THE REPLACEMENTS [EXPANDED]: THIS BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE
Gianfranco Callieri
Posted On January 1, 2011
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The ‘Mats made it all wrong: they were too drunk when it happened to perform on important occasions, too great when the executives of record companies didn’t leave home, unable to shoot a decent video (Bastards Of Young’s is the only legendary one, one single freeze-frame on the stereo amplifying the song), lost and stoned in front of TV cameras (the memorable series of “fuck” pronounced live on Saturday Night Live during the days of Tim). Yet, the influence of this group on thousands of subsequent bands (from Guns N Roses to Josh Rouse) is enormous.
It means that among the scars and bruises of their songs, people can find a meaningful part of one’s truths.
Anyways I must point out that my love for Westerberg and his Replacements, which was born and raised during the excess of the 1980s, is strictly linked to the dreams they meant to me; among them, the one about a band somewhere ready to shove every nerve, every fibre and every mistake on an album, accepting the idea that none of their fans wanted them to be perfect, but simply real.
SORRY MA, I FORGOT TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH
Four hoodlums from Minneapolis famous in their neighborhood for the ramshackle way they sped up fragments of songs, locked in a recording studio where neither the producer Steven Fjeldstad nor the pygmalion Peter Jesperson could curb their impetuousness. Paul Westerberg bawls in the mike, loses his breath and sings out of tune, Chris Mars fires rickety drums shots,Bob Stinson plays the guitar like he had a chainsaw instead of the plectrum and his brother Tommy Stinson(who was still under age at the time) abuses the bass with the energy of a young player.
Takin’ A Ride, Customer, Shiftless When Idle and More Cigarettes provide a fairly rough hardcore excitement, but with Johnny’s Gonna Die Westerberg’s depth gets revealed and one begins to see the future of the band.
The twelve bonus-tracks are interesting, but mainly non consequential demo versions of well known songs, including an exhausting waste of time (listen to the chaos of Basement Jam). Pay attention to the mournful acoustic poetry of If Only You Were Lonely, the original b-side of the rare 12-inches I’m In Trouble: a pearl that perfectly foreshadows wonders to come.
Bonus-Tracks: Raised In The City (demo) // Shutup (demo) // Don’t Turn Me Down (demo) // Shape Up (demo) // You Ain’t Gotta Dance (demo) // Get On The Stick (demo) // Oh Baby (demo) // Like You (outtake) // Get Lost (outtake) // A Toe Needs A Shoe (outtake) // Customer (alternate take) // Basement Jam (rehearsal) // If Only You Were Lonely
STINK
Continuing with their bad boy image, the 15 minute EP entitled Stink starts with a live recording from one of their concerts, which was actually interrupted by the police (and someone from the audience shouts “fuck off” to the police: it’s the future Soul Asylum’s frontman Dave Pirner’s). Yet, at least one of the bullets of Stink – the anthemic Clash-like punk-rock of Kids Don’t Follow –shows a big improve in their songwriting. Other songs represent just noise somewhere between botched punk and the primitive violence of a disarranged hardcore.
Only four tracks have been added but they’re revelatory: the covers of Hank Williams (a hallucinatory Hey Good Lookin’) and Bill Haley (a kinda slanting Rock Around The Clock) reveal a true music-lovers background comparable to the one of Bruce Springsteen (see “the” official live, The Shit Hits The Fans, a 1985 tape cassette released by TwinTone – never reissued again – featuring covers of Lloyd Price and Robyn Hitchcock, X and Rem, Skynyrds and Sabbath, Petty and Motley Crue, Stones and Carter Family, then Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Vertebrats, Zep, U2, Foreigner, Mott The Hoople etc.).
But what really stands out is the lonely yearning of You’re Gettin’ Married that up to now is one of the best works of an intimate, sad, acid and angry Westerberg here sounding just like Bob Dylan on Positively 4th Street (St. Paul would later cover it in a compilation enclosed in the British Uncut Magazine).
