In 1984, Minneapolis was represented at both pop culture and the American underground movement by a pair of essential records. On the one hand, you had Prince starting a Revolution and dancing in the Purple Rain. The album and movie cemented the multi-talented musician's iconic stature, but the music itself holds up perhaps the best. Filled to the brim with passion and power in a way that still tingles the spine, 2009 will mark the 25th year anniversary of what is arguably the Purple man's finest hour on LP, at least. For an alternative, you had four scruffy, youthful rockers called The Replacements. If rock music was in danger of sounding too processed and polished, they were your saviors. And it didn't hurt that they were a delightfully unpredictable group, prone to wreckage as they were flights of glory. The conflict between potential and tomfoolery characterized their previous albums, but it was that year's Let It Be that managed to capture that essence whilst showing a band that was progressing into something grander and more awe-inspiring.
The Replacements, however, were by nature a cult band and remain so to this day. They were too honest and unpretentious to ever really make it big, and it was other bands who advanced their shambling, raucous, celebratory sound to the mainstream mold. But The Replacements were their own entity, and to be lumping them in with grunge means having to place them alongside modern bands like Staind and Nickleback. Some guys really have all the luck, but you can't find the defiance of a band like this anywhere on the charts. You had to go "Left of the Dial" indeed to get a real strong "Dose of Thunder."
Rhino Records have fulfilled my seven-year itch for remastered editions of the Replacements discography by first taking care of their indie label releases earlier in 2008, with lovably expanded and crisper-sounding treatments of their 1981 debut, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, 1982's thrash-heavy Stink EP, 1983's sloppily eclectic Hootenanny, and 1984's critically acclaimed, highly essential Let It Be. For longtime fans, it's been worth the effort to hear officially released versions of home demos of unused songs recorded by Paul Westerberg as well as the chance to sing along once again to gems like "If Only You Were Lonely" and the oft-bootlegged "Perfectly Lethal," which was known by some as "Stranger Than Fiction.
And in late December of 1984, following both a glorious botched showcase gig at CBGB and a subsequently transcendent performance at Irving Plaza, Seymour Stein at Sire Records offered the group a major-label contract. The label that was home to Madonna, The Ramones, Talking Heads, and The Pretenders was the one to promote and distribute the music of the Mats to a wider audience. For a brief moment, in 1989, The Replacements were on the verge of a major breakthrough with the mainstream rock hit "I'll Be You," which also cracked the Hot 100, something not even the Ramones could accomplish working with singles svengali Phil Spector.
But so much had changed in the band by this time, particularly the firing of one member, and the band essentially dissolved by the time the last Sire album was issued the next year. Nothing changed the band's reputation, but for a spell, every once in a while, you could hear the sound of the Mats crop up from time to time. Being a movie nerd, it's "Within Your Reach" in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything..., "Unsatisfied" in the movie Airheads(!) and "Can't Hardly Wait" at the close of the teen comedy which copped its title. And checking IMDb, I was surprised to see songs like "Shooting Dirty Pool" and "Anywhere's Better Than Here" placed in turkeys such as Hot to Trot and Loverboy.
The Replacements remain one of the best outsider rock bands despite all this, and their major label debut, 1985's TIM, is the sound of a band given more space in the studio but not slipping away from their roots. Indeed, producer Tommy [Ramone] Erdelyi was shipped down to Minneapolis to record with Paul Westerberg, Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars. Westerberg was starting to broaden in regards of his songwriting as much as his band mates were beginning to tighten up, although Bob Stinson's erratic, enigmatic behavior was seen as detrimental and eventually brought the axe down. Stinson's indulgences were so out-of-control, that in 1995, he died at the age of 35. TIM sadly serves as Bob's epitaph as well as the beginnings of the band's more professional career mark.
And yet, I find the music on TIM to be almost of a whole just as charming and aching as on Let It Be. Time probably has something to do with it, as even Westerberg himself admits this one has merit and prescience despite its quirks and imperfections. The songs he offered at this point showed the twenty-something man becoming an Everyman figure who was schooled in the ways of pop and rock past and mixing these influences with a particularly bittersweet, lonesome lyrical outlook that could be alternately acidic and affectionate in the space of one song.
