I expected this to go for more, but the Replacements' profile continues to wane, despite a
generous late-'90s send-off from Sire/Warner Brothers. I guess we'll just have to wait for the third revival, or that long-promised box set...
One of the 'Mats' long-time web archivists has upgraded to a new home at
Color Me Impressed (the band's first web presence was the
Skyway Mailing List, which is still going strong). There's also word of a documentary in the works, called
Color Me Obsessed: Fans Remember the Replacements, which
Troubled Girl films is trying to raise $7000 to complete.
Boink!! was a predictable "UK only" cash-in compilation from
Twin-Tone, the eternally disorganized but otherwise outstanding indie the 'Mats called home until 1985. Twin-Tone makes most of its archives available via mail order CDR (a great policy I've been happy to pay on-demand rates for; how else would I get that
Yung Wu album), but they don't offer
Boink!! for whatever reason (and there's only one reason to offer it in the first place: the Alex Chilton-produced outtake "Nowhere is My Home." The other seven songs are previously-available album tracks).
Not long ago,
Boink!! resurfaced as a very popular single-disc
bootleg, but the prevalence of high-speed file sharing made it obsolete; today you can join the
Color Me Impressed file-sharing hub and download a 4-disc set of
demos and outtakes that's been in circulation via BitTorrent for some time. Add to that the comprehensive
Replacements Bible PDF and their
1993 Goldmine eulogy, and you'd have to be in the band to know any more of their history.
Here's what I had to say about the Replacements' first four records
in January 2003:
It's an old story, but I'll tell it again: Rock n' roll is dead. We know this: the only thing we can't agree on is the time of death. Many side with Creation records mogul Alan McGee, who once proclaimed Guns n' Roses the last true rock n' roll band. VH-1 consultants posit that, beneath their bloated open chords and nth-generation Dylan-isms, Tom Petty and Bruce still have it. And it's been said before that 1950s post-rhythm and blues rebellion died with the Replacements, perhaps the last purebred rock n' roll band the world would ever know.
Any water held by that argument was bottled from the 'Mats wellspring of business naïveté and depraved self-indulgence. When their hair metal counterparts trashed hotel rooms, it was window-dressing, a play at building the "bad boy" image meant to excuse their fatuous three-chord wallpaper. The Replacements trashed hotel rooms because they were bored and underappreciated, because they had to tour to survive, and were disgusted with all the extraneous bullshit that came with playing music. Ultimately, it was the bullshit that brought them down, and it wasn't pretty. In hindsight, the band acknowledged that they barely knew each other, and that in a sense, the Replacements played for beer tabs their entire career. Their swinging party gave way to stubborn ignorance when drugs, egos and hairspray derailed their major label bid, leaving Paul Westerberg to play janitor on their last two albums.
Music journalist Greil Marcus constantly recycles the famous
Deep Blues question, "How much history can be communicated by pressure on a guitar string," but he already answered it correctly during his audio commentary for Alex Cox's
Sid & Nancy: "An infinite amount, or none at all." The Replacements' early songs are testament to both ends of that spectrum, among the most pedestrian, ridiculous jokes you could imagine a rock band attempting. An infinite number of teenagers have written songs called "Fuck School," but only the Replacements did it
well, and this is the point. The Replacements made us sing along to lyrics like, "I hate music/ Sometimes I don't/ I hate music/ It's got too many notes," without ever questioning or laughing at them. Selling cool and getting away with obnoxiousness are at once the most difficult and essential tasks in rock—it's the reason there are so few great rock n' roll bands to speak of—but Paul Westerberg's voice did all that and more, effortlessly enticing a generation of lost, apolitical teenagers while sidelining snobs and critics afraid to join in the fray.
Recorded throughout 1980 as finances allowed,
Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash is a thousand times more
Rock'n'Roll High School than the Ramones could ever be. The Ramones grifted their way through the big shitty, subsisting on handouts and convincing ever-present backers they were "it." The Replacements were true teenage fuck-ups, suburban burnouts that felt the pressure of hopeless dead-ends, and perhaps most importantly, the fear of getting their asses kicked wherever they played. As is constantly relayed, bassist Tommy Stinson was only eleven when his nineteen year-old brother Bob sold him his amplifier and bass to keep him away from hard drugs and crime.
