______________________________________________________________________________ // // The \\kyway \\ // skyway@novia.net Issue #66 April 26th, 1999 ______________________________________________________________________________ (c) 1999 Bastards of Young (BOY/BetaOmegaYamma) Productions list manager: Matthew Tomich (matt@novia.net) always thanks to: Bob Fulkerson ______________________________________________________________________________ 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. i hate music (Matt Tomich) I. never shows her soul (Rob Chapman, Michelle Picardo, Brian, Woody Hoerauf, Tim Perri, Ed Best) II. love and hate notes about <> (Hugh Hardy, Tony Montesano, Mark Timmins, Hans Huttel, Mike, John Anderson, Maude Lang, Mike Rhodes) III. i'll buy (Jonathan Rundman and Ahron Shapiro) _____________________________________________________________________________ 0. I HATE MUSIC Except from a novella of a 'small by promising' East Coast power-pop-punk band booking a week (or two)-long summer tour: NOON, FRIDAY "Hello, Harrison's tavern." "Hey, what's up. Are you the guy that does booking?" "No, that's T.J. Here's here on Mondays and Thursdays between 2 and 4." "Alright, I'll call back." "Right." 2:10 MONDAY, THE NEXT WEEK *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* 3:30 *ring* *ring* *ring* 3:15 THURSDAY *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* *ring* 4:10 "Harrison's tavern" "Yeah, hey, is T.J. there?" "This is him" "Hey T.J., hiya, I'm Matt from The Scaries from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We're gonna be on tour and we're looking for something at your place on Thursday, May 27th." "Alright, send me your tape and stuff to *rattles off address*." "Cool, thanks." 3:17 THURSDAY *busy signal* 3:22 THURSDAY *busy signal* 3:49 THURSDAY "Harrison's tavern. T.J." "Hey T.J., this is Matt from the Scaries. Did you get the tape?" "Uhm, I dunno. I think it's around here somewhere." "Alright, well, how about May 27th then?" "Give me a call back next week." "Alright." 2:05 THURSDAY, THE FOLLOWING WEEK "Harrison's tavern. T.J." "T.J., this is Matt from The Scaries, how do things look for the 27th of May?" "Let's see, we've got King Tool playin' that night. If you want to get on the bill, send in a tape and your press kit." "I sent you that shit three weeks ago." "Oh yeah?. Well, I can put yah on the bill..." "Sounds cool, thanks." "...King Tool has a $300 guarantee, so you'll make whatever we get after that." "Ah..." "We don't have anything on the 28th." "Ah, we're playing Long Island. We were looking for the 27th." "I can't guarantee you any money from the door, but you can come play." "We'd be six hours from the next show, so ah, probably not." "Well, I'll find somebody else to open for those guys. Alright, well give us a call next time." "You betcha." - m@. (the rest of the tour dates are at http://www.novia.net/~matt/rock.html and http://www.novia.net/~matt/rock/shows.html) P.S. still open for shows for May 23, 24, 27, and 30 - we'll play any or all living rooms, garages, and basements between D.C. and Quebec (except for Harrison's Tavern in Connecticut.) _____________________________________________________________________________ I. NEVER SHOWS HER SOUL From: r.chapman@ns.sympatico.ca (Robert Chapman) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 03:11:26 -0400 Through the confinements of Punk Rock culture, I ignored and missed out on this band. I was too busy rebelling and at the same time conforming (to what a punk was supposed to be) to listen to these guys. The last five years of mine have been spent listening to the few bands that have successfully carried over (from punk) to my life now and catching up on a band I did not know. I bought "Tim" and "Pleased To Meet Me" and thought they were fantastic so I bought "All for Nothing" which is AMAZING!! But then I read complaints that this never covered the Twin-Tone years so I bought "Let It Be". WOW!! I haven't stopped listening to it!!! I hear so much of what is now popular (on the radio) in this band. THEY ROCK!!! Just on an interesting note (or so I think) a girlfriend in my past put me down for being involved in punk, saying that we were a million times more conformist (esp in the '80s) than the rest of pop culture ... but when I (in defense) brought up The Replacements, she had no defense. I know they are not punk but how else can I describe this band to the average radio junkie??? Also, there needs to be a musical style that doesn't have a "modern" niche. By that I mean its got to be foot-tappin' good but outside of rock'n'roll there should be no label for it (except maybe porch music). When you go into a record store now everything is labelled and has its place which is all a ploy to market stuff by the big record companies. Why can't it all be lumped together? Labelling stuff encourages kids to listen to one "style" of music (like me in my punk years). And I suppose that if the marketers know what style of music kids want to hear they can make a better pitch to sell that particular style. Excuse my rant-- I really want to go off now with a million more complaints about the 'biz and how it robs bands of their artistic integrity as soon as they are signed but you probably don't want to hear that (or you've heard it a million times before). Cheers and Rock-On Rob Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 18:41:36 -0500 From: dje Subject: pleased to meet me Last night I was watching Friends, as I always do on Thursdays and have been sticking around for that show after, Jesse. Well, I was hysterical when that show featured the classic Replacements' "Pleased To Meet Me" poster!!! On prime-time, must-see! I wondered if anyone else saw and felt the urge to connect with Replacement die-hards, so I looked up this webpage. It seem very cool, and I'm looking forward to subscribing. "Pleased" was the first Mats record I got into and from there, my love for the band took an interesting turn. I ended up working for their management company in NYC for like five years. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had, because I truly believed in the band and their integrity. I might be able to share some "inside" information at a later time, but for now I just wanted to say Hi! Michelle Picardo (mpicardo@eznet.net) From: Mrdobalena@aol.com Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 09:34:08 EST Subject: nothing in particular Hey, came across the Replacements in 1988, I was working with a company where I had to do alot of driving, so I had alot of time to listen to music, I hate the radio, so I usually take along tapes that I have made up. I was also in a band at the time and my guitar player had been hot on The Replacements since Let It Be came out, but I never paid much attention to him, he was always into the flavor of the day. Anyway, he made me up a tape of "Tim" and "Pleased To Meet Me" [the latter has become one of my all time favorites next to the white album by the Beatles] well I fell in love with this tape. I anxiously waited for their next release, which was "Don't Tell A Soul." On April 7 1989 my buddy and I got second row seats at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia for that tour. It was great, they came charging out on stage, Paul grabbed the mike stand and brought it past the monitors closer to the crowd, and said "I don't wanna hear my voice anyway," from that moment on they put on a blistering show, at one point the PA system went out, Paul came in to the crowd and sang Nightclub Jitters, never losing a beat. Next we saw them backing up Tom Petty August 15, 1989. You could kind of tell they didn't want to be there, but we sat in the third row, that on its own was pretty exciting, to sit that close again. What was to be the last Replacements album All Shook Down came out and on March 2, 1991 I saw them again at the Tower Theater, this time I sat in the tenth row. The show was fantastic, the only thing that brought it down was the fact I had brought my girlfriend who really didn't like them [I should have went with my buddy, oh well] I didn't know it but it would be the last time I would be able to see them together. Next I got to see and meet both Tommy and Paul on their solo tours, Tommy with Bash and Pop and Paul with the band he toured with for 14 Songs. Tommy was extremely nice, he was hanging out and talking to everyone before the show, we hung out together and watched the opening act. Paul on the other hand was kind of a strange cat, not too friendly, but was nice enough to say hello to everybody who had stayed after the show and waited to see him in the parking lot. Before he came out I hung out with Darren Hill [his bass player] who was a great guy, and Scott Wieland from Stone Temple Pilots, who's band was playing the next night in Philly. Next came one of many meetings with Slim Dunlap, who can make you feel like he's been your friend for years. Slim has taken time to hang out with my buddy Chris and I every time