Music Friday: "Answering Machine"

 I'm in the midst of reading Ander Monson's I Will Take the Answer. One of my favorite essays so far is "The Sadnesses of March," which recounts he and his wife's 64-song tournament of sad songs, which went viral. 

As he relates, for some of us we really dig sad songs for a number of various reasons. I won't give away the details of the essay, but it's a fine piece of non-fiction. 

Mr. Monson is also an alumnus, like me, of The Capstone, the University of Alabama. Roll Tide, sir, Roll Tide. 

The purveyors of the tournament picked songs from a certain time period, and you can look forward to my own post that informs folks of some sad songs everyone should enjoy. I also like sad songs although I do not share Mr. Monson's love of Morrissey. 

But to get to this post, they picked "Here Comes a Regular" from The Replacements. I get why they chose that tune, but I think it has stiff competition from this song from Let It Be. 

Unfortunately, kids these days won't get the reference.

Music Friday: "Work Release"

The band High on Stress started following me on Twitter, so I decided to give them a listen, and I bought their most recent album, Hold Me In. 

"Work Release" is the first song on that album. The album reminds me of the later music from The Replacements. 

Music Friday: "Valentine"

The Replacements were the first real band I saw in concert. Pleased to Meet Me is one of my favorite albums, and this is one of my favorite songs from that album. 

Stay Positive: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Last summer when we were in Ohio for my daughter's national dance competition in Sandusky, Ohio, we took a trip to Cleveland and had the pleasure of touring the Rock and Roll Hall of Hame. 

It was a fun experience. In fact, if I'm ever in the area again, I'd like to tour that place again. What follows are some photos/highlights from the trip. 

The front entry when we were there featured recent inductees, of which was Pearl Jam, one of my favorite bands. 

Next is Vedder's notebook, which shows a draft of "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town," aka "Small Town," from Vs.

And here's Vedder's vintage typewriter. 

The museum also had a feature exhibit on Mellencamp. Here's a draft of one of my favorite songs of his, "Longest Days."

Of course, they also like to feature the famous attire of the stars. Below of two of Hendrix's fly outfits. 

And what we have here is a draft of the famous "Purple Haze." 

Of course, guitars are going to be featured. It is the rock and roll hall of fame after all. 

Here is the late Chris Cornell's Les Paul. 

That one above and the one below, Cobain's,was in the case featuring Grunge. 

 

Here's one of Marvin Gaye's smooth-ass jackets.

And of course, the Beatles were featured prominently later in the museum. Here's McCartney's jacket from the early days of the band and Lennon's famous t-shirt. 

It was also awesome to see Muddy Waters's guitar and Bootsy Collins's bad-ass bass. 

Ringo's drum kit was one of the few kits featured when we were there. 

At the very end the Hall of Fame featured bands from the Midwest, which there were a lot. One of the highlights of that display for me was the demo tape from The Replacements. Lay it down, Clowns. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Instead of focusing so much on the how Trump maligned a former Miss Universe, I think the media needs to focus on how Trump needs to lose weight and the horrible effects of tanning beds. 

Esquire reports that Let It Be by The Replacements is Tim Kaine's favorite album and then does a bout of pop psychology about that choice. 

As an avid book reader, I am troubled by books not providing the traditional "About the Type" information. For example, here is the "about the type" statement for Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me: "The book was set in Bembo, a typeface based an old-style Roman face that was used for Cardinal Pietro's Bembo's tract De Aetna in 1495. Bembo was cut by Francesco Griffo (1450-1518) in the early sixteenth century for Italian Renaissance printer and publisher Aldus Manutius (1449-1515). The Lanston Monotype Company of Philadelphia brought the well-proportioned letterforms of Bembo to the United States in the 1930s."

Music Friday: "Someone Take the Wheel" & "Happy Town"

As I mentioned in a previous Music Friday post, I was reading Trouble Boys, a book that recounts the rise and fall of The Replacements. 

For the most part, All Shook Down was a Westerberg solo affair and not really a band album. But I've always enjoyed the album even though purists of The Replacements have negative feelings about the work. Of course, some of those people probably think the band was at its best with Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash! and Hootenanny. I am not one of those people. 

Regardless, in his book Mehr notes that the album is like a suicide note for the band. He's on the mark with that comment. Westerberg picked the album cover because the two dogs summed up the state of the band: he and Tommy Stinson out there trying to keep it going. 

So here are a couple of tunes from that disc.

Music Friday: "Never Mind" & "Shooting Dirty Pool"

I'm halfway through Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements, which I'll probably prattle on about in a "Stay Postive" post in the future. 

The only other music artist biography I've read is one about Woody Guthrie, so it's not often I read major long form work about musicians. But The Replacements are one of my favorite bands of all time, a fact you'd know if you've been reading this blog for some time. 

