______________________________________________________________________________ // // The \\kyway \\ // skyway@novia.net Issue #55 December 25th, 1997 ______________________________________________________________________________ (c) 1997 Bastards of Young (BOY/BetaOmegaYamma) Productions list manager: Matthew Tomich (matt@novia.net) technical consultant and thanks to: Bob Fulkerson of Novia Networking ______________________________________________________________________________ SKYWAY SUBSCRIPTION/LISTSERVER INFORMATION Send all listserver commands in the body of a letter to "majordomo@novia.net" To subscribe to the //Skyway\\: subscribe skyway To unsubscribe from the //Skyway\\: unsubscribe skyway THE //SKYWAY\\ WEB PAGE Check here for back issues, lyrics, discography, and other files. http://www.novia.net/~matt/sky/skyway.html ______________________________________________________________________________ Send submissions to: skyway@novia.net ______________________________________________________________________________ 0. Something to Du (M@) I. New Day Rising: songs and stories Kimberly Johnson, Greg G, Keith Kostman, Duncan deGraffenreid, Melvin Patton, Jim O'Donnell, Laura Mogg, Hans Huttel, Patrick Jarvis, Karim, Sarah Beth, Josh Neas II. Bastards of Young: 'Mats stuff Stephanie Main, Jay, Wendy Shea, Marc Kurtz, Amy Kennebec, Cathy Witalka III. All For Nothing Donna Cook, Sumiko Keay, Graham Stroud, Emerson Dameron IV. Achin' To Be: Paul Westerberg (new album info!) EJ Howard/Lori Dolqueist V. Fast and Hard: Tommy Stinson Lori Dolqueist, Wendy Shea, Shawn VI. Darlin' One: Slim Dunlap Dan Contreras VII. Everything Else Charles Ford, Steve Smith, Elmo, Wendy Shea ______________________________________________________________________________ 0. SOMETHING TO DU The word has been received and I'm all up for shorter Skyway issues. In fact, this one would've come out three weeks ago except I got caught up in the unexpected participation in the Skyway tape trade: a little over 200 Skywayers are harassing their local post offices with those little 3x5 tape mailers this year! If you've only got a sec and are only going to be able to scan through this issue, be sure and check out the news on Paul Westerberg's upcoming album in the third section. Right now I'm back in Omaha, Nebraska with the snow and salt celebrating Festivus. I'll spare yah the reports on my family. (Then again, who has a sane family anyway?) - M@ ______________________________________________________________________________ I. NEW DAY RISING (songs and stories) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 16:57:05 -0500 From: Kimberly Johnson Subject: New subscriber spills her guts Oh man, I have need this release for so long... so many Mats memories, stories, and some people and stuff I need to find... First.. I got turned onto the Mats in 1989 when I was a sophomore at Boston University. This quy with cool hair that I wanted to F*** named Dan "Weem" Collins played "Unsatisfied" for me.. this is still my absolute favorite song and personal anthem... the rest is history. I haven't seen Weem since 1993, but I play, sing or mentally retreat to a Westerberg Wonderland every day. Weem, if you check out this site, which I know you must, email me when you get a chance... Next... I met Paul TWICE, when he was on the 14 Songs Tour. The first time was in Boston at the Paradise. After an intense and excellent show, a bunch of the hardcore fans (like me) were just dorking around the bar wishing for another, obviously not forthcoming encore, when some guy hands me this black & white piece of cloth-- a backstage pass! I still have this, along with photos from that night. I was totally psyched... I got to go backstage, which is actually like upstairs at the Paradise. Paul was really busy being interviewed for the Phoenix, and I was torn between not wanting to act like a band slut and wanting to document this momentous occasion. Paul was totally cool... he paused the interview, and let someone take pictures of us together, then he signed an autograph for me. I was so pumped. I left the upstairs and met my friends who were till hanging out at the bar. We were all so blown away that I got to meet Paul, my total hero and the truest American poet to ever live. I'm not sure if it was one or two nights later, I got to meet Paul again. This was at Club Baby Head in Providence Rhode Island. Mats fans in RI were more my speed, and INTO THE MUSIC. The show rocked.. it was the best show of any show I ever went to. I am urgently seeking information/photos from anyone who may have attended that show. At one point that night, Paul busted some strings on his guitar, and while folks were getting a new guitar ready for him, the band started just jamming, and Paul pulled me onto the stage to square dance. I swear this is true!!!!!!! My current boyfriend (not a Mats fan, jerk) doesn't believe this story, so anyone who was there and was sober enough to remember that, or maybe even has a photo from that night, please please contact me....Anyway, later that night I got to go backstage again (which is like thru an outside courtyard at babyhead), and Paul was again very cool (duh). We talked about this weird dream I had about Paul and John Coltrane on an airplane... Paul said he dug Coltrane to, and listened to him a lot in the morning. We also had like a little sing along to the Stones Beggars Banquet album.. it was really fun, and all the people around him were exactly perfectly Paul, intense and mellow at the same time, just like happy to hang out and listen to music, talking about music, whatever. I'll tell one more sort of funny Mats story before I get back to work (my boss would KILL me if he knew what I was doing). A good buddy of mine used to work at the Boston Phoenix in the classified department, and she told me about all the losers who would place personal ads describing themselves as gods, and we decided to do an experiment and see if there were any cool people reading those ads, so we placed a (semi) phoney ad for me. The headline read "Mats and Docs," and the ad said Midwestern girl lost in Boston seeks soulmate to pass the time lamenting the break up of the Mats and searching for jobs that allow employees to wear Docs to work (or something like that)... Believe it or not, we got over twenty voice mail responses to the ad. I never called any of the guys who responded, but now that I'm older, and not wearing Docs to work (or anywhere) and still Unsatisfied, I wonder if I should have. Re-reading this, it's not so funny. Just a weird piece of lost youth. I am so glad there are people who still love the Mats. I am psyched to be a subscriber (words I thought I'd never type!) From: "Greg G" Subject: First real contact with the Replacements Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 12:53:05 -0500 I was in high school and this so called "friend" of mine invited me to see The Replacements in Knoxville during the All Shook Down tour. I was like, 'right you just need a ride and who is the Replacements?' I thought. He said tickets were only 5 bucks and he said he would buy mine. So I said cool but I need to see if my girlfriend wants to go. (I'll refer to her as "Bitch" so as not to reveal her true identity.) I asked her but she said she could not go because she had something else to do and besides "The Replacements suck" even though she had never heard them. So I said OK you lose so me and "friend" went to go see The Replacements. We get there early in the afternoon to buy the tickets and the fucker lied...the tickets were $15. We walk in on soundcheck and there is this skinny guy with a TV yellow Les Paul on stage by himself complaining that he can't hear the monitors. (Paul has always been an asshole to the soundperson about monitors...I guess I would too if I couldn't hear). Anyway...I don't remember what song he was playing solo but I remember that his Marshall stack was LOUD. We eventually got kicked out. Oh well... I remember the show fairly well. I did not know many of their songs...but I sure could remember them after the show...now that is powerful songwriting...when you remember a band's songs and not because the radio drilled it into your head.. The most memorable moment of the show was when "Kiss Me On the Bus" turned into Fuck Me On the Bus...damn they played that song loud. After they played that song (the show was nearing the end), Paul told the soundman to give it all its got. All the band members went to their amplifiers and cranked it and blazed through "I Won't". My ears were killing me...but then magic happened...They all traded instruments and ended with "Hootenanny" with Paul and drums who was awful...they wound up smashing all their shit and the drums found their way to the audience. I had never seen a show like that. It was also nice getting Paul to sign my shirt afterwards. By the way "Bitch" stayed home I found out later cause she needed time in a hotel with another "friend" of mine. The "friend" I took to the show wound up making me buy his ticket and then he screwed "Bitch" a few weeks later. Oh well, "friends" and "bitches" come and go, but the Mats will live with me forever. Greg G Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 20:37:43 -0800 From: Keith Kostman Subject: sweat Crushed up against the stage at the Caboose in 1983, the concert was unforgettable and Paul sweat all over me. Wish I could get drunk with Paul and Tommy. Bash and Pop wants it "fast and hard". And so do I. Miss you guys too much. Will never forget. Keith From: "deGraffenreid, Duncan" Subject: Ramble On... Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 09:40:00 -0500 Cathy Witalka's post in Skyway 53 prompted me to this ramble. First, I wanted to mention that Wilco is a band that, in concert, play in a similar "loose and crazy way" as the Mats, but without the self-destructive component. Their live shows always feature covers, and varying arrangements of their own songs ... e.g. they might do Passenger Side as a country, punk or polka song. I've seen video's of their shows, as well as attended one, and they are loads of fun. I won't miss Jeff Tweedy when he pa sses near DC again. It amazes me how many of us have been helped through some serious trouble in our lives by Mats music. I rarely hear similar stories about other bands. It seems to me the better "All For Nothing" sells, the sooner Master Jesperson will put together the Twin Tone rarities collection we REALLY want.So it's in our interest to shell out the $20+ even for the stuff we already have. And the sound is great, at least. I jumped at the chance to meet our beloved and revered M@ at the DC-area party he advertised in October. M@ arrived with TWO (of his) bands in tow! Besides getting to talk face-to-face, we (my non-Skywegian wife and I) enjoyed watching one of these bands, and I was surprised how damn good they were. But the real treat was watching M@ ... apparently forged in the furnace that produced Tommy Stinson, M@ played with the energy of my 4 year old, bouncing continuously for an hour. I wasn't able to see his second band ("they do pretty stuff"), unfortunately. When we got to this party, we found ourselves at a three-keg, twenty-something orgy of sin and deprivation ( :-} ) at which us "maturing" teetotalers felt out of place. But the really weird thi ng was that, on the way out of the house we ran into Greg, the owner of a local comics shop I frequent, who was on his way to the party to play bass for a third band; and what's weird is that it was through Greg I discovered the Shit Shower and Shave boot! See how this all gets incestuous, this Mats cult? ".... its a small world after all ..." Duncan From: JCPatton99@aol.com Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 02:03:28 -0500 (EST) I first stumbled across the boys after they broke up and had heard little bits and pieces about them, so I bought one of the marked down "All Shook Down". It changed me...in a peculiar way. I've been in bands as long as I can recall...playing bass for southern gospel bands here in Virginia, guitar and bass in rock bands in high school and college, moved to Orlando and ended up in a crazy band called Blu Fish Traktors (which had a tragic ending.) Music is an obsession with me, sue me. But way back when Paul released his first solo work, I was...man, changed beyond anything! His music, (then finding old 'Mats stuff) and the band, and even Tommy in Bash & Pop was so damn inspiring for my writing, and changing me as an individual...and still is to this day. Unfortunately, I've never personally met another true fan of The Replacements, which in a way, sets me apart from