he comes to town. The last time he came into town it was for an acoustic set, which was great. He sat with us the whole night and just bullshited about life and music. Very enjoyable conversation with a really nice guy. At the time he said he was being dropped by Medium Cool Records, which really sucks, his albums have been some of my favorite post 'Mats releases. As far as I know he hasn't put anything out since "Times Like This," but he had told me he had finished an albums worth of material. I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR IT !!!!! I came across Tommy again twice with his band Perfect, he was more than happy to hang out and say hello to me and my friends. Last I saw him was an acoustic show he did at the Pontiac Grille in Philly. It was wild to see him doing an acoustic show, it was fabulous. He was sick that night, so he went on before the opening act, but he stopped to say hello to me and my friends after the show before he left. That was March 7, 1998. I can't begin to tell you how their music has affected my life, in good and bad times. It has gotten me thru some tough times when I was kinda down about things and it has made the good times even better. I'm glad to see someone has put together a GREAT web site for us fans who are starving for more mat's information, Great job my man. Thanx for listening to my ramblings. Brian Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 20:00:03 -0400 From: Woody Hoerauf Hey: Blah, blah, blah, blah . . .SUBSCRIBE SKYWAY! Terrific website. I've had my computer for a couple of years now, but I've only just recently discovered all of the neat things I can find with it. Now I don't ever watch television; I just play on the computer. Much better, though, since I can listen to music (ie., Mats) while doing so. Here's my brush with greatness, once-removed: I worked with a fella several years ago who once asked me if I'd ever heard of a band called The Replacements. He told me he'd party'd with them after a show down in Detroit. He said they were pretty cool, but he couldn't give me any details since he didn't really remember anymore, if he even remembered the next morning. The thing is he still had no idea who they were, probably still doesn't. Thanks, Woody Hoerauf Date: 18 Apr 99 12:53:58 EDT From: tim perri I was living in Boone, NC during the All Shook Down tour and went to see The Mats in both Charlotte and Raleigh over a four day period. Two nights later, they were playing in Atlanta, but I was stuck working at the Record Bar wishing I was driving south. Some sort of divine guidance must have been at play because a co-worker called to ask if she could finish my shift that day in exchange for my working her's the next day. All systems were go, so I ran to the bank, got an oil change, and hit the road, After realizing I was running way late, I travelled 260 miles in 3 hours (you can do that on I-85) and made it just as All had finished packing up. I knew this was probably my last chance to see the Mats and hoped for a great set. The show was a typical Paul show, uneven with moments of absolute brilliance, but the coup de gras came at the very last. Paul had grown visibly disgusted watching a group of slam dancers and a bunch of guys who didn't appreciate being run into almost start a fight. The band finished with "Sonic Reducer, " which got faster and faster until Paul finally smashed his guitar at the song's penultimate moment. No encore, but what a great image that will stick in my head forever. Tim Perri From: "ed best" Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 10:15:43 -0400 first let me say thanks for putting up this site. i'm a forty year old guy who first got into the replacements in 1982 when i heard "stuck in the middle" on wprb (princeton's college radio station) and have been a fan ever since. my favorite stuff is with bob (the greatest lead guitar player ever). even tho i think paul is the greatest song writer ever the band lost its edge when he left/got kicked out. it also seemed like when they got singed to a "real" label the record companies tried to tone them down in their infinite wisdom and it really didn't work. i play guitar (a black tele like on sorry ma...) and have some good tab for angels walk, takin' a ride, on the bus, shiftless when idle, love you on friday, stuck in the middle and i'll send em out when i figure out how. do you have any contacts to get some live recordings? or bootleg stuff? i had an old tape of shit hits the fan but its long since bit the dust. i would really love to get my hands on some older stuff w/bob on guitar. i'm really looking forward to getting any and all replacements related stuff. after 17 years i still think they were the best. what did you think of Paul's latest? i was a little disappointed (really liked songs and eventually) at first but its growing on me. wish it had a little more punch tho'. thanks. e.best@worldnet.att.net _____________________________________________________________________________ II. LOVE NOTES AND HATE LETTERS (After playing with so many attachments and putting them in one big file for this section, I lost who submitted some of these reviews. If your name isn't listed next to your submission, let me know and I'll fix that action. Lo siento! - m@) From: "Montesano, Tony" Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 21:31:56 -0800 So what do my 'Mats penpals think of the new Westerberg CD? Have you heard it yet? I must say I am quite disappointed. The track that is getting radio play on XRT, "Looking Out Forever" is probably the best song on there and it is not that good. I'll have to listen to it a few times; I admit that much of Paul's music can be an acquired taste. I just really don't hear anything different on the album than what he's done on his last two albums. And it is way mellow. I mean not even mid-tempo. Slow. I suppose "Born For Me" with Shawn Colvin isn't too bad. WXRT last night on their review show absolutely ripped it, saying Paul has started to believe his own press that he is a good singer/songwriter, so he set out to make a James Taylor record, and let's face it, he's not James Taylor. Anyway, I'd love to hear (or read I guess) your thoughts. Tony Montesano SIEMENS Office Solutions Group Tel: 773-395-0843 Fax: 773-395-0897 tony.montesano@icn.siemens.com http://www.siemensosg.com From: mark_timmins@mail.cbpi.com Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 15:47:16 -0500 Subject: Boston Phoenix review of _Suicaine Gratifaction_ There's a moderately positive review of Paul's new album in the Boston Phoenix, which I attach below. (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/music/99/02/25/POP_ROCKS.html) -Mark Saint Paul The Cult of Westerberg I think it was 1990. I know it was the last time I saw the Replacements live. And it was definitely the Orpheum in Boston. And, well, it was disappointing. At the time I shrugged off my relative lack of enthusiasm as the inevitable result of having to sit and watch from a hundred rows back a band I'd seen up close and personal in smaller clubs like the old Living Room in Providence and the Channel in Boston. After all, it was still the Replacements, the greatest American rock-and-roll band fronted by the best American songwriter of the post-punk generation. And, if I'm remembering correctly, they played a great version of "Answering Machine." More than any other band of their era, the Replacements came to inspire a kind of blind devotion that's hard to quantify, with unkempt singer Paul Westerberg serving as the focal point for a cult of anti-personality. Four clowns on a hopeless mission to change the world. That's how I once described the band to a friend who had no idea what I was talking about. And in retrospect, the Replacements' failure to capitalize on their infamy was a foregone conclusion. Their doomed existence embodied the inevitable failure of all things of quality in Reagan/Bush America. They were a lost cause. And the lost ones really are the best ones. Futility, as Cervantes once pointed out and van Gogh once demonstrated, breeds an irresistible kind of brilliance or, I guess, nothing at all. And, as I now think back on that Orpheum show, eventually that brilliance is apt to fade into something more mundane. "I was the best thing that never happened," sings the aging Westerberg on one of the catchier tracks that grace his new solo CD, Suicane Gratifaction (Capitol). It's the sort of proudly self-depreciating line that's always been a Westerberg specialty. And at first it seems to hit its mark -- you can almost hear a collective murmur of agreement from the dozens of old Replacements fans scattered about the world welling up in its wake. The line brings to mind the snapshot of a young drunk band stumbling on the ladder of success in the 1985 Replacements anti-anthem "Bastards of Young," only now the singer's looking back on that farce as a secret triumph. Except, "Best Thing that Never Happened" isn't really about the Replacements at all. It's a love song of the unrequited variety -- "I was the last thing that you ever wanted/Still the best thing you never had," goes the bridge -- and in its own modestly produced, hummably familiar, pleasantly clever way, it's solid songwriting. Still, its hard to resist the urge to search for scrapbook memories of the Replacements -- a stray lyric, chord, melody, or vocal inflection to connect with the past -- in a Westerberg solo album. Not counting 1990s' All Shook Down -- a Replacements album in name only -- Suicane Gratifaction is Westerberg's third, but he's still teasing himself and fans of his old band. The hook of "Best Thing" is baited with bittersweet hints at his musical past, and the opening track, the strum & sung "It's a Wonderful Lie," finds the singer wondering, "What am I doing I ain't in my youth?