The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

*I'm with you

Check out 41 across in Monday's NY Times crossword

awesome for the clue, and doubly awesome for the answer, which instantly evoked the bridge of "alex chilton."

james redd: how did you see this on sunday afternoon/evening? do they post monday's puzzle online that early?

Yes, fcc, Sunday and Monday puzzles both post very early.

We've been over Don't Tell A Soul a lot on ILM, & I'm a defender. "Talent Show" remains an apex: the clear-eyed pursuit of an ambition you know seems silly to others, aware of your shortcomings but also of your talent, & most importantly, trying. When indie takes up with the sad feckless loser, I lose interest; ain't much to rake anyway in the fall.

The guitar sound on that is just so horrible on that album- I remember wanting to kill the Lord-Alge brothers when it came out. Although maybe it wasn't really all their fault, couldn't stand most of the material either- it was some kind of logical progression from the live version of "Can't Hardly Wait" to the bland studio version to the bland studio versions of material that wouldn't have been exciting live anyway.

Just read about this in the liners to the DTAS reissue I got used for three bucks yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5CaagwSYGk

I'm with on "I'll Be You" -- top ten 'Mats.

Yes.

"I'll Be You" wouldn't make my personal Top 10, but I agree that it's excellent. It mentions Surfer Joe, which is neat, and also mentions Canada, which is even neater.

Tom Petty sure liked it enough.

Just read about this in the liners to the DTAS reissue I got used for three bucks yesterday:

I saw that when it aired, the International Rock Awards. Even though the 'mats had been on SNL a couple years earlier, seeing them here on prime-time network TV (I think it was ABC) felt like you'd wandered into an alternate universe. It was one of those occasions where you wanted to excitedly call up every 'mats fan you knew to tell them about this, but then you realized you only knew about three people who even knew who the 'mats were, and only one was a fan.

pw looks like both mick and keef in that video

and not when they were young

kudos to matt dillon for wolf-whistlin btw

(xpost)
The same stylist was buying all three of them shirts for video shoots.

First I've heard of this Replacements documentary (which contains no images of the band members and no music!)

‘People believe in god without ever seeing or hearing him or her,” the director says. “I’d like viewers to believe in the band that way.’

http://www.whatwerewethinkingfilms.com/colormeobsessed/

(which contains no images of the band members and no music!)

After reading that bit, I was wary of even getting interested...but I was sold by the time I finished watching the second clip. I wanna see this asap.

"You gotta listen to these records..."

Yes. Yes, you do.

It does look good, but not having any music, that's a drag. I don't really understand why--that couldn't have been the director's decision, and is the band and/or the record label waiting for somebody else to come along and make a different, better documentary? I like seeing that Jack Rabid's an actual person--always loved that name.

I like seeing that Jack Rabid's an actual person--always loved that name

He's not just an actual person, he's a really cool guy to bullshit about music with. For hours and hours. And then he'll start in on baseball.

He's also a google hound. I wrote some nice words about The Big Takeover on my livejournal several years ago, which I figured only a few people would read, and he got in touch with me just to say thank you.

Even in the interview clip, he comes across as someone you'd enjoy talking to.

Metal Mike Saunders picks "dud," via email:

Whatever Happened to Fun by CANDY (polygram @1985) beats the crap out of any dumb song by the Replacements
Sunday, June 5, 2011 6:27 AM
From: "Mike Saunders"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsFsh5MC_xs

CANDY Whatever Happened to Fun @1985 (Mercury/Polygram)

there's some kind of "westerberg vocal sound" or phrasing going on near the end of this song/single, which reminded me that i have my life-long yearly quota due, to talk shit/diss on that hopeless band from minneapolis at least once per calendar annum.

(( i stumbled across this 1985 light-rotation MTV video (the same MTV status as Precious Metal's faux-video cribbed largely from the BAD GIRLS B-movie-or-worse, for poor-choice first-single "Bad Girls." which i saw the last 30 seconds of exactly twice, planting the group's name vaguely in mind and resulting in instant-name-recognition the minute i saw the album in gregg turner's "unplayed promos pile" sometime the next winter)))
the Candy video on MTV? nah, never even saw the last ten seconds of it ever.

"what did the Replacements ever do to you, mike? didn't they have
enough problems to begin with without you piling on?"

oh, i'll tell you. i will be glad to tell you about how these chumps robbed me of six dollars plus subway money.

Summer 1983, i took the ONLY "full two weeks" time off that i ever was allowed during the entire twenty (21 actually) full-time years of the "accounting manager/chief accountant" career, 1978-1999.

this second week of which in July 1983 was the "no-budget (same as the church marriage -- 100% no-cost, everything. and there WAS a legal priest, and a couple rolls of film for a camera, and uh, i can't remember if anyone remembered to bring a cake. but there were at least 50 to 100 local northwest Massachusetts residents there just in case there was free food, which there was) marriage/honeymoon" (that's right, combined with the marriage saturday in the middle of the trip).

so we went back to boston (on the bus!) (or train, whichever)at the midpoint of this trip. (the marriage was in the ex-wife's home town, far upstate northwest, North Adams (maybe 20 miles north of Pittsfield) and up the buttend of witch country (not to worry, the wife i was teaming up with was descended from white witches, thank god for small favors).

