The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

Also: those Charles Aaron Bob pieces (the one linked above and an obituary a couple years later) are so sad. One bit that stuck with me was a bit along the lines of how Aaron "...had always wanted to buy [Bob] a beer, but [I] finally got the chance, it became a six pack, a carton of cigarettes, a ride to the hardware store...and a $20 'loan'..."

ultimately Bob was literally the *only* reason why this band was important

come on man this is insane

Saying Stink is the best Replacements is like saying Land Speed Record is the best Husker Du record. Baby steps on the way to legitimate greatness.

Some of Stink seems like them trying to fit in with the hardcore punk scene

saw these guys play maybe 8x btwn '84-91, bought every album. I really don't feel like reading a book about em; it seems like i've heard all the stuff yer quoting already.

that's a good line. and look where it got old dave... front row seats at the county fair bbq festival

― hackshaw, Monday, March 7, 2016 9:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

got him rich & set for life with pads in mpls & new orleans, plus easy money gigs whenever he feels like it

xpost Haven't read the book yet, Morbs, but apparently it is revelatory.

westerberg just posted this (unreleased?) album from 2009
https://soundcloud.com/paul-westerberg/49-00

I got that from Amazon in '09. Not unreleased but quickly pulled.

The new book is absolutely essential and one of the best of its kind I've read. It does a very subtle job of interrogating the myth of the beautiful losers -- and why critics at the time especially liked them -- while not denying anybody their own story as much as possible. It's a story about a failure of 'society' in the broad sense to help people who need help as much as anything else, and it doesn't do so by identifying any obvious villain either.

otm

xxp ah, ok, it the title did sound familiar

The new book is absolutely essential and one of the best of its kind I've read. It does a very subtle job of interrogating the myth of the beautiful losers -- and why critics at the time especially liked them -- while not denying anybody their own story as much as possible. It's a story about a failure of 'society' in the broad sense to help people who need help as much as anything else, and it doesn't do so by identifying any obvious villain either.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, March 8, 2016 10:53 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ned the fact that you, hardly a flannel nostalgist, are so excited about this book really makes me want to read it
and i sit in the epicenter of replacements hagiography, to the point where sometimes i start to hate them and prince because i can't stand reading our local press genuflect any longer

def can understand that. dc can be similarly up its own ass w/ regard to, like, hardcore. which i like but sometimes start to hate for that reason.

man i'd love to see constant shit about fugazi and bad brains and rites of spring :)

honestly the loveable losers thing is what gets me, i love the replacements but ultimately i see them as kind of a failure of nerve, they could had a better career, made better records, played better shows

ned the fact that you, hardly a flannel nostalgist, are so excited about this book really makes me want to read it

Quite honestly I don't think I would have gone for it initially but Michaelangelo Matos helped edit it and had nothing but deep praise for it, and of course he knows his Minnesota too by default. So when a promo copy arrived in the mail in December, I was intrigued but didn't delve in -- then I finally went for it in late January and the damn thing was *compelling* from the get-go. No reservations about recommending this, and if anything, as mentioned, it puts the genuflection in its very particular place -- what, exactly, was and is being exalted, and why? (Not that Mehr is saying it was all built on sand -- anything but -- but I think he rightly, though very carefully as noted, places them in a specific context that seems less romantic the more you learn about it.) So when you mention the 'failure of nerve' as you did there, there was a reason for it -- it's talked about earnestly and openly -- but it's also interesting how the approaches that might have helped that nerve were either poorly understood or maybe not simply there at all. And in Bob's case, tragically so.

xp we should do a house swap :)

cool thanks Ned - will have to buy this

just checked at the Hennepin County Library there are 10 ebooks of Trouble Boys on order - already with 40 requests, and 27 copies of the book on order - already with 160 requests

and i sit in the epicenter of replacements hagiography
M@tt, I got annoyed pretty quick with the last Replacements book, by a local guy with an Irish name, for precisely that reason. Long on blustery boosterism, short on info. Also, there is a personage that pops up now and then in the book with your last name-a photographer, maybe?- wonder if it is a relative or it is just a common name there.

and i sit in the epicenter of replacements hagiography
M@tt, I got annoyed pretty quick with the last Replacements book, by a local guy with an Irish name, for precisely that reason. Long on blustery boosterism, short on info. Also, there is a personage that pops up now and then in the book with your last name-a photographer, maybe?- wonder if it is a relative or it is just a common name there.

― Jesperson, I think we're lost (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, March 8, 2016 12:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Verily do you dare besmirch the name of the MAD RIPPLE?! The Replacements Are Minnesota Music FOR MINNESOTANS!!!

One more MN centric post:

W/r/t the Spin article/interview with Mary Lucia's brother, the description of Edina as "affulent, artsy" is accurate on the first count, laughable on the second.

I'ma go back to my grape salad and pull tabs now thx.

got him rich & set for life with pads in mpls & new orleans, plus easy money gigs whenever he feels like it

― robbie ca$hflo (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, March 8, 2016 4:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really? maybe that was that just my impression after watching a youtube interview where dave and dan are getting interviewed at a casino, and it just seemed kind of depressing, but they did sell millions and millions of records. not a total slight to them either as i like at least a few songs off each of their old albums.