/I'm past my prime or was that just a pose?" But growing up has turned out to be less of a problem for Westerberg than outgrowing the shadows cast by past accomplishments. The quality debate over Westerberg's solo career continues among the Replacement faithful. Some old fans aren't happy with the number of "mellower" tunes on his solo albums, and they probably won't be pleased by the tinkling piano notes and melancholy cello embellishments that accompany his weathered voice on the new album. Others aren't happy with the people who aren't happy with the number of mellower tunes on his solo albums. Both sides seem to have forgotten that some of Westerberg's greatest Replacements tunes were slow, moody, reflective tracks like "Sixteen Blue," "Unsatisfied," and "Here Comes a Regular." What's changed in his songs isn't the tempo or even the instrumentation so much as the tone. He's grown a little colder, more withdrawn, and seemingly more dispassionate with each new album. It's not a hopeful sign that Suicane Gratifaction ends with two almost impenetrably joyless tunes -- "Actor in the Street" and "Bookmark." But then, being a real Replacements fan has always been about learning to live with little disappointments. From: mark_timmins@mail.cbpi.com Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 18:12:01 -0500 Subject: Suicaine review Matt: Attached for submission to //Skyway\\ (if you don't think it's too self-indulgent :-) is a dialogue I had back and forth this past week with my friend Mike who has been a Mats fans as long as I have. (Yes, Mike agreed to let me quote him.) Mike: ... just finished listening to Suicaine Gratification. It was background music for the most part (I was on calls and shit) so I can't really say this is valid yet. Didn't notice any "rockers" on this one. I guess the "Bastards of the Red, Red Wine" days are over. Oh well. I'm sure Perfect will plug in the amps if they ever put a record out. I tried to listen to "Born for Me" but I couldn't really hear Shawn Colvin on it - I'll listen later when the call volume decreases. From now on he will be referred to as Paul Wussyberg. Mark: Upon first listen, I really liked Paul's new album, which I fear is a bad sign (I'm up now to about listen #4 or 5). There are a few "rockers" on there -- nothing in the reckless vein of the Mats in their heyday, but loudish and uptempo nonetheless. Some of the slower numbers are quality tracks, so me are throw-aways. The whole thing has a very crude DIY feel to it, and sounds like a demo. I'll let you know what I think of it after a few more listens. Mike: As for Mr. Wussyberg, I really like the new album a lot, also, and I also fear that I like it too much, too soon. I know how to play "Best thing you never had" mostly because it's the easiest. I really like "Wonderful Lie" and "Fugitive Kind". I have found myself quoting "Self-defense" twice now ("Is it wrong to commit a suicide if it's only self-defense", and the bit about the "boy who cried benefit") Mark: My blow-by-blow review of Suicaine Gratifaction: (1) It's a Wonderful Lie -- what Grandpaboy coulda been, with a little effort. The first track sets the stage for the whole album, and he uses it to confess that he's now too old to thrash, and that all of that was just a pose, anyway. Mike: For whatever reason, this is the one I was humming after the first few listens. Mark: (2) Self-Defense -- has its moments, but is basically a half (un)written Tom Waits song. It sounds more to me like a last or second-to-last kinda track (a la "Skyway") than a second-to-first track. And just what does "the boy who cried benefit" mean? Mike: Agreed. But there are a few really good lines in it. Perhaps it's due to my current situation, but I take "the boy who cried benefit" to be the boy who chooses to take the safe road (company and benefits) to the more maverick road (join a band, open your own business) Mark: (3) Best Thing That Never Happened -- this *is* rockin', if you're 38. Definitely has that second single feel to it. Catchy, but with the typical Westerbergian dark undercurrent. Mike: I know this the best, because I can play it, and it has too many verses and not enough lyrics. I like it, but it's repetitive lyrics are starting to ruin it for me. Mark: (4) Lookin' Out Forever -- I assume this is the first single? It sounds the most overtly radio-friendly of all the songs. It's only 3:43, but it seems about a minute longer than the lyrical content justifies. Mike: I like it. Closest thing I guess I can hope for to "Pleased to Meet Me". Mark: (5) Born for Me -- the fact that Shawn Colvin is on there is cool, but largely immaterial. This fits into the same compartment in my mind as "Love Untold" and "Sadly Beautiful." Mike: Can't seem to get into this one. Maybe it's because I saw on the liner notes that Shawn Colvin was on it, and it was song 7 before I said to myself "Hey, I though Shawn Colvin was on this damn thing" and had to listen to it again to find out it was just some crummy backup role. Too smaltzy even for me! Mark: (6) Final Hurrah -- nothing here we haven't heard him do better before. Mike: Yeah. This is almost self-parody. Mark: (7) Tears Rolling Up Our Sleeves -- except for the slightly clever pun/imagery in the title phrase, this song is largely disposable. Mike: I like this one. I was thinking this was gonna be the single. Haven't delved into it lyrically, but this one jumps out when you're only half paying attention Mark: (8) Fugitive Kind -- the deep and smoky vocals in the intro are a nice touch (a la Tom Waits). Is that Paul on lead guitar?!? Mike: My favorite right now. Smoky Vocals - he was my favorite Miracle. I wish I knew how to play this one. Mark: (9) Sunrise Always Listens -- very nice. Paul succeeds here with what Dave Pirner failed to accomplish on "The Sun Maid". Mike: This is what, in my mind, made me call him Paul Wussyberg. Mark: (10) Whatever Makes You Happy -- D'oh! Did someone say Dave Pirner? Can you say "style/substance disjunction"? This is a sad song dressed up as a happy one. Mike: It's OK, at best. I'd probably make it through the day if you told me I could never listen to this song again, but I don't flip to the next selection when it's on, either. Mark: (11) Actor in the Street -- I haven' quite worked thru the significance of all the Jesus imagery, but the fact that I'm thinking about it says something positive. Mike: Sounds like it's from the point of view of a guy who feels other people are getting the attention he deserves. Thumbs down, fer now. If I listen more closely to the lyrics, there'd better be a payoff! Mark: (12) Bookmark -- a very nice Tom Waitsian closer, "Eleanor Rigby" cellos and all. Mike: Nice last song. I'll have to play it for all the chix I know who's father left when they were young and tell them that I wrote it so they think I really understand them and I can get in their pants. Mark: Nice! From: Hans Huttel a. Westerberg's new album. b. Susan James - a T. Stinson connexion. a. Westerberg's new album. -------------------------- [ Two short telephone conversations with shop assistants at local record/CD/whatever shops follow, both in translation from the Danish: ] 1: Hans: Have you got the new album by Paul Westerberg? Shop assistant: How do you spell that? Hans: "P-a-ul W-e-s-t-e-r-b-e-r-g" Shop assistant (asks someone else): Have we got something by someone called Westerberg? Someone else: I'll look it up in our database. (30 seconds later; a particularly disgusting pop song can be heard in the background.) Shop assistant: I am afraid we don't stock this particular item. Hans: But... I've phoned the Danish distributor. They say it is being released in Denmark. Shop assistant: The record company does not distribute this CD to shops. It would not sell. Hans: Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies? (Hans hangs up.) 2: Hans: Have you got the new album by Paul Westerberg? Shop assistant: How do you spell that? Hans: "P-a-ul W-e-s-t-e-r-b-e-r-g" Shop assistant: What kind of music is it? Just normal pop/rock? Hans: Well, yes. But he's not just anyone. He used to be the lead singer of The Replacements. Shop assistant: Let me look it up in our