See the following: 

• Random Thoughts on Music, 2009
• Music Friday, 2009
• Left of the Dial, 2010
• Music Friday, 2010
• Music Friday, 2012
• Music Friday, 2013
• Music Friday, 2013
• Music Friday, 2014

Anyway, here's a couple of tunes from Pleased to Meet Me. The first is mostly about Westerberg trying to apologize to Bob Stinson, one of the founding members of the band who was kicked out the band prior to recording that album. The second song is about sleazy music venue owners. 

Enjoy.

Music Friday: "Left of the Dial" & "Asking Me Lies" + Interview w/ Craig Finn

This morning I was listening to one of my favorite bands, The Replacements. 

They've been playing some gigs lately, and below is one song from when they played in Chicago last year. The other is just a shot of the album cover of Don't Tell a Soul and the song "Asking Me Lies." 







What follows is an unedited interview with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady. Finn was interviewed for the documentary, Color Me Obsessed, which is a film I need to get.

Music Friday: "Here Comes a Regular"

Today the only band I've listened to is The Replacements, one of my favorite bands of all time. 

For a short while in my life I worked as a delivery guy for my dad's liquor store. I'd chauffeur boxes of booze to bars and restaurants throughout Black Hawk County (IA) but mainly in Waterloo. I saw lots of "regulars" on my rounds of liquor peddling. 

"Here Comes a Regular" is the closing song of Tim, one of the finest albums of the 80s.

Below is the studio version and a live version circa 1989.

Music Friday: "I'll Be You"

This week was our spring break, and today was the only day where I actually took a break. 

I know. Big deal, huh? Quit your whining, Mr. Nasty, right? 

But bitching is relative, folks. 

I lack no clear transition to the video below from one of my favorite bands ever, The Replacements, but here I go again posting a tune from that classic "alternative" band. 





A dream too tired to come true
left a rebel without a clue,
and I'm searching for something to do. 

Music Friday: "Unsatisfied," "Hold My Life," "Can't Hardly Wait," "Anywhere's Better Than Here," & "Happy Town"

I've been playing my iPod on shuffle quite a bit this week, and one band that keeps getting played is one of the innovators of "alternative music," The Replacements. They are one of my favorite bands. Of all time.

So for this Music Friday, I offer five songs from the five albums I had on cassettes back, as the kids say, "in the day."

First up is "Unsatisfied" from Let It Be (1984), a song Joey Kneiser of Glossary references in a recent interview.





Next is "Hold My Life" from the laconically titled album Tim (1985).





Batting third is the often covered "Can't Hardly Wait" from one of my favorite albums of all time, Pleased to Meet Me (1987).





"Anywhere's Better Than Here" from Don't Tell a Soul (1989) is full of angst and anger.





And to finally close out this festival of embedding, I offer "Happy Town" from All Shook Down (1990).





Have a good weekend, folks.

Music Friday: "Bastards of Young"

I'm in the mood for one of the finest bands in the history of the world, The Replacements.

This footage comes from a show in 1989, the year I graduated high school, and the song comes from their album Tim. Click HERE to watch the performance that has sketchy video and sound quality, but hey it was the late 80s, people. C'mon.

If I remember right, The Replacements were the first band I ever saw in concert at some old theater in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A good time was had, especially by the band that was known for its partying ways. In fact, I read a blog post a while back by Patterson Hood about how when The Replacements opened for Tom Petty when he saw them during high school (DBT was opening for Petty this summer, so that's why Hood was talking about the memory), Petty kicked them off the tour because the band members, known for all manner of shenanigans, raided Petty's area and stole a some of his wife's dresses that they then wore on stage that night. So I think The Replacements knew something about self-destructive zones, and they seemed to enjoy them.

A band out right now that reminds of Paul Westerberg and the boys is Deer Tick. After reading a post about Deer Tick on No Depression recently, I think there are some striking similarities. Click HERE for Dana Blaisdell's post about them if you're interested.

And here are the lyrics of "Bastards of Young":

God, what a mess, on the ladder of success

Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung.
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled.
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten.

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
The daughters and the sons...

Clean your baby womb, trash that baby boom.
Elvis in the ground, there'll ain't no beer tonight.
Income tax deduction, what a hell of a function.
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten.

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
The daughters and the sons...

Unwillingness to claim us, ya got no war to name us

The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best.
The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please.
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them.

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
The daughters and the sons...

Music Friday: "Left of the Dial" & "Alex Chilton"

Click HERE to watch The Replacements play a couple of their classic tunes. They were a great band although excessive partying did them in.

I saw them in concert back in high school down in Cedar Rapids in some older theatre that I had never heard of and certainly can't recall now.