the // skyway \\ issue #86 (august 6, 2006) web page at www.theskyway.com send your submissions to skyway@novia.net list guy (stop by and say hi) mattaki@gmail.com subscription info: to subscribe: 'subscribe skyway' to unsubscribe: 'unsubscribe skyway' send in the body of a message to majordomo@novia.net always thanks to bob fulkerson __________________________________________________________________________ 0. BENT OUT OF SHAPE Hey, it's been a year since the last issue. There's something about this speed that time goes when you do not sleep. So in the last 400 days, I have moved permanently (or as permanent as anything) to Switzerland, went to Greece, Malta, Spain, France, Germany, Prague, England, Scotland, Italy, Austria, Cyprus, the Caribbean, (and next week, Japan and China) except for the couple months I was in the US where I joined two bands and went on a couple small tours. So I've been doing alot of things besides sleeping, and unfortunately updating a web page wasn't one of them (although I've been spending about 10-12 hours a day playing project manager at the biotech company I work for, because rent ain't cheap up in die Schweiz!) So each of these issues seems to start with some news that seems more impossible than the last. If you didn't hear, the people that still could call themselves the Replacements got back together to record two new songs to top off the Rhino release of their newly released greatest 'hits' record, "Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?" The two new songs were recorded with Paul and Tommy with Westerberg-tour regular Josh Freese on drums, although Chris Mars showed up to the studio to sing some backing lines. (Nobody's talked to Slim in years, who seems content to live his life playing a weekly show around the Twin Cities.) The two new songs "Message to the Boys" and "Pool & Dive" don't sound that far from 14 Songs, and purportedly had been around at the end of the Replacements. Rhino is also genuinely remastering and re-releasing ALL the Replacements records by the end of the year, a fringe benefit of all the record company consolidations of the past couple years. But will there be a reunion tour? Kathy's www.paulwesterberg.com site summarizes a Newsweek interview with Paul Westerberg, Paul says: "I didn't even recognize Tommy in the hallway because he had dyed his hair black...But by the third time we'd played together, he said, "Hey, let's go," which pretty much means "Let's pack a suitcase and go make a record." I told him I had a movie to finish, and I said, "I'll see ya in the fall. Let's see what happens." Those two aren't the only songs that we cut in the course of a three-month period." But Paul's busy being a baseball coach for his son's team, and who knows if Tommy is going to run off to Japan on tour with Guns n' Roses. However, I'm guessing it's inevitable because the impossible always seems to happen. I mean, if the Pixies, Mission of Burma, and the original lineup of Dinosaur Jr. bothered to get back together, why not? The kid is gonna have to go to college someday, right? As for me, I could tell all sorts of stories. There's the old guy at the bar in Tampa, Florida that looked like he was having the time of his life when we played a song that was a half-ripoff of "Jessie's Girl". There's the time that I crossed the UN checkpoint between south and Turkish-occupied North Cyprus five times and had lunch with a Turkish newspaper editor (which probably will look really funny on my passport next time I come back to America.) The spring break crowd on tour in Florida were just like a "Girls Gone Wild" video, I got seasick 100 feet under the ocean, Switzerland is like Heaven (as in the Talking Heads song), a friend and I were on the Catania, Sicily evening news saying "Happy Easter!" (they love stupid tourists), I come home at night and ride my bike along the Rhine and do German homework. I feel like I'm living in an epilogue. Let me know if you're ever or already on this side of the Atlantic ocean! - m@ __________________________________________________________________________ I. REPLACEMENTS NEWS So, you know that box set? It's really coming out! You know, eventually. You can hear Tommy talk about it here. Like the 'greatest hits (sic)' release, it will contain songs from both Twin/Tone and Sire albums, as well as unreleased songs, demos, and maybe even a DVD. Hell yeah! http://www.rhino.com/rzine/rhinocasts/audio/rhinocast016-01102006.mp3 Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 06:15:22 -0400 From: jerry bruner Subject: the replacements OKC show Hey, I ran across this website today as I was searching the web to see what ever happened to The Replacements. I attended a Replacements show in the mid 80's in I believe Norman, OK but it might have been the one at the Bowery but it was the one that Tommy Stinson was arrested for public drunk before the concert actually started. On your website it talks about that the Bowery show was recorded as a Live CD but never mentioned that there were only 3 and not 4. I was just wondering if this was the same show I went to see or if it was a different one. Thanks for your info! Jerry Bruner From: Reigst@aol.com Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:37:39 EDT Subject: Fwd: 'mats new cd write up from the strib (http://www.startribune.com/457/story/481701.html) Replacements' 'Message' heard loud and clear Two new songs aren't the only reason to get excited about the Replacements' first proper best-of CD. Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune It's not exactly burning up the charts across the country, but there's a new Replacements song getting played a lot on Twin Cities radio. Halle-frickin'-lujah, I say. The song, "Message to the Boys," is pretty average in Replacements terms. Up-tempo rocker. Gritty guitar riff. Sharply hooked chorus. A classic Paul Westerberg Bittersweet Twist in the refrain, "God, I miss her and her voice." Were it not for Tommy Stinson's Ronnie Lane-like background vocals, "Message to the Boys" could pass for a Westerberg solo track. But almost anyone who cares knows that it's not. It's one of two new cuts that the surviving 'Mats recorded for their first proper career retrospective, "Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? The Best of the Replacements," which hits stores Tuesday. Aside from the new tracks -- also including the short and quirky rocker "Pool & Dive" -- "Don't You Know" is a Cliffs Notes version or maybe even an Idiot's Guide to the legendary Minneapolis band's legendarily troublesome career. Any Replacements lover will tell you that this is one act that's simply not well-suited for a greatest-hits package, like the Eagles, Poison or even the Ramones or Pixies are. It's not because they had no hits ("I'll Be You" came closest at No. 51 in Billboard in 1989). Nor is it because their albums were all masterpieces ("Stink" clearly lives up to its name, and "All Shook Down" sounds all mixed up). At the very least, though, their records all had their own rough identity. They stand out from one another like members of the Partridge Family ("Let It Be" being their David). That gets lost on "Don't You Know," and even makes the CD something of a clumsy listen. It's not easy going from the raw and guttural openers "Takin' a Ride" and "Shiftless When Idle" -- both from the band's 1980 debut -- to the polished radio rock of "I'll Be You" and "Merry Go Round" over the course of a single disc. Never mind that "I'm in Trouble" actually should have been picked from the first album. That said, this new best-of might be the best thing that's ever happened to the Replacements in a commercial sense. Putting the two new tracks on there was a smart move because it gets old fans excited (or a lot of them, anyway). Meanwhile, the disc caters to a ripe new audience waiting to get exposed to the Replacements. They're definitely out there, too, what with all the trumpeting the band still gets from rock critics and younger rock heroes (Billie Joe Armstrong, Chris Carrabba and those Death Cab for Cutie studs, to name a few). Correcting wrongs of 1997 CD If "Don't You Know" doesn't cement a new fan base, it at least makes up for the wrongs of the 1997 compilation "All for Nothing/Nothing for All," which highlighted only the latter half of the band's career because of record-company politics. Thanks to the fact that most labels are now owned by one of three conglomerates, "Within Your Reach", "I Will Dare", "Can't Hardly Wait" and "Bastards of Young" are all on the same best-of album, as they should be. It's also fitting to have a couple of new tracks alongside those classics. The Replacements didn't die in 1991 when the band officially split up, nor in 1995 when original guitarist Bob Stinson passed away. Part of the band's mystique is what has happened since the breakup: Westerberg's varied and often underrated solo career; Tommy Stinson's own decent solo outings and current run as a member of Guns N' Roses and Soul Asylum, and drummer Chris Mars' quiet transformation into a respected visual artist. Yes, even if they've recorded only two songs in 15 years, the Replacements are alive and well. This little toe-in-the-water gesture will hopefully ripple into a full-blown reunion tour, maybe even an all-new album. And no matter what, that dang boxed set had better come out by the time Westerberg is a grandpa. (A live album is long overdue, too, although there'd have to be two to capture the group before and after Bob Stinson's firing in 1986.) The Replacements were a great band, but they weren't so great that their legacy can't be messed with. A decent new Replacements song recorded last December is a lot more fulfilling than yet another spin of "I Will Dare," no matter its magic. With that in mind, here's hoping "Message to the Boys" becomes the rock anthem of the summer. Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 16:55:57 -0800 (PST) From: Dan Hoffmann Subject: 1991 Mats show @ The Beacon I jumped on stage at the beacon show to shake Paul's hand during Color Me Impressed. He gave me his guitar and I finished the song out with the band (Luckily I play guitar badly and knew the song). Anyway, I was wondering if you knew where I could get a copy of the show (audio or video). I had a tape of the show, but it was destroyed in my friend's car years ago. It was a great night. We had drinks with the band at the China Club next door and were rock gods for a night. Thanks for your help. Some day I'll write a short story account. Love your site. PWIG Dan Hoffmann (And for the Replacements trivia for the day, the cover of Let It Be was shot by Dan Corrigan: http://www.danielcorrigan.com. Thanks Robb!) __________________________________________________________________________ II. PAUL WESTERBERG The Paul Westerberg page says Paul will have new songs on the soundtrack for the Sony Pictures film "Open Season", to be released on Lost Highway Records on September 26. No idea what it sounds like, but the movie is a cartoon about a bear stuck in the woods just a few days before open season starts. Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 06:15:22 -0400 From: Regan Good Skyway: Westerberg as Metaphysical Poet By Regan Good Minneapolis is a cold, cold city in wintertime. In the dark months from December to February, temperatures can reach -4 degrees C. When the wind whips off the lakes, it can be even colder, so cold that a steaming cup of coffee thrown into the air will freeze and land at your feet as coffee-flavored ice shards. Because of these frigid conditions, the municipality built an elaborate system of underground tunnels and their opposite-skyways, or sky bridges-to help shield pedestrians from the elements. These skyways may be the only pedestrian bridges ever to find their way into the lyrics of a love song. In the hands of Minneapolis's native son, Paul Westerberg, the city's enclosed bridges function like the compass in John Donne's poem, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. But while the two joined legs of the compass represent the spiritual connectedness of physically separated lovers, the skyway expresses nearly the opposite sentiment: how tricky it is for two people to get it together. For Westerberg, the bridges objectify the madness of missed opportunities. What's a guy to do with a girl who some days takes the skyways and other days braves the chilly Minneapolis streets? How the hell are they going to connect under these conditions? My first exposure to Westerberg and the Replacements came in the form of the classic 1980's boyfriend-to-girlfriend mixed tape. My then-boyfriend, Michael, compiled a tape meant to indoctrinate me in college radio: the Pogues, R.E.M., the Smiths, Husker Du. With that tape he did more than pass on a sample of indie bands; with his Replacements song selection-On the Bus, Here Comes a Regular and Skyway-Michael unwittingly introduced me to what I now consider my rock band and my rock star-for life. I immediately dug the whole post-punk, we-are-loveable-and-not-so-loveable-fuck-ups thing the band had going; they sounded disappointed, pissed-off, ashamed, and on the verge of boozy, hysterical laughter all at the same time. The band was obviously Westerberg's brainchild; his distinctive voice had winter in it, and other stuff too-pain, joy, irony, mirth, disgust, hopelessness, euphoria-it was clear he was clever as a fox, with enough smarts to clean out ten hen houses in a single night if he felt like it. The lyrics were good; in fact, some of the lyrics were great: Bus's "Your tongue, your transfer, your hand, your answer" and Regular's "I used to live at home, now I stay in a house," come to mind, but it was the song Skyway, a simple acoustic ditty from the 1987 album Pleased to Meet Me, that sealed the deal. On a literary level, the song functions as a kind of sonnet, with classic "turns" as its argument advances. You could draw a little picture of the song with stick figures representing the positions of "girl" and "boy" and by the end of the song the stick figures will have traded places. The song begins simply enough: a boy, trying to keep warm in his Minnesotan bed, is thinking about a girl: "You take the skyway, high above that busy little one-way./In my stupid hat and gloves at night I lie awake, wondering if I'll sleep/Wondering if we'll meet out on the street to take the skyway." Then comes the song's turn, where he describes the skyway from his usual vantage point underneath it: "It don't move at all like a subway, it's got bums when it's cold outside like any other place, it's warm up inside./Sittin' down and waitin' for a ride, beneath the skyway." In the final turn, Westerberg turns the whole situation upside down: now he's in the skyway looking down at the little one-way street below it, where he usually gets his rides, but, awww, just Westerberg's luck, the one day he takes the skyway