database. (2 minutes later) Shop assistant: Well, we do not stock it. But we could order it for you. -- I eventually decide to have shop no. 2 order "Suicaine Gratifaction". Three additional phone calls and two visits later, I finally got the CD and promised myself never to buy anything there again if I could avoid it. Fortunately, "Suicaine Gratifaction" was worth the wait. I would even say that it is Westerberg's best solo album so far. Some of the songs that stand out: "It's A Wonderful Lie" is Paul Westerberg at his best. "Best Never That Never Happened" is a good pop song reminiscent of (sorry about all these comparisons) Neil Finn although it also shows the limitations of Paul W.'s voice. "Bookmark" reminds me quite a bit of Tom Waits and that is a huge compliment. I am bit puzzled, though, by the bonus track - "Wonderful Copenhagen", of all songs! As far as I know, Paul Westerberg has only visited Denmark once, and that was eight years ago. I had never known he was so fascinated by our capital... I know only of one other Dane who has "Suicaine Gratication", none other than a singer/songwriter who has written and recorded a number of well-known songs about Copenhagen. He, too, told me that he wondered what the story behind the bonus track might be. b. Susan James - a T. Stinson connexion. ---------------------------------------- Last Friday, my girlfried and I saw Susan James and Granfaloon Bus at a local venue. Granfaloon Bus play sloppy country rock reminiscent of The Band (although I think they wouldn't mind sounding more like The Jayhawks...). I wasn't overly impressed. Susan James was IMHO much more interesting - reminiscent of Joni Mitchell and more recent singer/songwriters such as Ani di Franco and Tori Amos. Not only does she have a good voice, she is also a more than decent guitar player and has a good sense of humour. How would YOU react if you were a solo performer at a small venue and two guys suddenly began providing your music with interpretative homo-erotic dancing choreographed by 16 beers and liberal amounts of dope? Okay, so why do I mention the Susan James gig in this forum? I bought her CD ("Fantastic Voyage") and discovered that a Tommy Stinson plays bass on most of the songs. I asked her if this was THE Tommy Stinson, and yes, it was. - Hans -- 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 D8, DENMARK | Fight spam! http://www.cauce.or Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 06:06:35 -0800 (PST) From: Mike Subject: Suicaine Gratifaction Well, I had to do this eventually, so I guess I'll do it now. I know how Mats fans are gonna react to Paul's new album: half of them will love it to death, and the other half will want to hunt him down and kill him. So, here's what I've got to say in defense of Suicaine Gratifaction: it's amazing, the best album he's put out under his own name since the Replacements broke up. I've listened to it enough times to figure out how I feel about every song, and even the bad ones are good. By that I mean stuff that's crap musically ("Self Defense," in particular) makes up for itself with brilliant lyrics. I'm sure a lot of people are complaining about the more unusual stuff, like Bookmark and french horns, but you've gotta give Paul credit for taking chances. BIG chances. Of course most people are gonna like stuff like "Lookin' Out Forever," "Final Hurrah," and "Fugitive Kind" (I can't think of the title, but he stole most of that from one of his other albums). The thing that's great about Suicaine Gratifaction is that, as always, it's painfully honest, a reflection of who Paul is right now. The fact that you have to wait until the third song to hear drums doesn't mean Paul's sold out, it means that he's grown up and he's not gonna hide it like some musicians do. Of course, a lot of us haven't grown up yet, and maybe it's still easier to relate to "Let It Be" and "Tim," but someday, when we're middle-aged fathers on medication, we'll all understand this a little better. That was pretty incoherent, but you probably got the point. Mike From: JohnFA2@aol.com Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 10:22:53 EST Paul Westerberg: A Fresh Start for an Ex-Replacement PAUL WESTERBERG: 'SUICAINE GRATIFACTION' Like the MC5 and Husker Du, the Replacements are one of rock's most fabled failures. Fronted by the poet Paul Westerberg, the Replacements, the critic Robert Christgau once wrote, "sound both funny and fun, which is always the idea." And the band's leader? "No songwriter in memory," Mr. Christgau added, paying the ultimate punk-rock compliment, "matches Paul Westerberg's artful artlessness." Indeed, the Replacements served as an icon to countless young bands in the 1980's that appropriated their amplifier-crunching sound and nihilistic teen-age attitude. While some copycats signed with major labels and sold millions, the Replacements imploded in anarchic, alcoholic mayhem. Mr. Westerberg, meanwhile, kept writing, releasing "14 Songs" on Sire Records in 1993. His first solo effort, it sounded like a good Replacements album, minus the Replacements, and sold poorly. Few people even remember "Eventually," his 1996 follow-up. Though he never sold out, Mr. Westerberg appeared on soundtrack albums ranging from "Friends" to "Singles," which seemed like the equivalent of Joey Ramone perched next to Soupy Sales on "The Hollywood Squares." But weep no more, Westerberg fans. For on his new record, "Suicaine Gratifaction," produced by Mr. Westerberg with the well-known career resuscitator Don Was, he has found not only a fresh label (Capitol) but also lyrics and licks that combine the manic energy of youthful angst with the thoughtfulness born of adult responsibility. (He is 39 and a new father.) While not as influential as the Replacements' "Let it Be" (1984) or "Pleased to Meet Me" (1987), the album is an excellent portrait of a songwriter nearing middle age, an especially hard trick when one's mythology is built on adolescent rage. While the music blares much less often than in the old days, it is now possible to even relax to Paul Westerberg songs. Yet his lyrics bite harder than ever. "A Wonderful Lie" is the best cut. It is a dark-night-of-the-soul ballad in which Mr. Westerberg asks, "What am I doing/ I ain't in my youth/ I'm past my prime/ Or was that just a pose?" Yet he never whines; humor, not regret over what might have been, beams through two songs later when he declares, "I'm the best thing/ that never happened." However, lest anyone doubt that this is a Paul Westerberg album, he also offers a few cranked-up rockers like "Final Hurrah" and "Lookin' Out Forever." Alternately mellow and shrill, "Suicaine Gratifaction" will please those who had long ago given up on Mr. Westerberg. His latest effort isn't old-timer's day at the ball park, but the next step up for one of rock's most talented survivors. NEAL KARLEN Sunday, March 28, 1999 Copyright 1999 The New York Times From: MaudeLang@aol.com Subject: best PW story I've seen Date: Wednesday, March 10, 1999 5:29PM [Note: the following article claims in a roundabout way that Bob Stinson died of a drug overdose, a statement not supported by cororner's reports. - m@] http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999/021199/music1.html Bastard of middle age Paul Westerberg digs into a deep, dark place and makes a brilliant, horrible record By Robert Wilonsky "On those first two solo records, I needed to prove that I could do what the Replacements did," Paul Westerberg says. "And maybe what I did was prove that I couldn't." Bob Stinson died alone on February 18, 1995. He was discovered on the couch of his Minneapolis home, a syringe laying next to his slumped-over corpse. Nine years after being adiosed as the Replacements' guitarist, good ol' Bob - dress-wearing Bob, fun guy Bob, crazy fuckin' Bob - kicked his drug habit the real hard way, leaving his friends and former bandmates to ponder a life well-lived but wasted nonetheless. His funeral a few days after the 35-year-old's overdose would reunite the Replacements one final time: Paul Westerberg, Chris Mars, Bob's younger brother Tommy, and Bob all dressed up with no place to go. So much for getting the band back together. In the words of another famous Minnesota boy, the former Robert Zimmerman, "Death can be the result of a most underrated pain." But as Westerberg sat there looking at his old friend lying in a coffin, he couldn't focus on the task at hand - grieving Bob, burying him in the hard ground. He was too busy trying not to listen to the music blaring from the speakers Bob's mother had set up - those old Replacements songs, especially the loud, fast, and sloppy early ones from Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash and The Replacements Stink, coming back to haunt the man who wrote them and barely sang them. As Bob lay in his coffin - "stiff as a board," Westerberg recalls now, his voice a deadpan drone bereft of sadness - it was all Paul could do to keep from leaping from his seat