out past midnight

My internet connection is running on the kindness of strangers these days and is therefore kind of unreliable, as a result I've tended to come to news late. Alex Chilton (a man rightly immortalised by The Replacements) and Andy Hummel both died this year and it breaks my tiny heart. I heard about Alex's death pretty much immediately, because he was one of those legendary guys you can guarantee 9 out of 10 Pitchfork writers would have been fighting over for the right to pen his eulogy. Paul Westerberg wrote a fitting one.

Founding member Chris Bell died in 1978, having quit the band after their first record, so part of the Big Star idea has been long gone. But I only found out about Andy by accident, a week or two ago. And I while know that all good things come to an end, and that even teenage favourites aren't (particularly aren't) immune to mortality, the whole thing feels so damn final. Even for something that to all intents and purposes ended years ago, before I was led astray into the disreputable world of rock & roll, before I knew that Memphis produced more than Elvis and well before I had fallen in love with the opening chords to September Gurls.

Listen to this song and tell me it doesn't crush your heart a little that three quarters of Big Star are dead.