The title of this blog, refers to, of course, The Replacements Stink! ep of 1982. Did you know? The Replacements (the Twin Tone version) are my favorite band. There are certain times in life you never forget--the first time you kiss a girl, the first time you get married, the first time you wet your pants giving a book report in front of your classmates, the first time a close relative dies, the first time you kiss a boy, etc. The first time I heard Let it Be, which I bought for my good friend David Roman for his 16th birthday in the shiny plastic cassette format, is one of those times.
I could talk for hours about the Replacements--and maybe I will. I've got a pound of coffee beans in my freezer. The whiskey is in my veins. To wit...
Paul Westerberg is the greatest songwriter of my life.
ok, shut up. it's so easy to talk about the Replacements, because they had no fucking clue, no fucking idea. how refreshing!
It's so easy to point out my favorite thing about the Replacements. Their music makes tragedy feel so haphazard. Paul Westerberg snorts and chuckles at it on all those records. Bob Stinson got his little brother Tommy to play bass in the band so he wouldn't end up a waste-oid like Bob did. Jesus Christ! Bob was a fantastic guitarist, but he may be the shittiest older brother of all time. Replacements fans are all the richer for it, but man...every song has a little train wreck wrapped up in it. It's gory and fascinating.
One of my favorite Replacements songs is Treatment Bound, the last song on Hootenanny. The shit-eating grin that must've been on Paul's face as he sings "We're getting nowhere, fast as we can" makes me gag and giggle at the same time. The Replacements knew they were going to fail, and Paul wrote all his songs about failure. They notoriously tanked at shows. And marks like me still eat it up and call it the best shit ever. I just figured this out.
I didn't know any of this in 1999, when I borrowed a Tascam 4-track from my good friend Kevin Horty to work on demos for my then band Vote for Noah while my s.o. was out of town. I set up my amp in my living room, and proceeded to hack my way through some replacements songs for fun, before realizing the utter joy of multitracking Paul's part vs. Bob's part on 'Favorite Thing' from Let it Be. From there, I just started playing guitar riffs and within a couple hours I had rough ideas for 5 songs. Ragged, jagged, 'mats derivative, but it didn't matter--I was amped up. I called a local rehearsal studio, booked some time that afternoon, and dragged the 4-track in. setting up the vocal mics on the drums, I hammered through the songs, singing them in my head after writing them two hours before. In this case, there are no mistakes, every first take's a winner. Went home, tracked the bass and guitar in a few hours, and went out with a shit-eating grin on my face.
Stinkrock was born.
The lyrics took another few months to write; I wrote most of them when crashing in Dave Cavalier's basement a couple months later, so most of them are about insects and blow-up dolls. But that initial jag of guerilla songwriting was so damn fulfilling. my good friend danny blas blew up bob stinson's let it be chuck taylor for the cover of this little cd, and I gave out copies to my friends.
I did another one this year, and from original writing session to final mixdown, it was about 8 days. And it's ugly...it stinks.
A postscript:
a few years ago, moneyshot was playing its maiden and only show to date at northsix. meanwhile, my hero paul westerberg was on stage at the bowery ballroom. this was the tour where paul went without a band, decorated his set as a living room, and invited fans up on stage for a few songs, passing out plastic noisemakers and generally being a good host. my good friend john conroy was called up on stage and inherited a kazoo. Paul played a rousing number or two, then started playing the beautiful and sparse 'here comes a regular', a song paul couldn't even finish at the lone replacements show i saw. but he's got the legs this time, and makes it through to the solo, and john, not missing a beat, starts playing it on the kazoo while sitting on the couch behind paul westerberg at the bowery ballroom. the crowd goes *nuts*, and paul westerberg turns around and gives him the wtf look, but john keeps playing. he's a replacement. I'm a replacement. hell, we're all replacements.
after the show, paul's autographing postcards, and john (bless his heart) hands one to paul and says 'write something for my friend mike about treatment bound'.