and bolting from the funeral parlor. All Westerberg could think about was: I sound like shit. He felt foolish, selfish, like a real asshole. But still, Paul couldn't stop thinking it: I sound like shit. "There is Bob, laying there, and then 'Fuck School' comes blaring over the speakers," Westerberg recalls. "God love him, God rest his soul. But I could only think, like, 'How could I have fucking sang like this?' To me, I was in hell. There's a guy I loved who's dead, and to punish me, they had to play my music, and that was really tough. If there's going to be a movie ever about the Replacements, that has to be included. That was one in a million, really. They played the entire catalog. I walked in as they were playing 'Johnny's Gonna Die.' There was some irony for sure." And then Westerberg lets out a sad little chuckle. "Please don't play my stuff when I die," he says, almost begging. "I want nothing but John Coltrane." Westerberg, now 38, would like nothing more than to leave the Replacements behind him, a speck in the rear-view mirror. That band has been broken up for almost the entirety of the 1990s; its final album, 1990's All Shook Down, wasn't even a real Replacements record at all, more like a Westerberg solo record with some special guests, among them bassist Tommy Stinson and drummer Chris Mars, reduced to cameos where once they had been featured attractions. He participated in the assembling of Warner Bros. Records' 1997 two-disc best-and-rest-of All For Nothing, Nothing For All, but only because he was resigned to the fact that it would be done with or without his assistance. Better to choose your own fate than leave it in the hands of the label you abandoned when they couldn't sell your records. Westerberg is on his third solo album now, Suicaine Gratifaction, due in stores February 23. It is a disc full of home demos recorded on piano, fleshed out later in a studio with old pro Don Was making things slick and shiny. The new album - its lyrics ambiguous and poetic, sung in hushed tones by a man who used to scream as though each performance were his next to last - is so far removed from the Replacements or even Westerberg's first two solo albums, it might as well have been made by someone else. And maybe it was. Westerberg has no time or desire to look backward, to consider his past mistakes or his ancient triumphs. That's for other people to ponder - those of us who came of age with Hootenanny, Let it Be, Tim, and Pleased to Meet Me; those of us for whom songs such as "Unsatisfied" and "Within Your Reach" and "I Will Dare" and "Bastards of Young" were title tracks to the college years. No other 1980s band - save, perhaps, R.E.M., who stuck around too long to become legendary - has been so romanticized by the survivors of the Amerindie revolution. No other band back then wore its heart on its puke-stained sleeve, or sang unrelenting heartbreakers after getting fall-down drunk in the van, or got its kicks from playing slatternly Jackson 5 and T. Rex and Thin Lizzy covers before passing out on stage. The Replacements exist 19 years after their formation as a symbol now, an emblem - The Last Great American Rock and Roll Band. At least, that's what the Replacements' tombstone reads. And while Westerberg is more than willing to engage in a discussion of his past, it's clear he would prefer to talk about the here and now - the new label after a decade on Warner Bros., the nervous breakdown and "dark places" that accompanied the making of Suicaine Gratifaction, his desire to stay away from the stage as long as possible. He is a far, far different man than he was during his days in the Replacements. He's a father of a son less than a year old. He has been sober for almost a decade. And now, when he rocks, Westerberg does so only as a side project and in the shadows. In 1997, on a tiny label out of Boston, he released a five-song EP called Grandpaboy, with Westerberg assuming all the parts. The disc, credited to "Winthorpe Marion Percival V," sounds more like an echo or a vestige than the real thing, like B-sides recorded around the time of Pleased to Meet Me in 1987 - lots of horns, lots of silly jokes, songs titled "Homelessexual" and "Psychopharmacology." Yet the latter also hints at the mood-enhancers Westerberg took during the recording of Suicaine Gratifaction: "I need somethin' to calm me down / I need somethin' to keep me focused / Narcoleptic and paranoid...ADD, PCP, F-U-C-K-E-D, that's me." "I like that Grandpaboy junk," Westerberg says. "I like it, I miss it, I love it. But to think that it matters or means anything is ridiculous. I don't know if the stuff on Suicaine Gratifaction does either, but I'm just sort of betting on the smart money, hoping that in the long run, someday I'm going to touch somebody or influence somebody deeper with the music of the new records as opposed to 'Homelessexual.' I think I finally came to the point where I've made my bed: I'm a solo artist. Rock and roll can no longer be my forte if I'm going to be doing this alone. I'd love to do it for a weekend, but, you know..." His voice trails off. As far as he is concerned, the new record is his most honest, vulnerable work. No more hiding behind the band; no more ducking out of sentimental moments by throwing in the bad wisecrack; no more giving the fans what they want. It's the sort of record made by a guy who has only now figured out what he wants to do - which, in this case, means writing songs about growing up and growing out of rock and roll and trading in the guitar for piano. The album begins with a song, "It's a Wonderful Lie," about a man trying to figure out whether he's "past my prime" while wondering "was that just a pose?" And it ends with a song about a father who abandons his family, crushing his daughter "like the petals of a flower between the pages of a novel." In between are signposts that lead the way to a songwriter conflicted about where he's been and where he's going: Westerberg portrays himself as "an idiot and a genius," "the best thing that never happened," "a bad idea whose time has come"; and he's a man who believes "I've started to go out of my head." "It has to do with depression, and it has to do with like, to use a scenario, like a dark place in your mind where you go," Westerberg says of Suicaine Gratifaction, a record that has confounded even his oldest, closest friends. "I went deeper in there than I've ever gone before, and the only danger is that you don't know exactly how you're going to come back out, and I just kept going in deeper and deeper and deeper. I had a good two months, almost like a hermit at home. It was very stressful for whoever was around me. It led to medication and treatment and whatever. But through it all I knew that that's kind of where the gold lay. "It was like, I could stop now and pull myself back and go up and read a book and watch TV, or I can keep hunting for this thing that's gnawing away inside of me. I kind of chose to go deep. I hate to think that every single time, one would have to go that dark to get it, but if that is the case, then I guess you deal with it or make the decision to do what I really can at the risk of my own mental health. That's kind of why I feel like I'm starting over again. "I'm not prepared to go to that dark place again and again. I don't know what my next move is. I'm not prepared to reproduce these songs or go perform these. The other day, someone asked me, 'If this was your last record, would you be satisfied with it?' And I guess I would. It never crossed my mind that this was my final record, my swan song. But if I was hit by a truck tomorrow, it would sort of appear that way, because I went as deep as I've ever gone before. Who knows where I was supposed to go?" To answer that question, you have to go back to where he's been - Minneapolis in May of 1980. It was then that a 19-year-old Paul Westerberg gave a four-song demo to Peter Jesperson, who was then working at a local record store and running a Minneapolis record label, Twin/Tone. Jesperson has told the story so often it's become myth, a tale too good to be even a fraction of the truth, but he repeats it once more: Peter didn't even get halfway through the first song on the cassette, "Raised in the City," before he stopped the tape, phoned three friends, and begged them to come down and listen to the damned thing. He told them he was either crazy, or this brand-new band called the Replacements was the best thing he'd heard since the Rolling Stones. Perhaps no one can tell the Replacements story better than Jesperson, who immediately booked the band at the Longhorn Club in Minneapolis, where Jesperson worked as a DJ, and signed the band to Twin/Tone. It was Jesperson who took the band into the studio to record Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, released on Twin/Tone in 1981. It was Jesperson who pissed off half the Twin Cities' other punk bands by jumping the Replacements to the head of the line, in front of so many other