The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

THE LIGHT WAS GREEN AND SO WAS I

you're in love and i'm in trouble

troubaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghl

yknow what? riotfest is going to be a cesspool. i'd rather stay home and listen to myself sing these songs, i think.

i gotta hide
i gotta run

TRIED SUICIDE

i always loved the way he said "go" in that song

btw
that ain't no fun

how sad is it that the ticket is WHOLE?!

That is sad. I saw them on that tour (at the Aragon, actually) and not to rub salt in the wound, but it was great. It was a little disconcerting in its consistency, but Tommy made up for that by shaking hands with some in the front row and causing a near-stampede that knocked a bunch of us over.

Tried to go to the Grant Park show, but the closest my friends and I could get was about four blocks from the stage. The seating area was blocked off to people who had "tickets," which seemed odd since it was a free show. Turned out there was some underhanded dealing by the radio station sponsoring the show (WXRT). I opted to go home and tape the show off the radio instead of getting heat stroke (also, my friends and I despised openers Material Issue for ripping off Green, and we didn't want to sit through their set).

haha i saw material issue at an amusement park

interesting perspective, pp. to me, though, the difference between the bob mats the slim mats is that the bob mats were a band in every sense of the word, four guys negotiating the crowded space around every note in addition to the even more crowded space around every six-pack. ...

And completely on the mark. I was a bit in my cups last night, but the point I was trying to make is that Who are the Replacements? They're this band of fuck-ups fighting the world by sitting back. Their most successful period, in content and in legacy, were those Bob years. So accepting that we're talking about two different bands here, who got clowned the hardest? They were almost replacements of their former TwinTone selves.

Those lovable losers lost their luster once "lovable" got thrown out the window.

Saw them a few times after Bob left and the live show was still pretty good, so I dunno, with the right drummer I guess I'd see this. As long as they still draw on the same set of covers they used to do.

Alfred, think the joke is, taking the notion of a spiritual co-pilot and turning him into a slacker who always bums a ride but never chips in for gas or whatever.

I missed the band by that much, they broke up right before my senior year of high school. All the sophomores at college during my freshman year were all Yeah, we saw them at the Blue Note. They were ok.

I have gotten to see Paul numerous times. He even looked me in the eye at one show and passed the mic to me to sing I Will Dare. When I got done, I sorta pitched it (still connected to the mic stand) back up to him, but instead, it sprang toward him like he had stepped on a rake. He jumped out of the way, and the stand went this way and that, like one of those plastic weighted-down boxing boppers you had as a kid. The roadies ran out to stop it, while he sorta did this dance with it, playing his guitar the whole time.

So I've got that.

You gotta be careful with that Joe Tex mic stand move, some people who didn't know what they were doing smashed a tooth or two back in the day.

WHAT? what part did you sing
btw i am seething with envy

Amazing story

Did you sing the Peter Buck guitar solo?

That's a such a great story, pplains.

the writer he reminds me most of, actually, is chuck berry
I always thought the words in "Left of the Dial" after "Sweet Georgia breezes" was "Cadillac walk," some kind of melange of Chuck's duck walk and Elvis's Pink Cadillac. Either that or the Mink Deville/Boz Scaggs song.

Written by Moon Martin. Anyway sorry for hijack. Still waiting for pplains to splain the rest of the story.

Great story. I saw 'em twice and Paul solo once but don't have any such tales to tell.

what a weird festival -- and right near me, too! plenty of bands i wouldn't mind seeing, but uhhhh. probably going to pass on it.

I did the "ain't lost yet so I gotta be ready/bacon and cigarettes a lousy dinner" and then threw the mic back up when i was supposed to go How smart are you?

I don't even know if those are the right lyrics. Don't care.

The worst show was one inside the fancy music hall at Mizzou. Westerberg came out, did three songs, laid down on his back and did not get back up. They carried him out of the building on a stretcher.

Me and some buddies who had driven up for the show just kinda looked at each other and went Welp.