everyone I've ever met and known...because they don't know what they're missing...I'm glad I accidentally came across them because as a musician, and a person, Bob, Slim, Tommy, Chris, and Paul have made a difference in my life like no other band, or solo artists ever have. And someday I hope that I could thank them. Maybe someday I'll meet Bob in the great concert in the sky, as well. Melvin Patton From: "James O'Donnell" Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 01:13:49 PST I have been a Mats Fan since 1988. I am/was in the Navy and my two best friends were big fans. One was from Minnesota the other was old enough in the early 80's to identify with the greatest band of all time. They introduced me to songs like Alex Chilton, Skyway, Waitress in the Sky and I was hooked. I was lucky enough to be going to a Navy School in Orlando at the time and we caught their show at the Beacham theater. What a great show I was in heaven the band was so alive. Like I said I was hooked. It's now almost 10 years later and i compare every show I see to that one, nothing has ever come as close to the performance and the feeling. Months later I saw them again in the Saratoga Performing Arts Center NY. They were opening for somebody I didn't even care I just wanted to see them again, I remember watching them play the (Within Your Reach) (sic) song every one else seemed to be annoyed by this band that was delaying the main performance me I think I left after they finished playing. It's now 1997 and I still ache to hear a band with the energy and feeling of The Replacements. I am just glad that their is a place to stop by on the internet to find others like me. Well thanks maybe I'll write again sometime but who knows. Jim Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 07:13:54 EST From: XupinarmsX Well this is my first time writing to the Skyway thing though I've subscribed for a few months now. I haven't written earlier at the risk of sounding dumb. Here goes nothin': I first got into the Mats when I heard Love Untold on the radio one day. I thought it was such a beautiful song and it really expressed how I was feeling about a relationship at that time. Well when I saw Eventually in my BMG catalog over a year later I ordered it. After finding out that Paul wasn't some new songwriter I decided to check out the Mats. I first bought Tim, then Pleased to Meet Me, and so on. I still don't have all of their albums because my minimum wage job only affords me so much. I haven't had any Mats converts, either. When I talk about the Replacements most people my age think I mean the Refreshments, some dorky alternarock band. Well, whatever. The End. Love to you all, Laura Mogg P.S. Thanks for publishing Skyway, Matt. :) Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 17:18:23 +0100 (MET) From: Hans Huttel Subject: Confessions of a Danish mathematician It's time for me to de-lurk, having bought "All For Nothing/Nothing For All", only to re-discover that I am one of the select few here in Denmark to be familiar with the back catalogue of the late, great The Replacements. [There is one other guy, but he lives over in Copenhagen...] At least you guys & gals know what I'm talking about. I am 33 years old and a university lecturer (computer scientist/ mathematician) at Aalborg University in Denmark. I like Pilsner Urquell, South Indian food and the seaside. I am also the proud owner of a Fender Strat and an old Aria bass. I can play both instruments, though not at the same time. And if pressed, I'll admit to being a semi-dodgy guitarist. [If anyone out there is willing to part with their Rick bass, do let me know.] In the mid-Eighties I was mostly into semi-gloomy British rock (Echo and The Bunnymen, New Order etc.) and it was only in the late Eighties that I discovered the thriving U.S. scene. I had heard of Husker Du, R.E.M., The Feelies etc. but had never really paid much attention to them. These days I could kick myself for having felt that way. I have to admit that I only heard The Replacements in late 1988, when Don't Tell A Soul came out. At the time I was exiled in Scotland, but I was back in Denmark for Christmas when I heard the Mats on Danish radio, very late at night. The song playing was "They're Blind". Something about this particular song hit me then and there. (These days, I hardly even listen to it.) Actually, I had heard _of_ the band before and had seen their albums available in Edinburgh as ridiculously priced U.S. imports. Consequently, the only album I could find was "Don't Tell A Soul". I wasn't that impressed with it; "I Won't", "Talent Show" and "Achin' To Be" were great but the rest sounded less outstanding. So it only was because of a friend of mine, who at the time lived in the States, had discovered the Replacements and had been coloured impressed, that I decided to give the band a second chance. He bought me "Tim" and I was a fan. Next, I got "Pleased To Meet Me", which is by far my favourite album. This spring I finally got to perform "Can't Hardly Wait" live, complete with a brass section but sans strings. I now have all the official Mats albums on CD - except "Sorry, Ma...", which I don't really like that much. And last year I even found "Inconcerated" in Copenhagen. I never got to see the Mats, but I was close. They visited Scotland in 1991 but it wasn't clear from the posters, the fliers or The List if the gig was is Edinburgh or Glasgow. So I thought, "I'll see them next time they're in town". Argh! And of course Paul W. for some strange reason never comes near Aalborg, let alone Denmark!! As for the compilation, it's not bad. Disc 2 was of course the most interesting one for me - boots and promos are hard to find over here. But Disc 1 is worth listening to as well - the remastering has done wonders to the old stuff. (Now if they'd only remaster "Pleased to Meet Me" in its entirety...) To me, the Mats were almost always at their best when they admitted to being a pop band. I love good pop music. So I am one of those few who would prefer their later stuff (from "Let It Be" onwards) to the early Twin/Tone Stuff and would prefer "Skyway" to "Lay It Down Clown". Oh. BTW - what else do I listen to? I have over 1000 compact discs now, so almost any list would be incomplete. But apart from the Danish stuff that most of you wouldn't know, R.E.M., Frederic Chopin, Fugazi, Beck, The Pogues, The Beatles, Spiritualized, Nirvana, The Verve, Metallica, Miles Davis, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Future Sound of London, Yo La Tengo, Crowded House, Kraftwerk, Helmet, Gustav Mahler, Big Star and Radiohead are among the numerous artists that keep grabbing my attention, either because of their past work or because of what they're doing. And oh, of course I have Paul W.'s solo recordings and like them. cheers from Denmark -- Hans Huttel | email: hans@cs.auc.dk BRICS, Dept. of Computer Science | WWW: http://www.cs.auc.dk/~hans/ Aalborg University | tel.: (+45) 96 35 88 88 Fredrik Bajersvej 7E | fax: (+45) 98 15 98 89 9220 Aalborg Ø, DENMARK | Fight spam! http://www.cauce.org From: PJarvis340 Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 15:42:29 EST My name is Pat and I'm a "Mats" fan. I just recently purchased "All For Nothing" and really enjoyed what I found. Because of this it inspired me to find a Mats website. I have to say that I have only been a Mats fan for about 5 years although someone I once knew tried to get me addicted much earlier. I was taking a semester off from college back in 89 and I was working on the railroad in Minneapolis. This guy I worked with was a guitarist and had lived here all his life. He asked me if I had heard of the Mats. I said vaguely from some college parties. He said that if nothing else I should buy Tim and see what I thought. Well I pretty much blew it off and didn't pay much attention to it. I went back to college that spring and the Mats were now becoming the band of choice with the group I hung out with. But it was the older stuff we listened to, circa Tim and Pleased. Still, I didn't get it. Then, in the summer of 93, I was a member of the working class and moved from the freindly confines of Eau Claire, WI and was living in Toledo, OH. On a whim I purchased Tim. Needless to say I was astonished. The next day I went out and bought Pleased to Meet Me. Again, I was blown away. So the next day I purchased All Shook Down. I though it was good but not like the earlier two. From that day on I have been a big fan of the Mats. All this occurred about a year and a half after I discovered how good Soul Asylum and Bob Mould are. The worst part of the whole scenario is that I graduated from high school in '86 from a school only about 90 minutes from First Avenue. I went through my High School years thinking that Loverboy and Bryan Adams and glam metal were the best thing since sliced bread. While I enjoy these bands and that kind of music, it wasn't until it was too late that I discovered bands like the Mats. To me, the bands that came out of the First Avenue/Minneapolis scene at that time is what making music is all about. It's about no frills straight ahead rock and roll with no fancy gimmicks or effects. Metal was/is great for that showmanship and theatrics it created but there is nothing like seeing a band like the Mats live and knowing that what you see is what you get. I was nearby at the time it was happening but didn't even knew it existed. Sure I heard about Husker Du but I always thought, Dusker Who. They say you don't know what you've got till it's gone and I guess it's true. With the reunion thing that has been going on perhaps I'll get lucky and see the Mats. Unfortunately, Bob Stinson is no longer around to perform as it is that time period of music that hits me most. Well that's about all the babbling I have for now. I hope I didn't bore people too much. Hope to hear from someone, sometime, Left Of The Dial. Patrick Jarvis P.S. I heard of Bob Stinson's death on a Minneapolis radio station on the way back from my honeymoon in Northern WI. It saddened me to learn that someone who had brought me so much happiness and meaning had his life end in such a negative fashion. From: "kainhiho" Subject: from spain Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 00:03:50 +0100 my girlfriend, that is to say, mi novia, has just given me "all for nothing/nothing for all" as a birthday present, and iīm thrilled with this stuff. not only she gave me this, but also bought all the mats record she could find, five more. iīve listened to all of them, from sorry ma... and stink to all shook down, and also 14 songs and eventually, and also the old new me and times like this and one from slim dunlap. i live in spain now, studying something after six years without even walking in front of a university in order to make it possible for me to be with her, ines, since she has a three year scholarship here. but she has turned out to be another hardcore fan of these guys, especially mr. westerberg, apart from me, of course. iīve been here for a month, iīm from uruguay, south america, and as far as i know she, a friend of mine, someone who this friend has heard about and me are the only addicted to the mats in uruguay. there must be more, for sure, but I donīt know them, not that uruguay is so small. anyway, iīve known this place of yours for long time, and now iīm writing to you to know how the hell i can achieve some rare material, like live records or stuff like that, as it looked to me that only being in the states it is possible to get to them. yesterday i heard once more achinī to be, and once more and more... for i have discovered something wonderful in the lyrics, something this guys have made me used to. being in another place kinda shatters you, "you and your emotions", and itīs easier to see things you havenīt before, like there were new, or werenīt they there? anyway, who cares? they are here. how can someone write so sweetly and compassionately and knowing and understanding about a girlīs (or whatever) feelings? itīs wonderful. and more... is it possible for me to write a letter to this man? is it possible to get his address? nada mas por ahora. repito su pagina es excelente y agradezco mucho que este ahi para acceder a las letras. adios karim Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 19:07:15 -0500 From: Sarah Beth I'm a new subscriber to the Skyway, though I have been surfing to the site on and off for about a year-when I discovered it. My Replacements story begins on my seventeenth birthday, back in 1987. My older brother, away at college, had sent me the "Stink" LP for a present, saying I would like it. Coming from the brother