groups who had been biding their time for the shot he'd promised them. In 1980, the Replacements were nothing more than a band fronted by a teenaged ex-janitor with broken-glass vocals, a lead guitarist whose main influences were Johnny Winter and Steve Howe, a drummer who adored Aerosmith, and a 12-year-old bass player who signed on with his brother. Their song titles included "Shut Up!" and "More Cigarettes" and "I Hate Music" (because "it's got too many notes!"); their sound was crap by way of shit, garage hardcore played by dudes who were convinced their junk-rock was arena-ready. They were first-rate screw-ups, bastards of young who bragged about writing songs "20 minutes after we recorded" Sorry Ma. And Jesperson, who was so often told they were a waste of time, insisted the Replacements were worth the small amount of agony. "It was such an incredible rush," he says of those early days recording and managing the Replacements. "We were lucky to have found each other. I don't know who was luckier. I had been in the Minneapolis scene for a long time when they came along, and people made fun of me for the Replacements. I remember people saying, 'A 12-year-old bass player? Real cool, Peter.' The Replacements didn't come into the scene being friendly to the other groups. They made their own space and weren't real sociable. People resented how quickly they made their claim." But there would never be any disputing how compellingly they did so: On 1982's The Replacements Stink, recorded just months after the debut, Westerberg was writing short, sharp anthems for every "White and Lazy" "Dope Smokin' Moron" in the audience who had said "Fuck School" and still needed a "God Damn Job." The music was hardcore with a furtive melody, a joke with a point, a punch line with a serious purpose. It was as though the 'Mats were performing an entire album's worth of responses and follow-ups to "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "My Generation." Westerberg's songs were nothing more than snippets of conversations overheard and borrowed, everyday dialogue set to a train-wreck beat for dancing and drinking. But they seemed enormous at the time, even bigger today. In retrospect, it's quite possible that later records - 1983's Hootenanny, '84's Let it Be, and the next year's Tim - have been overrated by the fanatics. They are not the perfect gems they're often portrayed as, not the sloppy masterpieces of a band known for drinking itself into oblivion before going into the studio or onto a stage. They contain too many half-assed moments to be considered truly great, too many songs easily skipped over once they were transferred to CD. And Let it Be, considered by the disciples to be the most perfect Replacements album, is a complete mess, full of cheap throwaway jokes ("Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out," "Gary's Got a Boner") and a horrible cover of a horrible KISS song ("Black Diamond") and at least one unlistenable song about cross-dressing ("Androgynous"). But there were a handful of songs on Hootenanny and Let it Be that seemed to mask all the flaws, that made them essential albums for the lost and lovelorn who found solace in electric guitars and drunken howls. "Within Your Reach" off Hootenanny revealed for the first time the softer, lonelier side of Westerberg: "I can live without your touch," he sang, the drum-machine-and-slide-guitar music sparse and empty behind him, "but I could die within your reach." That it was sandwiched between "Mr. Whirly" (which mutated the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields" into a punk-rock rant) and the surf-rocky instrumental "Buck Hill" only made it seem that much more an anomaly - The Geek hanging out with all The Jocks. Certainly the transcendent moments remain on Let it Be: "I Will Dare," "Answering Machine," and "Unsatisfied," three songs that could - and did - cover a multitude of sins. The first track on the record was this weird little pop song, so catchy and inviting, so desperate and real: "Meet me any place or any time or anywhere / If you will dare meet me tonight / If you will dare, I will dare." And the last was so utterly pathetic, the sound of a coward trying to proclaim his love for a woman and finding only her answering machine to talk to - and "how do you say I love you to an answering machine?" Westerberg wondered over nothing more than the sound of a furiously strummed electric guitar, his voice ripped in half. But it was "Unsatisfied" that remains Westerberg's gilt-edged moment, and it's nothing more than a ripped-off KISS riff ("Hard-Luck Woman," actually) and a man yelling over and over again: "I'm so...unsatisfieeeeeeeeeed." You could feel the song in your bones. Westerberg was always a wimp deep down, a softie, a broken-down romantic; the later records on Warner Bros., including 1987's Pleased to Meet Me and 1989's Don't Tell a Soul, were full of such lullaby moments: "The Ledge," "Skyway," "Achin' to Be." But the way Westerberg explains it now, he was almost too ashamed of those songs, afraid the guys in the band wouldn't understand that he didn't always want to write stoopid drunk-rock songs the rest of his life. "I'm proud of something like 'Unsatisfied,' but I probably would have written lyrics to the thing if I had written it now, and I probably would have ruined it rather than just screaming out," Westerberg says. "It's like, that was my way of making it appeal to the guys. Now, I probably would have written more. You'd have to go back to, like, 'Answering Machine' and stuff like that. You can hear me trying to include the group in almost everything. It's like...I don't know. Does it fucking matter?" Jesperson says that every now and then during the early days of the Replacements, Westerberg would write a ballad, record it at home, rush the tape 20 blocks down to Jesperson's apartment and slip it in the mailbox, then disappear before Peter ever got to the door. Jesperson explains that Westerberg was too afraid that he would either erase the tape or that one of the other Replacements would find the song and laugh at it. One such song, the Paul-alone "If Only You Were Lonely," made it to the B-side of a single in 1982. Another such track actually made it to a band rehearsal, a song titled "You're Getting Married," which features among its lyrics such lines as "You're like a guitar in the hands of some fool who can't play." But when Paul offered it to the band for inclusion on Hootenanny, Jesperson says, Bob Stinson stopped him cold. Bob is said to have told Westerberg, "That's not a Replacements song. Keep it for your solo record, Paul." "I have a live recording of them doing 'You're Getting Married' made on February 11, 1984, in Trenton, New Jersey," says Jesperson, who has spent the past several months compiling dozens and dozens of unreleased Replacements songs for a Twin/Tone boxed set he hopes to release within a year's time. "They attempted to do it in a completely drunken stupor, and it's one of the most precious things they did in their entire history. Paul makes up words, and I remember him singing this to a really hardcore crowd, this mohawk audience, and I thought at the time, 'They're gonna kill him.' But by the end of the song they're transfixed. And at the end of the song, Paul tells them, 'At least you fuckers ain't enemies. That's nice to know.'" Eventually, Westerberg would begin slowly dismantling the band, crawling toward the inevitable solo career. When he finally debuted all alone on 1993's 14 Songs, he sounded very much like a man still trying to reconcile who he wanted to be with who he thought he should be. Half the songs were tepid ballads; the other half, tepid rockers. It was ironic that when he toured for 14 Songs with a four-piece band - the Replacements' replacements - the songs came alive, sounding whole instead of like fragments of old reverberations. Eventually, released in 1996, was even more dull; Lord only knows how many times the words "James Taylor" appeared in reviews for the album, which can now be purchased for $4.91 in local used-CD bins, alongside his contributions to the soundtracks for Singles, Friends, and Melrose Place. Replacements fans couldn't help but shrug at the sad irony that while Chris Mars - booted from the band because he wanted the band to perform a few of his own songs - was recording in quick succession some brilliant, Ray Davies-fronting-the Replacements mini-gems, Westerberg was struggling without his old bandmates to prop him up. "On those first two solo records, I needed to prove that I could do what the Replacements did - and maybe what I did was prove that I couldn't," he says. "But either one, it's history. This is what I do. Now, people will say, 'What would the Replacements have added to this?' Well, we wouldn't have gotten around to doing 90 percent of it. When you have the guys of the group - even if it's just a small group, three or four people - it frees you a little more to make statements like, 'We are