The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

Speaking of Nevermind, can someone please explain what this strange PW quote from the Replacements book actually means (other than Paul Westerberg is a giant dick) :

"Nirvana sounds to me like Boston with a hair up its ass."

Was that a misquote? Was Paul Westerberg referring to a hare? Because as it reads that makes absolutely zero sense.

"Nirvana sounds to me like Boston with a hair up its ass." = Nirvana is pop-friendly AOR (note also that the riff from "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is the riff from "More Than A Feeling") with just enough snotty attitude to seem "punk" and underground.

Everyone knows that the Smashing Pumpkins were Boston, come on. Nirvana was like Husker Du covering Boston.

Smashing Pumpkins were Styx.

Rage Against the Machine were England Dan and John Ford Coley. (I could go on for eight hours but I'll stop there.)

Was that a misquote? Was Paul Westerberg referring to a hare? Because as it reads that makes absolutely zero sense.

There's disagreement over whether the phrase is "wild hair" or "wild hare," though "hair" seems to be the much more common usage. In any case the top man's translation is more or less how I'd read that PW quote too.

Nirvana is pop-friendly AOR (note also that the riff from "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is the riff from "More Than A Feeling")

Sometimes I wonder if people that claim that "More Than a Feeling" has the same riff as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are a little tone-deaf—the rhythm of the guitar riff is hear-identical, but the Boston has a major key G-C-Em-D progression whereas the Nirvana goes F-Bb-Ab-Db, which is a bit more sour. (I never need to hear either song again, mind you.)

It's not like you expect a suddenly appealing side of any of them from the book, but I was quite unprepared for how hateful they all turned out to be. Bob, you understand why that happened. Chris seems to get fed up of it all. But Paul and Tommy behave like complete wankers from early on till late on.

Yep, just finished the book, and I almost wish I hadn't read it. I don't expect rock stars to be angels, and I knew that the Replacements had a big hand in sabotaging their own career, but I didn't really understand the degree to which they did so, nor the general awfulness they displayed to seemingly everyone around them. My life certainly wouldn't withstand the level of scrutiny that Mehr brings to bear on Westerberg and the rest of them, but it's a pretty depressing story nonetheless.

As some label person or someone says in the book, though, when you can write songs like "Sadly Beautiful" or "Unsatisfied," a lot is forgiven.

Has any other band been as plagued by press about how they should have been big?

Green perhaps?

Moby Grape?

big star (still plagued 40 years later)

really is sort of a dead-end -- if a band/artist manages to break out of the "why aren't they HUGE" mold, the same critics who have been harping on it for years will likely denounce them as lame.

I kind of suspect that the best candidates for "why aren't they huge" are all singers who had major $ behind them but fizzled, and we never really heard about them. Like, my first thought is people like Crack The Sky etc., but I'll bet the actual answer is much more mundane. The Replacements probably had the potential to be huge in the same way that Semisonic had the potential to be huge.

Green perhaps?

― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, April 12, 2016 2:58 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They were big in Europe! In fact, they were much more of a draw in Europe than the Replacements (not counting the 'Mats reunion shows).

Thing is, reading the book I learned they were much more popular than I thought they were! Maybe a couple of thousand seats filled at shows, hundreds of thousands of records sold ... not bad!

yeah compared to 95% of other bands, they were huge. obviously, the lovable loser thing became part of the image.

Some of the "why aren't they huge" bands -- especially Big Star and Moby Grape -- weren't big largely because of logistical fuckups (e.g., Radio City didn't even leave the Stax/Ardent warehouse, apart from promo copies).

While there were certainly any number of logistical fuckups on the 'Mats part, they were visible (on US TV twice, in Rolling Stone & Spin & other mags), and you could easily find their records (the Sire ones, anyway).

It was like Westerberg said when observing Petty's audience singing along to "Breakdown" or whatever: "we just weren't made of the stuff popular music is made of."

the surprise in the book: Benmont Tench and Tommy socializing.

I don't know if the book touches on this, but Westerberg being described as 'sober' post-Replacements seems like the Hollywood definition of that word.

Sobriety just made him meaner, at least in the book.

well, he fell off the wagon in the mid '00s, according to the book.

ok-I heard several firsthand reports of some drunken Mono/Stereo shows.

ok this is really gossipy, but do y'all know he's evidently dating juliana hatfield (they just did that project together)

"we just weren't made of the stuff popular music is made of"

I think what's confusing is that in some ways they were -- their musical reference points were all pretty mainstream, they just came at them kind of crooked. It's not like they were really trying to write hits, except I guess the singles on DTAS and All Shook Down.

