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."

I can see that. A big part of Voodoo Lounge is kind of like "Knocking' On Mine" where it sounds like meat-and-potatoes numbers that were bashed out in a day. Nothing earthshaking, but fun and goes down easy. (Had they cut Voodoo Lounge down to its ten best numbers, basically 40 minutes of music, it could've been a nice low-key release. Then again, every new Stones album has to be drowned in hype.)

I feel like 14 songs was like the album version of the dopey songs from the Singles soundtrack

otm it's a super early '90s record. I like five or six songs on it, but it's not much of an introduction if it was anyone's first Paul Westerberg album. I think I did like Eventually better, but I can't really remember because I haven't listened in ages.

I saw him on one of those tours, he was really good, loud, energetic. About two-thirds of the set was Replcacements stuff, it was a fun show. But also kind of a sense he wasn't really going anywhere.

Replcacements

apologies for this typo which hurts my brain when I look at it.

I really like that 1996 Troubador show that they put out on a promo cassette:

https://www.discogs.com/release/13906521-Paul-Westerberg-A-Lot-Of-Songs-Not-For-Sale

This is really were I first noticed "Little Mascara," which was played by request. Great show.

i actually love most of eventually and suicaine gratifaction, tho i haven't really revisted them since my replacements superfandom peaked in college

I loved the Singles stuff when I was a kid, it's what brought me to the Replacements. Two great songs, even if they're nothing like his older stuff.

I don't really like much from the solo stuff except 14 Songs, which is basically Dyslexic Heart: The Album, which is exactly what I wanted at the time.

I do like this version of Born for Me with Juliana H:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmrOqD602TU

Caved and bought the Tim box. The new mix is really good and as a whole I prefer it to the original. The drums don't sound like they're playing down the hall behind a door and it's REALLY nice to hear Tommy. After reading Trouble Boys, which spoke so highly of his playing, I've been paying more attention to it and he is so good on this. I agree that it doesn't sound like a vintage mix, the bass is way too prominent for that. But that's fine, we already have a vintage mix. I even like the new mix on Here Comes a Regular, although it probably benefits the least. If I were making a mix CD of drunk songs I would probably put the original on there.

speaking of peter gabriel. yikes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6chvzqAVCnI

Feel like Tommy is one of the great rock bass players. There are some excellent quotes about him from Jim Dickinson I am struggling to remember now, one of them something like “Nobody plays eighth notes like Tommy Stinson.”

Close, very, very close.

“There was not a lot of drinking going on—relatively speaking, anyway,” Fjelstad said. “But musically, there was something magic happening with them. Something definitely that was not there with other bands.” Part of that was Tommy Stinson, whose rapid maturation on bass added a new element of dynamism to the songs. “For a little kid, he turned into a very good musician very fast,” noted Westerberg.
Tommy would dismiss his early style as “me just playing eighth notes” (though as the band’s later producer Jim Dickinson observed, “No one on earth played eighth notes quite like Tommy Stinson”). The younger Stinson’s nimble fretwork and animated runs highlighted tracks like “Oh Baby” and “Love You Til Friday.”

^from TROUBLE BOYS

Absolutely. He was a great punk bassist, but it's pretty jaw dropping how he could effortlessly do other stuff. Wallace mentioned this - he asked for a standup bass for "Portland" and then it was like, whoah, where did he learn to play that so well so effortlessly? (And in classic fashion, he smashed it after they got their take.) I think that's why Paul always wanted him around and why he was able to grow and experiment with him. He got irritated with Chris because it seemed like he had a limited range and struggled a bit to up his game, but Tommy rose up to the challenge every time. I love his bass playing on "Birthday Gal" - propulsive but very melodic.

Tommy is kind of like one part Dee Dee Ramone mixed with many parts John McVie.

And yeah, I remember that part about the upright. Maybe he had already played it some other time, like Kenny Rogers before him, but still.

I missed his show in NYC last week due to other commitments, but if I catch him the next time he's in town, I'm going to ask about his bass playing. This may sound naive, but honestly, what did he do to up his game outside of rehearsal? The guy always cared deeply about the band and the music they made, regardless of their hedonistic and destructive endeavors. Maybe it was just a lot of practice and nothing more, but I'd be curious to know if he did anything else.

Maybe it’s sentimental of me to think this but I’d like to believe his brother’s tutelage at such a young age really give him an extra-strong musical mind, a firm foundation upon which to build.

I'm still searching for the Steve Howe in his brother's leads, unless it all translated to "playing a lot of notes (too) fast".

xp Probably. Paul McCartney often said that his father's life and career as a musician made a huge difference because early on he was surrounded and immersed in music. As he puts it, there was data being piled into the computer early on, so when it came time for him to step out and try his hand at music, there was already a huge foundation to work from. Elvis Costello said as much as well.

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