CHARLIE GILLETT COLLECTION/REDFERNS/GETTY
During Memorial Day weekend in 1973, the First Annual National Association of Rock Writers’ Convention rolled into Memphis, Tennessee, dragging in its wake a who’s who of critics out to drink their fill on Stax Records’ dime. Around midnight at Lafayette’s Music Room, one of the media set’s pre-eminent hellraisers wound up on stage. Shitfaced, Richard Meltzer gripped the microphone and yelled: “Well, puke on ya momma’s pussy! Here’s Big Star!”
Big Star’s story isn’t prone to triumphalism, but the set that followed was a triumph. At the time, the band existed in a weird liminal space between their commercial wreck of a first record and the nebulous prospect of a second.