The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

haha! royal crescent mob! was this in columbus?

that SNL performance linked upthread is pretty good!

I look at Pleased to Meet Me in kind of the same way as Du Husker's Flip Your Wig: Kind of a sign-off to who they had been before jumping out into the corporate ether.

Yes, I know FYW was on SST and both Tim and PTTMM were major label records. I really think though that Don't Tell A Soul was Westerberg's first sincere stab at being taken seriously and being a Major Rock Star. And in making that stab, he gave up a lot of what had won over Mats fans in the first place. Maybe he thought he could keep them AND the new fans.

But the band couldn't. And All Shook Down, being just a whimper to the whole tale as it is, works well in its role. It's a band falling apart. It's the singer/songwriter striking out on his own. No, it's not SIsters Lovers or Let It Be (Beatles). But instead of turning off the lights before they left, it sounds like the album was recorded in the dark.

I like ASD better than DTAS, stripping away their release order and contexts. Maybe it's because ASD is a bit more macadam than the hollow flow of DTAS. We're talking about two records that have their fair share of stinkers, but All Shook Down has the title track, "Bent Out of Shape", "Torture", even "Someone Take the Wheel". (a major strike against ASD is that generic metronome beat all over the record that whoever the drummer in the studio was forced to play.)

I even used to sing Merry Go Round to my daughter as a lullaby, basically because it's one of the few songs I know the words to. I sure as heck wasn't going to sing We'll Inherit the Earth to her.

Nope, Chicago. RCM were roundly booed, sadly.

xp

this is toooootally off topic, but were you the one mourning the slow death of video adventure in evanston? they're finally closing ;_;

haha i wasn't really around, i was 12 and parroting stuff i'd overheard older friends and record clerks saying. at the same time i knew rolling stone called them punk and what i was hearing was about as punk as georgia satelites and didn't rock nearly as hard. credit to 'alex chilton' for getting me to track down what big star i could find. sometimes i love the slick 'can't hardly wait', the horns the dramatic pause and the STRINGS, sometimes i think preferring it to the bob stinson one is akin to preferring jenna jameson to ingrid bergman or something.

Saw the RCM in NYC a few times, don't remember if they were ever on the same bill as The 'Mats.

"Red Red Wine" and "Shootin' Dirty Pool" were indeed boring, but "IOU" and "The Ledge" were reasonably convincing.

(a major strike against ASD is that generic metronome beat all over the record that whoever the drummer in the studio was forced to play.)

I don't remember who drummed on most of the songs (I know it was Mars on "Attitude" -- the "Tea & Theatre" of their career -- and "When It Began"), but Charley Drayton kills on "Someone Take The Wheel."

this is toooootally off topic, but were you the one mourning the slow death of video adventure in evanston? they're finally closing ;_;

It wasn't me, but NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

So many fond memories of renting R-rated movies and having my friends pretend to be my parents when VA called to ask if it was OK that I rented these movies.

"One WInk" would have been so much better with just a little more spark in the drumbeat.

pplains long-form post otm

Yeah, session drummer on "All Shook Down" is pretty bland. But again, just listened to it today, and Westerberg's vox are totally not up to snuff, either.

I think of both "Tim" and "PTMM" as being flawed great records, mostly due to the production, which hampered Husker Du at the time, too. I wonder if the major labels at the time really didn't have an idea of how to produce/present these intrinsically unpolished bands. Mats and HD were pretty early to major labels; maybe the bench of producers the label would OK wasn't that deep? Like the story of "Nevermind," with the band picking and choosing from an approved list of producers and engineers?

Never thought of "We'll Inherit the Earth" as being about the environment, but I love the nihilism of "but we don't want it." At least, it really struck me at the time it came out.

Flip Your Wig is a much better record; I wouldn't know it was a major label debut if I hadn't read the press material.

but it isn't

Didn't Dü "give" FYW to SST as a sort of goodwill gesture, even though they'd already signed to Warners?

whoops -- meant Candle Apple Gray

*Candy

xpost they owed SST another record on their contract

Yes, I know FYW was on SST and both Tim and PTTMM were major label records.

iirc it could have been their major label debut but they gave it to sst out of misplaced loyalty. misplaced because of years of misplaced royalties. xxxp

at the same time i knew rolling stone called them punk

I tried to pitch "Kiss Me On The Bus" to one of my high school bands and the reaction I got was "Woah woah woah! We're not gonna be a hardcore punk band!" And here I thought I'd pitched something relatively gentle.

and what i was hearing was about as punk as georgia satelites and didn't rock nearly as hard.