Ned's rec sealed it.

It's kind of an amazing triumph of Twin/tone that the author can keep on writing page after page about all the silly rock and roll hi-jinx they engaged in without either celebrating them or wagging his finger at them, without it just turning into a wearisome laundry list.

ok, the time has come, i've re-read every page on this google books preview. time to pay a visit to my local library.

MINNESOTANS
Wait wasn't there some kind of interesting retro/world music/eclectic band called The Minnesotans led by some guy name Paul something? Hard to Google obv. Last name is kind of French maybe.

Guy loves Ry Cooder, I saw them once decades ago at Central Park Summerstage and was pleasantly surprised. Sorry that's all I got.

Are you thinking of Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans?

Martin Zeller and the Hardways/Gear Daddies?

Speaking of which: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamboni_(song)

(A friend bumped into Zeller in Mexico, where he apparently spends half the year thanks to said "Zamboni" song.)

and i sit in the epicenter of replacements hagiography
M@tt, I got annoyed pretty quick with the last Replacements book, by a local guy with an Irish name, for precisely that reason. Long on blustery boosterism, short on info. Also, there is a personage that pops up now and then in the book with your last name-a photographer, maybe?- wonder if it is a relative or it is just a common name there.

― Jesperson, I think we're lost (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, March 8, 2016 12:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha that book is a lot of what i was referring to

yes i do see that photographers name around, but we are not related, it's not an uncommon name in the upper midwest in norweigian settled regions

Zellar also had a gig doing a Neil Diamond tribute show that would always sell out weeks in advance.

This is straight up the dumbest town ever.

xp

So Sh@kedown isn't uncommon?

Are you thinking of Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans?

Zellar had some pretty serious chemical issues for awhile and he blew a lot of Zamboni money on them. He ends up playing a lot of strange, small, regional joints these days (and honestly he's phoned in a few too many shows if you ask me.). It's kinda too bad, because much of his solo work is excellent.

Jim Walsh is a great guy, a decent writer, and wrote a decent oral history of the Replacements which I'd argue is a fitting tome for a band like the Mats. His (sort of) companion book "Waxed Up Hair And Painted Shoes" is a great picture book of that era in Minneapolis rock.

But Ned is right, the new book by Mehr is unexpectedly excellent--I probably know as much or more about the band as anyone and was surprised he got a book deal. Was even more surprised that Matos was integral to the first drafts because I have never got the impression that he had much use for the Replacements.

Almost done. Perhaps could have done with a few less sentences like this: "Paul's recent extensive reading of Eudora Welty led to careful observational opening lines such as INSERT KORNY INDIE LYRIX HERE." But this is a small quibble. And upon first listen, the guy is right, the Bash & Pop album is the best Replacements solo album.

How did his reading of Hermann Broch inform Don't Tell a Soul?

Lol

Just laughed out loud as well to hilarious quote from Tommy Keene.

Sometimes I think Paul is my least favorite Replacement, that there is some kind of Robbie Robertson thing going on.

Bash & Pop album
Perfect stuff is good too.

are we counting all shook down as a solo album?

He's not counting it as such, I don't think.

But yeah, you are right.

I couldn't tell you what particular songs I like on that one, but the production is good and I can listen to it from beginning to end without the urge to skip or stop.

i don't think i've ever successfully listened to that one straight through. and i've tried. i like the song with johnette napolitano.

Zellar had some pretty serious chemical issues for awhile and he blew a lot of Zamboni money on them. He ends up playing a lot of strange, small, regional joints these days (and honestly he's phoned in a few too many shows if you ask me.). It's kinda too bad, because much of his solo work is excellent.

i wouldn't worry about him. i don't think anyone who doesn't live in Minnesota can understand how popular they are w/a certain set of people who went to college in the 90s in this state, last year they did 5 nights in a row at First Avenue at $20 a pop and sold it all out. They have a show at First Ave coming up, just added a second show because of high ticket demand...some of the places you might see on their website like O'Gara's in St Paul or the Red Carpet in St. Cloud are decent sized rooms and the Gear Daddies have been playing to loyal MN outstate fanbase for years, they draws hundreds and ticket prices will always be around $20...I know for a fact they still get $20,000-$25,000 a show and up regularly

honestly they aren't THAT much less popular in the overall state of MN (esp if you consider how much they meant to Southern MN and outstate being from Austin not Minneapolis) than the Replacement, even if their national profile is zilch.

Let's Go Scare Al is as good a country rock album as there is IMO.

like just for example to most ppl wtf is the "Crookston Sports Center"? http://www.geardaddies.com/shows/

i just looked it up and it seats 1,200 and tickets are going for $20 + fees

I like the first Chris Mars album. It's got
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGa1FF_2Gsw

Re: Mars solo, and Tommy solo, etc., it is kind of funny how easily they recorded albums that essentially could pass for the Replacements.

popular creeps is such a great song

it's funny, local DJ Mary Lucia (who is Paul Westerberg's sister IRL) used to have a local music show she called "Popular Creeps"