who had forcibly molded my musical taste for so many years - I wasn't that thrilled at another suggestion from him. Off at college, he was finally off my ass and I could find my own music of choice - The Cure, Depeche Mode, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc.. But I eventually threw it on the turntable and listened to it...and it was the most shrill, loud, fast shit I had ever heard. I hated it. but there was that one song "Go", that I couldn't get out of my head. Next, "Kids" grew on me, then it was my favorite album--and I was searching stores for more replacements albums. But existing in bland, boring Western Massachusetts--there were none to be found. But there was a great, little record store down by the bus shelter in Springfield. Main Music--with it's pinball and Pac-Man machines, it's stacks of musty LPs and piles of tapes, always something cool playing on the stereo behind the glass counter. The owner looked just like the guy from The Eurythmics and he loved to discuss The Clash. He had a Punk section I would browse as I waited for my bus to show up and drop me back off on the edge of suburbia. One snowy, winter day - I found a promo copy of "Pleased To Meet Me". He gave it to me for $5.99 because the cellophane was ripped off. I took it home, put it on--and I was blown away. I had never heard an album that good. It was like the songs soaked into me, or me into them. I couldn't stop listening to it. I hated my parents, I hated college, I hated my lonely life..I would spend hours in my room, laying my head against the speaker...just to hear "Can't Hardly Wait." It held me, urged me, became my fucking anthem. To know somebody else felt what I felt, deep inside, sometimes makes me think it's why I'm still around now. But anyway...I soon after got my hands on everything else The Replacements had done up to that point. And I had the excitement of two Replacements albums to look to. "Don't Tell a Soul" then their last "All Shook Down." They finally came around on their last tour--and I saw them at the Paramount Theatre in Springfield. It was my first concert...and the Replacements were amazing. They came out a little cocked, 45 minutes late, and Paul muttered "I had to tie my shoe." Paul in an untucked, pink flannel shirt and jeans, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Tommy bounding around in his mustard-colored zoot suit, spiked hair and a big green bass guitar. Slim-all dressed in black and Steve trying to keep up on drums. They tore through a lot of stuff from "All Shook Down" and "Pleased To Meet Me"--then they broke into "Kiss Me On The Bus" and "I Will Dare" and the whole place was jammed in the aisles dancing along. Paul prodded Steve along-yelling "Too damn slow-you're playing too slow babe". They ended the show with "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues"--then an encore of "Bastards Of Young", with Paul kicking over the microphone as he ran off stage. My ears ringing, sweaty, stinking of pot and cigarette smoke--I had never been so ecstatic as I stumbled out with the rowdy crowd into the cold night air. Over the years since they broke up, I bought all their stuff I didn't have, my brother sent me a few live bootlegs, but I never got a chance to see them live again. Paul came to Amherst college, but he had a sore throat or something, and canceled. So I missed his "14 Songs" tour. Then last summer this radio station put on a big concert at Riverside Amusement park in Agawam. "15 bands for 15 bucks!" they called it. They didn't tell you about 11 of them suck. But Paul and the Violent Femmes were playing, so I went. The Femmes played early-so I missed them. Then I sat through LocalH (which were OK) and the optimum MTV (Where the fuck are they now) band-Poe. This stupid blonde-swinging her hair, jumping around, her band trying to play their instruments, playing their top-ten MTV puke-single. To a crowd of baseball-capped, jock assholes moshing around and yelling "Yeahhh--take it off!" High school girls with their "I'm a punk today" Miss Clairol get-ups--all surging forward to the stage barrier for Poe. Then Westerberg comes on in a suit. Most of the crowd drifts off to the rides until another MTV band comes on. The crowd yells "Turn that shit off--we don't want to hear fucking country", to Westerberg's intro music. He comes out and says "Lot of country fans out there huh?", and starts to play to a bored, indifferent crowd of jock teenagers. He plays "Waiting For Somebody" and "Love Untold" and gets a little response from the crowd. Then he says "This is by a bunch of junkies who broke up before you were born"...and starts into "Another Girl, Another Planet". That's when the assholes start throwing things. It starts off little at first --then it's a hail of water bottles, coins, trash, clothes, a shoe bounces off the guitarist and he gives the crowd the finger. Paul doesn't say a word just plays his required 30 minutes, then wheels around mid-song and walks off stage without a word. You see the unused acoustic guitar, a roadie is picking up, and you know the song you were waiting to hear...you're not gonna hear. You see a crushed, shocked Mats fan here and there. But for the most part the crowd is getting revved up for the next MTV band. We pushed our way out of the idiot crowd, swearing all the way to the car. And I realized then what MTV has done to music. It used to be the crowd came for the band. Now the band comes for the crowd, like the Christians in the Colosseum. And so Westerberg and his band get hailed with shoes and bottles like a lame opening band...and a crap MTV creation gets a screaming ovation of approval. It was my lowest day as a Mats fan. Cause their blind. The funny thing is that each Mats fan I meet in person or see on this web page is as rabid a fan as me. We all hold the Replacements close to our heart like a 100,000 warped mothers and their fucked-up kids. Like a tiny Beatlemania. No other band gets this. Because no one else was so damn good...yet so unnoticed. I guess that's the magic and the myth of the Mats. Matty Xmas! From: snatcher@cabarrus.k12.nc.us Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 04:01:54 -0500 Hi, my name's Josh Neas. I'm a 16 year old guy from just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. I stumbled upon your little happening while I was *ahem* "borrowing" some web time from Prodigy. I'm glad to see there are other Replacements fans out there. I first got into them when I was cruising the 45-vinyl section at my local music store. I saw the 45 for "I'll Be You w/ Date To Church" by The Replacements. I'd heard of them before, and decided to pick it up. What I found, i was blown away by. I immediately racked my BMG catalogue for their stuff. First ordering "Tim," then "Pleased to Meet Me," and "Don't Tell a Soul." At current, my collection only includes those, and "Sorry Ma Forgot To Take Out The Trash," but it will be complete (or as close as I can come to complete) one day. The impact their music has had on me is phenomenal. It's easy to say they are one of my three favorite bands. (the other two being Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Tool) I also get into Pulp, Blur, The Suburbs, Matthew Sweet, Girls Against Boys, Fugazi, The Sex Pistols, Minor Threat, Bad Religion, Nanci Griffith, The Flaming Lips, and Talking Heads. The Replacements' music has had drastic effects on my own music, that I write. It's opened me to a new style, made me laugh, made me cry, made me thrust my fist in the air and start singing "Bastards of Young" in the middle of my school cafeteria. (That or "Shiftless When Idle") To those of you out there, fellow Replacements' fans, I salute you. I'm glad someone else out there has taste. all good things, josh. ______________________________________________________________________________ II. BASTARDS OF YOUNG ('Mats stuff) Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 14:12:13 -0600 (CST) From: Stephanie Main Subject: Hold My Life This is a letter in the TV Telescope, our local listings: "On a recent episode of "Fired Up", a character paraphrased a quote I remember from a children's show. It went something like this: "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome, time for this one to come home." I am losing sleep trying to remember who originally said it and where it was first heard. - Sleepless in Trail, BC. In the early 1960s, cartoon characters Tootle Turtle and Mr. Wizard, the Lizard of the Great Forest, were a regular feature of "King Leonardo and His Short Subjects." At Tooter's request, Mr. Wizard would send him to various places in history, where Tooter invariably got into trouble. At those times, he'd scream, "Help, Mr. Wizard!", and Mr. Wizard would use this incantation to bring Tooter home safely." Did you know that? Steph From: Robert Leahey Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 01:54:28 -0500 Just a small piece I wrote for a small newspaper I write for. I schmoozed my way into a music column, and so wrote my first piece on the 'Mats. It actually didn't work as well for the paper because I wrote it to a music listening audience and not a regular old audience. I think it'd be good for the skyway, though. later. jay On October 28th, All For Nothing/Nothing For All, a greatest hits/outtakes compilation of the second half of The Replacements' career, was released. The Replacements have been dubbed everything from "the greatest punk band ever" to "America's Rolling St ones". But this doesn't matter to most people. And that's a shame. Because before "alternative" rock became a staple of radio format programming, before it became a corporate cliche, it was honest and real. The Replacements were "alternative" and real and gutsy before "alternative" warped into the '90's a nd became 16 year olds wearing Bush T-shirts. The Replacements were alternative rock when it was indie rock and it meant something. The Replacements were real. Much of what made The Replacements great were the words. In garage-prophet, smoky prose, Paul Westerberg, the lead singer/songwriter, painted what he and his "beautiful loser" (as they were so often called) buddies knew. Lines like "lonely, I guess that's where I'm from", "you wish upon a star that turns into a plane", and "used to live at home, now I stay at the house" show a world of blown chances, and emotional isolation, of alcohol soaked, self-deprecating glory. The 'Mats--they're called The 'Mats by their fans because of sloppy musicianship. Placemats. Get it?--succeeded because they were honest to the crash and burn outsider nature of rock n roll. They didn't pose for the times or doctor what they felt to fit MTV. A decade later, in the '90's, honesty in music became false, hackneyed. (How many artists can say MTV is a crock or "corporate magazines suck" before it becomes the standard?) But The 'Mats were always true to themselves and their audience. They al ways came off as genuine. Their honesty set the stage for their ever so heartfelt 90's progeny to come corrupt it. You want true contempt for MTV? How about the three-minute long video for the song "Bastards of Young" featuring nothing but a speaker and a hand holding a cigarette. At the end, the hand reveals the back of a teenage boy as he kicks the speaker in and leaves the room. You want to laugh at corporate rock journalism? Try Paul listing Whitney Houston albums and one Steve Albini album as his top ten albums for Rolling Stone. You want to flip off an establishment that creates bands trained on the same tired Van Halen licks? Enter Tommy Stinson, the bassist, who dropped out of school in the 8th grade and taught himself to play bass for the band. Looking for the true garage band? Check out a band that played it's first gig in '79 at a half way house. A band that invited the audience members up to play the instruments after band members passed out on stage at a mid '80's gig. Which all brings up the fact that, to the fans if not a lot of rock critics, the band was more than just Paul. The songs, the collective creation counts, not necessarily the individual members. What makes "Alex Chilton", the tribute racket to the former leader of Big Star, move is as much the tag team bass and hi-hat as the lyrics. "I'll Be You" leaps beyond great song to classic by the sparse tinkling piano heard every little while throughout the song. You can't figure out why "Never Mind" is so gre at until you decipher the little bits of melody planted deep inside the feed back noise, the beauty and point within the insanity. The poetry of "Unsatisfied" is the contrast between the dripping 12-string acoustic that sounds like water