The Replacements - "Tim": Classic or Dud?

I don't see how an album with "Bastards of Young", "Left of the Dial" or "Here Comes A Regular" could be that dissapointing to someone who liked The Replacements.

I could perhaps see a parallel between some of Westerberg's and Fogerty's solo albums, but not in Tim.

It probably doesn't take much to get in an arguement with a Replacment's fan after a six pack or so, considering I think being a minor trifled embittered drunk seems to be a somewhat of a membership card (probably myself included).

But "Bastards of Young" felt false then and still does, plus it's not much of a melody and doesn't even rock--so much for pleasing Tommy. "Waitress in the Sky" was a punchline in search of a joke, still is. "Here Comes a Regular" seemed overblown. But at least that wore well, and so did the rest, despite the production. "Kiss Me on the Bus" is a weak tune but genuinely sweet. This album was a lot of people's first Replacements album, and it sure sounded better than anything else in this vein a few years later...

Like me, e.g. I've always had a soft spot for it. I was 15 and I listened to "Hold My Life" over and over and over. Song for song, I understand the nods given to Let It Be and Pleased to Meet Me. But I prefer to think of them as kind of a trilogy -- the second book always sags a little, but it's where a lot of the character development happens. Or something like that. It took me about three months to get the gallows joke in "Swinging Party", which seemed like genius to me at the time (did I mention I was 15?).

I Hate Music
Kids Don't Follow
Within Your Reach
Mr. Whirly
Treatment Bound
Hold My Life
Swinging Party
Little Mascara
Here Comes a Regular
I'll Be You

I love the cover! Robert Longo is the 80s, and I could never quite believe they roped him in to do it.

I'm not sure what the problems are with the production either.

And Longo wasn't the 80's .. Nagle was. Duran Duran. (gag.)

"If Only You Were Lonely"
"Buck Hill"
"Fuck School"
"Stuck in the Middle"
"Go"
"Kiss Me on the Bus"
"Bastards of Young" (awkward title notwithstanding)
"Left of the Dial"
"Someone Take the Wheel"

The production on Tim is nowhere near as bad as the production on PTMM. The production RUINS that record!

TESTIFY, brother Sterling! CAN I GET AN 'AMEN'?

Amateurist: Tommy Ramone produced Tim and co-produced PMM, but the latter was largely produced by Jim Dickinson and engineered by John Hampton and Joe Hardy at Ardent Studios in Memphis. When I (briefly) worked at Ardent, I was sometimes tasked with giving studio tours, and the highlight of the experience, given the right group of tourons, was pointing out where Paul Westerberg had allegedly vomited in his hands and then thrown it up onto the carpeted wall of Studio B. In retrospect, that was one of the best things about working there, in fact.

Compared to live versions I've heard from the same period, yes.

Hootenanny and Let It Be were the pinnacle for me and Tim was the inevitable letdown. I love the former two for the personal, localized feel of the songs -- Midwestern brats lamenting and celebrating (at the same time) they're sorry-ass lives. Tim loses the local flavor, and it doesn't rock as much. It sounds like a deliberate switch to try to be something bigger, to start writing songs for a generation. They're less personal, they're more bitter (I hear more lamenting and less celebrating on Tim), and, well, "Here Comes a Regular" is no "Treatment Bound."

Also this is literally all he has done his whole life since he was 12. At some relatively early stage it probably occurred to him that this was a great alternative to quittin' school and goin' to work and never goin' fishin', and he might as well get good at it.

(water all around, might as well learn to swim)

^#onethread!

This may sound naive, but honestly, what did he do to up his game outside of rehearsal?

just speaking from experience, it's doing gigs. i always feel like playing 1 gig is worth 10 practices, something about having to do it live in front of a real audience just tightens a band up in a way practice just can't. then obviously, doing stuff on the level of GNR has to be a whole other level of having to nail it, dealing with automation and light shows and pyro and an entire production.

Ums otm

I will add that being able to improve your playing through gigging/playing live is a huge privilege --any stage/audience is a privilege imo -- and if he has had that since he was a tween I would imagine it does wonders for one's confidence. which in turn does wonders for one's playing.

LL otm too

Yeah in a way it’s the DIY version of the Disney-kid thing with Olivia Rodrigo. The training and experience that comes with just doing something as a full-time thing.

damn theater kids

Theatre Kids Don't Follow

Lol.

