Our Twin Cities extravaganza is dedicated to Angela!
Angel A- The Soviettes LPII
Yes, Indeed- 27 Various Yes, Indeed
I Need A Torch- Suicide Commandos Make A Record
Johnny's No Fun Anymore- Shock Treatment s/t
Memorabilia- Musical Chairs s/t
Get To Know You- The Vandalias Yellow Pills Volume 1
25 Reasons- Red House s/t
Land Of The Free- Curtiss A I Don't Wanna Be President 7"
^I'll Be You- The Replacements Don't Tell A Soul
Makes No Sense At All- Hüsker Dü Flip Your Wig
Sometime To Return- Soul Asylum Hang Time
Into You- Crash Street Kids Little Girls
Poor Little Joey- Wilma & The Wilbers Chronic Alkie
Fang- Trip Shakespeare Teen Line no. 3
*Lover Boy- The Jets Big Hits Of Mid-America, Vol 3
*You're Not The First One- The Commandos Big Hits Of Mid-America, Vol 3
*Foundry Joe- Swingers Big Hits Of Mid-America, Vol 3
*Where The Beat Goes On- Fingerprints Big Hits Of Mid-America, Vol 3
Back in Blackbeard- Lifter Puller Soft Rock
Cola Shock Kids- Cozy Cola Shock Kids
Pretty Boy- The Persian Leaps Drive Drive Delay
Only For A Moment- Private Interests Only For A Moment
Rattle My Bones- The Suburbs Love Is The Law
I Remember Romance- Flamin' Oh's Flamin' Oh's
Chitter Chat- Smart Alex Bloodstains Across Minnesota - Punk Rock Rarities 1977-83
>Surfin'Bird- The Trashmen s/t
The Butler Did It- Skogie The Butler Did It
Action Woman- The Litter Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968, Vol. 2
Jetsetter- The Boys Jetsetter E.P. 7"
The Girl Next Door- The Mor's The Girl Next Door
Slack- NNB Slack
^Power Pop Prototype: #51 Billboard Hot 100 5/13/89
*SacroSet: Twin/Tone Records' Big Hits of Mid-America, Volume 3
>Power Pop Prototype: 1963
It's hard to think of a musical artist I find more frustrating than The Replacements' Paul Westerberg. For starters, he is an undisputed rock & roll genius who had a huge influence on me and others like me who came up in the 80's, rejecting mainstream AOR in favor of left of the dial college radio. Yet, time and time again Paul Westerberg chose to tank his career rather than succeed. That's the source of my frustration- so much talent and so many wasted opportunities. Had it gone another way, I could see Westerberg being revered as a Minneapolis Bruce Springsteen- a timeless talent forever linked with his birthplace. Needless to say, that's not how it went down.
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Tommy, Bob, Chris, Paul
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There's no doubt that in the late 70's Paul Westerberg loved rock & roll and wanted to be in a band. He basically forced his way into guitarist Bob Stinson's group Dogbreath, which included Bob's 11 year old brother Tommy on bass and Chris Mars on drums. Westerberg quickly established himself as the band's chief songwriter and within a year they went from playing covers of Aerosmith and The Nuge to scorching Westerberg originals like "Raised In The City." An ambitious guy, Westerberg gave a demo to Peter Jesperson who managed the Oar Folkjokeopus record store and was co-founder of new independent label Twin/Tone Records. Jesperson was immediately hooked and signed the band, eventually becoming their manager.
Apparently Westerberg was so prolific in the early years that rather than buy new cassette tapes to give Jesperson, he would sometimes record new demos over old demos. Think about that- there may be other "Johnny's Gonna Die" or "I'm In Trouble" -level songs out there that are lost forever! It's an early indication of how Westerberg took his genius for granted. Over the 12 years of The Replacements' run there are numerous examples of Westerberg and his bandmates sabotaging themselves at every turn. Here are some examples taken from Bob Mehr's excellent Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements (if you're not frustrated with Westerberg after reading this book you are a far more patient person than I):  |
Peter Jesperson
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- At the start Westerberg refused to sign a mangement contract with Jesperson, the band's biggest supporter.