and Paul's raw, ravaged voice. First and foremost, the Replacements were a band. A front man can't stand alone and neither can a band. That's why Oasis will never be good and David Lee Roth will never have a solo career. But fronting all the noise, gelling the rawness and the beauty, was a young, alcohol guzzling, matted-haired, loner front man. Paul was part off kilter demon from musical hell and part sweet, quiet poet. He had a voice that alternately throbbed out of tune, screeching into the mic and sounded confused, like he was trying to make sadness hold some sort of answers. Paul's voice and lyrics gave the kick that took them over the top. It gave the band its distinctive sound. Together, the members sounded like whiskey, cigarettes, Pez dispensers, and old Cheap Trick albums. All rolled into one. When all the honesty and truthfulness meet, The 'Mats were not only true, they were real. Real and true the way we all are when we're not trying to be something different. They were part genius, part idiotic, part unadulterated fun, part pain. Like life. Like people. They were lower middle class white kids from suburban wasteland who looked for something to explain themselves and the things around them. Like juveniles, they threw things out of their tour bus while going 90. And like adults, they stared in horror as their drinking turned them into everything they never wanted to be faster than they ever thought possible. In the liner notes to the new album, Gina Arnold writes: "I know to some people who coast the zeitgeist in these cynical and ambitious days, such deliberate inconsequence must sound downright stupid. And yet, those were gestures not of self-sabotage, but of pure, unadulterated integrity." Paul, Chris Mars, Bob Stinson, and Bob's little brother Tommy (and later Slim Dunlap, after Bob was fired) had something you don't often find on the radio these days. What they were, on the surface was bastardized by a thousand Silverchair's and Better Than Ezra's. But you can't fake integrity. They finally broke up in '91, when they felt that they couldn't be true to the vision anymore. When they couldn't be real anymore. Bob has since died. Cumulative overexposure to everything. He got the back page of Spin. Biggie Smalls got a nice spread in Rolling Stone. (I quote "Bastards of Young": "If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand") Chris and Slim have both put out solo albums. Chris got so annoyed at "rock and roll business America" that he hired a small town band to tour in his place and play his songs. Tommy keeps up some semblance of the bar thrashing hey-day of the band with his new band Perfect. And Paul keeps putting out brilliant solo albums of pop songs more attuned to his age now than similar to his old material. I met Paul once. After a D.C. gig and waiting behind one of those guys who thinks it's somehow ingratiating to faun over the artist, it was my turn. He hadn't really talked with any of the others waiting to see him that evening. Just sort of said "thanks" and signed their albums. He didn't take his sunglasses off once. So I hand him my copy of Tim to sign. "I'm probably the youngest person in there," I said. "And I want to thank you. Because it's because of your interest in jazz that I'm into Charlie Parker. It's because of you that I'm into Big Star, that I'm into Tommy Keene. And I want you to know that I appreciate it." "Thanks man," he said, looking up and taking off his sunglasses. "I'm Paul." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Jay," I said, shaking it. "Nice to meet you Jay. Thanks." We talked about jazz for a second and then I left. I'm not wild on hero worship, especially when it's someone like a musician. He's not Gandhi or anything. But The Replacements exemplified something other than the fashionable and the current and the easy. They were a link to something honest. They were truthful. And you don't get that message from many sources these days. In a world where 13 year olds know Green Day and aren't to sure about The Clash, where childhood memories are Kids Incorporated and the Reagans saying pot is as bad as crack, and Sheryl Crow can win a Grammy, that encounter felt like something. It felt like something real. From: Spikeblack@aol.com Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 11:37:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: The overall moral struggle of the world Howdy y'all -- I recently came across a 1987 interview with Jim Dickinson shortly after working with the Replacements, I don't think PTMM was even released yet. Dickinson was in a band called Mud Boy which was mostly the subject of the interview. For you Big Star fans I include his comments leading up to the only thing he says about working with the Mats. "Dickinson also recalls Alex Chilton sessions for Big Star 3rd and Like Flies on Sherbert with relish. "We recorded Flies at Sun, a primitive situation. There were open mikes all over the room, and during songs people would wander around and play randomly on these instruments. The one song, when Alex came up with 'Its so fine' if I could have mixed that with Joe Hardy at Ardent, we'd have been on the radio with it. And Alex knew it, so we flushed it instead." Though 3rd has "never been released anywhere near in sequence," and Dream Lover -- "the whole point of the record" -- has never been included on it, Dickinson is still proud of it. "People have come to me and said, 'It changed my life.' The first time, I thought, yeah, sure. But it's happened over and over. Obviously there was a generation of12 year old boys that were devastated by Big Star 3. They used to say about the Velvet Underground's first record, everybody that bought it formed a band. It certainly must be true of Alex (3rd) now. "Three people at Warner Bros. who recommended me for this project with the Replacements turned down Big Star 3. Now they speak of it in hushed tones, as if it were the be-all and end-all of rock music. They always critically say that my stuff as a producer is too futuristic, which is just bullshit." "Futuristic" may not apply, but "surreal" would not be far off. "One of my partners in Mud Boy, Jim Lancaster, used to produce records on inmates at the Whitfield Sanitarium. As he maintains, and I heartily agree with him, those people have a right to make records too. I don't see any difference between those sessions and the Replacements sessions. It's the same process, and you have to honor it. If you honor the process, then you have something that stands a chance in the overall moral struggle of the world." Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 23:54:02 -0600 (CST) From: Marc Kurtz Subject: Lou Barlow on Paul and the Replacements Here is something for the Skyway. It was printed in "Stereo-Type" (a free promotional music newspaper for a music store named Gallery of Sound). Anyway, it is from an interview with Lou Barlow and John Davis (from Folk Implosion), I cut out the beginning and started from the paragraph where they talk about the 'Mats to the end. If there are any errors, it is due to my scanner :P The Unlikely Kind of Indie Rock The Folk Implosion Now, in retrospect, the song has disappeared from view as most airwaves-faves do. When the novelty wears off, and the hoopla dies away, the artist sinks or swims on his overall catalog. "We had a radio hit, that's all," agrees Barlow now, two years removed. "It's not a gold record. A lot of what has to do with popular music and becoming popular and famous is texture and the context that people put you in. I've, if not actively side-stepped it, creatively side-stepped all the things it would take to put me in the pantheon. I saw Paul Westerberg on the Larry Sanders Show the other night and thought, `This is it. This is my fate.' I'm the second-generation Paul Westerberg." Well, maybe not. Barlow may traffic in such pretty, romantic pop ditties as "Willing To Wait My Turn," but the bulk of Sebadoh and Dare To Be Surprised is a lot louder, rawer, and harder than anything released this decade by the former Replacements leader who Barlow admired so much (me too). "It's kind of funny," muses Davis. "It's frustrating sometimes when people think that we just effortlessly toss off these catchy songs and that we don't really care about them. Whereas I think that Let It Be is kind of similar to the stylistic diversity of Dare To Be Surprised. Maybe we're influenced by the Replacements." "In a weird way, totally," concurs Barlow. `The thing that I loved about them when I was in high school was the sheer breadth of the songs. They had a stupid Kiss cover ("Black Diamond") and then something like "Sixteen Blue" on the same record. That was breathtaking for me. That was the only thing that could keep me interested after hardcore and after I got into the Swans and stuff like that. They were still able to be a pop band but because they were able to challenge themselves, they kept me interested in what they were doing. That's the tradition John and I, or Sebadoh, are trying to continue. "But it is scary to see how he homogenized what Westerberg did. `Well, I'm the guy who writes really clever pop songs.' Look here in this Rolling Stone," he exclaims, pointing to the mag on the publicist's table. "See that? `I should have been a star a long time ago.' I don't know who he is or what he does but his history disturbs me. When I saw him on TV, I thought, `Oh, I don't want to be that way. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to be chasing after the big biscuit in the sky.'" Barlow's profile has actually risen both artistically and commercially, as Sebadoh now sells out large halls. But it's been by getting better, not by going mellow or heading towards adult alternative territory. This earnest Boston songwriter has gone from existing in the shadow of J Mascis, to tinkering with minor home demos to becoming the unlikely king of indie rock, wonderfully spurning major label offers to be left alone to produce more honest, spontaneous, and yet often beautifully written, melodic, and edgy modern rock. Persistence rewarded. ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------- Mail:Dikypkyl@mail.prolog.net |"All the ghosts Write to me for info on the | in your head Wallenpaupack Area mailing list! | all the demons in your bed." Visit BC Power System's home page|"Thrown like a star from the sky. Caught a http://www.bcpowersys.com/ | glimpse - caught the corner of your eye" ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------- "We need no other, as long as we have ourselves" - Greg Dulli "All movement leads to pain" - Pascal Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 21:11:05 -0500 From: piex@nospam.clear.lakes.com (Amy Kennebec) [forwarded from someplace else] > Oooh, Kinks analogies. I'll play too: > > Paul = Ray (Introspective songwriter/front man with well founded > inferiority complex. The brains of the band. Pens some of the finest yet > most unappreciated tunes of his time. Prone to bouts with "demon alcohol" > and can be nasty and mean spirited towards other band members. Inarguably a > genius and has tremendous sense of humor, but is often construed as arrogant > and aloof. Most assuredly takes life too seriously.) > > Tommy = Dave (Axeman who started his career before developing pubic hair. > Likes funky clothes and loud amplifiers. Sings with a squeaky voice but a > hell of a lot of heart. Jumps around a bunch and handles toxic substances > more professionally than aforementioned front man. Lives booze, sex and > volume. Keeps front mans ego in check with hilarious on-stage antics and > vocal, adoring groupies. The heart of the band.) > > Bob = Mick (Blue collar hellion who exists on malted beverages, meat > products and a taste for the depraved. Fists as big as lumberjacks. > Comfortable as a factory worker and would happily take a drug test as long > as it involved urine. Unpredictable on stage, but won't take any shit from > on-stage prima donnas worried about their hair or eyeliner. As likely to > fart as sing into a microphone. Will gladly throw dangerous items at other > band members if it will prove a point. Loud, obnoxious and spirited. The > spine of the band.) > > Chris = Pete (The "true artist" of the band, concerned more with image and > responsibility. Consumed with religious guilt over past transgressions. > Likes to paint pictures. Wants a real job someday. Is frequently > embarrassed by behavior of fellow band members, but likes to be associated > with them when it's convenient. Will happily take credit for musical > successes, but accept no responsibility for professional or social > disasters. Relishes reliving