Bonus-Tracks: Staples In Her Stomach (outtake) // Hey, Good Lookin’ (outtake) // (We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock (outtake) // You’re Getting Married (solo home demo)
HOOTENANNY
“Mostly recorded Oct ’82-Jan ’93 at a warehouse in some godawful suburb north of Minneapolis” (as stated by original liner-notes), Hootenanny is the record that contains their first great songs. It’s actually still too tongue-in-cheek and inconsistent to be considered a “classic”, but it’s the first ‘Mats album that foresees a coherent development from the first song to the last one. Of course, that’s all a personal kind of coherence: as a tribute to the title (referring to folk music meetings where people used to make music and dance) the group bangs on the record its inclinations and personalities ranging from hissing metal slaps (Run It) to gothic hints of sixties’ psychedelia (Willpower).
Sure it’s funny and kind of enlightening like in the amazing power-pop of Color Me Impressed or in the forerunner college rock of Within Your Reach but the album’s still too crazy to sound definitive. Not even the Mats know what’s the real need of Buck Hill’s instrumental surfabilly or Mr Whirly’s Beatles-like sounds drowned in Chubby Checker sauce (reporting a laconic and priceless “mostly stolen” in the credits) and obviously this mess is reflected in the line up chosen for the occasion with Westerberg and Stinson Sr. On bass and drums while guitars are played by bassist and drummer. As always, they’re one-of-a-kind.
The bonus tracks feature different substances, ranging from Lookin’ For Ya’s unconvincing cow-punk to Junior’s Got A Gun’s bright noise. The alternative versions of some pieces (Lovelines, Treatment Bound) don’t add anything special to the original format. And Johnny Fast is just a spasm-like version of Johnny’s Gonna Die, but both Ain’t No Crime’s urban dirt and Bad Worker’s acoustic blues – they’re both unedited – have some interesting features.
Bonus-Tracks: Lookin’ For Ya Junior’s Got A Gun (outtake – rough mix) // Ain’t No Crime (outtake) // Johnny Fast (outtake – rough mix) // Treatment Bound (alternate version) // Lovelines (alternate vocal) // Bad Worker (solo home demo)
LET IT BE
This is the story of Rock or, in other words, how to get the best with the least. Let it Be, a true masterpiece of the 1980s, shows how it is possible to reinvent and regenerate 30 years of pop culture with nothing else but grit and instinct.
Here the ‘Mats compose and perform as never before, taking influences from such diverse places as Kiss’ “Black Diamond” (which is transformed into an incredible urban western), and “Gary’s Got a Boner” takes its riff from Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever.” Some barriers were much higher in the past than they are today and it took a group of careless twenty-something to break them down using irony (“I Will Dare”, featuring Peter Buck on guitar), joy (“Seen your Video”), alcoholic swagger (“Favorite Thing”), loneliness (“Androgynous”), depression (” Sixteen Blue”) and frustration (“Unsatisfied”).
The album takes the listener on a journey, detailing an honest declaration of love towards the music as an irreplaceable partner for traveling or growing until the final cathartic weeping of Answering Machine. Ending with a grungy electric guitar upon which Westerberg screams, “I get enough of that/Try to free a slave of ignorance/Try and teach a whore about romance/How do you say I miss you to an answering machine?/ How do you say good night to an answering machine?/How do you say I’m lonely to an answering machine?”, concluding with an emotional climax of unprecedented strength.
Only the die hard fans of that time could know the thundering revisiting of T.Rex of 20th Century Boy (it came out as B-side of the EP of I Will Dare) that starts the half-dozen of bonus tracks included here. However, even the biggest fans might be surprised to hear ‘Mats take on the sweet warmth of ‘70s Canadian meteor DeFranco Family (Heartbeat – It’s A Lovebeat) or the folk-rock of PF Sloan and Steve Barri of the late ‘60s for the Grass Roots (Temptation Eyes).
Each bonus track is interesting and revealing, from a primitive and more aggressive version of “Answering Machine” to a “Sixteen Blue” sung more folky and moody compared to the barbaric standards of Westerberg.
Bonus-Tracks: 20th Century Boy Perfectly Lethal (outtake) // Temptation Eyes (outtake) // Answering Machine (solo home demo) // Heartbeat – It’s A Lovebeat (outtake – rough mix) // Sixteen Blue (outtake – alternate vocal)
TIM
Tim is awonderful album forever botched by poor production. Is it ‘Mats’ or producer Tommy Erdelyi’s (aka Tommy Ramone) fault? On one hand, the band was suffering from internal conflicts (dismissing Bob Stinson shortly after the album was released because of a self-destructive spiral that led to his drug-related death ten years later), on the other hand maybe Erdelyi was not able to fully utilize the melodic exuberance of the band with the proper immediacy?