- He also refused to sign a contract with Jesperson's independent label Twin/Tone, who nonetheless paid to record and release Replacements records, leading to major legal battles later on.
- By 1983 nearly every tour date had become a competitive drinking event between the 4 Replacements, often augmented by cocaine (which allowed more drinking) attracting a "freak show" crowd and compounding Bob Stinson's addiction issues.
- The Replacements would often intentionally give bad and/or (mostly "and") drunken performances, called "pussy sets," if music industry people were present or if they didn't like another band on the bill, the crowd's attitude, apparel, haircuts, etc.
- After
signing to major label Sire/Warner they attempted to steal their master
tapes from Twin/Tone, which they then threw in the Mississippi River.
After realizing the tapes were not masters but copies, they drove to
Twin/Tone owner Paul Stark's home figuring he had their masters there.
Fortunately, his wife slammed the door in their faces.
- Making their national TV Debut in 1986 on Saturday Night Live, Westerberg called Bob "f***ker" on mic. As if that wasn't enough, the band later trashed their dressing room, getting banned for life from the show.
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Replacements on SNL
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- Westerberg and Tommy Stinson were notorious dicks in radio interviews. The morning after they appeared on KROQ LA, the station made a big show of smashing their new record Pleased To Meet Me live on the air. Tommy intentionally said "motherf***ker" on WBRU Providence, getting The Replacements banned from another station that could've helped the band. On WXRT Chicago Westerberg cajoled the DJ into playing "Little Village" by Sonny Boy Williamson which starts with studio chatter, including the word "motherf***er" uttered twice. The next day the XRT Music Director submitted a scathing warning about The Replacements' behavior to a national radio newsletter, helping further blackball the group with both radio programmers and their own record label's promotion team.
- Westerberg became obsessed with writing a hit song during the sessions for Don't Tell A Soul, yet after
"I'll Be You" started getting significant radio airplay, he was openly hostile onstage
and backstage to the new, younger audience the song attracted.
- In
1989 The Replacements took the opening slot on a Tom Petty & The
Heartbreakers tour, playing larger venues than they ever had before.
Getting a tepid response the first few shows, the band went into full
"pussy set" mode, insulting the audience, Petty, The Heartbreakers,
whatever city they happened to be playing and then destroying their
dressing room each night. (Petty took revenge by stealing the "rebel without a clue" line from "I'll Be You" for his huge hit "Into The Great Wide Open.")
- On later tours with considerable record company financial support, Paul
and Tommy would gamble away their tour per diem and if they
didn't manage to lose it all would literally burn the money or tear it
up.
- Before
officially breaking up The Replacements
Westerberg would snipe at the other members
of the group in the press, often complaining about behaviors he
personally instigated.
The above aren't random incidents it's a cycle of abhorrent behavior powered by one thing: fear. Here's a few quotes from Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys... about that very thing:
One of The Replacements' NYC managers, railing at the band: "You're not just immature, you're scared sh**less. You're scared of trying. You're so afraid of failure that you won't do anything but shoot yourself in the foot!"
Don't Tell A Soul Producer on the conflicts recording the album: "If [The Replacements] had been more confident, or more honest, they could've said: 'Look, we're scared sh**less. We've run through a bunch of producers; we've already scrapped one version of this record; we're working with you now, this is a big deal for us- what can we do?' But they couldn't say that. So they did the best they could do which was lash out."
The band's other NYC manager: "They were based on fear. They were afraid to do things because it would ruin them. Or they were afraid because someone was trying to f***k them."
And Bob Mehr himself: Westerberg was more inclined to sabotage himself than risk rejection.
Their fear of being called "sellouts" I find especially galling. The Replacements' response to having their "indie cred" questioned seemed to be acting like the biggest rock star douchebags in the
world -booze, cocaine, groupies, trashed green rooms/hotel rooms/tour
buses, smashing vintage guitars on stage- seriously, I can't imagine
Motley Crue being any worse.
As REM's Peter Buck says in the book about fame and success: "Everybody wants it a little bit. If you get up onstage even once, you must want it to certain degree. Then it's just a matter of finding out where your lines are."
