NOTE: The following piece was first penned in 2010, when I was working at an online music magazine. It was an unpaid position (you get that a lot in writing, especially when you are just starting out), but I was newly-graduated and very eager to see my name in print. I dutifully worked on a number of projects, all of which had been agreed upon with the magazine's editor, a likeable and enthusiastic girl that I had maintained semi-regular email contact with.
Once I'd finished (more than) a few articles, I sent them on to her, but never got any responses. I then contacted this editor, unsuccessfully, over a period of the a few weeks, before eventually finding out that she had quit the site and that it was no longer running. As you can imagine, I was fairly upset when I learned that I had worked my arse off over several weeks for nothing - and I was especially pissed off because she hadn't even done me the courtesy of letting me know that the site was no longer running.
Once again, you get stiffed a lot in this job. I don't want that to be the recurring motif on this site, but it is an inescapable fact.
Anyway, The replacements mean the world to me as a band and I love them dearly. So I wanted to share this piece with you. I hope you like it.
- CQ
The Replacements & Why They Are My Favourite Band of All Time...
“The world is divine because the world is Illogical” wrote French philosopher Albert Camus in his 1951 revolutionary text, ‘The Rebel’ “That is why art alone, by being equally illogical, is capable of grasping it.”
If you are a fan of The Replacements, a 1980’s hardcore pop band from Minneapolis, Minnestota, USA, that is a statement that makes perfect sense before you’ve even heard it.
If you aren’t a fan of this seminal band, the chances are you’ve heard many of their numerous imitators and mainstream copycats, which range from the sincere to the downright laughable. Like the New York Dolls before them, the Mats (an abbreviation for ‘Placemats’) are a band that inspired more people than actually listened to them in the first place.
Guitarist Bob Stinson recruited his younger brother Tommy into his fledgling band, predominantly to keep him out of trouble. Tommy was at that ‘difficult’ age. I think I read somewhere that he was into stealing cars (but that may have been just a really fucking cool dream). The brothers hooked up with high school dropout Chris Mars on drums and began jamming in the Stinson’s basement. Seriously, you couldn’t make this shit up.
Paul Westerberg, for his part, was a local punk with a thing for the Beatles. He just had a gift for melody, as well as a gift for mopping floors. It was the latter that he had built a career on thus far.
He was cleaning the office of a local Senator, day after day, and night after night, the alienated young iconoclast with a heartful of sugarsweet pop tunes would pass the Stinson house and listen to their rabble-rousing punk rock. Eventually, Westerberg was invited by Mars to jam with the band (then known as ‘Dogbreath’) and the rest is history...
Well, almost. Dogbreath didn’t like Westerberg, and they went with some other guy instead.
Then comes the hard part in retelling this fairytale, where reality comes crashing in and mercilessly beats the crap out of you. This is the part of the story where sadly, this writer has to realize that one of his all-time musical heroes was, well, kind of a dick.
Paul took the new singer to one side over a few beers and patiently explained, with the same unflinching charisma and gift of the gab that would later wow thousands of fans (and eventually win over millions of record buyers), that his new band hated him and that they were going to kick him out of the group. The singer got all fired up and quit in a huge shitstorm of abuse and insults.
Guess who was there to pick up the pieces?
The band was eventually re-christened ‘The Replacements’ and began to cultivate a reputation for rowdy, drunken live shows. This is attested to by the opening few seconds of their caustic, searing punk track ‘Kids Don’t Follow’ which features an actual recording of a police officer meekly trying to cancel an early ‘Mats show.
A couple of decent hardcore records followed. They’re definitely good, but they pale in comparison to contemporaneous stuff by Minor Threat, Black Flag or the mighty Bad Brains.
After that? I’m not sure what happened, but the audible evidence suggests that Westerberg, having taken over from Stinson as the band’s principle creative director, allowed his inner Joey to triumph over his inner Johnny and the band began to produce some of the most expertly crafted ‘pop n roll’ that has ever been written.
However, the band was still a good decade ahead of their time. After Nirvana smelled teen spirit and took American Alternative music overground (via a Pixie-esque wave of mutilation), the Replacements would have made more sense, but they were done and dusted by then. Instead, they were destined to be the band that lays the groundwork but gets none of the credit and accolades.