Again and again the book shows that they did try for hits and success, but usually only once, and then they got bored/destructive/moved on. Which is a tough way to chase a career. If anything they succeeded despite their best efforts.

well I'm not really sure the book shows that they tried--the efforts seemed half heated and always with the condition that Paul and Tommy could still be assholes whenever they wanted. Becoming successful on your own terms--particularly when it requires a lot of help from, say, record companies and radio stations and fans--means that your "own terms" need to intersect with others. The book is not full of anecdotes of sweetness or protracted cooperation on the promotion trail, it's full of the opposite. In that regard, it seems like the Mats achieved their success despite themselves. "I just love them but they were total assholes" is a repeated sentiment in the book.

see then they fit neatly into my fandom for Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis etc

(the asshole part, not the millionaire success part)

i can sorta understand how their collective ambitions were offset by self-sabotage, fear of failure, and distrust of authority. given all that plus the obvious behavioral health issues, i prob agree w/ the observation that they might have in fact had more success than one would expect.

you know what isn't answered in the book so far (i'm up to the recording of DTAS). I never listened to the shit hits the fans until the other day, and one track list refers to a snippet of "merry go round" by the Crue, which I certainly wouldn't have noticed only by listening to it. To wit: this can only be that Tommy liked the Crue (possible although much less likely that bob did), which suggests that his interest in sunset strip shit goes deeper than GNR (maybe the post mats section elucidates how he ended up with Axl). he certainly had a commensurate interest in hairspray, and it would be funny if he liked some hair metal, since the Mats were held up as real and true relative to that stuff.

there's an anecdote later in the book that mentions that axl didn't like the replacements and that tommy didn't like gnr.

This song strikes me as hair metal with a grafting of a few bars of standard Westerberg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVmygAXM03A

For me the anecdote about them immediately ripping up the nice touring van the record company had just bought them — after numerous complaints from the band about not having a decent vehicle — spoke volumes. Reminded me of the scene in "Goodfellas" when Karen remarks on one wife's reaction to the cops searching her home: "She used to spit on her own floor. That never made any sense to me."

Nirvana is pop-friendly AOR (note also that the riff from "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is the riff from "More Than A Feeling")

There are parts of In Utero that are pretty amazingly abrsasive underground T&G type shit, like it's amazing to me for example " Scentless Apprentice" has been heard by like 20 million people or whatever it is

As far as success on your own terms that required a great deal of suffering and insane work ethic. People were doing it, Fugazi and Black Flag but I don't think the Replacements really wanted that, they wanted to have their major label cake and eat it too.

But they don't seem like the type to have SST/Dischord anecdotes about sitting around in a apartment glueing and stuffing 1000 copies of as 7 inch to fulfill mail orders

They seem pretty lazy, actually. Shiftless when idle.

yah but that whole vibe seems counter to their "don't wanna play by the rules of the majors" thing, like they specifically seemed like they needed to be taken care of...i guess now that someone mentioned it, they really would have needed to BE Guns N' Roses where their insane popularity could have generated enough cash to allow them to act like complete total fuckup drunk jerks without consequence

Paul and Tommy literally burned money. I don't think they knew what they wanted (except for Bob, who wanted to work at the pizza place and play at the local bars).

it beats pickin' cotton!

just checked, moved up to 63 of 128 standing request for the book at the Hennepin County Library system (which has 43 copies in circulation & 11 digital copies), rock dudes in Mpls be reading this book

We are lucky that they graced the face of Earth with their beauty.

Started book yesterday, about 80 pp in. Will probably slow down to play the records as i get to em. Initial Stinson family chapters so, so sad.

lol at 20-yo Paul lying to the band and the prospective singer that each didn't want the other. You def found your niche in showbiz, buddy.

hangin' out w/ Dylan lolz

I was at the Irving Plaza show where Seymour Stein saw 'em (12/84)

new Bob Mehr interview:
http://www.avclub.com/article/replacements-biographer-why-some-fans-wish-they-ha-237464

"Pete... If I die, don't let Bob sing."

never knew "Lay It Down Clown" was about Pete Buck's speed habit

or that it was "Wait on the sons of no one" (did not have lyrics sites in '80s)

"wait" on? Really? That's not what it says here

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/replacements/bastardsofyoung.html

how could an internet lyrics site possibly be wrong

I'm sure www.azlyrics did more research than Bob Mehr.