Basically each step up in the level of performing- performing for any kind of audience, performing for a larger audience, performing for a hostile audience in a foreign land- has the potential to provide exponential growth.

Even determined screw-ups like the 'Mats had the ability to be great on a good night.

they were great most of the time, in my experience.

RIght. I guess my point is that they played together a ton so even if they were falling-down drunk they still had the muscle memory to put on a really good show more often than not.

Here's something that was posted elsewhere by Bob Mehr back in 2019:

Another funny fact that ended up being cut from Trouble Boys: What Tommy is playing on "Nightclub Jitters" isn't a traditional double bass, but one of those stick like electronic versions with pickups -- this particular one (make/model escapes me) was owned by one of the assistant engineers at Ardent who had somehow purchased it from country picker Jerry Reed, or it had been owned by Jerry at some point anyway. The first classical bass Tommy played -- at least on record -- would've been on the following album sessions on "Portland."

Bass player of my friend’s band I am watching right now looks something like Bob Stinson and it’s kind of freaking me out a bit.

This was my favorite album of 1985, this was easily the best show I saw that year and they were a lot better than when I saw them in 1984. I still have that Musician Magazine issue where Peter Buck says to stop listening to R.E.M. and listen to The Replacements instead.

I guess I was a fair-weather fan though. I missed Bob, thought that PTMM was incoherent, and of the five bands I saw two nights in a row at the Palladium in Dec. 1987 (The Replacements / Concrete Blonde on Thursday, Jesus And Mary Chain / Opal / Social Distortion on Friday). The Replacements were easily the anonymously worst. I mean the Jesus And Mary Chain fucked up a lot but somehow made it cool. And even as ridiculous as Social Distortion was on that bill (hooray Goldenvoice), they played it like they were full Stadium Punk.

Trouble Boys was an amazing book, but wow - I ended up hating them intensely. What a bunch of assholes.

The box set is a great listen. I'd mostly echo what others have said earlier, but I don't think this mix is anymore definitive than any other "sacrilege!" remix - say like Visconti's recent remix of Lodger. Great album, shame about what happened to them.

Trouble Boys was an amazing book, but wow - I ended up hating them intensely. What a bunch of assholes.

lol yeah that was my experience of reading this book too, it def rubbed away a lot of the 'loveable loser' mystique

I picked up Trouble Boys again a couple days ago, re-read the 1988-1991 chapters, and, ugh, I'm exhausted.

I have a copy of Trouble Boys that I haven’t read, maybe it’s better that way.

I’m warming up to the new mix but it still doesn’t scream “could’ve been a hit”. You know what could’ve been a hit? “All He Wants To Do Is Fish”.

someone above mentioned that Chris perhaps didn't advance his playing like Tommy, but I got the idea from the Mehr book that he was focused on not losing his mind in the circus.

One of the things I do enjoy about the Tim re-enactment is hearing his drums clearly-consistent player, maybe not the highs of say Bob's solo on Color Me Impressed, but there are plenty of spots where I think he sounds great like on PTMM in particular.

Chris also had something else to focus on: his visual art. The other guys had nothing else.

The mix wouldn’t have mattered in terms of sales at the time. What mattered was that given any chance to network or take advantage of an opportunity, the guys would piss on it, set it on fire, and later on wonder “why REM and not us?”

i still think an actual video for bastards of young instead of the stupid speaker one and an actual physical single of bastards of young would have sold more copies of the album.

It was never going to happen from a band that recorded “Seen Your Video” but yeah, a great, entertaining video would have done wonders. I wish they did that first, THEN do a one-shot, minimalist f.u. video - would have made the latter more impactful.

The mix wouldn’t have mattered in terms of sales at the time. What mattered was that given any chance to network or take advantage of an opportunity, the guys would piss on it, set it on fire, and later on wonder “why REM and not us?”

Yeah that Lurie book was a fun read.

Chris also had something else to focus on: his visual art. The other guys had nothing else

Of all the members when discussing the Replacements post-split, Chris is clearly the “winner” - not only is his career more successful in absolute terms, but it’s the one that really aligns closest to the Replacements spirit (do what you want whether you sink or swim and to hell with the consequences) that no respectable solo career (that will always remain in the shadow of the band) could hope to match.

