Chris Stamey told us a great Alex Chilton story about a time when he (Chris) was playing bass in the studio for Alex. A couple minutes into a song, Alex walked out of the control room and into the studio where Chris was playing and started detuning all his bass strings (while he was recording). When the track finished he said
“Tuning is such a western concept, Chris”
(photo credit above: Pat Rainer)
// Thanks to Ted Barron for the photo credit correction and for this potential source on Alex’s quote:
“I think he was probably paraphrasing Jim Dickinson who referred to tuning as a "decadent European concept.”
(http://boogiewoogieflu.blogspot.com)