The insistent charge of the opening track, Hold My Life, is countered by aimless, vulnerable lyrics that are at one funny and tormented, a seriocomic tone which carries on over the course of the album. Westerberg has always delivered on harsh-throated proclamations of falling-chips fate and the uncertainty it entails, a feeling which comes across as like a second nature in the nature of hearing him sing and what he sings about. And the propulsive, controlled charge of Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars' rhythm section allows for the song to shift hooks throughout in a nature that leans towards pop sensibilities. I'll Buy, however, is loose and blistering, with Bob Stinson's skewered takes on 1950s R&B licks strewn all over (note the Chuck Berry song quoted in one verse, as it was played in early Mats live shows) and Westerberg once again with his f*ck-you face on, coming to the conclusion that although he'll never get past the dice, he's gonna roll anyway.
"I'll Buy" is as smoldering as the finest Stones track, but Westerberg does bite from "Heart of Stone" on the solo of Kiss Me on the Bus, perhaps one of the finest examples of Westerberg's unabashed admiration for Big Star (more on this when we get to the bonus tracks). Handclaps, sleigh bells, jangling guitar, and lyrics of spontaneous devotion ("Come on, let's make a scene/Ooh, baby, don't be so mean") prove romantic in a manner that asks one surrender adult cynicism and just give in to impulse. If Westerberg's words can't assuage you, the melodic lilt and restrained, precise playing of all involved should help you give in. Romanticism is also referenced on Left of the Dial, a song which serves double duty as both a valentine to Lynn Blakey of Let's Active (the liner notes state her, although I've heard some say it's written to Angie Carlson) as well as a tribute to fellow musicians whose sounds are saddled with him on the college radio circuit. The line "Pretty girl keep growin' up, playin' make-up, wearin' guitar/Growin' old in a bar, ya grow old in a bar" does seem to segue into the last song on the proper album if you take this infatuation as a character study.
Dose of Thunder serves as a hard rock bone tossed to those who crave noise from the band just like the old days, recorded on the spot in the studio with contributions from Chris and Tommy, although not from Bob. Regardless, the lead guitarist is allowed to flex some of his beloved muscle on this quickie track, wherein the group pay tribute to the Sex Pistols (the use of a wooden plank with nails to simulate the sound of thunder) and simply get the lead out. Many cite this as a throwaway as they do the subsequent Lay It Down Clown, which comes off as a New York Dolls tribute to "Thunder's" Slade-styled directness. However, as many have with "Gary's Got a Boner" and "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" before, I would defend these two tracks as songs worth singing whilst hammered, although "Lay It Down Clown" is about a switchblade-wielding speed freak. Regardless, the piano solo in the middle of that song does make me smile.
The one song on the album that I felt was the most strange, Waitress in the Sky, I've lightened up to despite the fact that Westerberg's champagne-deprived, chain-smoking, constantly denigrating passenger lays on the snide put-downs real thick. Westerberg did write it with an older sister in mind who was a career flight attendant, and he even sneaks in a joke at the expense of mentioning this at her high school reunion. The acoustic country shuffle was also reminiscent of Johnny Winters' "Mountain of Love." Swingin Party, the following song and closer of side one on the original LP, adapted the phrasing from Frank Sinatra's "Where or When" and the melody from Buffalo Springfield's "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong," but also has the echo-laden guitar of Duane Eddy and the operatic sadness of Roy Orbison to its advantage. It's the prettiest song on the album, but it's also one of the most glum ("If being wrong's a crime, I'm serving forever"), although not without a funny opening line and a general feeling of middle-class isolation.
Bastards of Young, however, was the kick-off on side two and spawned one of the most hilariously perplexing videos ever to be given MTV rotation. Although "Left of the Dial" was driven by meaty electric guitar, this song is easily the best one on the album to make use of it, from the lead-off riff to the howling Bob Stinson solo and finally the "My Generation"-style detonation at the song's end. Westerberg too lets his voice roar just as mightily, with a chorus that declares him to be one of the "sons of no one," a biblical reference which makes sense in regards to the attitude Westerberg, pardon the pun, adopted. I also appreciated such a similar rawness to the penultimate song on the album, Little Mascara, Westerberg's ode to a single mother ("All you ever wanted was someone Ma'd be scared of") which was borne out of a literary binge on Tennessee Williams and Flannery O'Connor.
