The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

We might just wait on someone, you never know

I can't hardly wait on anyone.

I seem to recall that Westerberg was the son of a salesman, and maybe he considered this an indignity, maybe Dad was Willy Loman, but that means Paul/Biff or other Loman was,in American 70s terms, more or less middle class---not primed since birth to be a janitor, or join the army, or die?. at least not the first two choices---did he steal that from a Graham Parker interview? So, he lambasted his sister for settling, for being a waitress in the sky (for 40 years? Didn't know you could do that), for getting settled in her ways---rather than doing whatever he's been doing since long ago giving up on the more radio-aimed Replacements (it's not like they were too wild and pure to try it: they tried to sell out/"sell out": whatever you think of that, it didn't work commercially) and then letting his solo career-of-sorts fade away.

Why is is surprising that a flight attendant who joined up when she was 20 can retire at 60? Have you been on a plane lately? It seems like the average age of a flight attendant is like fifty.

I also don't think it's fair to say PW let his solo career fade away, necessarily. I'm sure he'd be very happy to be back on top, but, err, he happens to make the least fashionable music in the world right now.

xp He’s not lambasting his sister. This is the crap she heard from passengers.

Sorry. Oh, Dad was Harold ('Hal') Robert Westerberg (1918-2003), an employee of Cadillac-General Motors. The horror! Primed from birth or not, In the late 1970s Westerberg was working as a janitor for U.S. Senator David Durenberger,[4] and one day while walking home from work, he heard a band practicing Yes's "Roundabout" in a basement. He talked his way into the band by convincing the singer that the other band members — Bob Stinson, Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson — were going to fire him. The singer quit, and Westerberg joined the group.[5] The band was originally called The Impediments, and they played their first gig in the basement of a church, playing to members of a nearby halfway house who did not appreciate their drunken shenanigans.[6] They soon changed their name to The Replacements after several venues declined to advertise the band under their original name.[7] Sorry, didn't mean to quote all that.
Forgot about this: n late 2015, Westerberg announced that he had formed a new band called The I Don't Cares with musician Juliana Hatfield.[20] Their debut album, Wild Stab, was released in January 2016.[21] How was it? Tnanks Wiki!

And here's this, from 2017: https://drywoodgarage.com/

The I Don't Cares album was great, like low-stakes / lo-fi solo Westerberg circa Grandpa Boy

Would love to hear the unfucked around with Don't Tell a Soul some day.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, February 3, 2013 2:32 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Here ya go:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/replacements-new-box-set-dead-mans-pop-861046/

Wow

Looking forward to that! My fave Mats LP, which I realize is the minority opinion...

It's the one I reach for the most, tbh.

Nothing reminds me of 9th gr like this album. I couldn’t even look at it for a long time but I’m ok now. It’s def the most emo-inducing of their records for me.

Also it’s where I learned what it means to have a chip on one’s shoulder.

that set looks cooooool

I had just finished college when this came out, which was a pretty good time in my life. The importance of DTAS for me is just as much about the memories it recalls as about the music itself...

i think DTAS was the first Replacements record I heard! It was confusing.

first one I heard too, 9th grade too. I told a buddy that I'd picked it up, and he sneered that they'd sold out. 9th graders can be tough on each other.

At some point it'll be available without the LP, I presume. That's likely a decent chunk of the $80 price.

i think DTAS was the first Replacements record I heard! It was confusing.

― tylerw, Friday, 19 July 2019 16:05 (thirty-six minutes ago) link

Same as, I had the same experience. "Whats this shit? It sounds like Bryan Adams!"

I love it now though

yeah i like it too — but it was not what I was expecting, haha ...

I think I posted this upthread, but the production didn't strike me as super out-of-place/out-of-character; that was just what major label rock records sounded like in 1989. While I've cooled on it since, I loved it at the time, and my band (the only two musicians I knew who liked the Replacements) covered "Talent Show."

I wonder if the new mix will sound like the "1st mix" of "We'll Inherit The Earth" on the expanded edition? I think I like the regular mix better.

Looking forward to that! My fave Mats LP, which I realize is the minority opinion...

― henry s, Friday, July 19, 2019 8:25 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol uh same

"anywhere's better than here" is my favorite mats song

you have to sign up to see it but the Matt Wallace interview in Tape Op is amazing, recounting his horrible experience working with the Mats at their belligerent, coked up asshole worst

https://tapeop.com/interviews/128/matt-wallace/

also just started reading Trouble Boys, I didn't think I ever wanted to read another word about the Replacements but this is a masterpiece, my god the feral boys of South Minneapolis were left for dead in the teenage wasteland, their families are so fucked up, Bob's childhood is tragic, Dickensian

Wallace has always sort of been made out to be a sonic villain, but there is every indication - in the book, in the TapeOp interview and otherwise - that they would have turned DTAS into DGAF and self destructed without him (or some other responsible producer). Even c. Pleased To Meet Me, one of the more illuminating bits in the book is when it explains how the band was so fucked up/such fuck-ups that Dickinson had to cobble together the takes and sample and loop the drums with a Fairlight just to craft anything good out of the shambling sessions. I can't believe the DTAS sessions could have gone much better, esp. given their behavior on the subsequent tour. They were the ultimate "I would never belong to any club that would have me as a member" band. They complained about lack of label support, but when they got it, they literally burned the money. And so on. And DTAS still sold a ton of records! Low six figures, iirc.

