My Heart on My Sleeve and a Drink in My Hand: Why The Replacements Matter So Much

July 3, 2016 / / No Comments

Summer always reminds me of the Replacements. Wow, talk about your non sequitur lead!

I first heard them during summer break and it’s stayed with me. For the record, here’s their official site. Good luck what that. Being the ‘Mats, though, try Facebook. But probably here.

Who cares? Here’s why: They’re the greatest rock and roll band of the past 30 years.

Did I say best? No. Maybe that’s R.E.M.

Did I say most artistic? Nope. Radiohead.

How about most influential? The Clash.

Most literate? Try some Elvis Costello.

Hardest-rocking Minnesota band? Tell it to Husker Du.

I say “greatest” because what they achieved is multi-dimensional, still accessible, and still hugely influential.

Remember the debate about the Beatles versus the Stones? The general conclusion is the Beatles were the best, the Stones were the greatest.

Not many fledgling musicians sit down thinking, “The Beatles are awesome! I’m just gonna sit down and nail that guitar part from ‘The End.'”

But with The Replacements — like the Stones — their tunes seem gettable. You can play their songs -close enough- right now. In your garage or basement or bedroom.

Nothing too fancy, and it’s a fun kick in the ass.

Musicianship aside, what The Replacements had was attitude: They assumed everybody hated them.

The Stones might have believed they were indeed bad boys. Maybe they were in England, in a particular time and place and social strata. Now they’re landed gentry, but I digress.

The Replacements, however, were full-on fuckups. They knew this. They knew YOU knew this. And they owned it. They never were the starting quarterbacks. Or the popular guys in the parking lot, radios blaring. Of the funny ones, or the best dressed, or anybody’s best friend. They were the losers long before Beck.

In high school, you knew for a fact they would be working at the grocery store down the street in five years.

But early on they record a truly aware song like “Color Me Impressed.”

And then they write a heartbreaker like “Answering Machine.”

See, they became geniuses when they played. You saw what the potential for rock in the 1980s was. Until, of course, they screwed it up by being too hammered, or too angry, or just too damned stubbord to put on a good show. And then you kind of hated them.

But here’ the other thing. The one thing you still can’t look past or chalk up to nostalgia: Paul Westerberg is an amazing songwriter. Maybe the best we’ve seen since Lennon/McCartney. Here’s where I drop in “Unsatisfied.”

I love The Beatles, but some of their songs are distanced and removed (“Eleanore Rigby” anyone?) that in the wrong mood they make me want to chew on a gun barrel. Same with Elvis Costello — huge fan, but damn, “Shipbuilding” and similar.

Westerberg, though, always owned the emotions. He brought them front and center. These were his thoughts, his emotions, his confessions, his celebrations. And you cold take it or leave it, but it was always authentic. Oh look. “Valentine“!

Hell, what does that mean though? Here goes.

Life in Replacements World isnever going to end well. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get excited because it’s Friday night and you’re going to see your favorite band. You hope your major crush will be there. Maybe your crush smiles at you. And maybe, if you’re lucky, when you’re outside taking a smoke break, your crush comes over and asks for a light. And then, and then, and then maybe you say one cool thing. Something you’ve kind of thought about, but not rehearsed. Something that’s maybe funny but also a little edgy. Something that’s exactly right.

And maybe your crush smiles. And after the cigarette, takes your hand and you both go inside.

That’s the Replacements.

What’s also the Replacements is the next morning. When your crush is getting ready to leave. And waiting for you to say something. The next cool thing that will bring them back.

But you say something stupid. Maybe even accidentally insulting. And they storm off.

That’s also the Replacements.

Random Replacements facts:

  • Their first gig was at a church hall. They were immediately banned because of drunken rowdiness.
  • Tommy Stinson dropped out of tenth grade to join the band on tour.
  • They almost weren’t let into their first gig at CBGB’s because of Tommy’s age. Bob Stinson was immediately tossed out by management.
  • The ‘Mats beat out friends Husker Du for a Twin/Tone label contract. Husker Du then grabbed an opening slot with Johnny Thunder that the Replacements wanted.
  • Paul Westerberg said the rest of the band was his toughest audience:  “If it doesn’t rock enough, Bob will scoff at it, and if it isn’t catchy enough, Chris won’t like it, and if it isn’t modern enough, Tommy won’t like it.”

 

Past Video Blasts: “Teardrop”, Massive Attack

August 27, 2010 / / 1 Comment

As always, first the video, then the story:

It took my good friend (and fellow bandmate & awesome drummer) Jeff Arthur years to get me into Massive Attack. I don’t know why I resisted for so long, but the album that did it for me was “Mezzanine” (1998). Probably because it featured more guitar; but damn, that album has some great songs on it. I know there may be purists that scream “Blue Lines!”, but it didn’t take with me back then. (And if “Blue Lines” didn’t cut it for me, “Any Love” and “Protection” had no chance.)

But “Mezzanine”. Damn. I’d basically forgotten how great this is until someone reminded me that “Teardrop” is the House television show’s theme song (basically, kinda, mostly). Which got me to go play “Teardop” again.

The song features lyrics and vocals by Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. And the story has long been she wrote it in memory of her incredibly close friend and fellow musician, Jeff Buckley, who died a year before the album’s release. (So, probably, about the time the album was being created).The two had even recorded a song, “All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun”, but it’s not commercially available…

Even without that backstory, the song is great, truly touching. The video carries the mood, and is equally enigmatic, and was directed by Walter Stern.

Fraser’s no longer participating in Cocteau Twins. She’s been doing a lot of other musical collaborations, and released a solo single in 2009. Word is she and husband Damon Reese may be working on an album.

Director Stern continues to make music videos as well as TV commercials.

And Massive Attack? They released the “Heligoland” album this year, and there’s talk of another studio album next year.

People Kissing To “An Apology”, Future Islands

August 25, 2010 / / No Comments

Another week, another new music video. This one is definitely a labor of love on many fronts, but first:


As you can see, this combines a lot of different visual and video styles (from regular taping to stills, to animation, stock footage, and other variations). But that variety serves to push forward a specific vision, based on a specific (and haunting) song by Future Islands, masterfully voiced by Samuel Herring.

Here’s what director Jerry Stifelman has to say:

“I’d been thinking about how all relationships in life — from human lovers to the way gravity holds us to the planet — are all about push and pull. I think this push and pull is at the root of all ecstasy and misery. And the sweet spot between this, is intimacy. This is what I feel when I hear Samuel Herring of Future Islands sing ‘so far away’ in the song, An Apology. It’s what I feel when I hear him sing ‘Here, in my chest where you burst, I keep the crush and the weight of the world.'”

“The moment where we connect with each other against ‘the weight of the world’ is the essence of this video. To get at this, we focused on people being, uh, facially intimate. Most of our subjects were real couples we found. In one case, we used an actor. And in three cases, we paired people together who had not kissed before. A big part of the video wasn’t just this interpretation of the meaning of the song, but its sound, which feels less like the conscious creation of a group of musicians than something they teased out of the world. It’s like a song found in the ruins of an ancient amusement park where lovers once walked together. To play to this feeling with the imagery, we used a lot of grain and visual noise, actually having images break apart into static, almost like the way nothing lasts in the world. Even the camera angles, were chosen to feel almost impersonal. I kept pretending the camera was actually an alien probe trying to figure human beings out. The distance between what the camera’s not feeling and what the people are adds to both the tension and the sweetness. To help universalize the emotions, we included the stop-motion footage of the wooden figures, along with the dolphins, the pigeons, and the goats. Because, you know, we’re all in this together.”

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