The album's final number is also the best album closer in the band's canon, the tender resignation ballad Here Comes a Regular. Westerberg's downtrodden outcast this time takes his seat at the local watering hole, alongside the wash-outs and the loudmouths, feeling alienated by his emotions ("Am I the only one who feels ashamed?") even as he becomes used to the scenery and the change of seasons. He shares in some of them a boredom with material goods and the need to join others who may have gone nowhere alongside him. Westerberg carries the song nearly by his lonesome, his acoustic strumming backed by a piano break and the faint but inevitably swelling, orchestral Mellotron shadings.
Having already reviewed this album a long time ago, I anticipated a reissue and I finally got it, including color concert photos (with shots of Bob Stinson clearly refusing the emperor's new clothes), ticket replicas and even a reprinted receipt from the Norman, OK police department in regards to a charge of public intoxication leveled at Tommy Stinson (the fine was $50, paid by Peter Jesperson). Memphis rock critic Bob Mehr offers a comprehensive essay regarding this point in the Mats' history, the longest liners in all of the reissues. And Jesperson, who produced these reissues, surveys the six bonus tracks included.
Now, I mentioned Big Star earlier not just because of the musical lineage, but also because Alex Chilton had befriended the band during that CBGB gig in December of 1984 and had produced a recording session at Nicollet Studios in Minneapolis the following month. The first three additions come from Chilton's work with the band. Westerberg wrote a song called Can't Hardly Wait, which was first committed to tape acoustically by Paul and Chris in an echo chamber. The band then had a go with a full-fledged "electric" version, which is of importance because this trades in the studio horns of the completed 1987 version (which Alex Chilton played guitar on) for some of Bob's smoking-fret firepower. Both unreleased versions (there was another take for the band version which first made it on All for Nothing/Nothing for All) are included on this reissue, separated only by the previously released but previously unissued on CD Nowhere Is My Home. Bob Stinson's energetic, catchy work on this track alone is one which could land the Replacements on "Guitar Hero" in the future if it is allowed. Jesperson cites the song as about touring, although the feeling Westerberg equates to the thrown-out image of a missing kid on a milk carton suggests this could be more generally down-and-out.
The remaining three tracks are alternates of tracks from the actual album: the studio demo of Kiss Me on the Bus and different takes of Waitress in the Sky and Here Comes a Regular. The demo of "Kiss Me," recorded in the spring of 1985 with Erdelyi before the official session, obliterates the majestic original in a fuzzy, crunchy wall of noise that gives the song a live, grittier feel. "Waitress" and "Regular" also sound unadorned and natural, with Westerberg cracking up several times on the former (including the flubbing the start of the third verse) and sounding more straightforwardly poignant on the latter, which was the discarded second of the two takes recorded for a song Paul performed on the spot.
TIM - The Replacements
Paul Westerberg - Vocals, guitar, piano.
Tommy Stinson - Bass guitar.
Bob Stinson - Guitar.
Chris Mars - Drums, backing vocals.
Alex Chilton - Studio assistance, backing vocals on "Left of the Dial."
Robert Longo - Cover designer.
Tommy Erdelyi - Producer.
Steve Fjelstad - Engineer.
Recorded at Nicollet Studios, Minneapolis, between June and July of 1985.
Originally issued as Sire #25330 (10/86), peak position #183.
1. Hold My Life (4:18)
2. I'll Buy (3:20)
3. Kiss Me on the Bus (2:52)
4. Dose of Thunder (2:16)
5. Waitress in the Sky (2:00)
6. Swingin Party (3:48)
7. Bastards of Young (3:35)
8. Lay It Down Clown (2:22)
9. Left of the Dial (3:41)
10. Little Mascara (3:33)
11. Here Comes a Regular (4:46)
BONUS TRACKS
12. Can't Hardly Wait [outtake - acoustic] (3:51)
13. Nowhere Is My Home (3:59) [First issued on compilation album Boink!, Glass (UK), #016, 4/86]
14. Can't Hardly Wait [outtake - electric] (3:09)
15. Kiss Me on the Bus [studio demo] (2:58)
16. Waitress in the Sky [alternate version] (1:59)
17. Here Comes a Regular [alternate version] (4:40)
Recommended: Yes
Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends
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