times.

Ryan: Did you ever perform these songs live?

Marcia: That never happened at the time, and I thought we would. Much later, our band SuperLo did some of these songs. That was with Hans, me and John Hampton’s wife Robin Robison.

Ryan: That would’ve been the 2010s, correct?

Marcia: Right. 2018. But going back to when we recorded these songs, I was in college. And I was in some ways living the music through Gail (Clifton). After The Klitz broke up, she was the only one who really continued with music. I would hang out and support her. The Klitz got back together in 2014. I enjoyed it so much I wondered why I’d ever stopped playing music.

Ryan: It seems like a matter of life taking over. I know you had your first child, Clover, around this time.

Marcia: Yes. Clover was born in 1991. I did have one short-lived band called Orbit Tomatoes before Clover was born. That was with our neighbor Tommy Foster who coincidentally owned a nightclub, so we became the house band. I played drums and bass guitar, and I did sing “French Boy.” Tommy was (Memphis organizer/musician) Bennett Foster’s father. He was such a wonderful person who died way too young. Anyway, I’m glad these songs are finally seeing the light of day.

[wrongemboyo]

I have collected every image of lesa aldridge ever made publicly available

[farm2turntable]

Karen Chatham and Lesa Aldridge, Memphis 1973 [William Eggleston, photo]

[pop-sesivo]

Lesa Aldridge, novia y colaboradora de Alex Chilton durante la grabación del álbum Third/Sister de Big Star.

Lesa Aldridge, collaborator, muse, and girlfriend of Alex Chilton during the making of Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers album

{image from the documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me}

[groupiesoutrageously]

Lesa Aldridge, girlfriend and musical partner of Alex Chilton, and also the inspiration behind many of his works including the Big Star albums Radio City (1974) and Third/Sister Lovers (1978).

"Lesa is a muse, unquestionably. Nearly every song on Third is about her. The world will never know the extent to which Lesa was responsible for that record." –Jim Dickinson

[rolloroberson]

Big Star - Kizza Me

[serpentinesheldonserpentine]

Karen Chatham and Lesa Aldridge by William Eggleston.

For @golftangohotel

‘Decadent Young Woman. After the Dance’ by Ramon Casas, c. 1899.

[littlewhispersmokesigns]

Making a web weaving post about Alex chilton wiping lesa Aldridge’s contributions from big star third and stills/young wiping Crosby/nash’s vocals from long may you run. Oh I’m getting word that this doesn’t mean anything to anyone but me

[sinji95]

[pop-sesivo]

"Til the End of the Day" por Lesa Aldridge. Del EP Lesa (1980).

Courtesy: Doom & Gloom From The Tomb

[boredout305]

Ross Johnson’s memoir is in!

Purchase here.

[yeats-infection]

5 and 10?

thank you buddy!

5. share a little known fact about an artist you like.

alex chilton wrote much of the big star album third with his girlfriend lesa aldridge, who was the cousin of the #1 best american color photographer of all time william eggleston (who took all those amazing photos of big star on quaaludes at tgi fridays). there is basically a whole different version of third that we will never hear, which essentially features lesa as a member of the band... but when they broke up, he erased all of her contributions. much later he survived hurricane katrina in his house in treme in new orleans and had to be evacuated by helicopter. he died at age 59 of a heart attack after putting off seeing a doctor because he didn’t have health insurance... OH and most importantly he was a die-hard astrology believer and “september gurls” is about being a capricorn in love with two different libras 

10. what are the best playlists you’ve made? 

weeeeell you can get them every week by signing up for my newsletter! my favorites so far are the blues playlist from two weeks ago and the three-hour “british guitar music and related” issue from a month or so ago. 

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send me a music ask! i’m going to bed now but will get to more tomorrow.