The second hypothesis might be right, anyways we shouldn’t underestimate eleven great songs that still play like a manual of biting guitar-pop. Hold My Life, the shining Kiss Me On The Bus, the overwhelming hard-rock of both Dose Of Thunder and Lay It Down Clown, the mad folk-rock of Waitress In The Sky or incredible rock’n’roll hymns like Bastards Of Young and Left Of The Dial they are all strikingly powerful. Following up Let It Be, we see other sides of the band with, Swingin’ Party’s soft mid-tempo and Here Comes A Regular’s self-examination paint the most effective portraits of the alienation of the decade.
Among the bonus tracks, at least three outtakes were produced by none less than Alex Chilton – Nowhere Is My Home, both acoustic and electric versions of Can’t Hardly Wait (which made it’s first appearance on their next album,Pleased To Meet Me) – suggest what kind of masterpiece Tim could have been if it only had a slightly rougher, more direct sound. Kiss Me On The Bus and Waitress In The Sky, again supervised by Erdelyi, sound better in the official versions; Here Comes A Regular nevertheless is worth an entire career, but the original take still remains the definitive one.
Bonus-Tracks: Can’t Hardly Wait (acoustic outtake) // Nowhere Is My Home (session outtake) // Can’t Hardly Wait (electric outtake) // Kiss Me On The Bus (demo version) // Waitress In The Sky (alternate version) // Here Comes A Regular (alternate version)
PLEASED TO MEET ME
After Stinson was dismissed, the three ‘Mats holed up in the mythical Ardent Studios (Memphis) together with legendary producer, Jim Dickinson, along with their hero Alex Chilton and the Memphis Horns. Pleased To Meet Me, from the commercial point of view, is not only far from the evolution that was expected, it’s a huge mess. New fans are often shocked by the almost drunken performances, while old fans are bothered because post-punk ideals were betrayed in favor of pure rock & roll uproar. Actually the album is nearly perfect with its a mix of soul, Stones-like riffs and pop-rock songs in pure Big Star style.
Never Mind and Valentine (pay attention to the guitar after the first refrain) could have been an early Tom Petty song, Shooting Dirty Pool (with Luther Dickinson on guitar) and Red Red Wine show a fury totally unknown to Jagger & Richards, Nightclub Jitters is like a cocktail gulped down in the very same bar that Tom Waits’ drank at in the ‘70s, The Ledge talks about suicide (which got it banned from MTV), Skyway is a ballad that pulls the heartstrings, Can’t Hardly Wait (featuring winds) is a truly amazing rock-soul song a la Exile On Main Street.
“Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round”, Westerberg shouts in the mike during Alex Chilton. While that never happened for the Big Star’s leader (who’s playing the guitar on Can’t Hardly Wait) nor for our ‘Mats, that doesn’t affect the breathtaking beauty of an album which still sours over every dream and vision.
This time bonus tracks double the album’s length representing a sort of complementary album.
As always, the bonus track show the diversity of the band’s influences, with Election Day as a sort of tongue-in-cheek tribute to Aerosmith, Route 66 takes on the Nat King Cole classic, and Bobby Lewis’ Tossin’N’Turnin features a quotation of Ted Hawkins’ Who Got My Natural Comb?, the later two were originally released as b-sides of The Ledge. The rendition of Cool Waters by Sons of The Pioneers, sung by Chris Mars, was on the 7’’ Can’t Hardly Wait. All the other tracks, were previously unreleased work-in-progress, are the clear evidence that the band is ready to experience thousands of different solutions and most of all a songwriting status worth the Olympus of rock’n roll.
Bonus-Tracks: Birthday Gal (demo) // Valentine (demo version) // Bundle Up (demo) // Photo (demo) // Election Day Alex Chilton (alternate version) // Kick It In (demo) // Route 66 // Tossin’N’Turnin’ // Can’t Hardly Wait
(alternate version) // Cool Water
DON’T TELL A SOUL
With Matt Wallace as producer and Slim Dunlap(Richards’ fervent fan) on guitar the ‘Mats issue another unsuccessful (in terms of sales) album which was initially accused of being too radio-friendly. In comparison to past standards that might be true, but with hindsight we can hear the blueprint of “alternative rock” being written within the songs of Don’t Tell A Soul.