The records from this time are all classic cuts that are every bit as raw-throated triumph as they are sonic dishevelment and heartache. ‘Let it Be’ (named after the first song to come on the radio as they discussed the record’s title) ‘Tim’ (produced by Tommy Ramone) ‘Pleased to Meet Me’, ‘Don’t Tell a Soul’ - they’re all great, great albums. Each one a beautiful, aching, stark tribute to what my all-time favourite writer Jack Kerouac described as “The ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being”
The material from The Mats’ best period is as good as anything anybody else ever wrote...ever. From the smooth, piano-led LGBT anthem ‘Androgynous’ to the juvenile hijinks of ‘Gary’s got a boner’ and onwards to the spectacular ‘Bastards of Young’ which is probably the best song written in (and about) the 1980’s.
‘Unsatisfied’ is a raspy, full-throated growl that can accompany you in any given situation, ‘Achin’ To Be’ is the country rock-inflexed tale of an artist too shy to show her work to anyone (we all know one) and ‘Left of the Dial’ is a sweet song about finding alternative rock on American ‘Indie’ radio.
There are so many great tracks produced by this band.
And, like anybody’s favourite band, they’ve always been there for me.
They’ve been my only company on the many lonely nights I seemed to always end up in the middle of. They’ve been there when I split up with girls, when people died, whenever I won and perhaps more importantly, when I got my ass kicked. They’ll be there for you, too, when your band breaks up, the girl/guy walks out or just when you want to feel like someone, somewhere might someday ‘get’ it. Whatever ‘it’ is.
The Replacements never made it big, at least not as big as they deserved to be. They drank onstage, often performed totally blitzkrieged and were known for being somewhat ‘difficult’.
From their anti-music-video stance, detailed in the smashing ‘Seen your video’ (which, despite crippling their chances at MTV fame just as alternative rock was taking off, was a heroic effort nonetheless) to their general inability to take the music business seriously, they were in it but never of it, always tangential, ever on the margins.
...Basically, they fucked it all up. They sucked at being pop stars every bit as much as they ruled at making pop music. But that’s OK; I think I like them better this way. This way they only exist for the truly deserving.
The music of The Replacements puts words to a feeling that everybody knows but that only a precious few can articulate. It takes great music to name the nameless and they did it, over and over again.
The ‘Mats captured the idiosyncrasy and illogic of a damaged world. How many bands can you say that about?
Once I'd finished (more than) a few articles, I sent them on to her, but never got any responses. I then contacted this editor, unsuccessfully, over a period of the a few weeks, before eventually finding out that she had quit the site and that it was no longer running. As you can imagine, I was fairly upset when I learned that I had worked my arse off over several weeks for nothing - and I was especially pissed off because she hadn't even done me the courtesy of letting me know that the site was no longer running.
Once again, you get stiffed a lot in this job. I don't want that to be the recurring motif on this site, but it is an inescapable fact.
Anyway, The replacements mean the world to me as a band and I love them dearly. So I wanted to share this piece with you. I hope you like it.
- CQ
The Replacements & Why They Are My Favourite Band of All Time...
“The world is divine because the world is Illogical” wrote French philosopher Albert Camus in his 1951 revolutionary text, ‘The Rebel’ “That is why art alone, by being equally illogical, is capable of grasping it.”
If you are a fan of The Replacements, a 1980’s hardcore pop band from Minneapolis, Minnestota, USA, that is a statement that makes perfect sense before you’ve even heard it.
If you aren’t a fan of this seminal band, the chances are you’ve heard many of their numerous imitators and mainstream copycats, which range from the sincere to the downright laughable. Like the New York Dolls before them, the Mats (an abbreviation for ‘Placemats’) are a band that inspired more people than actually listened to them in the first place.
Guitarist Bob Stinson recruited his younger brother Tommy into his fledgling band, predominantly to keep him out of trouble. Tommy was at that ‘difficult’ age. I think I read somewhere that he was into stealing cars (but that may have been just a really fucking cool dream). The brothers hooked up with high school dropout Chris Mars on drums and began jamming in the Stinson’s basement. Seriously, you couldn’t make this shit up.
Paul Westerberg, for his part, was a local punk with a thing for the Beatles. He just had a gift for melody, as well as a gift for mopping floors. It was the latter that he had built a career on thus far.