I never put two and two together about Pleased to Meet Me's cobbling until I read the book. Dickinson did a swell job of not opening the curtain too much.

I wish I could've been there the first time the band heard the intro to "I Don't Know" though.

Looking forward to the box set. I am not a DTAS fan, but I more than recognize that there are some great songs buried on there.

^^cool to hear. i've been meaning to pick it up for a while. bob mehr is a memphis dude.

xposts

the weirdest revelation in the he Wallace interview that the worst asshole/bully in the band was....Slim Dunlop!

a full release of Inconcerated is pretty amazing too.
That live version of 'Talent Show' on the EP is amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C2BGvx6PIc

Thanks for posting that Matt Wallace interview, ums!

This part illuminated an aspect of DTAS the book mentioned, but didn't go into detail about. I can't imagine how frustratingly painstaking this must have been:

They'd leave for the evening, and Slim would say, "If you touch our guitars, I'll kick your fucking ass."

Touch their guitars, like mess with them?

If I put them in time, or whatever. Literally, he threatened to beat me up numerous times. So yeah, I did a little bit in L.A., but once we got to Paisley Park I had a little bit of time. They were at home, so they'd go home with their wives, or girlfriends, or whatever. I had this Publison Infernal Machine, a French digital delay/reverb. I'd go bar by bar. People would complain the drums were lagging, but Chris was on it. Those guys were leaning so far forward. I'd take Tommy's bass and mute everything else. I'd take his bass on one track through the Publison into another track, and I'd go bar by bar. "Okay, he's 30 ms ahead, 40 ms ahead, but the bass is fine." I'd take the guitars and play them all back. That's what we did before we had access to computers. I'd put things in time. I worked a full day with them; I would go do that at night as well, and then come back and work again. They'd always ask, "Did you fuck with our guitars?"

sounded like the worst job in the world

also Tape Op is one of the best reads, so much cool details and history in those interviews

There was always something very Richie Aprile-like about Slim Dunlap. Maybe because he came in kinda late in the game...

also just started reading Trouble Boys, I didn't think I ever wanted to read another word about the Replacements but this is a masterpiece, my god the feral boys of South Minneapolis were left for dead in the teenage wasteland, their families are so fucked up, Bob's childhood is tragic, Dickensian

Yup, stunning book. I read it less as the story of a band as the story of a group of people who happened to end up in a band.

Did anyone read Lemon Jail?

I wish there was going to be a version of this set without the book and the LP, neither of which I care about. Would have happily paid $50 for a simple CD box set of all the this material.

If you don’t think there is anything more to learn about dysfunctional behavior and its connection to the unglamorous side of being in a rock band, then this is the book for you.

Trouble Boys is one of the best recent rock bios -- a model of reporting, and, wow, he can write.

I defend plenty of muddled '80s would-be mainstream sellouts, but DTAS depresses me.

honestly I don't even know if you need to like the Replacements to like Trouble Boys

I kind of want to read Lemon Jail but the Sullivans were such gigantic assholes to local bands for years

I read Lemon Jail. Not incredibly revealing, but entertaining as another Rashomon perspective of the time. Pictured the guy as Flounder being lured by Bluto and D-Day into a long road trip.

i'm not even a replacements superfan, but trouble boys is one of the best rock bios ever i think.

sheesh, fine I will read it

it's a good book -- my main problem is that i really loved their music as a young person (14-18 for the most part) and it kept me company during hard times. i guess young me learned way way way way way more than she wanted to know and today me found bob's story to be very sad beginning to end, and everyone else's behavior made me dislike them/lose respect.

it's a good book maybe because they come off as so insufferable

Yeah, it’s one of the few cases where the endless catalogue of self-destructive behavior seems to actually serve a purpose rather than just being overkill

I can remember the exact location in the restaurant I was at when I started reading that because I was crying after the opening. All-timer.

From an interview with Sonny Vincent, who Bob played with after the Replacements, poor Bobby....

I knew he loved music and he always expressed that. He once asked me "Sonny, would you die for music?" I didn't know exactly what he meant but from my point of view I said "No." Bob then looked at me with a very deep, soulful, yet sarcastic look and said "Yeah, well I would". And in some universe where that would be required, I knew that Bobby would have died for music. Bob was really unique and special. I hate it that he is gone. I'll always miss him.

There was always something very Richie Aprile-like about Slim Dunlap.

Ha. OTM, I guess.

Yeah, I always had the impression he was a bit more happy-go-lucky than he might've been. It's like they went out and found someone more pie-eyed than Bob.

Google also OTM:

https://i.imgur.com/wjdZpVb.png

There are more than a few bands/musicians that once you know the history, their music resonates in a different way. John French's gigantic Beefheart book and any book on the Ramones also have a similar sadness to them.