They'd heard some UK punk rock, and had big brothers Hüsker Dü blasting the roots of American hardcore all around their hometown, but the Replacements were young enough to love scene taboos like Bad Company and Yes in earnest, a band any kid could instantly recognize as the real thing. Passing all bullshit detectors with flying colors, they pull off love songs to counter clerks and any number of by-the-numbers punk anthems to aimlessness: "Takin a Ride," "Careless" and "Hangin Downtown" are basically the same song, made individual and inspiring by Westerberg's wry delivery.
The
Stink "mini-LP" finds the band veering toward the hardcore punk sound that was taking over the underground by 1982, but Westerberg's universal truths ensure the songs don't lose the glimmer of a youngster too old for his years. The cover reads
"Kids Don't Follow" Plus Seven, but it's the far too brief "Go"—the first in a long line of freezing cold, desperate teen anthems—that's arguably the spotlight-stealer on this strikingly improved sophomore release. Which is not to say the leadoff track should be ignored: aside from the introductory house party recording of Dave Pirner screaming "Fuck you, man!" to cops shutting things down, "Kids Don't Follow" is probably the finest of the Replacements' filthier first batch of rock songs, before melody and bigger choruses crept in. The playing on
Stink is airtight, and Bob Stinson's guitar solos would never approach the simultaneous speed-induced accuracy and drunken fury heard on "Fuck School" and "Gimme Noise." The "Are you waiting?" bridge from the latter hints at the direction Westerberg would take the band over the next five years, and while he would cement their signature sound, he would also alienate the brash, increasingly alcoholic guitarist who let him join the band in the first place.
The Westerberg ascendancy begins on
Hootenanny: where in-jokes and irreverence once worked themselves into raucous, beer-swilling tirades, by the second proper Replacements album they become castoff, standalone standup routines. "Hootenanny," "Take Me Down to the Hospital," "Mr. Whirly," and "Lovelines" are often hilarious, but offer no conviction, drive, or sense of purpose. Then there's the odd instrumental "Buck Hill," which, though it sounds much like R.E.M., is not about their guitarist, but a real hill, whose name, when screamed, sounds like "fuck you." If not for the timeless teenage empathy of "Color Me Impressed" and "Within Your Reach," this album would be completely forgotten. The latter marks the beginning of the infamous division between Westerberg and the rest of the 'Mats; recorded without the band's knowledge, "Within Your Reach" would eventually become a huge hit on the
Say Anything soundtrack. Stinson didn't want it on
Hootenanny, and didn't consider it a Replacements song.
After years spent enduring manager Peter Jesperson's attempts to broaden their taste in music, the band titled their fourth album
Let it Be as a joke on their studious backer. Though it's laughable to suggest they dislodged or even dented the legacy of those words, the Replacements' fourth album is a required purchase for every fan of independent rock n' roll, at the time a darker foil to the Violent Femmes' cutesy smash debut. A funny coincidence that the Pretenders, who got the Violent Femmes their record deal after a parking lot performance, would be taken as mantle by the Replacements on
Let it Be's "I Will Dare." Recorded long before the album and released as a 12'' with a pair of covers, this lighthearted romp (featuring R.E.M.'s Peter Buck on guitar) became their first college radio hit, and still shines brightly in the shadow of the Pretenders' "A Message of Love."
The rest of
Let it Be offers none of the airwave sheen of its lead track: "Favorite Thing," "We're Coming Out" and "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" showcase the 'Mats as they started, a trio of two-minute thrash epics any self-disrespecting teenager should have burned into their minds. "Seen Your Video" pointed the way toward the huge riffs that would dominate their major label debut,
Tim, but again, the tracks that stand the test of time best are the Westerberg ballads "Androgynous," "Sixteen Blue" and in particular "Unsatisfied," a song that became an unspoken personal soundtrack for everyone that heard it. Bob Stinson dismissed this undeniable classic in a 1993 Goldmine interview as "a half-assed attempt to make a good song." You have to respect the dead.
We may never know definitively if it's "Charlie" or "Charley," but this 1929 Patton 78 is a major surprise. Our seller is offering many comparably timeless 78s right now, so if you're a collector, don't pass him by.
Borrowing lyrics for your band name is a delicate matter: you have to find a line (or word) that simultaneously speaks to the current environment, and proves you're a true fan, in case anyone calls you out.
Thailand had only a few notable record labels at the time: Express Song, Cashbox and Royal Sound. Royal Sound was by far the most active, fashioning patchwork releases from Bowie, the Rolling Stones, 