tales of bands "drunkenness and cruelty" > while at the same time disassociating himself from aforementioned tales. > Not tremendously talented. Likable and quiet. The conscience of the band.) > > Replacements = Kinks (One of the most under appreciated acts of their era > commercially, yet one of the most significant and influential acts of all > time. Band is its own worst enemy, gleefully burning professional bridges > as they march defiantly off the ledge and into relative obscurity. > Respected and revered by a fiercely loyal fan base who admire and appreciate > the bands commitment to rock and roll credibility. "To thine own self be > true." Great tunes, great aura, great attitude.) ********** piex@clear.lakes.com "I forgot my one line so I just said what I felt" - The Replacements Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 19:01:39 -0600 From: Cathy Witalka Subject: One of my favorite 'mats articles I finally got around to typing it out, it originally appeared in the September 1986 issue of CREEM: Drinking (And Drinking Lots More!) With The REPLACEMENTS By Bill Holdship So "Who's Hot?" If you believe the image of Michael J Fox standing behind a crystal ball on the cover of "Rolling Stone," the Replacements are one of "The New Stars In Your Future" - and that almost makes 'em legitimate and respectable. But Rolling Stone was hardly the first to sing the praises of the Replacements. There's been a big critical buzz ever since the band cut their first hardcore-meets-roots-rock records for (their hometown) Minneapolis ' Twin/Tone label five years ago. Critics placed the band at the forefront of their "American Rock Renaissance" hype, and voted two of the band's LP's number four and number two respectively in the 1984 and '85 Village Voice national rock critics' poll. The Voice thought so much of the Replacements that it put the band's picture on its cover and had RJ Smith write a major feature on them before they even signed with Warner Brothers. Almost ever Replacements article makes them sound too "good" to ring true. In fact, like the Ramones before them, the Replacements would make a terrific cartoon show or comic strip-sorta like an '80s punk version of the "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" even though Fat Freddie is probably upwardly mobile and buying designer drugs and cats in the '80s.) They're street punks. They're amateurs who can't really play their instruments. They like to get drunk. They're stoopid and obnoxious. And some would call them "the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world." Yet if you've ever seen them live- opening for, say, X or sandwiched between R.E.M. and the Three O'Clock - you may wonder about this claim. The band is loud, obnoxious and occasionally funny onstage. They trade instruments right in the middle of a song, while other numbers reach total entropy. But it often sounds like they're purposely trying to sound bad. You may see flashes of brilliance in their covers of, say, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and "Black Diamond" (which you always hated by Kiss but they make sound great.)or a familiar song from one of their latter LP's- but "greatest rock band in the world"? Nah. The joke is already getting old by the third time you see them. And yet their last two LP's, "Let it Be" and "Tim," were classic rock 'n' roll records, deserving to place as high as they did in the polls. The playing illustrates an induces excitement. Singer Paul Westerberg writes wonderful songs. And anyone who can write lyrics as poignant as those in "Bastards of Young" or as humorous as those in "Answering Machine"- well, he's definitely not stoopid. Can it be that the Replacements are trying to be the punk band for those who missed "punk" the first time around? Could it be that they're a bit contrived? On our way into the band's dressing room, J. Kordosh and I pass lead guitarist Bob Stinson in the hall. He looks like a cartoon character (really!), his eyes already like cherries in a vat of buttermilk at 6 p.m. We greet him, he grunts- and I realize he also looks like a character you'd be afraid to meet in a dark alley late at night. Inside, Westerberg offers Kordosh a beer, and bassist Tommy Stinson gives me his "special favorite" - 100 proof vodka on ice. Let it be said at the onset that Westerberg impressed me as one of the most charming guys I've ever interviewed-honest, frank , funny, and definitely not stoopid. Stinson is OK, too, and far from dumb. But being 19 years old, he seems to feel he has an "image": to uphold- and almost appears schizophrenic in how he reacts to us as the interview progresses. But what the hell- they give us lots to drink, and, before long we're having one helluva good time! We discuss a lot of the typical things: heavy metal (PW: "Well, I can take it as a joke, but it seems the bands that do it don't see it as a joke. They take themselves seriously.") and rock 'n' roll music in general. Their finances (PW: "We're making money, but we don't see it because you got like lawyers and accountants and fuckheads.") And live on a major label... PW: They see it as there's a hundred bands like us who would die for our chance, who are starving hungry and would do whatever they're told. And they don't understand that we want to go as far as we can, but we don't want to be like A-Ha and shit. We're not like the Cult. We don't have a strong, hip image that's going to sell right now, and they don't know what to do with us. TS: They think we're just trying to piss them off, but we're just being ourselves. This isn't like a job. Or a big thing to make us popular and pick up chicks. We just like doing this- it's fun. They just sit there and go, "You guys are just trying to piss us off. You want to be the bad kids of the rock business." They discuss their hard drinking image... PW: We drink heavily, not all the time, though. TS: We're such outsiders to say this again, but we get onstage, all our amps are far behind us, and you got a crowd that's real far in front of you, and you feel weird because you're standing there in the middle of nowhere with a guitar in your hand. You don't know what to do with it. Still, to this day, and we've been like in the band for five or six years. And you can't get up there and be nervous. BH: So do you get drunk before you play? PW: No. We've never been drunk before we play. Ever. BH: That's the image that's been painted. TS: Sometimes it takes a drink to loosen up, to just be able to say "OK, this feels weird, but..." PW: And if it's a small crowd, it helps sometimes because you see double- and then you can fill the joint. And songwriting... BH: So you just decided you could write songs and then did it? PW: Sure. Honestly, I couldn't sing anyone else's. I have a terrible voice. I have no range. We tried to do covers, and I could never do them. We do covers now, but we do them like Jerry Lee Lewis does them- we make them ours. We used to try to do shit note-for-note. TS: It's been more of an honest thing since then. PW: I mean, Christ, they tried to make me sing "Roundabout"! TS: Except it was real fast. They talk about the critics... TS: When I was a kid, most of the kids didn't even read magazines about bands... PW: I did. See, that's where you're too young. He's 19, and I'm 26. I grew up like reading Rolling Stone and CREEM. BH: Does it matter to you personally? PW: I'll be honest. It does. I'd like to lie and say it means nothing. Not that we think we're great or anything. We know exactly what we are. We get a giggle out of it, but it makes you feel good. TS: When it's someone big and they say we're good, it makes you feel good- but I never really read any of that stuff about us. Unless someone's got something bad to say and it's funny or clever. I get a kick out of someone saying we suck because we're arrogant little pricks. PW: You do until they single it out and say you look like a fucking fake rock star. You can take the general bullshit but... TS: I can take it all. PW: Yeah, until they say something...you know what I'm saying. TS: I know what you're saying. And they discuss their amateurish "bad" shows and stoopid image... JK: I think you're giving us a little shuck and jive here. A band doesn't get signed to a major label without having some drive and ambition. And you guys are trying to project a total image of drunkenness... PW: You saw through it. Would you like to manage us? BH: Your shows seem contrived, like you're trying to be "bad." PW: You saw us in some weird circumstances. When you open for a bigger band, you're sort of treated like baggage, and it's almost like, "Well, you're damn lucky to be on this bill." And we don't like being told what to do. So in those events, we would rather blow a show completely to flip them the bird than play the game. We'll come out an give them a circus... TS: And we could make the pussiest record ever, but we're still a loud, obnoxious rock band in a live environment. We couldn't play pussy live. BH: Well, the other thing is that your songs are really fucking great. JK: Are they just "great," or "fucking great"? BH: Some are "fucking great" and some are just "great." PW: You guys are fucking unbelievable. OK, go ahead. BH: And it's like onstage, you try to act stupider than you really are. PW: Uh, huh. There's a fear of not being able to reproduce something we did in the studio. In the studio, we can say this is good, and then we get up there and go, "Huh?" And if we can't make it that good, we don't want to look stupid trying to, because then we're just gonna come off like every other band. If we feel it's in our grasp, we'll go for it. But if we feel like this ain't gonna fly tonight, we'll take a more casual attitude toward it. TS: We're afraid of looking too good. JK: Do you guys have massive stage fright or what? PW: Yeah. We're unprofessional. I'm still as scared as I ever was. TS: And the hype and all the bullshit that goes along with it, that's carry. BH: It puts pressure on you? TS: We try to ignore it just so we won't get consumed by it. PW: Lately, we've been trying to get a happy medium. We get a lot of people coming now to see us for the image and shit. And it's not something we contrive. It's what we are. But we'll try to play some of the songs good. It's like we won't try to purposely mess up. But there are some songs we'll just wing...And sometimes we're going for like a big kamikaze thing. I'd rather have them hating our guts in some circumstances, so they can at least go, "Who the fuck was that band?" TS: But the people are here to see us tonight. The fucking Replacements. The fucking Mats. JK: Let's see how many "fucks" we can get in this sentence. TS: You should have a couple more beers. You're starting to sound good. (To BH) How about you? Let's see you slur a few. C'mon fuckers, we can really talk now! They discuss "punk" rock... PW: We were heavily influenced by that. We weren't punks. We tried to be, but we realized that...It's the attitude. We're as rooted in that as the Beatles were in Chuck Berry. We cant' shake it if we tried. I mean, we were punks. We weren't punk rockers, but we'll never be... TS: We're assholes. PW:...anything slick or show bizzy. And that's what punk rock was. It was amateurism, for yourself, for fun. That's what we were. And then we heard punk rock and said "Yeah, this is cool. This is easy." And we drink a lot more- and seem to make Tommy angry... TS: A musical instrument is like our drinking prop. No, no, no. PW: "No, no no"? That ain't gonna fly- "No, no, no." Too late now. TS: We're gonna dig ourselves in, man. This bottle of 100 proof vodka is almost gone. What can we do? (To JK) You're wearing a polyester jacket... JK: Well, you got a problem or what? TS: No, I like it. I was just looking at your clothes. You can tell that this guy (BH), he's got a little extra money, he likes looking at his clothes and thinks he's all tough. But you just put on whatever's in your closet. BH: Just in the last year, though. I used to dress just like you guys do. TS: We all think we're all fucking tough. JK: You guys are some bad looking dudes! TS: (smashes bottle against the wall) JK: Aiieeeeeee! BH: You're not going to scare us. This guy once asked Blackie Lawless if he was a "homo." TS: (laughing, picks up recorder) Ever see us break a fucking tape recorder? PW: Ah, that's old hat. JK: Why do you guys have such a self-deprecating attitude? TS: Because we can't live down anything that's been said. We can't live down the fact that... PW: We're assholes. TS: We've tried to run from articles about how drunk we were this night, and how lousy we were. It's just pointless to try to