Replacements book "All Over but The Shouting"

There was a great article/interview by Charles Aaron in Spin right before he died.

Q Magazine says there isn't enough from the actual band, and that there's too much projection, conjecture, etc.

I'm still curious to check it out, tho'.

And I never thought much of Slim Dunlap either.

Q Magazine says there isn't enough from the actual band, and that there's too much projection, conjecture, etc

I suppose that could be a fair criticism. The quotes from the band members appear to be gleaned from elsewhere (old interviews, etc.)

I appreciate (for the most part)the wide array of comments though.

Matos gave it a bad review – too sentimental, I think he said.

I can lend you my copy, Alex, if I ever get around to reading it.

It's a great book. I just finished it last night. It reinforces almost everything I already new - Westerberg comes off as a bully, Bob comes off as the tragic figure we all know he was, the entire band is portrayed as a mismanaged bunch of losers. It is a little sentimental, mostly the passages by author Jim Walsh, but it's an invaluable book for Mats fans. After reading the Pixies oral history (snore), this one is anecdote after anecdote. I read the whole thing in two sittings. Then, I'm a huge fan.

For my part, I prefer the post-Bob era by a nose - I think Pleased To Meet Me is their best album, overall, and one of my favorite (read: important to my life) albums ever.

I can lend you Open Up and Bleed too.

Slim Dunlap is by all accounts a fucking sweetheart and let's be honest -- he was in the dreaded "Kenny Jones" position -- he's a great guitarist actually but could never be expected to duplicate the wildstyle of Stinson or have that kind of outsized personality...by anyone here who i've ever talked to that knows him, he's a fucking sweetheart...and let's be honest, the decline of the replacements is because of paul not anyone else.

most of the criticism i've heard here in mpls is that walsh didn't really dish the kind of dirt he could've cuz he's pretty close to paul...lots of bad vibes towards that dude.

The little bit I read I see what Matos is complaining about: page after pages of testimonials of different people at different ages in different times and places discovering the 'Mats talking to them. "She's a-your band? She's a-my band too!" Like if the spinning newpapers headlines around the world segment of a movie went on for minutes instead of seconds.

Am I the only one who hopped off the Replacements train when he was canned?

though there's some pretty good stuff on pleased to meet me, pretty much the whole band hopped off the train after bob was canned. their twin/tone albums >>>>>>>>>>>>>> their warner albums.

I have this and have skimmed - will read it for sure eventually. But Bob Stinson, I dunno, def. an interesting guitar player, but when I read about a guy spitting on a ceiling and waiting for it to fall on people and pissing in people's refrigerators or whatever else he was doing, well, he just sounds like a prick.

The Replacements are one of my favorite bands, and this book is probably as good as it is going to get. Walsh couldn't get any of the original (living) three to participate, which is in my opinion a huge loss because piecing the story together through dated interviews doesn't allow for any reflection. The book is a little flabby on fan input, but overall I think it captured the great mid-80s MPLS scene pretty well. And Walsh was absolutely the best person to do this project. I met all the guys in that band over the years and Paul was always a prick, he's really at heart kind of uncomfortable with himself. Slim Dunlap is one of the nicest musicians I've ever met, Mars moved on a long time ago, and Tommy always sort of emulated Paul. If you're a fan, the book is good but you could also get similar mileage from reading magazine articles on the band--most of them have been transcribed and put online (the legendary Goldmine article, the SPIN one, etc.)

of course there are the usual annoying passages but I am struck mostly by what folks have to say about Bob Stinson. Apprently he was the one guy in teh band who was always approachable and not so full of himself
A friend of mine was in a band that opened for the Mats in '85 in Providence. He had never before been allowed in the dressing room with the headliner, but the Replacements welcomed him in to share beer and food. Bob Stinson was the most gregarious, but he said they were all good guys. Westerberg copped a little attitude later on, I think.

fcc otm per usual.

