DETROIT, MI – Paul Westerberg is back. Tommy Stinson is
back. In a BIG way. They are the founding two members of The Replacements and I
gotta tell ya I am glad to see them come back. This Minneapolis band goes back
to 1982. They made a big splash on the rock scene in Sept. 2014 by coming on
the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. They were previously kicked out of 30 Rock
and banned from Saturday Night Live for being drunk out of their minds and
using profanity on network TV. But that’s what they did. That was The Replacements. I will touch upon the ban from SNL a little
later because I find it fascinating.
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| LIVE ON THE TONIGHT SHOW - 2014 - Playing - "Alex Chilton" |
In the 1980’s you couldn’t be outrageous enough. The more
the better…. They came on in the last five minutes of the broadcast and ripped
through, “Alex Chilton” off of the, “Pleased To Meet Me” album. Despite the
rumors on the web this was not a new song… far from it. This album goes back to
1987. The Mats were only doing what came naturally and if it was a bit
destructive then that’s what was going to happen. This was not a graceful bunch of guys and they
were for Generation X kids. There’s a good chance your uncles hated these guys
and what they stood for. They made the Rolling Stones look clean. Stuff would
break and there would be plenty of foul words used and for some people that was
over the top offensive – like the producers at NBC.
The biggest foul mouth on board that night in studio 54 was
not in the Replacements but was none other than Sam Kinison. This was an era of
success and before the web was around there was rumors. I grew up hearing
stories about how Kinison would order up a limousine and empty out the bar so
he could get loaded after the bars closed. Did that really happen? I don’t know
but that is what I heard. So when the green room was stocked with booze and the
Replacements showed up they helped themselves. In the words of band mate Bob
Stinson, “We went to town…” and they lived up to their reckless bad boy image.
They did two songs that night, “Bastards of Young” and “Kiss Me On The Bus” and
you can see lead singer Paul Westerberg using the F bomb away from the mic but
it got captured on the broadcast. I
think they sounded pretty good actually
What Brought The Replacement’s Out Of Hiding?
The Replacements showed up at the 2013 Riot Fest in Chicago.
I saw the poster and it didn’t register. They were wearing these carnival
barker type striped jackets and had the moppy hair. There was no mistake of who
it was. The cartoon picture of them that was featured on the poster kind of
reminded me a bit of The Kinks. These guys were in line for the next level of Classic Rock whether anyone wanted to admit that or not. As other acts waltz
into their 70’s, sometimes not so gracefully, the Replacements are next in line
for rock royalty. They could come off
like clowns and then knock you over with sincerity, prolific lyrics and heart.
They ripped into, “Taking A Ride” off the Twin Tone release, “Sorry Ma Forgot
To Take Out The Trash” and the audience loved it. These guys were missed.
The Replacements also broke up on stage in Chicago during
the “Taste Fest” in the 90’s. Paul Westerberg did some solo work and it was
great but it was a different direction. Bob Stinson sadly passed away due to
alcohol and drug abuse. Christopher Mars became a painter and was delivering
his artistic sense to a brand new audience. Bob Stinon’s replacement, (no pun
intended) – Slim Dunlap ended up getting a stroke. Tommy Stinson had some
success with Bash and Pop. The radio was now filled with all sorts of wannabes
of the early Alternative rock sound. It is obvious that the Replacements have
influenced a variety of bands in the 90’s and in the 2000’s. Some of them are
really obvious like Soul Asylum and the Gin Blossoms… I mean come on. Now a days you got Deer Tick and their sounds
almost mimic the Replacements note per note as in the song, “Never Mind”… That sort of thing is respected I suppose
because these two acts are on the same bill.
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| THE REPLACEMENTS - "I.O.U." |
Yes, that is … The Replacements are back. They are touring
again and that is amazing because it has been really silent in the last two
decades. These guys, “Broke the mold” and set a new standard for everyone else
to follow but then fell apart. It is almost like they are coming back to reset
that standard and to show other bands how to do it. In fact you can actually
hear one of the producers instructing Paul Westerberg to – break the mold – on the
end of the track, “Something to Du”.