Per Jason Jones, the Rhino A&R executive who produces all of their releases for The Replacements:

"All copies of the Tim box have left our warehouse and are at retailers. If you have not picked it up yet, I highly recommend you do so as we are on track to be completely sold out by the end of the holiday season.

"The box will not be repressed."

That's what they said about the Complete Fun House Sessions box, and that made a return. Anyway, Tim box is currently at the Rhino shop:

https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/the-replacements/tim-let-it-bleed-edition-box-set-4cd1lp/603497833115.html

True, but it did take five years for that to happen. I can't imagine ALL of this box set going out-of-print either - maybe the record will be broken out or they'll reissue the remix on a one or two-disc CD with some bonus tracks - but if anyone's coveting the whole set, I wouldn't wait too long.

FWIW, Jason Jones elaborated a bit with a follow-up today:

For the foreseeable future, it's a buy now situation. We're down to under 20 copies at the Rhino store and I had to scramble to get the necessary copies from our warehouse to hold for Grammy consideration next year (it missed the cutoff release date by one week for this year's nominations).

This weekend I heard Come on Come on by Billy Idol from across a noisy room and assumed it was an unreleased track from the Tim box set

If you missed the box set (which his now OOP) and/or just wanted the vinyl record that comes with it, you have a chance to buy it at a more affordable price: a double LP is being released, and it includes the new mix along with the box set's new remastered edition of the original mix, which hadn't been issued on vinyl yet. Unfortunately it'll be an RSD exclusive release, so better be quick.

happy 40th

I just listened to the No Dogs in Space podcast series on the Mats, and damn, as always, whataband, whatastory.

Played the "alternate" version I made in celebration - just the new mix with a couple of track substitutions - and man does it sound amazing when you crank it up. I absolutely do not miss the old LP mix - I'm glad they didn't erase it from history, that would definitely be revisionism, but I'm very happy with the new mix from Ed Stadium.

Thought the new mix was NOT from Ed Stasium.

Oh wait never mind

It was Tommy Ramone who did the original

Correct! They wanted Ed Stasium originally but I think he was in the middle of producing someone else's record so Tommy and I guess the band decided to have Tommy mix it himself. I think Mehr quoted the band's displeasure with Paul saying "Maybe really wanted Ed Stasium?" because they naively thought Tommy would just replicate the sound Ed came up with on those Ramones records.

Yep

Westerberg was less impressed with the sounds the producer was getting. “After about a week, Tommy (Stinson) and I sort of talked to each other on the side and said, ‘Well, I guess it was Ed Stasium that we really wanted,’” said Westerberg, referring to the Ramones’ engineer.

There's also something about Tommy Erdelyi/Ramone lamenting that Tommy Stinson played a Rickenbacker instead of a Precision.

Tommy Stinson does sound a lot better on the remix - the bass has much better definition.

I was at work last night and all of a sudden "Swingin Party" started playing and i was like wtf -- someone had set the music to "cafe classics" lol
Something about this band being a cafe classic made me lol.

Listened to my old original lp on one of those cheap portable record players w/ tiny speakers and it sounded perfect... Not so much on hifi.

The new mix was great overall, but I never got over how I think it was someone on here who said the new Here Comes A Regular sounded like Every Rose Has Its Thorn

LOL -- yes.

poison and the mats probably would have hit it off grandly

drunken chaotic big haired libertines

Speaking of "Tim," the podcast I listened to brought up the alleged record release incident where Paul snapped at (a supposedly sober) Bob and demanded he "drink or get off the stage," but the hosts cast a lot of doubt on the heartbreaking tale. For one they say Bob apparently changed his story a lot over the years, plus I guess Bob's widow got a lot of stuff wrong, too, about that night and Bob and the band in general; the hosts trace a lot of possible misinformation back to that infamous Spin posthumous Bob piece, which they angrily describe as the most exploitative profile they've ever read. But also Paul has repeatedly denied the story as told, too. Not that he couldn't be a dick, but he says he would never have said anything that cruel to a fresh out of rehab Bob. Of course he would say that, but for all the insane stories about the Replacements, it seems that as irresponsible or careless or annoying or immature or self-destructing as they could be, they were afaict rarely if ever outright cruel.

Related (to the thread) I just came across this unedited interviews with future Replacement replacement Dave Minehan about his time around and with the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVLuvTnmE9Q

poison and the mats probably would have hit it off grandly

Probably otm