live that down, though. If I read about a bunch of drunks in a rock band that I hated, I wouldn't want to...oh, forget it. (laughter) I just realized that I better shut up for awhile. It's about that time. BH: Nah. TS: Yeah, you fuckers. BH: We're not out to do a hatchet job on you guys. TS: Ah, you fuckers don't know. how many writers we've had say that to us. You guys are great guys, you remind me of Siskel & Ebert, but I still don't trust you worth a... BH: Oh, c'mon! JK: You slime! That's it, man! TS: You can't trust writers. I swear to God! We had RJ Smith pal around with us for a week, and we thought he was our friend. Then he turns around and writes all the bad things about us and makes us look like a bunch of fuck-ups. JK: We don't think you're fuck-ups. TS: We ARE fuck-ups! JK: Well, I bet I can drink as much as you guys. In fact, I know I can. TS: Wanna try? PW: No, let's not. BH: Did you see that Dave Marsh recently did a hatchet job on you in "Rock and Roll Confidential"? PW: I didn't have the pleasure, no. TS: That's why I don't read... PW: Dave Marsh sucks. He thinks the Who are the greatest band of all time. BH (Begins reading the RRC item in which Marsh takes Westerberg to task for saying he likes Reagan for "looking good.") PW: Mmmm, hmmmm. I read that. It proves the point that rock 'n' roll has nothing to do with politics. Bands that try to...I mean, fuck them. It's like rock 'n' roll has nothing to do with the President or someone starving in China. In my opinion, Dave Marsh can blow it out his ass. JK: Well, see, what we've got here is a writer who actually wants something from you. He wants you to be what he wants you to be. TS: Well, what are you going to write? If you hadn't talked to us... PW: These fuckers don't care. Don't you know that yet? JK: I don't care. I got three kids to take care of. You guys can take care of yourselves. TS: You guys actually look like you don't give a damn. At this point in the interview, Tommy abruptly leaves the room, without a word to any of us. BH: Are we making him mad? PW: No. He's probably going to look for a girl, It's been half an hour. Paul introduces us to drummer Chris Morris, [note-this is not a typo, that's the name they printed in the article.] a mild and quiet type of guy. When he exits, we discuss an assortment of topics, including whether or not Paul considers himself a splendid lyricist ("I try not to think about it 'cause it's like thinking about how you look in the mirror. If you don't like it, you can't change it.") and mutual favorite movies. "Old Yeller" is passionately being discussed when Tommy reenters the room. TS: Fuck. Shit. Ass. Hell. Fuck. Hole. Shit. PW: You're back? TS: I'm back. I'm not saying a fucking word. I think we're fucking god-like. JK: I think you can be described as Dionysian. TS: How would you describe our band? And then we'll tell you how screwed you are. PW: I think they've already got the title of "asshole." TS: If you guys are the kind of guys you claim to be, then you'll write a good article. You can tell what we're like. I'm just skeptical of any writer. JK: Look, Bill's gonna write it, and he's not a mean writer. I'd be more inclined to do a hatchet job. Not on you guys, though, because you've give me so many beers without bitching about it. TS: We'll give any writer an extra beer if he says the truth. JK: Well, it's hard to know what the truth really IS here, you know? TS: We told you the truth. JK: OK, then we'll print it. BH: Well, that thing RJ wrote in the Voice... TS: That wasn't altogether bad. There were things he said that he didn't need to say, things that made us look bad... PW: I wasn't upset because I understood he had to use the angle he took to get the story printed. He wrote the bad stuff. But he took the sympathetic angle, and I can see that. TS: But, see, it's people like that who create a bad image for us that we have to try to live down. Might as well try to live up to it, for that matter... Before concluding the interview, Paul tells us that he's "as happy now as I was when we started- we don't have any money, but we've been at the bottom and it doesn't scare us at all." We tell him we can appreciate his attitude. He thanks us, adding, "I think we're doing something that no one did before. The Sex Pistols pretended to do this. But this is just naturally us. We don't want to be stars and shit - but we're sort of slipping into it." What if the money becomes real good? "I don't think so..." That's a powerful incentive. "No. It really isn't when you see the ramifications that are going to come along with it. Because we are uncomfortable now with the little tiny stardom of signing autographs. That's cool, but I would not like to be...even like Michael Stipe or something..." By the time we re-enter the auditorium, we are both seeing double (and maybe even triple). The place is packed. "We can't find Bob," Paul says into the microphone. "Has anyone seen Bob?" (Bob is actually sitting with some fans in the audience- but no one knows this until much later.) "Oh, well, this might be fun..." The Replacements begin playing, replacing the lost Bob with a roadie- and later an usher- during the opening part of their set. They begin with a dynamic "Color Me Impressed," followed by an INCREDIBLY sloppy "Johnny B. Goode" that couldn't have been any more powerful if it were Chuck Berry playing it in '58 or the Stones in '66. "Bob?" asks Paul. "Fuck Bob!" He is obviously a bit perturbed. Chris is a terrific drummer. Tommy is a terrific bass player (though he wouldn't want to admit it.) They play Alex Chilton's "September Gurls," the intro riffs to "Sweet Home, Alabama" and "Substitute," and a great "Unsatisfied" before Bob rejoins them in the middle of "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out." "He's late. Don't clap for him," says Tommy. Bob looks apologetic. Paul still looks perturbed, but says, "NOW we got it..." They wail through "Bastard Of Young," "Left Of The Dial" (one of last year's best rock songs), "Waitress In The Sky" (psst...Westerberg's sister is a "flight attendant.") and a whole bunch of other songs from "Tim" and "Let It Be". They cover "Black Diamond," "Takin' Care of Business," "Polk Salad Annie,"a snippet of "Folsom Prison Blues," and "20th Century Boy." Maybe to compensate (maybe not) , Bob is playing some fine guitar licks, interplaying with Paul. They sound "awful"- sloppy, hitting wrong notes everywhere, missing cues- and positively, absolutely WONDERFUL. "I'd like to mention that the band is breaking up and we'll never be back again," Paul says at the end of the show. The Truth: On this particular night, the Replacements are one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands in the universe. _____________________________________________________________________________ III. ALL FOR NOTHING Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 00:31:14 -0600 (CST) From: Donna S Cook Subject: The new best of Aside from containing many excellent songs, this thing sucks. I don't want to hear four nicely remastered songs from TIM, I want the whole thing. I also can't imagine wanting to hear just part of PLEASED. As for the other disc: Some really good stuff, a lot of bland stuff, and some downright horrible songs. And almost none of it rocks; the CD kinda drags. And where is "Kissin' in Action"? Are we saving something for a box set, or a more comprehensive collection? WB, Paul, etc. could have done better. (At least, I could) That being said I would buy the exact same compilation again a million times if I had to. --Matt Cook Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 16:07:56 -0600 From: Sumiko Keay Subject: Reviews from the Boston Phoenix I was trying to find something else and I came across the Boston Phoenix's reviews of the new 'Mats comp double CD! Here they are: True romance: The bittersweet legacy of the Replacements by Stephanie Zacharek Let's start by making some gross generalizations totally unsupported by scientific proof, indeed completely unprovable by any means whatsoever. The conventional wisdom is that women are more romantic than men--that they swoon over gifts of flowers and candy, that when they see suave, considerate leading men in the movies and on television, they swat their slouchy, slack-jawed boyfriends on the shoulder and exclaim, "Why can't you be more like that?" Men, by contrast, flee from romance and commitment, stutter over the words "I love you," and would rather tinker with cars and stuff than actually hold a woman's hand in public, simply because they don't "get" it. Whenever I hear anyone engaged in a discussion of love and romance that includes lots of eye-rolling about I-love-you's never said and flowers never sent, and statements like, "You know how guys are," I fade out for a moment -- and think of the Replacements. If you survey their career, from their 1981 indie debut album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out the Trash (Twin Tone), to their last release (largely considered a Paul Westerberg solo record), 1990's All Shook Down (Sire), being sure to take into account every sloppy and/or brilliant drunken live gig in between, you might see only four guys who sure as hell had "bad boyfriend" written all over them. And how romantic is that? Yet I'm convinced -- again, on the basis of nothing more than a little empirical evidence and a gut feeling, and anyone who wants to write in and hang me out to dry should feel free to do so -- that there are more deeply romantic men on this earth than deeply romantic women. And one of my ratty shreds of evidence, my Exhibit A, if you will, is a group of four scruffy guys from Minneapolis. You get a fine overview of the Replacements' collective romantic soul on All for Nothing, Nothing for All (Reprise), a two-disc set that's partly a "greatest hits" of sorts (though the band had no real hits) and partly a selection of previously unreleased rarities, many of them sloppy and rough but most of them also raggedly passionate. Disc one includes material spanning 1985's Tim to All Shook Down, and it's like a snapshot of the band at their best (though it doesn't offer any of their highly touted Twin Tone recordings). For a group of guys who were so legendarily beer-soused, the songs here show amazing discipline. It's not so much the sound of a band who might have rehearsed five days a week at 6 p.m. sharp as the sound of one who loved nothing more than to play, and whose members miraculously snapped to when they found themselves together in a room. In both the songwriting and the execution, you hear sizzling interconnection and clashing waves of brilliance that added up to something greater than the sum of its parts. Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars, on bass and drums, respectively, both drove the songs and built a fluid but supportive framework for them; the late Bob Stinson's guitar could rail and sputter or slip into a tender whisper. (Unreliable and troubled, Bob, Tommy's brother, was kicked out after Tim, later to be replaced by Slim Dunlap. He died a couple of years ago.) And Paul Westerberg's voice -- a frayed shirt cuff of a voice, gangly and uncontrollable and subject to cracking represented vulnerability deeply recessed into the shadows of guardedness. Together, the four of them forged a brand of exhilaration born of bitter disappointment and lowered expectations. Even at their most troubled -- in songs like "Here Comes a Regular" (1985) and "The Ledge" (1986), they were never exactly depressing or morose. That's because the Replacements were never whiny losers. You always had a sense of how much they'd started out hoping for and what they felt they had to settle for, and their outrage and disappointment was the electrical current that ran in between. Their desires ran so strong and so deep -- you can hear that in every fiery, bristling chord -- and yet Westerberg, in his lyrics, often circled around them, as if they were just too much for him to stare down directly. "In my stupid hat and gloves at night I lie awake/Wondering if I'll sleep/Wondering if we'll meet out in the street," he sings in "Skyway" (1986), as if he were trying to fool himself into believing that staying warm, physically, is more important than seeing his crush on the street. (There's no way it is.) Even for hardcore Replacements fans, the songs on disc one of All for Nothing, taken as a whole, make a good refresher course in why we love them so much. You're reminded of the anxious yearning in "Achin' To Be" and "Can't Hardly Wait" (both from 1988); reminded that "Here Comes a Regular" (1985) is really a sideways "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," matching that song drop for drop in weary despair; reminded of how the group seemed to blossom, sounding focused and more in synch than ever, under Jim Dickinson's production. (Four of the tracks here are from the Dickinson-produced 1987 Pleased To Meet Me, which was recorded at Ardent, the studio favored by Memphis legend and Replacements hero Alex Chilton.) The oddball rarities on disc two are less satisfying overall, but they do show us another side of the band. The songs seem looser -- okay, many of them sound downright shitfaced -- and many of them have a kind of rough-and-tumble rec-room playfulness. It's fun to hear the Replacements cutting loose on "Date to Church," with its handclaps and cheesy organ riffs, or vamping it up on "Cruella DeVil" (both from 1988). The best songs, though, are more raw and tender than goofy: the easy C&W shuffle of "Portland" (1988) speaks of regrets and missed opportunities, and an alternate version of "Can't Hardly Wait" (1985) crackles with urgency and desperation captured like lightning bugs in a jar. But the sense you get from All for Nothing, Nothing for All is that as a band the Replacements always expected too much from life and love, not too little. It's ironic that many Replacements fans who lament their passing--generally the same people who feel that Westerberg wrote better songs before he gave up the bottle -- still like to celebrate the band's "glory" days as lowlifes who resigned themselves to getting drunk and playing divey bars (or bigger venues that they made seem like divey bars). The Replacements should be remembered for more than that: they weren't just a sloppy good-time band who accidentally found ways to tap into our slurred, undefined feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. They wore their hopelessness as a kind of majesty -- as a badge of the way things really should be, if only they weren't so fucked up. The Replacements may have forgotten the flowers and the candy, figuratively speaking, but they always delivered on the goods that mattered, the words and music that cut close to the bone. They went farther out than most of us ever dare to -- and in the end, that meant they had farther to fall. Remembering the 'Mats On the morning after the "k" key stuck on my college roommate's typewriter, she started screaming about how her daddy would be livid. So I snuffed out her Long Island squawk with the Replacements' Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out the Trash (Twin Tone). The breaking-point desperation of me and the music was enough to frighten away Miss Squawkkkkkkkkk. Too bad the "k" incident happened sometime after I interviewed Paul Westerberg for my student newspaper. He would have understood; he knew about the mechanics of noncomposure, blind delirium, emotions piled in a pre-avalanche heap. I say "pre" because despite the messy and mythical ruckus of early Replacements -- say, through Let It Be in '84 the band did have a method and the chaos was not sheer. Westerberg hollered about cigarettes and boners and kicking down doors, but he also wrote some of the most moving songs ever. Some fans prefer later Replacements -- Don't Tell a Soul and All Shook Down, especially -- because the band supposedly grew up after nutcase guitarist Bob Stinson got booted. To me, nothing felt the same after Tim, the band's major-label debut. The music began to sound tired and nondescript. Just because someone calls a number "sadly beautiful" doesn't mean it is. When I interviewed Westerberg in the dressing room of the Channel, back in 1986, the band's blend of craziness and sentiment still sounded unselfconscious and undiluted. Afterward, I sat at a table in the empty club, listening to the band soundcheck with "Little Mascara" over and over. The sound surrounded me and made my guts palpitate. That's how The Replacements played live, when they weren't so shitfaced and uncharming you wanted to brain them. I don't remember the exact set from that night, but I do recall Minutemen guitarist D. Boon introducing them, and Bob Stinson coming out for the encore wearing a guitar and nothing else. I caught the band a few more times; they were worthless drunks half the time and geniuses the rest. One morning in 1987, after seeing them at the Metro, I noted in a journal the songs they'd done the night before -- better-known Let It Be tunes like "I Will Dare," "Favorite Thing," and "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" and the Hootenanny gem "Within Your Reach." What I can't quite remember is how the band pulled off "Within Your Reach," which on the album is just Westerberg, a synthesizer, and a drum machine. Back when it was released, I'd lie in bed in the middle of the night, jobless and stranded, a recent college graduate, listening to "Within Your Reach" on my Walkman. Right at the end Westerberg gently exclaims, "Reach! . .. for the sky." Those words still sound unplanned, as if in the end he couldn't repress a belief in the power of longing to lead to something more hopeful. Even in the stillness of that moment he couldn't hold back. For nearly a decade, neither could the Replacements. -- Amy Finch Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 10:32:55 From: Stroud+J_Graham@yasuda.win-uk.net (Stroud, Graham) This one comes from the Melody Maker written by a guy called Ben Knowles : For a large part of the Eighties, The Replacements were the coolest f***in' rock'n'roll band on the planet. Taking a musical baton - that of marrying the energy and raw passion of punk with the broad-grinning, infectious fun of pop - from The Ramones, they were expected to run with it into the charts. However, as you may have guessed from this compilation's title, that never happened and they were left in the eternal underground, with high profile devotees (Matt Dillon, Alex Chilton, Winona Ryder ...) but no hits. Lack of success eventually got to The Rplacements (or The Mats as their fans strangely call them), and they began to release flawed attempts at mainstream pap. And imploded. However, for about seven years, they were the coolest f***in' rock 'n' roll band on the planet. This collection, from after their signing to Reprise, chronologically catches the last three of those great years and their subsequent decline. As such, it's a brilliant, fascinating and deeply frustrating album. It's very easy to cast Paul Westerberg - genius songwriter with vocal chords like coarse sand paper - and the band as criminally neglected megastars and, listening to the first half of this album, that temptation is overpowering. The booze-fueled, bar-room party romps of 'Left Of The Dial', 'Bastards Of Young' and 'Alex Chilton' sit magnificently with acoustic, tear-stained and equally drink-driven melancholia like 'Here Comes A Regular' and 'Skyway'. On such occasions, they were truly magical. But the second half of this album shows a confused band in turmoil, often upsettingly wide of the mark. And so to compensate, perhaps, a 'bonus' CD gives a taste of The Replacements' famously shambolic, randomly-inspired live shows, somewhat unsubtly highlighting the sense of humour that always played a large part of the band's charm as they cover Disney's 'Cruella De Ville' and rewrite Bob Dylan on 'Like A Rolling Pin'. Ho-ho! The Mats legacy has recently been writ large both on US alterna-rock in general and on bands like Idlewild and 60ft Dolls. A second collection of their earlier, Husker Du-esque years on Twin/Tone Records is due out next year and will provide a better introduction. It's been a f***ing long wait but, strangely, their time may yet come. Here's a short review taken from The Guardian (one of our national newspapers): The Replacements - All For Nothing / Nothing For All * * * ( out of five ) Why Nirvana and not The Replacements? It's a question often asked since these plaid-shirted, beer-guzzling Minneapolians split in 1991. Driven (recklessly) by throaty leader Paul Westerberg during the mid-eighties, the self proclaimed "sons of no one" created scruffy, convenience-store angst tailor made for Generation X. But by the time doing so was hip, they'd petered out into dribbling bar-room self indulgence like Nobody and Talent Show, disenchanted with the iniquities of the music business. Doesn't a blatant repackaging job like this seem ethically wrong with a band who once stole their own digital reissues and threw them in the Mississippi river? There you go, one man's opinion - not the same as mine but it could have been worse. All the best Graham From: "Emerson Dameron" Subject: hi again... Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 14:21:26 PST Greetings...my name is Emerson and I was signed up before my e-mail account was deleted. (O, cruel world.) Anyway, I am now back with a new address and all my former glory. The last few months have been a learning experience if nothing else, & I can sense the sweet elixir of insight filtering into my bloodstream. I recently acquired All For Nothing/Nothing For All and was impressed with the sound quality of the "hits" disc as compared to the original CDs. (The drum sound is particularly enhanced.) Of course, I could go on about the glaring ommisions (no "Hold My Life"?, no "I Will Dare"?, I was kinda hoping for "Swingin Party") but the rarities are charmin' and a welcome addition to my Replacements archives. (I especially like "All Shook Down" & "Til We're Nude"). Anyway, of all the neophyte bait double-disc cash cows to come out in 97, this is the one that I'm proud to own. We'll, it is the Mats, of course. I'm glad to be back on the list & if anyone wants to contact me my new address is Vitamine19@hotmail.com My other vital stats are in issue #51, if I'm not mistaken. I love you all. Godspeed. EMERSON _____________________________________________________________________________ IV. ACHIN' TO BE (Paul Westerberg) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 16:44:55 -0600 From: ehoward@tmp.com (EJ Howard) From: Lori Dolqueist Subject: Finally! A Westerberg New Record Update! From "The Beat" section of Billboard, December 13, 1997 issue: California Dreamin': While on a recent trip to California, we stopped into Ocean Way Recording, where Don Was was producing the new album by Paul Westerberg, who has switched from Reprise to Capitol Records. Although it's not out until next spring, we got a sneak peek at some of the record, including a beautiful, spare love song called "Born for Me". Westerberg was gearing up for the post-production letdown that always visits him after completing a project. "I get very depressed after finishing an album," says Westerberg, who has spent more than a year writing and recording the new effort. "I usually want to start working on something new right away." Was had been familiar with Westerberg's work but really became a fan when he was producing the Rolling Stones' "Voodoo Lounge" album. "I was just constantly listening to [Westerberg's 1993 album] '14 Songs'," says Was. Recorded in New York, Los Angeles and Westerberg's home studio, the new album still has no official title. However, with a wry smile and just the right amount of self-deprecation, Westerberg says he's thinking about using a title that came to him late one night, "Casually Doomed". We like it. And from The Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1997: Paul Westerberg is expected to finish his first album for Capitol Records next month. Don Was is producing the set, which is expected in the Spring. God, I love Lexis/Nexis! _____________________________________________________________________________ V. FAST AND HARD (Tommy) Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 12:21:07 -0500 From: Lori Dolqueist Subject: More Tommy News Legendary Producer Joins Perfect Tommy Stinson Ex-Replacements member turns to old friend Jim Dickinson to produce new album. Addicted To Noise Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports: After months of searching to find a producer for his band Perfect's full-length debut, former Replacements' Tommy Stinson went back to an old, familiar well in the hopes of tapping into a musical gusher. "I've known Jim since Pleased to Meet Me," said the 31-year-old Stinson about his decision to record with famed producer/session musician Jim Dickinson (Rolling Stones, Big Star), who produced the 'Mats 1987 album. "I've always liked his vibe and he liked mine, so it just made sense." Stinson will enter Memphis, Tennessee's famed Ardent Studios (where Pleased was recorded) this weekend with Dickinson and his band's new lineup, which now includes guitarist Dave Phillips, formerly of Jack Logan's backing crew, the