Well, I, for one, have been waiting. Big Star is my Beatles, my Byrds, my Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Alex Chilton will forever remain my teen idol, no matter how old or dilapidated he gets. Power-pop is the gift he bestowed on an audience that never thanked him.

As anyone who’s heard “Third/Sister Lovers” can attest, Alex has a hyperneurotic penchant for self-destruction. Nonetheless, this album full of false-starts and sabotaged melodies is still full of heartbreaking whiteboy soul and is monumentally essential. So Alex, why have I turned a deaf ear to your solo recordings? Alex, you have too pure a heart to completely destroy your knack–your GIFT–for melody, right?

And yet Alex’s solo records–”Like Flies on Sherbert”, “No Sex”, “Loose Shoes Tight Pussy”–are critically reviled.

I only raise the issue because my teen idol is playing at a nearby club tomorrow night. Alex’s solo shows are notoriously finicky affairs. Sometimes he’ll barrel his way through a set of solo ditties and arcane covers, hardly passionate and only mildly interested in his audience. Occasionally, though, he’ll pepper his set with Big Star classics, gleefully exorcising his demons and illuminating his pop genius.

Is it worth the risk? Can I bear witness to my superhero turned drunken buffoon? Perhaps not, but can I bear missing Alex caught in a moment of inspiration, on a flight of fancy while recreating some of the greatest pop songs of the modern era?

For me, as for Paul Westerberg, it all boils down to this: “I’m in love/with that song.” Sometimes, love hurts.