Heartbreakers keyboard player Benmont Tench, a huge Replacements fan who helped get them the Petty opening slot, described the band's attitude as "too cool for school. But it doesn't have to be fake unless you make it fake. I didn't understand why they would just thumb their nose at the whole experience."
Here's how I think of it: if you want to be Fugazi, then BE Fugazi. Ian MacKaye's band is the poster child for indie integrity and are beloved for it: self-managed, on their own indie label, didn't make music videos, booked their own tours- hell they wouldn't play anywhere that sold alcohol or wasn't all-ages! Westerberg on the other hand made very un-Fugazi decisions every chance he could: hiring an NYC management firm and firing Peter Jesperson a few months later, signing to a major label, and, after refusing to do music videos for years, caving and making videos for MTV.
While The Replacements never had the level of success they felt entitled to, they set the stage for a band that had an even greater obsession with "indie cred" and would be massively successful: Nirvana. That band made all the same un-Fugazi decisions -high powered management, major label, big budget music videos- yet Kurt Cobain seemed about as happy as Paul Westerberg. Case in point- at the 1992 MTV Video Awards the band wanted to play the unreleased song "Rape Me." Their label, management and MTV wanted new single "Lithium," with MTV supposedly threatening to "ban" Nirvana if they didn't comply. Kurt refused at first but after a few bars of "Rape Me," caved and started playing "Lithium," later saying he "felt like such a whore" for doing so. We all know how this ultimately turned out.
The joke of it is that at the MTV Video Awards two years later Green Day, also Replacements acolytes, supposedly got the same threat from MTV if they didn't play their current single "Basket Case." Green Day said "screw MTV" and played the unreleased "Armatage Shanks," which is about a minute shorter and likely drove the camera crew nuts, and didn't appear to suffer any consequences from MTV. The difference is that from Day 1 Green Day aimed to be a successful rock & roll band. Like Westerberg and Cobain before him, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong was struggling with being called "a sell out" (especially by his orthodox punk soon to be ex-girlfriend) yet it never seemed to be an overwhelming obstacle. While Green Day had already left their punk purist fans behind and had no desire to "be Fugazi," that still didn't mean they had to take crap from MTV. I think this is a big reason why Green Day are still around today while Nirvana and The Replacements are long gone.
I saw The Replacements several times in the 80's and early 90's and the ratio of brilliant shows to "pussy sets" was about  |
Husker Du
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50/50. When they were good they were amazing but a "pussy set" would usually announce itself in the first 5 minutes. While I'd be laughing right along with the band bringing a hapless Barrence Whitfield onstage at The Channel in Boston for "Walk On The Wild Side" (which he didn't know) and a variety of other songs he barely knew, part of me felt I was being ripped off. In  |
Soul Asylum
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comparison, Minneapolis rivals Husker Du were much more consistent (a bad show more dependent on the Sound Guy's ability to capture them live than their performance) and Soul Asylum became, in my opinion, the best live band in America for a spell.
Mehr's book was incredibly aggravating, especially since I listened to a lot Westerberg music while reading it. (Burning money?!? Intentionally playing poorly for people who made the effort to come see you? Who does that?!?) Yet, every time I'd think "f**k this guy, I'm out!" a song like "Color Me Impressed" or "Answering Machine," or "Little Mascara" would pull me back in. And I know you can't "separate the art from the artist," the battle between Westerberg's intelligence, compassion, ego and insecurity is the essence of his music. Still, it's a damn shame Paul Westerberg couldn't have been more on the Armstrong side of the Kurt Cobain to Billie Joe Armstrong "rock & roll success/longevity" scale.
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Paul Westerberg
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and European releases in the US. The label's first hit came in 1973 with "Hocus Pocus" by Dutch prog rock band Focus- the instrumental at the top of this week's show. By the mid-70's Richard Gottehrer was missing the studio and amicably left the label, going on to produce numerous AKG artists like like Blondie, Marshall Crenshaw, The Bongos, Robert Gordon, The Fleshtones and The Go-Go's.
joined the label in 1983, signed by Stein from his hospital bed while he was undergoing treatment for a heart condition. Madonna was a game-changer for Sire selling hundreds of millions of records and posting 29 of the label's top 50 hits over the course of its history.
