Coming into the week of South by Southwest, the music industry was gearing up for a celebration of Big Star, one which included both a panel discussion and high anticipated performance featuring the iconic American band. What’s more, the producers of Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Big Star Story, a forthcoming documentary about the band, was set to record all the festivities.
But as we none all know, the tragic death of Big Star frontman Alex Chilton on the first day of South by Southwest 2010 prevented much of this from happening. Instead, Chilton’s remaining Big Star bandmates chose to honor his legacy by performing a tribute concert, which also featured high-profile guests Mike Mogis (R.E.M.), M. Ward, Evan Dando (Lemonheads), John Doe (X), The Watson Twins, Sondre Lerche, and Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets).
The producers of Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Big Star Story also were in attendance and recorded the performance. This combined with 100 hours of additional footage, unreleased tracks, and rarely seen photographs will compose the material featured on documentary.
But for all this documentary to come to fruition, the producers need a bit of help. Later this month, they plan to travel to Memphis to film another Big Star tribute show, as well as conduct some final interviews. Now, this is where you come in:
Along with filming the tribute show, our documentary crew will be in Memphis for the entire month of May completing the final stages of our production on the film. Until now we have been self-financing the film. But in order to finish the project, we need your support. The money you pledge will go to crucial production needs like equipment rental, housing for the entire month, transportation, etc. Many of you have been waiting eagerly to see this film (so have we!) but we really need your support in the final stretch of our journey to bring The Big Star Story to life! May 15th is fast approaching so we need your help ASAP. Big pledges, little pledges, whatever you can give will help us tremendously. If you love this band as much as we do please help! Your support is invaluable to help bring The Big Star Story to completion and hopefully soon in theaters / DVD!
As mentioned in the above explanation, the producers of the documentary are currently soliciting donations for their upcoming trip to Memphis. Thus, like a few other music folks these days, they have started a Kickstarter fund. Their goal is $6,000, though they’ve already raised $10,520. Still, if you’d like to donate, you can do so here. In fact, depending on how much you contribute, you can win everything from a box set of the recently released Keep an Eye on the Sky to a trip to Memphis and tickets for the May 15th tribute gig.
A release date for the film Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Big Star Story has yet to be released, however, the producers hope “to finish by the end of 2010 then premiere at a major film festival in 2011.”