John gave me the postcard a few days later. It reads:
Dear Mike,
Get help.
Paul
I could talk for hours about the Replacements--and maybe I will. I've got a pound of coffee beans in my freezer. The whiskey is in my veins. To wit...
Paul Westerberg is the greatest songwriter of my life.
ok, shut up. it's so easy to talk about the Replacements, because they had no fucking clue, no fucking idea. how refreshing!
It's so easy to point out my favorite thing about the Replacements. Their music makes tragedy feel so haphazard. Paul Westerberg snorts and chuckles at it on all those records. Bob Stinson got his little brother Tommy to play bass in the band so he wouldn't end up a waste-oid like Bob did. Jesus Christ! Bob was a fantastic guitarist, but he may be the shittiest older brother of all time. Replacements fans are all the richer for it, but man...every song has a little train wreck wrapped up in it. It's gory and fascinating.
One of my favorite Replacements songs is Treatment Bound, the last song on Hootenanny. The shit-eating grin that must've been on Paul's face as he sings "We're getting nowhere, fast as we can" makes me gag and giggle at the same time. The Replacements knew they were going to fail, and Paul wrote all his songs about failure. They notoriously tanked at shows. And marks like me still eat it up and call it the best shit ever. I just figured this out.
I didn't know any of this in 1999, when I borrowed a Tascam 4-track from my good friend Kevin Horty to work on demos for my then band Vote for Noah while my s.o. was out of town. I set up my amp in my living room, and proceeded to hack my way through some replacements songs for fun, before realizing the utter joy of multitracking Paul's part vs. Bob's part on 'Favorite Thing' from Let it Be. From there, I just started playing guitar riffs and within a couple hours I had rough ideas for 5 songs. Ragged, jagged, 'mats derivative, but it didn't matter--I was amped up. I called a local rehearsal studio, booked some time that afternoon, and dragged the 4-track in. setting up the vocal mics on the drums, I hammered through the songs, singing them in my head after writing them two hours before. In this case, there are no mistakes, every first take's a winner. Went home, tracked the bass and guitar in a few hours, and went out with a shit-eating grin on my face.
Stinkrock was born.
The lyrics took another few months to write; I wrote most of them when crashing in Dave Cavalier's basement a couple months later, so most of them are about insects and blow-up dolls. But that initial jag of guerilla songwriting was so damn fulfilling. my good friend danny blas blew up bob stinson's let it be chuck taylor for the cover of this little cd, and I gave out copies to my friends.
I did another one this year, and from original writing session to final mixdown, it was about 8 days. And it's ugly...it stinks.
A postscript:
a few years ago, moneyshot was playing its maiden and only show to date at northsix. meanwhile, my hero paul westerberg was on stage at the bowery ballroom. this was the tour where paul went without a band, decorated his set as a living room, and invited fans up on stage for a few songs, passing out plastic noisemakers and generally being a good host. my good friend john conroy was called up on stage and inherited a kazoo. Paul played a rousing number or two, then started playing the beautiful and sparse 'here comes a regular', a song paul couldn't even finish at the lone replacements show i saw. but he's got the legs this time, and makes it through to the solo, and john, not missing a beat, starts playing it on the kazoo while sitting on the couch behind paul westerberg at the bowery ballroom. the crowd goes *nuts*, and paul westerberg turns around and gives him the wtf look, but john keeps playing. he's a replacement. I'm a replacement. hell, we're all replacements.
after the show, paul's autographing postcards, and john (bless his heart) hands one to paul and says 'write something for my friend mike about treatment bound'.
John gave me the postcard a few days later. It reads:
Dear Mike,
Get help.
Paul
posted by stinkrock at 2:22 AM
2 Comments:
It's one of the few records I have by friends that I actually still listen to.
PW is the greatest songwriter of our lives.
"A person can work up a mean, mean thirst, after a hard day of nothin' much at all"
Got that right.
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