Liquor Cabinet. That addition has freed Stinson to return to his former weapon of choice, the bass guitar. "I feel real good about these sessions," Dickinson said. "I've learned a lot from Tommy..." Among the songs the band will be putting down with Dickinson behind the controls are Stinson's current favorite, "Seven Days a Week" and "Making of an Asshole," both working titles. Perfect will record and mix the album over the course of the next month; Stinson hopes for an April 1998 release. Stinson's sense of melody on the new songs, Dickenson said, sometimes hints at the slightly off-kilter power-pop style of Replacements' leader Paul Westerberg. In addition, the songs offer a straight forward approach reflective of late Replacements' guitarist and Stinson's older brother Bob Stinson. "He chooses intervals in his notes that are not normal, but very musical," Dickenson said. And while he may not have intended it that way, Stinson agrees, saying that the music definitely draws from his days with the Replacements, the late-great (and extremely influential) Minneapolis power-punk band. "This whole thing is a return in a way," said Stinson about the sessions. "Totally coincidentally, it's within a week to the day when I started recording there with the Replacements 11 years ago." The band has 13 songs demoed so far, Stinson said, adding that several more tunes have been written by the new lineup since Phillips joined. "Dave totally brings in the missing link to the band," Stinson said. "Now we're a band. We sound way more together than we did on the EP." Stinson was referring to last year's When Squirrels Play Chicken, a loose, bar band-style romp that could be summed-up by the band's energetic cover of Elton John's "Crocodile Rock." Copyright 1997 Addicted To Noise. From: Spikeblack@aol.com Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 01:24:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tommy on Vine Tommy Stinson did a solo acoustic set at Jack's Sugar Shack in Hollywood on Sat. Nov. 15 before leaving for Memphis the next morning. He was third on a bill of five very different bands. Marc Solomon from Perfect was first, solo acoustic too. I wasn't familiar with him but really enjoyed it. Tommy came after Fred Eaglesmith from Canada. He did Makes Me Happy, Miss Self Esteem and Alt. Monkey from the EP, First Steps (B&P), Come On Get Happy (Partridge Family I think?), and seven new songs, oh and Happy Birthday to a party of girls who requested it. He sounded real good and made a number of references to the Memphis trip inbetween and during songs. There was this old drunk guy who had been trying to get girls to dance with him during the previous band and then took over the dance floor in front of the stage and basically did interpretive dance for Tommy's entire set. Tommy seemed mostly amused and did a real good job of incorporating his antics into the lyrics and finally just ignored him. During one song he was playing along, mimicking the dancing guy, then threw a couple rock star poses for the guy to mimic back, even cued him for the big finale. The guy was getting a little too interactive on a more serious song, kind of killed the song for Tommy but he was real cool about it "you thought that was funny huh? I thought I was getting deep." He introduced one of the new songs, Constant Companion "and I think he's with me now" -- the dancing rock n roll ghost didn't seem to get it. Great show anyhow, he was real excited about Memphis. The MC tried to engage Tommy in more conversation as he exited through the crowd after Alt. Monkey as an encore. The place doesn't have a back stage off stage unless you step out the door onto Hollywood and Vine. "Hey Tommy, have you ever been to Memphis?" Tommy nodded his head yes and waved goodbye over the back of his shoulder and kept on going. From: dspruit1@iupui.edu Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 19:18:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Seen Your Video "Seen your video, that phony rap-n-roll, we don't wanna know..." Saw Tommy's cameo in Puff's video. He has a speaking part at the beginning, (Puff: Do you play guitar?; Tommy: No, he does (pointing to what I presume is a guy from Fuzzbubble)) and is seen throughout the video on stage at a high school dance. We also get to hear him chanting "It's all about the Benjamins" and I guess it certainly is Tommy. I am reminded now of that line from the Soul Asylum song "Never Really Been": There goes my hero with his head between his legs, and all this time I believed in him. In true Mats irony/bad luck, BET erroneously attributes the video thusly: "Puff Daddy w/Foo Fighters." (yes, I know there is a Foo connection, but still...even when they try to sell out they fail) MTV gets it right, stating it as "Puff Daddy with Tommy Stinson and Fuzzbubble." After the novelty of seeing a Mat on TV I am left with this--in another year or two Puff is going to be like M.C. Hammer, so why would Tommy try an Aerosmith on Puff's ticking 15 minutes??? Don't get me wrong--I am a Bash & Pop/Perfect fan, but the crits are going to be left scratching their heads--damn, we can't say Tommy was the soul of the Mats/Rock-n-Roll and sober Paul is a sell out any more. I guess Paul's work will have to be looked at in a new light by all his detractors. (The Replacements greatest misses was reviewed in the recent GQ (Grant Hill's on the covers among others); the review is quite favorable). Shawn _____________________________________________________________________________ VI. DARLIN' ONE (Slim Dunlap) Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 02:24:11 -0600 From: Dan Contreras Subject: Slim at The Turf Club Caught a pre-Thanksgiving Slim Dunlap show at the Turf Club in St. Paul on Wed, Nov. 26. It was an all-around cool time. I got there early and hit the Clown Lounge downstairs where Slim was hanging out with his son, a few of us were talking and Slim was regaling us with Mats and Paul stories, both recent and from long past. I asked him what he thought of the Grandpa Boy stuff and he said "I got that a while back and I liked it, ya know why? Because he is *smiling*" We also asked him about 'Portland' from the compilation. Upon hearing the title, Slim went into a curse-laden description of the producer of the shelved DTAS sessions, Tony Berg. Slim described him as something of an "asshole little shit motherfucker who had no clue and was trying to save his gig" Or words to that effect. I was going to ask Slim if he really threatened to kill Berg, but his description of the dude pretty much answered that one! Slim said he just hated the song and later, when they were working on 'Talent Show' and it wasn't coming together, Paul suggested lifting the one line and it worked so they kept it. Slim also added that he had played a cool banjo part on 'Talent Show' that didn't make it into the final version "I really liked it, but they took it out." Slim sat in with his opening act, Terry Walsh (I hope I got that name right). Terry is the guy who played bass during Slim's east coast dates with Son Volt. Slim and Terry played a fun set, including a cover of "Love Hurts." When Slim's band took the stage, he decided to make it a Thanksgiving set and put a Turkey Day spin on a few of his songs, like "Isn't it a Giblet?", "Turkey Butterball Cannonball", and "Ain't Exactly Stuffing." He put in a bunch of goofy lyrics off the top of his head that were hilarious. I yelled out a request for "My Dad was a Turkey for KISS", which cracked the band up, but they didn't play. Also in attendance was ex-Mat Steve Foley, who Slim acknowledged during his song "Big Star Big." I talked with Steve a little about the compilation and about being in the band, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. One thing did happen that you don't see every night: A waitress had lost $40 and Slim asked if anyone found it, could they please return it. When no one came forward, Slim threw a dollar that he got from someone on the front of the stage and said "There's the first one, see if we can't come up with some more." By the end of the next song, there was more than $50, which was given to the waitress. I thought that was a pretty cool thing for him to do. The band played a rock-solid show as always, and made it well-worth attending Thanksgiving dinner with a hang-over. It's been said before, but if you get a chance, go check out Slim - you never know what's gonna happen and you always leave with a grin on your face. Later, Dan _____________________________________________________________________________ VII. EVERYTHING ELSE From: cford@vnet.IBM.COM Date: Fri, 14 Nov 97 10:10:55 EST Subject: KGSR-FM Compilation CD I just read that Austin's KGSR-FM radio is going to release their annual compilation CD on 11/28. Included will be a live track from Westerberg's 9/96 appearance at the station. As I recall the broadcast, they will have to chose from Mamadaddydid, Skyway, and Love Untold, as most of his appearance consisted of an interview. Currently, I do not know how you can get this outside of Austin, but if anybody is interested I'm sure I can find out the ordering info. Charles Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 22:22:36 -0800 From: steven smith I was wondering if anyone had a tape of a mats gig in Vancouver, Canada on 4/7/87, I was at the gig and they were really really drunk and I'd love to hear it, also a gig on November 3rd or 4th 1985 in Vancouver I was also at that one and took a lot of pictures and would like to negotiate some sort of trade if possible. Also looking for someone with the capability and equipment to reproduce copies of photos whether it be on a high quality copier or through photo repro or any one with some good ideas on the topic, I would be willing to share some excellent photos of the Mats taken pre 86 with Bob. Give me a shout at callned@intergate.bc.ca From: Elmo in ME Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 20:04:27 EST Hi all of you fellow Skyway subscribers!!! I am a sophomore in high school. I was introduced to the 'Mats about 3 years ago. Since then I have gotten all of their albums, but unfortunately I was too late to see them in concert. The closest thing to me being there is "Another Girl, Another Planet" on All for Nothing, Nothing for all. I would be eternally grateful if I could work something out with some one out there for a copy of one of their bootlegs. Unfortunately I have nothing to offer you. Not even another bootleg of another band. If you are interested please write to elmoinme@aol.com I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again!!! From: Spikeblack@aol.com Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 21:34:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tommy Keene!!! I know there's a lot of Tommy Keene fans out there in Skyway land, if not just for his appearance in Paul's band last year. Tommy has a new record set for release on Feb. 24 from Matador. This news comes from Rock Beat Int'l a little zine out of Baltimore dedicated to Geoff Cabin's musical obsessions. He'll do a series of well-annotated cover stories on the work of a particular artist (currently Graham Parker, previously Tommy Keene) plus news items and album reviews. $4 U.S. for 4 issues and back issues available too: Rock Beat Int'l, PO Box 27636, Towson, VD 21285. Geoff Cabin: rockbeat@erols.com Amplifier mag also did a cover on TK last spring (tho I think its sold out now) and had a brief review of the Grandpa Boy 7" in the last issue, and I would expect a review of the GB CD and maybe AFN/NFA in the next issue. I know Paul Westerberg is the publishers favorite songwriter to give you an idea of the guy's taste. If you're curious about Tommy Keene the Rock Beat issues are a good place to start, the PW issue of the BOB last year also had a TK interview (with the BEST R.E.M. story), his 96 Matador release is titled Ten Years After and Matador is very efficient w/ mail order, Alias has an excellent compilation of his 80's stuff The Real Underground, they also do mail order, if you can find any of his Geffen releases GRAB 'EM! Tommy also provides one of the anecdotes in the AFN/NFA liner notes. And if anyone has a copy of Strange Alliance they'd like to share -- Email me please! And thank you for your attention, we now return to your regular programming: ALL MATS ALL THE TIME. Wendy Shea fin. ________________________________________________________________________________ The //Skyway\\: The Replacements Mailing List (digest only) http://www.novia.net/~matt/sky/skyway.html The //Skyway\\ | c/o Matt Tomich | 311 S. LaSalle #43g | Durham NC 27705 | USA Happy holi-daze.