So emusic recently added a ton of catalog, included was almost everything ever put out by The Replacements. I'm a pathetic homer when it comes to this band, having grown up in Minneapolis in the late 70s and early 80s, but good golly are these some great records. I've been skipping around: Let it Be, All Shook Down (I know it was fairly hated, but frankly I can't see why), Pleased to Meet Me. As soon as my credits reset, I'll be grabbing Sorry Ma and Hootenanny.
I think my reaction to these records is profoundly personal. These were the days sans internet. Luckily, mpls., was rather lax in terms of ID'ing, so catching them live was rarely an issue, even for a 9th grader. But, and I hope this isn't too saccharine, music was such a process of discovery then. It took so much work (two bus rides on any given winter night... brutal).
Obviously at that time I was in their demographic sweet spot ("stupid hat and gloves," "on the bus," etc. ad infinitum described my existence). This only comes along once for music fans and I'm guessing we all are bonded to those bands. I've always been jealous of the few Brits I've met who had a similar experience with the Clash.
I very much doubt, at 43, one can re-obtain the same sense of feeling from music (especially good old rock music). It's this catch-22: if some fuck wrote a record about living in suburban jersey in their 40s I'd immediately hate--trust me, I'm trying to write that record--but when I try to like records by the youngsters, I feel a little smarmy.
Shit, this post is sounding maudlin (but I suppose that's one of Westerberg's song writing gifts).
2 comments:
With you almost all the way. Never got too see them with Bob Stinson, but love Let It Be, Tim, Pleased To Meet Me, with all my heart. Diminishing returns after that. The process by whoever of trying to turn them into real rock stars (Bryan Adams? Tom Petty?) was pretty painful for me, I wanted them to be eternal losers. Speaks well to my state of mind at the time, seems like theirs too from how that worked out.
I remember somewhere someone asking Tommy Stinson who was harder to work with, Westerburg or Axl Rose? He said Axl was much easier to work with!
I saw them at the Patio in Broadripple with Bob Stinson. It was a fantastic set until Bob really started to feel his liquor. He had the skyscraper effect going big time after the set.
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