The electro-acoustic, sometimes moderately synthetic, sound doesn’t change the strength of Westerberg’s craftsmanship, even when he ventures into country-rock experiments (Achin’ To Be) or into rash instrumental inserts (Mellotron and slide on Rock’N’Roll Ghost or We’ll Inherit The Earth that nods at The Moody Blues). Anyways, what will surely be remembered is the rock’n roll lashes of Anywhere’s Better Than Here, the folk wonders of Talent Show and, above all, the violent disillusionment of I’ll Be You – one of the best Westerberg’s tributes to the beloved Faces.
The bonus tracks are good but not too enlightening. Portland, a little folkie sad diamond, and the explosive Wake Up were both featured in the compilation All For Nothing / Nothing For All (’97). The ramshackle but still wonderful gospel-jazz-blues Date To Church, performed with Tom Waits, appeared as the b-side of I’ll Be You. Talent Show is more rock and less convincing, Inherit is a Bon Jovi-esque joke. On the contrary, Gudbuy T’Jane (by Slade) is a great gem, and another example of Westerberg’s burning passion for the most rude and humor-filled rock & roll.
Bonus-Tracks: Portland // Wake Up // Talent Show (demo version) // We’ll Inherit The Earth (mix 1) // Date To Church // We Know The Night (outtake) // Gudbuy T’ Jane
ALL SHOOK DOWN
The front cover of The Replacements’ All Shook Down suggests a bleak winter in the Midwest, a little Shakespearean and very metropolitan. As a matter of fact, The ‘Mats were no longer a working band. Drummer Chris Mars did’t even take part in the short tour supporting the album and Paul Westerberg appeared to be rehearsing for his solo career. Compared to their energetic, almost joyful early work, the last work by The Replacements carries a much gloomier, darker sound.
The atmosphere is one of blue collar American-rock drowned in a sea of mid-tempo and electric yearnings. Rod Stewart-like moments are prevelant (My Little Problem, sung by the Joplin-style voice of Johnnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde) or acoustic melodramas for voice, guitar and violin (the wonderful Sadly Beautiful).
Yet, All Shook Down sounds much more like a group of friends – Terry Reid, Benmont Tench (pianist for the Hearbreakers), the “wolf” Steve Berlin, John Cale, Dave Schramm, former Georgia Satellites Mauro Majellan – mourning the death of a special band. From Merry Go Round,One Wink At A Time, Nobody, Bent Out Of Shape up to the ghostly disenchantment of the title-track (everything perfectly produced by Scott Lit) welcome a new era and say goodbye to another one, break your heart in pieces and then call you to put it together again for the last ride, hold the past while foreseeing the future. It’s a transitional album, no other explanation should be needed, but a rite of passage has seldom showed up in such direct and sincere tones.
The bonus tracks make this album a lengthy listen, but the songs are worth it.
The demos – at least two of them previously unreleased – show the incredible discipline of Westerberg’s songwriting; he’s extremely meticulous in home-made versions, which are as good as the final product in many cases. Also included are the swinging hard-rock of Ought To Get Love, the Stones-esque Satellite (one of the few tunes written by Tommy Stinson) and Kissin’ In Action (sounding somewhere between Ian Hunter and Marc Bolan) which come from the “lost” promo EP Don’t Sell Or Buy, It’s Crap that was issued by Reprise one year after All Shook Down.
Bonus- Tracks: When It Began (demo version) // Kissin’ In Action (demo version) // Someone Take The Wheel (demo version) // Attitude (demo version) // Happy Town (demo version) // Tiny Paper Plane (demo) // Sadly Beautiful (demo) // My Little Problem (alternate version) // Ought To Get Love // Satellite // Kissin’ In Action
Sorry Ma, I Forgot To Take Out To Trash (Twin Tone 1981 / Rhino2008) 6
Stink (Twin Tone 1982 / Rhino 2008) 6.5
Hootenanny (Twin Tone 1983 / Rhino 2008) 7
Let It Be (Twin Tone 1984 / Rhino 2008) 10
Tim (Sire 1985 / Rhino 2008) 8.5
Pleased To Meet Me (Sire 1987 / Rhino 2008) 10
Don’t Tell A Soul (Sire 1989 / Rhino 2008) 8
All Shook Down (Sire 1990 / Rhino 2008) 8.5
Gianfranco Callieri
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