He was cleaning the office of a local Senator, day after day, and night after night, the alienated young iconoclast with a heartful of sugarsweet pop tunes would pass the Stinson house and listen to their rabble-rousing punk rock. Eventually, Westerberg was invited by Mars to jam with the band (then known as ‘Dogbreath’) and the rest is history...
Well, almost. Dogbreath didn’t like Westerberg, and they went with some other guy instead.
Then comes the hard part in retelling this fairytale, where reality comes crashing in and mercilessly beats the crap out of you. This is the part of the story where sadly, this writer has to realize that one of his all-time musical heroes was, well, kind of a dick.
Paul took the new singer to one side over a few beers and patiently explained, with the same unflinching charisma and gift of the gab that would later wow thousands of fans (and eventually win over millions of record buyers), that his new band hated him and that they were going to kick him out of the group. The singer got all fired up and quit in a huge shitstorm of abuse and insults.
Guess who was there to pick up the pieces?
The band was eventually re-christened ‘The Replacements’ and began to cultivate a reputation for rowdy, drunken live shows. This is attested to by the opening few seconds of their caustic, searing punk track ‘Kids Don’t Follow’ which features an actual recording of a police officer meekly trying to cancel an early ‘Mats show.
A couple of decent hardcore records followed. They’re definitely good, but they pale in comparison to contemporaneous stuff by Minor Threat, Black Flag or the mighty Bad Brains.
After that? I’m not sure what happened, but the audible evidence suggests that Westerberg, having taken over from Stinson as the band’s principle creative director, allowed his inner Joey to triumph over his inner Johnny and the band began to produce some of the most expertly crafted ‘pop n roll’ that has ever been written.
However, the band was still a good decade ahead of their time. After Nirvana smelled teen spirit and took American Alternative music overground (via a Pixie-esque wave of mutilation), the Replacements would have made more sense, but they were done and dusted by then. Instead, they were destined to be the band that lays the groundwork but gets none of the credit and accolades.
The records from this time are all classic cuts that are every bit as raw-throated triumph as they are sonic dishevelment and heartache. ‘Let it Be’ (named after the first song to come on the radio as they discussed the record’s title) ‘Tim’ (produced by Tommy Ramone) ‘Pleased to Meet Me’, ‘Don’t Tell a Soul’ - they’re all great, great albums. Each one a beautiful, aching, stark tribute to what my all-time favourite writer Jack Kerouac described as “The ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being”
The material from The Mats’ best period is as good as anything anybody else ever wrote...ever. From the smooth, piano-led LGBT anthem ‘Androgynous’ to the juvenile hijinks of ‘Gary’s got a boner’ and onwards to the spectacular ‘Bastards of Young’ which is probably the best song written in (and about) the 1980’s.
‘Unsatisfied’ is a raspy, full-throated growl that can accompany you in any given situation, ‘Achin’ To Be’ is the country rock-inflexed tale of an artist too shy to show her work to anyone (we all know one) and ‘Left of the Dial’ is a sweet song about finding alternative rock on American ‘Indie’ radio.
There are so many great tracks produced by this band.
And, like anybody’s favourite band, they’ve always been there for me.
They’ve been my only company on the many lonely nights I seemed to always end up in the middle of. They’ve been there when I split up with girls, when people died, whenever I won and perhaps more importantly, when I got my ass kicked. They’ll be there for you, too, when your band breaks up, the girl/guy walks out or just when you want to feel like someone, somewhere might someday ‘get’ it. Whatever ‘it’ is.
The Replacements never made it big, at least not as big as they deserved to be. They drank onstage, often performed totally blitzkrieged and were known for being somewhat ‘difficult’.
From their anti-music-video stance, detailed in the smashing ‘Seen your video’ (which, despite crippling their chances at MTV fame just as alternative rock was taking off, was a heroic effort nonetheless) to their general inability to take the music business seriously, they were in it but never of it, always tangential, ever on the margins.
...Basically, they fucked it all up. They sucked at being pop stars every bit as much as they ruled at making pop music. But that’s OK; I think I like them better this way. This way they only exist for the truly deserving.
The music of The Replacements puts words to a feeling that everybody knows but that only a precious few can articulate. It takes great music to name the nameless and they did it, over and over again.
The ‘Mats captured the idiosyncrasy and illogic of a damaged world. How many bands can you say that about?