Review: Alex Chilton's "Set"

On his upcoming release "Set," Alex Chilton lets loose some powerful, inventive guitar playing that breathes life into a collection of odds and ends.

Throughout his storied, enigmatic career, Chilton has worn many different hats: a 16-year-old prodigy soul shouter in his days with the Box Tops, the ''missing link between the Beatles and the Replacements'' during his stint with Big Star, and a major influence on a Who's Who list of bands that includes R.E.M. and Teenage Fanclub.

Through it all, his stature as a guitar player seems to have gone largely underappreciated. But the Feb. 22 release of ''Set'' (titled the more bawdy ''Loose Shoes and Tight Pussy'' on the import version) may change that.

Sounding a lot like the best lounge act anyone has ever heard, Chilton, along with bassist Ron Easley and drummer Richard Dworkin, laid down the 12 tracks during one whirlwind session in February 1999. In fact, ''Set'' actually plays much like a late-night set Chilton might perform in some nearly empty cocktail dive.

From the opener ''I've Never Found a Girl,'' in which Chilton deftly drops in a snippet of ''Theme From a Summer Place'' into the guitar solo, to the closer ''Goodnight My Love,'' Chilton sings and works his guitar with the passion of a musician playing for himself and his own enjoyment, as if most of the ''audience'' is more interested in the Scotch-soaked ice cubes at the bottom of their highballs than the ace musicianship onstage.

Curious oddities such as ''The Oogum Boogum Song'' and ''You've Got A Booger Bear Under There'' give this set its devil-may-care, late-night feel. And when Chilton sings ''dream about a reefer five feet long'' on ''If You's a Viper,'' one can tell that he and his pals are having a helluva good time.

Those familiar with Chilton's body of work will welcome ''Set'' as the worthy companion piece to ''Cliches,'' a similar-in-spirit--albeit acoustic--collection of covers he released back in 1994. And while Chilton does occasionally still write and record his own material, it's clear he is no longer interested in forging new directions in music for others to follow. He's already done that. Now he's doing what he wants, recording the music that inspires him and playing some killer guitar in the process.