Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
CCA, Feb 21, 5pm and GFT2, Feb 24, 8pm
This lovingly hewn documentary untangles the story of seminal Memphis band Big Star, through every misstep, to the legacy central to the legend.
Spearheaded by Alex Chilton – an ungovernable self-saboteur with godlike guitar skills and the voice of a crooked angel – and Chris Bell – introverted, sexually repressed, forever in Chilton's shadow – the band wrote the book on how not to make it in the music business, and here the entire narrative arc is plotted with testimonies from friends, family, colleagues and critics.
The story of the thwarted Bell, who died aged 27 having met almost total indifference from the recording industry after quitting Big Star, is especially hard to witness. As for Chilton, who died in 2010 aged 59, the most telling insight into his psyche comes from his Panther Burns cohort, Tav Falco: "There's a syndrome when Alex is involved – he creates something beautiful, then the next phase is to destroy it." However, as the soundtrack proves, his powers of destruction were mercifully limited.
Sean Guthrie
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article