SO: thatsecond week, we're crashing back down in boston at kenne highland's girlfriend's place or whereever/whatever it is.

it's right near the subway line just a few miles west of downtown Boston, so on wednesday night i coughed up the subway fare and RAT venue's door price to see (for the first time), who? ohh yeah.

the Replacements (long before college radio started pushing them with the I Will Dare (? i think that's its name) album a year later. i really like two, maybe three cuts on (the otherwise boring) SORRY MA album, that's it, so it's not like i expect a whole lot. i just want to hear those two (or three) songs played like they sound on the record.

nah, i get waay less than that for my hard earned subway money (and weeknight cheap-Rat-door-price).

these guys are stone cold sober, and they still can't play their way out of a paper bag. no, make that a paper bag that's already halfway torn at the seams. the drummer is ZERO, less than nothing, i'm not entire convinced he's amongst the living, the dude's barely awake. i mean he's tapping his snare like it's Strawberry Shortcake day at the girls' school kindergarten. they get to that mike's-favorite-replacements-track, lead cut "Taking A Ride" (which rocks like crazy on its album, and the leadoff track too).

oh NOW i'm pissed. this hopeless wanktarded drummer doesn't do/can't do even ONE of the drum rolls that're all over the recording.

so i decide to lend this band's bandleader some words of encouragement. i go up front further and sit my butt down on the floor, right in front of Westertoierd/whoever, center mike. i mean he could touch my head with his hippie shoes. there's no one even ten feet near me, in any direction.

"play some Circle Jerks songs, asshole!" hahahahaah. inbetween songs. hahahahahahah no one but me and Wester-fuck can hear this. his band can probably barely play a decent Louie Louie, so you know that he knows that Circle Jerks songs are to his band like free jazz/Coltrane is to me at my 60's ringo/beau brummels-size drum kit.

eventually he must realize how bad his band sucks, because he gets that "oh man, kill me now" look in his eyes -- hahahah i win i win i win, do i get my free box of Dubble Bubble now? LA punk rock on vacation making friends? -- right, about the third time i lend him, free of charge, this eloquent piece of quite touching, well-thought-out philosophical inspiration.

after they turn "Customer" into something James Taylor would have been embarrassed to put his name on (as a live performance), i leave maybe ten minutes before the set is over.

kenne highland the next day: "dude i could have told you that band sucks!" apparently no one in boston likes them. well, outside of maybe one-third of the 75 (max) people in that weeknight venue's dead-as-a-doornail Rat crowd. minus another five or six who probably tried to get their money back.

and yeah i saw them (just as part of a social evening with a handful of people) one year later back home (at Berkeley Square), and they were even worse (when they willfully mangled Black Diamond by KISS, i had to be restained from chucking the nearest glass beer bottle from the back of the house).

worst. fucking. band. ever.

ok, happy now, my yearly quota has been met!

now to go annoy Aerosmith fans in 1976, with my KISS Army "rules, your band drools" propaganda kit (like any door-to-door religious zealot).

Whatever Happened to Fun by CANDY (polygram @1985) beats the crap out of any dumb song by Buffalo Tom/Goo Goo Dolls

Bait taken, problem fixed.

Ironic, by the way, that Candy also has a direct connection to Guns N Roses.

That post isn't even funny.

of course it is, he says "hahahah" 3 times

lol

I Will Dare (? i think that's its name)

classic

I'll take the bait also. That Candy song is better than alot of Angry Samoans songs too (and I will take Replacements songs over many that Metal Mike's Samoans did also). Just cuz Metal Mike Saunders says something, doesn't mean it is automatically worth repeating. Great, he knows Kenny Highland

Suddenly strikes me how much "Anywhere's Better Than Here" sounds like Darkness-era Springsteen

That was my jam in 9th gr.

heard rumor that Westerberg coaches Little League (picturing Walter Matthau)

Also totally reminds me of the moment when I bought that tape -- I played the first side and was kinda underwhelmed, but then I turned it over and it was quiet for a few seconds and then YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW and I knew I had made the right decision to buy it. 1990, my 2nd semester of 9th grade.

The end.

heard rumor that Westerberg coaches Little League

Well at some point most of us do grow up. Just a bit. Enough to take on some responsibility.

I remember reading an interview w/PW around the time of Suicaine... where he talked about his neighbor's kids having a garage band, and how he didn't have the heart to tell them to "Turn that crap down!" when they rehearsed.

TURN THAT SHIT OFF

If you don't love the 'mats, you never loved rock and roll. Lester Bangs, in his famous article on the Clash, wonders why he looks to art for salvation, and thinks that it was maybe something he once glimpsed for a moment, in the corner of a flashbulb. The replacements are that thing, and are that moment. Hootenanny through Pleased To Meet Me are some of the most brilliant and visceral albums I own. Let It Be and Tim are the two most anthem-packed albums ever produced.
And if you never needed an anthem, you never needed rock and roll.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^Man is this one of the corniest posts of all time. I got an anthem, it's not very good, and somebody usually butchers it before every fucking sporting event i go to. "looks to art for salvation he saw in a corner of a flashbulb"???????what the fuck are you talking about?

I understand it's over a decade old so I'm not anticipating a response.

Another gem: "The replacements are that thing, and are that moment." So are they a thing, or a moment? for a moment, they sure look like four pretty ugly guys.

hey bill: you suck.

but it will be ok.

how's that for a response

Wester-fuck

LOL

'We'll Inherit The Earth'' sounds like Westerberg trying to write ''We Didn't Start The Fire''

Before it existed, obv

It was after?
I think?

"achin to be" is the shit

jammed "little mascara" a while back... i'd been underrating Tim for too long.

what's the story behind the LP name "Tim" anyways?

I remember reading an explanation for the title back when this came out but old man me can't remember it, and my quick google search did not prove helpful.

'little mascara' IS a really underrated track!

^thirded, those verses are godlike