this,' or, 'We're gonna do this.' When you're all alone, you realize you've got to lay yourself on the line, because that's all you've got. No one is really covering you from behind anymore." Even less so now: Suicaine Gratifaction, his first album for Capitol Records, is the sound of a man so far out on a limb, even a fireman couldn't rescue him. It's a confusing, beautiful, unlistenable contradiction - the former Replacement recording with cellos and guitars turned down to one and guest vocalist Shawn Colvin brought in to sweeten up the sour moments. It's the sort of record that reveals the world about a man so many indie-rock fans have grown up with - and a record those very same fans will surely despise, wondering what the hell happened to their rock-and-roll hero. The Replacements left in their wake both the best and worst that rock and roll has to offer: Nirvana and the Goo Goo Dolls, idols and enemies. They never became popular, never went platinum, never achieved the stardom they secretly pined for. And now, the Replacements will never get back together. Tommy Stinson recorded an EP and a never-to-be-released album with his own band, Perfect; now, he is paying the rent with Guns N' Roses, and the mind reels at the implications. Chris Mars has disappeared into the basement with his tape recorders and his paint brushes; when he will return is anyone's guess. Slim Dunlap, who replaced Bob as well as anyone could, is still making wonderful records no one is buying. And Bob, well, he's still dead. As for Paul, he will not tour for this album. He doesn't see how it's possible to sit behind a piano and perform these new songs for an audience that will keep shouting out requests for "I Will Dare" or "Bastards of Young" or "I.O.U." or "Unsatisfied." He is content now to sit in his tinfoil-covered basement, black lipstick smeared on his face, and record in front of a new video camera with which he's become infatuated. Jesperson says he's heard rumors of Westerberg's showing up at South by Southwest in Austin next month, but don't count on it; Paul seems very much resolved to holing up with his piano and his son, shut out from the rest of the world with his Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane records to keep him company. He does like to say he is an unabashed misanthrope. And perhaps it's just as well that he has chosen to shelve his rock-and-roll side. The Grandpaboy record has its moments - indeed, Westerberg insists the song "Lush and Green" is among the best things he's ever recorded, and maybe he's right - but it sounds too much like a thousand steps backward, right into a land mine. Suicaine Gratifaction is by no means a flawless record, but at least you can hear, feel, the ambition and thought and pain that went into its making. If nothing else, for all its faults, the new record feels like the most genuine record he has made since breaking up the band. And that's hardly an apology, simply a fact: Suicaine Gratifaction may be a mess, even a bore at times, but never does it feel like a fake. "I'm now at a place where I ask myself, 'Why do I do this?'" he says. "You kind of have to slap yourself upside the head and go, 'You do this because you can do it better than most.' That's maybe not as rewarding, but if you're going to continue in life and have a place or a job or a purpose, you have to use that. I do it because I'm good at it and it's a challenge to myself to top myself. I want to make a better record next time. But I'm not holding this up against someone else's record and saying, 'Well, it doesn't sound as good as them.' I've learned the trick of only listening to my last thing. "It all comes down to manic depression. When I'm in an up cycle, I'll go with it. Sometimes that down cycle lasts a long time, and it's horrible if you're caught either way. You're in an up cycle making a record, and then you just slowly slip down. I do have sort of a polar personality. I'm not an even-keel guy. Right now I'm starting to be in an up vibe again. If only I could just bring intelligence with it." Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 19:24:27 EST From: Mickrhodes@aol.com Subject: Westerberg interview ... Here is the URL for a good Westerberg interview in the new LA Weekly. Enjoy! http://www.laweekly.com/ink/99/14/music-donnelly.shtml All Shook Down Paul Westerberg's basement tapes by Joe Donnelly Before you head out the door to meet Paul Westerberg for dinner, you might want to skip reading the liner notes to All for Nothing/Nothing for All, the 1997 Replacements compilation of near misses and never-meant-to-be's. Otherwise you could end up sitting at the bar dripping tears of nostalgia into your near beer as you wait for your man to show. Not to overstate it, but the trip down memory lane spurred by those liner notes is not a particularly joyful one. For certain disaffected segments of the nameless generation that (along with the Replacements) came of age in the '80s, it's bittersweet at best. Bitter because it was the '80s and, well, you remember. Sweet because the Replacements weren't just a great band, they were also standard-bearers for those brave or stupid enough to rally around the notion that in some contexts being a loser is a noble pursuit. Or, to put it in musical terms, as Reagan and Bush ran roughshod over our collective soul, the Replacements threw up on their shoes and then rocked the house. "We were there to upset the apple cart as quickly as we could," says the erstwhile leader of the Mats. "Immediately we knew we had to do as much damage as possible and go as far as we could, but it wasn't meant to last." No, it wasn't. The Replacements blazed out at the beginning of the '90s just in time for a host of mostly lesser bands to make it big tapping them as a source. But as the final few years of this decade have made clear, the '80s are back and they're on steroids. Good old-fashioned powder cocaine is hip again, Wall Street is on a rampage, and consumer spending is up. Can spandex metal be far behind? The good news is that Westerberg is back too, with a new album, Suicaine Gratification. Brutally honest and insistently forlorn, it is anchored by a handful of ballads that feature Westerberg's gut-wrenching vocals over spare, piano-driven arrangements that sound like a revelation even though the heartache feels painfully familiar. It's like a visit from an old friend who not only lived to tell the tale, but surprises you with new wisdom and confidence. It's early evening on a recent Friday, and that old friend is sitting in a booth at a surprisingly trendy Hollywood eatery, taking to his salmon salad the way a kid takes to lima beans. He doesn't need much prodding to discuss the inspiration for an album that begins with the lines "I get up from a dream and I look for rain" and ends with "They say you were crushed like the petals of a flower between the pages of a novel, a long forgotten bookmark." "About half of it was written in a two-week period," he says. "It was right after I came off the tour from the last record, and I just sort of sequestered myself. I didn't know if I wanted to even make a record, or whatever. It was almost a comfort thing. I went down to the piano because I didn't know what else to do. Stuff came pouring out because I got in a depression that, you know, just didn't let go. I rode it out. You can try to pick yourself up, but I was in the mood to sort of just wallow in it for a while. I just kind of lived in the basement and wrote and recorded." Westerberg is wearing an earth-toned jacket over a natty shirt, sweater and tie. His famously unruly hair is cut and combed, but not quite tamed. Sober for many years now, he affects the demeanor of a curmudgeonly professor: He doesn't necessarily want to answer stupid questions, but if it helps you understand, he will lecture. Does he see this album, his first for new label Capitol, as a more realized vision than his two previous solo records? "Yeah, because I was obsessed with the one thought, or, for the lack of a better phrase, the darkness of it all. I mean, there's deep despair, but when you get so deep into despair, there's also beauty there, you know? This is like a serious, dark hole, and you find beauty . . . I went in deeper and deeper." Westerberg pauses and forks some salad toward his mouth like he's lifting a great weight. "Maybe the beauty was like a present or a gift or something, to say, 'Okay, you've suffered long enough, here's something to be proud of.'" PRODUCER DON WAS SAYS WHEN HE FIRST HEARD the songs he was blown away by how consistently good they were. His challenge, he says, was to stay out of the way as much as possible and to encourage Westerberg to maintain the courage of his convictions. "It's having the confidence to stand naked as yourself, as opposed to worrying about who you're letting down," Was says. "All it takes is some asshole in the bar to come up to you and say, 'What, are you turning into a pussy? Where's all the electric guitars?' To me [the album] represents him having enough courage to say, 'Here's how I am. Like it or lump it.'" Which, in the end, is the album's greatest strength. When you listen to "Self-Defense," "Actor in the Street," "Sunrise Always Listens," "Born for Me" -- just a voice and an instrument or two -- you hear Paul Westerberg, not "Paul Westerberg, former leader of . . ." When it is suggested that the pared-down approach helps make this the Westerberg album that finally transcends the Replacements' catalog, he agrees to a point, but also sees the strands that connect these songs to his body of work. "You know, they don't exist anymore, but I could play you cassette tapes from 1979 that I wrote in my mom and dad's basement on the acoustic guitar, and then I'd hop on the number 6 bus and go over to Bob and Tommy's house and we'd learn it. But before they ever heard it, it was that, and that's what this shit is," says Westerberg. "In a way, this is like 11 of what I would put on a record once. It's like 'Here Comes a Regular' and 'Answering Machine,' and every record had one of these. I'll even be fair and say it's like 10 of them. Maybe there's a rocker that's there for whatever reason." One big difference is that the plaintive moments in the past were usually leavened by Westerberg's humor, as acerbic as it may have been. Not this time, though. It's as if he decided all at once he no longer needs to hide behind jokes or screaming guitars. "There's no comic relief whatsoever. It was not really by design, but I could not come up with one single humorous statement. There's borderline whimsy, but there's nothing funny about this one. There's nothing at all humorous about it." WESTERBERG SURRENDERS HIS PLATE TO AN EAGER busboy. During the meal, we've been attended to by just about everyone on staff. One wonders if he's been found out. Sure enough, as soon as he leaves for the bathroom, a 30ish waiter angles up to ask if Paul Westerberg is actually in the house. When his suspicions are confirmed, he gushes that his girlfriend is a huge Replacements fan. I tell the waiter that Westerberg has a new record coming out. "Is it good?" he asks. "Yeah, it's really good," I reply. "Oh, great," he says, genuinely pleased. "I can't wait to tell her. What's it called?" The interlude is a reminder that Westerberg's legacy casts a long shadow. When he returns he is asked if it's difficult living with his past. "See, I don't perceive it. I've gone to great lengths to not picture myself as something . . ." He stops suddenly and shifts gears, leaning forward to make his point. "I mean, I know how good I am. You're at a certain level and you know that you're the shit. I know it. My ego isn't fragile. But I still work harder than ever to weed out the crap. I mean, I know it now when it's false. And it's really simple, because it's usually your first thought if you're in the right mood. It's right and correct. Then you judge, is this worthy of a song? If it isn't, you throw it away. If it is, you go with it. "And then, later, you realize that 'Oh, man, if I put this out, I'm gonna hurt somebody's feelings, and somebody's gonna think I'm a suicidal junkie, and somebody's gonna think this and that,' and it's like, 'Fuck 'em.' Are you an artist or not? You just have to do what you do." With that, Westerberg steps outside to smoke a thin cigar. He looks pretty good in his nice, grown-up clothes, all ready to fall on his sword again. And he makes you want to smile once more for the noble losers. Copyright (c) 1999, Los Angeles Weekly, Inc. All rights reserved. P.O. Box 4315, Los Angeles, CA 90078-9810 Go Westerberg! By MIKE ROSS - Express Writer SUICANE SATISFACTION - Paul Westerberg (EMI) "Formerly of the Replacements" is a phrase this songwriter won't need if his excellent new solo album gets the recognition it deserves. It's in stores Tuesday. The frontman of the critically acclaimed but lamentably disbanded Minneapolis group has crafted a gloriously ragged collection of home-grown gems. Some were even recorded in Westerberg's own house, with Don Was serving more as a beloved sidekick than as the mega-producer he is. With nary a word or note wasted, the songs are wry without being bitter, unabashedly romantic without being melodramatic and uniquely stylish without falling into any of the usual trendy traps. You could say that it all has a distinct country-rock flavour, but musical style is irrelevant in highlights that range from the great rocker Fugitive Kind to the mellow and plaintive Sunrise Always Listens. Suicane Satisfaction is simply a treat for fans of "singer-songwriter" as a genre unto itself. This is the real thing. talent with new LP By DAVE VEITCH (Calgary Sun) PAUL WESTERBERG - SUICAINE GRATIFICATION Paul Westerberg: Some fans want Westerberg to be forever the boozing, screwed-up twenty-something he was while fronting the madcap Replacements. These folks will probably dismiss Westerberg's third solo album, a poised and largely gentle work which -- oh, by the way -- contains some of the most affecting compositions of his career. Many of these songs were recorded by Paul alone at home, with a smattering of overdubs (pedal steel, cello, accordion) applied later. Hence, the record's palpable intimacy, enhanced by some remarkably personal lyrics about encroaching middle age and his vitality as an artist. From: mark_timmins@mail.cbpi.com Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 16:53:58 -0500 The review of the new Wilco album by The Boston Phoenix makes a passing complimentary nod to Paul while simultaneously slamming The Goo Goo Dolls. Wilco SUMMER TEETH Reprise * * * As one of the founders of the band who gave No Depression its name (Uncle Tupelo and a resume that includes a Grammy nomination for work on an album of Woody Guthrie tunes (last year's Mermaid Avenue and membership in the No Depression All Stars (aka Golden Smog Jeff Tweedy could be easily the king of alternative country. But on Wilco's two-disc Being There and the equally ambitious new Summer Teeth he's not content to narrow his focus to any standard notion of "roots or to a largely insular '90s cult niche Like the Stones with the blues Tweedy uses country rock as the means not the end There's plenty of strum and twang a weepy rustic ballad or two and enough Southern accents on Summer Teeth to qualify it as Americana And there's a friendly guy-next-door casualness to Tweedy's delivery that's always appealing and that can make it easy to overlook how good he's gotten -- "She's a Jar" is the best Paul Westerberg tune the Goo-Goo Dolls didn't write in quite some time only better and so is "A Shot in the Arm" But Summer Teeth isn't a solo work the band contribute Brian Wilson harmonies space-age synths and touches of Beatlesque psychedelia that stretch the definition of roots rock in directions that sound if not quite new at least fresh and in Wilco's own easy-going way refreshing not depressing. -- Matt Ashare _____________________________________________________________________________ III. I'LL BUY Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 11:48:36 -0600 From: jonathan Subject: wanna buy some rare Paul promos? I'm not too impressed by the new Paul album, for the record. I've got some rare Paul/Mats promo CDs that I'd like to liquidate. They are: PAUL "Love Untold" promo CD single $7 REPLACEMENTS "Cruella Deville" promo CD single from "Stay Awake" $10 REPLACEMENTS "Merry Go Round" promo CD single $7 PAUL "World Class Fad/First Glimmer" promo CD single $7 PAUL "World Class Fad" European CD maxi-single (inlcuding "Seein Her", "Man Without Ties", and "Down Love") $15 Prices include postage. Email me directly if you'd like to buy any of these. Thanks! Jonathan Rundman crfrundmadl@crf.cuis.edu Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 12:24:26 -0800 (PST) From: Ahron Shapiro There is a recording of Paul Westerberg at the Troubador 9/17/96. A friend of mine is interested in it, but is curious about the setlist. I read the Skyway archives and there was no post with the exact setlist for this concert. Can you please help me find the setlist to this concert? Sincerely, Ahron Shapiro fin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The //Skyway\\: The Replacements Mailing List (digest only) To subscribe, send a letter saying "subscribe skyway" to "majordomo@novia.net" http://www.novia.net/~matt/sky/skyway.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "By the time the average person finishes college he or she will have taken over 2,600 tests, quizzes and exams. The 'right answer' approach becomes deeply ingrained in our thinking. This may be fine for some mathematical problems, where there is in fact only one right answer. The difficulty is that most of life isn't that way. Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers - all depending on what you are looking for. But when we think that there is only one right answer, we'll stop looking as soon as we find one." -Roger von Oech, "A Whack On the Side Of The Head"