The Replacements have been labeled a punk band and a post
punk band by journalists. The guys in the band think of themselves as a loud
rock band and nothing more. The punk thing got tossed in there because of their
attitude and the time they came onto the scene. In some sense they were punks because
they were very disorderly. Just recently some recordings came to the surface on
YouTube.com which shows them doing covers of famous bands under the chemical
influence of just about everything. It is very noisy, loud and terrifying but
at the same time amazing. They follow a very loose framework of a song and the
fill it up with a lot of noise. The vocals at times are just awful and way off
course but then loop around and every once in a while land on key. Its enough
to hold the song together. Even when they were terrible they were… well, great.
What Made Them Great In The First Place?
In my college days I discovered them while reading the
entertainment papers. The word on the street in Ann Arbor back in the 80’s was
that this was the band to watch. The article went on to say that sometimes they
were great and sometimes they were terrible but you never knew what you were
going to get. That made me take an interest in them right away as a band to
follow. A lot of rock musicians insist on precision. You had guys in the 80’s like
Neal Peart from Rush bellyaching over being off by a tenth of a second on this
drums, (despite the fact that most of live audience was stoned out of their
gourds) and guitar maestros like Eddie Van Halen who took their craft
seriously. The Replacements had a great sound too but would often get wrapped
up in manic mood swings. Other times they seemed to beg for forgiveness with
songs like, “Skyway” and, “Can Hardly Wait”. They always had a way to redeem
themselves no matter how terrible they behaved.
They failed forward from day one like on their first EP, “Stink”.
I’ll admit the truth to you I bought that album because it was cheap. I was
standing in the aisles of the old School Kids Records in Ann Arbor and I had
about $20 bucks on me and I already bought some full length LPs and that one
popped up with a $6 dollar price tag on it. I snatched it up. I figured this
way I could get a taste of what this band was all about since I had already
read about them. That is the DNA for the entire career of this band. If you
listen closely they are bashing authority in a big way with, “Fuck School” and
the Minneapolis PD opening up the album with a threat on the audience. If you
dig a little deeper you get some heart and soul to this band on, “Go”. It is a
very intense, brooding and introspective number and that sound is something
that would get explored with on upcoming albums. That is what made them
interesting. They weren’t all about thrash, noise, anger and rage because at
times they would stop and think deeply about things.
The chord changes and bridges were interesting because by
putting such personal depth into the songs it lifted them out of the - punk category. At times you felt as if you
were looking into someone’s diary. Rolling Stone Magazine loved these guys or
so it seemed. The reviews I read for, “Let It Be” were thoughtful and had more
praise than some of their Led Zeppelin write ups. They were definitely going
somewhere important and were headed for the big time.
MTV wanted videos. The Replacements were against the whole
system of producing a gimmicky video to sell anything. So when their number was
called they submitted, “Bastards of Young” for the on air rotation. The video
was nothing more than the lead singer with his back to the camera for the
entire time, smoking, and facing his stereo propped up on milk crates while the
song blared on. Their performance on Saturday Night Live made them forgettable.
Not unforgettable. Forgettable.
After getting banned from SNL for life there was no where
else to go but down. You can read about this a little bit on the linear notes
for their b-side compilation album, “All of This For Nothing”. I didn’t even
know they got banned from SNL until decades later. I gotta be honest. I blamed
their demise after the album, “Don’t Tell A Soul” which I found personally
disappointing overall. I figured the party was over but what they reveal about
SNL was kind of interesting. Comedienne Nora Dunn snubbed them and so did the
rest of the cast. The band was trying to get in view of the camera as the end
credits rolled but the cast wouldn’t step aside. They make it sound like the
cast of SNL snubbed them because they were some lowly bar band. I totally didn’t
catch the connection that they were dead drunk on air.
The 90’s hit hard with bands like Weezer and the Offspring
and the Replacements faded from view. They went off the radar. I look back on
their wild climb up to the top and I missed the mayhem with their sound. It was
part of their entire star power. I remember watching them on IRS’s The Cutting
Edge and seeing them on camera right after they shaved off their eyebrows and
spray painted their boots bright blue and red. They had a dangerous
unpredictability that seemed to have vanished when the last album came out, “All
Shook Down”. To be fair that album had some really interesting songs on it but
I didn’t recognize them.
But I recognized the guys on the 2013 Riot Fest stage and I
most definitely identified them on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The band
I saw on those performances were the same guys I was nuts about in 1986 – 1989 and
with saying that The Replacements are back. I welcome seeing them again and get
a charge out of seeing the latest reactions from new fans. |
