The Replacements - All Over But The Shouting
I wasn't going to read any rock books for a while, but a book on the Replacements was too much for me to stay away. It was just a bunch of quotes by the band from old interviews, people telling stories about what the band meant to them, and a few stories of hanging out w/ them. Kind of lame except the guy who ran Twin/Tone is featured heavily and the band's lawyer (believe it or not) provides a lot of interesting insight about what they were getting into signing w/ Sire. There were a couple of important things I learned. First, Sleeping Nights of Jesus from one of the greatest live albums ever released is a Robyn Hitchcock song (I previously found out that the Vertebrats sing Left In The Dark). Also, the recording for that show was done w/ 2 boom mikes from a balcony that someone in the band's entourage set up. Most importantly, the tapes the band stole from Twin/Tone and threw in the Mississippi River only contained a few outtakes and weren't the master tapes of all their early recordings. Somewhere there is an interesting book that Paul, Chris and/or Tommy will write but this isn't it.
posted by Dan Smith at
4:56 PM
6 Comments:
I just got this book and was about to read it until I read this post. So I'll probably just toss it under the big pile of American indie rock band biography books I still haven't read.
8:02 PM
If you are interested, Ebay is selling a lithograph of the Tim album cover personalized for Chris Mars. That should get you a paragraph in the paperback version of this book.
3:15 PM
Does this tome explain "One Good Dose of Thunder"?
Does it explain why Westerberg is wearing the same shirt on the cover of Sorry, Ma as he is on Hootenanny?
Does it explain what "Swingin' Party" is all about?
Lemme know. I don't give an ef about the rest. But if any answer above is yes, I'll skim it.
12:11 AM
It doesn't answer any of that stuff, but if you want to read about how the first song on All Shook Down changed some girl's life this is your book.
9:28 AM
"Dose of Thunder" was Paul's attempt to give Bob Stinson a song that kept him interested during the Tim sessions. Not surprisingly, it didn't really work and Paul doesn't look too fondly upon it anymore.
I assume you mean the liner notes of Hootenanny because there is no picture of Paul on the cover. But I assume Paul wore the same shirt because he was poor and only had a couple of shirts in his wardrobe during that time.
I don't know the specifics of Swingin' Party although obviously it's about feeling nervous and anxious in forced social situations. I'll see if I can dig up more when I write my book about the Mats.
10:40 AM
O.K. I read this book at the beach and I think you've underrated it. Although I would've like to gotten some Westerberg/T. Stinson commentary, I thought this was a pretty thorough and fair look at the band. My only problem with it is that it used the overplayed "oral history" structure. I would much rather prefer a straight biography that fleshed out the band's history and included some author commentary, a la The Last Gang in Town.
1:51 PM
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