One of my only memories of my first 'mats show was their hilariously desultory cover of "Keep Your Hands To Yourself."

It's important to keep in mind that the Replacements' love of butt rock and classic rock riffage preceded ironic - or not - appreciation of some by a pretty long way. I'm sure there are people who only listen to Kiss because the Mats covered them. I know I do. Well, I mean, I don't actually listen to Kiss. I used to collect their comic books and bubble gum cards, which were sold from the ice cream truck that circled my SoCal cul-de-sac in the late '70s, but I don't think I heard any Kiss until much later, and by then had no redeeming qualities (thinking of "Lick It Up" era). But when I got "Let It Be" I heard "Black Diamond" for the first time, and then I thought, um, I can see why so many people liked Kiss. That and the fire breathing, flying and blood and stuff.

Anyway, the classic rock covers were such a huge part of the band's personality, a big hint as to where they were coming from, in both sense. It might have been the same Steve Berlin interview that mentioned Bob Dylan walking in on them in the studio when they were playing "Like a Rolling Pin." Apparently all Dylan said was, "Uh, you guys practice a lot?" And then he left. No doubt wondering why he didn't write "Like a Rolling Pin" instead.

The classic/hard rock covers but also the bubblegum covers like "Heartbeat It's A Lovebeat." But yeah, otm about it being pre-ironic.

lol @ Dylan being politely snarky about acts who don't rehearse

Band also did a great "September Gurls" and "Another Girl, Another Planet." Wonder where they came across those, especially the latter?

The latter floated around for a while and got college airplay in the early eighties - not like the Mats went to college, of course.

Yeah, used to hear AGAP quite a bit on even commercial stations that played that kind of music. And "September Gurls" was written by what's-his-name.

The Bangles had just covered it too -- probably got Chilton his first serious royalties too.

Right. Definitely way before "That 70s Show."

There was a live 'mats radio-only EP called Live Inconcerated from 1989 that had their cover of AGAP. WXRT in Chicago used to play it fairly regularly.

I imagine nothing less than a felony picturing the Bangles and the Mats sharing a stage.

there's a little verse of "another girl, another planet" in this '83 live version of "buck hill"

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

Anyone else remember this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5CaagwSYGk

No, but that was pretty good, thanks

i do

Ha, I used to have an old VHS bootleg comp with that on it. Can't sing that song now without the "it's too late to take pills" part.

That tape also had this weird raw footage from a Night Flight interview where Tommy and Paul sit in a hotel room and talk about how they're going to fire their drummer.

Yeah, I think somewhere I still have a VHS of this whole show. Living Colour played "Johnny B. Goode," and Keith Richards played "I Hear You Knockin'."

It's all coming back to me.

Seems like the awards themselves were called "Elvises" and Vernon Reid rightfully asked, "So why's thing not called a 'Jimi'?"

Yeah, he said, "This could also be called the 'Chuck Berry,' or the 'Bo Diddley,' or the 'Little Richard,' but we love our little Elvis."

I don't think those awards lasted past a second year (when Robert Palmer got a lifetime achievement award).

Matt Dillion

He was on there too?

omg THE INTERNATIONAL ROCK AWARDS i had totally forgotten that

That's Matt Dillion giving the two-fingered whistle at the end of the Mats video.

I watched that live, as broadcast! Also remember Living Colour doing "Johnny B. Goode" and Tin Machine making its debut with "Heaven's In Here," and the sound being terrible.

I watched two years in a row ('89 and '90). I remember Madonna getting booed by the audience when she won for "Like a Prayer."

Best Replacements bit ever is Chris Mars' "Eight Really Dumb Things the Replacements Did " chapter of the long-lost "Alt Rock-a-Rama" book.

It also opens with Palmer's fab version of "Tell Me I'm Not Dreaming"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6ujnC5JjtQ

Oh my lord, youtube is a rabbit's hole of half-remembered bits from that broadcast! Somewhere in here is Ozzy Osbourne and Grace Jones as co-presenters!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elvkfIC2BG4&feature=relmfu

The '90 awards boasted Sam Kinison in the concluding "all-star jam."