I think it's "ain't lost yet so I gotta be a winner." Always loved that line, even if that's not what it is.

I used to think he was saying "Pull a bullet right out of my skull" in "I'll Be You". I'm horrible with lyrics.

wait that's not what he says? i have been singing my own version of these songs for so long that i am always right even when i'm wrong.

I still think "I.O.U." starts with "Gimme a drastic impression."

Guys, remember the original liner notes to Sorry, Ma- "Make up your own words, we did!"

Got that slightly wrong: "Make up your own words. I did"
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/27/arts/post-punk-rock-rebels-thrive-in-minneapolis.html

Bob's lead is hotter than a urinary infection

my only chance to see them was on their last tour (sans Mars) at the Palladium in LA and it was amazing, one of the first handful of shows I saw. Johnette Napolitano came out to sing My Little Problem, that was cool.

If I heard the show was alright, I'd totally see "Paul Westerberg Does His '80s Songbook With Tommy Stinson"

this band of fuck-ups fighting the world by sitting back

that's more than a little true. i sometimes wonder what it would've been like if they'd taken up the fight. but then they'd probably just have turned into the goo goo dolls or something.

I sort of assume this is exactly how the Goos became a thing

while they broke through on a pretty post-westerberg ballad, their actual collabo with westerberg bombed hardcore

honestly paul was already too deep in the crit-pick mire to crossover by the time he was trying, though i do appreciate cameron crowe getting him a shot at a "footloose"

and that a cute earnest fan was able to take his steez to marx/jovi territory was a tribute in a sense

while they broke through on a pretty post-westerberg ballad, their actual collabo with westerberg bombed hardcore
--da croupier

yeah that tune sux but IMO that car wash record holds up generally and as a mats imitation

i like hold me up and some of the crossover hits but i've been afraid to revisit that one

Oh I was mixing up the records, Hold Me Up is the one I meant

Hold Me Up still works.

So for anybody that doesn't have it, I just re-ripped the 7th Street Entry show from YouTube:

http://db.tt/3RlPMX6a

weeeeeeeeeeee are the noooormmal
we live and we die
no reason why

I skipped through the YouTube clips, and for me the two songs that leave the others behind are "Kids Don't Follow" and "Johnny's Gonna Die." I wonder if they have any idea how good they are? Chris Mars in the latter has this faraway look that's hard to read. Of the four people up there, I imagine three of them thought of all this in terms of months, if not weeks.

"goddamn job" isn't in the 6 part twintone thing for some reason, but it's def from the show and i threw it on the thing--that one is by far the best of the set imo. for that little moment at the end where paul & bob just effortlessly lock into this palm-muted thing, i get fooled into thinking "goddamn job" is my favorite mats song.

this vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IINrFUCF8-g

just to add to all these live Mats memories:

I saw them headlining on the DTAS tour in Phoenix and they were great, playing for around 2 1/2 hours and getting progressively drunker over the course of it. I remember Tommy running out on stage and nearly falling over when he reached the end of his cord. Slim pouring a beer onto his amp. After they'd played pretty much all of their well-known songs Paul said, "Uh, any requests?" and me and my friend yelled out "I Don't Know" (which was our dorky male-bonding favorite song) and the band launched into it.

I also saw Paul solo in 95 or 96 in Iowa City and it was pretty cool. He was obviously kind of annoyed that the Mats songs got a better response than the solo songs. But I got to shake his hand.

http://www.spin.com/sites/all/files/styles/style620_413/public/91-08-spin-cover.jpg

Did Spin's writers report back, or did they just disappear into a black hole of madness and despair?

They did! It was a great issue, actually. EiC gave all their writers a ticket to some random place in search of the soul of rock and roll. Of course, with Paul they had a ringer.

BTW, anyone who hasn't heard Chris Mars' solo stuff really should:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2KerXTzuqc

If you only knew this, you would never guess this was the former Mats drummer.

^^ Minnesota deep cuts