he spots the girl walking down there, in the street: "Oh then one day, I saw you walkin' down that little one way, past the place I'd catch my ride most every day./ There wasn't a damn thing I could do or say, up in the skyway." It's a lovely little "gotcha" of a song, written when the band was together, though it could have been a solo song for him. Recently Westerberg offered some insight into his songwriting and basic thinking processes in the 2005 tour documentary, Come Feel Me Tremble. "I think in opposites," he said. "If someone says stop, I think go." In Skyway, up is down, and down is up as one-ways and skyways collude to postpone the inevitable meeting. Westerberg still covers this song on tour and when he does the audience joins in, both to acknowledge the song's place as a Westerberg classic, but, more importantly, to help him out with the lyrics which he fluffs with regularity. (Why? "Severe A.D.D.," is his answer.) For Replacements fans, the two would-be lovers have been missing each other against the frigid backdrop of the City of Lakes for nearly 20 years. We believe the world is only gently toying with them and that eventually they will meet. And Westerberg? Next time, let me know if you ever need a ride: I'll keep the car warm. __________________________________________________________________________ III. TOMMY STINSON The last update from Tommy was last September, and said: "Sorry my peeps for being so out of touch. Been working on a few different things that have kept me slightly in over my head. First off, I've been writing songs and music for a movie called Catch and Release with Jennifer Garner for Sony Pictures. It's taken me a few years to land one of these and I'm stoked to be doing it. I'm told the movie will come out next spring. Also been working on finishing the Bobot Adrenaline record. This has been a labor of love that's been going on since last summer and I'm just about done mixing it." Tommy has been busy playing bass in both Guns n' Roses and Soul Asylum, and is on the new Soul Asylum album "The Silver Lining." __________________________________________________________________________ IV. CHRIS MARS NEWS (not really) Chris is still rockin' the art world. http://www.chrismarspublishing.com/ __________________________________________________________________________ V. REPLACEMENTS TRIBUTES There's another Replacements tribute record coming out in September on 1234GO records, with a lot of full on punk rock/rock/ass kickin'/full on bands. 1. The Ergs - I'm in Trouble 2. Hi Ho Six Shooter - If Only You Were Lonely 3. Basement Black - Raised in the City 4. Drunken Boat - Kids Don't Follow 5. Off With Their Heads - Goddamn Job 6. Blotto - Color Me Impressed 7. Modern Machines - Mr. Whirly 8. Bay of Pigs - Favorite Thing 9. The Tim Version - Nowhere Is My Home 10. The Queers - Unsatisfied 11. Tiltwheel - Skyway 12. Whiskey Sunday - Can't Hardly Wait 13. North Lincoln - On The Bus 14. The Obsoletes - Waitress In The Sky 15. Against Me! - Bastards of Young 16. J. Page - Left of the Dial 17. The Draft - Little Mascara 18. Thomas Barnett & Rob Huddleston - Here Comes a Regular 19. Jason White - Torture 20. The Urchin - Rock'n'Roll Ghost 21. This is My Fist - Beer For Breakfast 22. Drag The River - Portland 23. Almighty Do Me a Favor - Treatment Bound Check out samples at www.wellinherittheearth.com. You can order it at http://www.1234gorecords.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=105&osCsid=79bf863e38092fdb159428adbac26cbd From: Joe - American Laundromat Records Our 80's film tribute CD features Frank Black, Kristin Hersh, Matthew Sweet, John P. Strohm (the Blake Babies) and others covering tracks from some of the 80's most popular teen films. Song / Original Artist / Film in which Song Appeared 01. Pretty in Pink / The Psychedelic Furs / Pretty in Pink 02. Million Miles Away / The Plimsouls / Valley Girl 03. Bring On The Dancing Horses / Echo & The Bunnymen / Pretty in Pink 04. Repo Man / Iggy Pop / Repo Man 05. Somebody's Baby / Jackson Browne / Fast Times at Ridgemont High 06. I Melt With You / Modern English / Valley Girl 07. In Your Eyes / Peter Gabriel / Say Anything 08. American Girl / Tom Petty / Fast Times at Ridgemont High 09. Turning Japanese / The Vapors / Sixteen Candles 10. We Got The Beat / The Go-Go's / Fast Times at Ridgemont High 11. Weird Science / Oingo Boingo / Weird Science 12. Love My Way / The Psychedelic Furs / Valley Girl 13. Within Your Reach / The Replacements / Say Anything 14. Don't You (Forget About Me) / The Simple Minds / Breakfast Club 15. Wave of Mutilation / The Pixies / Pump Up The Volume 16. Danke Schoen / Wayne Newton / Ferris Bueller's Day Off 17. Moving In Stereo / The Cars / Fast Times at Ridgemont High http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=18711521 http://www.myspace.com/americanlaundromat __________________________________________________________________________ fin. "I'm every age I ever was." - Whitney Otto