Agreed. I did like "Pleased to Meet Me" (I think "I.O.U" captures their live sound better than anything else they did in the studio). But most of the post-Bob Stinson stuff sounds like Westerberg solo albums. And that's not a good thing.

my band opened for tommy's band, perfect, in the mid-90s. he was a total sweetheart. though perhaps it's easier to be a sweetheart when you're struggling with your second or third career than when you're flying with your first.

Tim is my favorite Mats record, and I like enough of Pleased to Meet Me to not write off Westerberg's lead guitar prowess. But I don't find Bob Stinson a "tragic" figure at all. He was a good-hearted addict who occasionally played stunning guitar.

i like tim and let it be about equally, tim quite a bit less, and on days when i'm really feeling the wonder of sorry ma..., which is loaded with great songs and spirited playing, i think they just might be a classic example of a band who started at the top and got worse with every album.

meant to say i like hootenanny and let it be equally, oops!

Let it Be for me, although Tim would be my fav if it had been mixed better.

goddamn job is the best song

I was unaware that there was enmity between the Replacements and Husker Du.

Reading about it in this book got me thinking about which of those bands ended up having 1) more commercial success and 2) more critical adulation and longstanding influence.

I think they were (for the most part) accepted enthusiastically by critics. If I had to venture a guess, I think the 'Mats probably sold more records though.

"I'll Be You" was an AOR #1 hit and peaked in the pop Top 50.

the main setting for the film "Heathers" was Paul Westerberg High School...

And Christian Slater says "Color me impressed!" at one point.

mould (solo and sugar) has been much more commercially successful than westerberg post-replacements, for whatever that's worth.

well, in the U.S. it's a bit of a draw. Mould never scored a college radio number one like Westerberg did with "Dyslexic Heart." Sugar was definitely more of a presence on radio though. There were probably more Mats/Westerberg fans who ran out to buy his shit than there were for Mould (Sugar scored only one Top 50 album).

husker du shits all over the replacements

radio play notwithstanding, at the cash register, sugar >>> westerberg.

plus, i'd take grant hart's solo output over the combined solo output of stinson, mars and dunlap, for whatever THAT's worth.

Yeah, I'd take "2541" over all that shiznit.

one of those Mars records was OK. the one w/ "Popular Creeps" on it?

the Replacements book isn't very good, sadly. (I wrote about it here: http://idolator.com/tunes/project-x/project-x-goes-looking-for-some-replacements-321618.php)

-- Matos W.K., Tuesday, 13 November 2007 07:52 (4 days ago) Link

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excellent review michaelangelo, that's the most clear-headed unsentimental take on the replacements I've read. i saw them play in the 80s and never got it, even those "proverbs" quoted leave me scratching my head.

-- m coleman, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 11:28 (4 days ago) Link

Rate End Of Year Music Books As: Worth Buying, Worth Taking Out Of Library, Worth Browsing in Store, Wouldn't Touch With A Tenpole Tudor

yeah the first Chris Mars record is really good! I have regretted getting rid of it many times

husker du shits all over the replacements

-- M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 16 November 2007 20:08 (Yesterday)

It gets no wronger than this

Name me one Husker Du song even a tenth as good as a Replacements throwaway like "I Don't Know" or "Kiss Me On The Bus"

The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill

As if anything on New Day Rising can be heard over the tinny, treble-y hiss that is that record

Granted, one of their better songs, but come on. It's ONE OF THEIR BETTER SONGS!

"college radio number one" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah that ALWAYS sells records

Sugar did go gold in the UK, for what it's worth. Don't Tell a Soul, the Replacements' biggest, shipped 300,000 and returned a third of that.

. . . The worship that surrounds them also smacks of the worst sort of Beatles fan, the type of stuff that makes me wanna just sit down and listen to the records by my own damn self, with my own damn thoughts, without any Greatest Of All Time mythos. "Mats," indeed. . . .

-- Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, June 17, 2004 3:01 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

"The legendary Goldmine article" mentioned above.

I'm reading it for the first time, and it's definitely worth a read.

"Blackberry Way Stadium"?! Wow, I like the Move and all, but that's really something.

Wasn't there something relatively infamous written about the 'mats in Rock & Roll Confidential around the time of Tim? Googled like crazy, couldn't find much.

You know something, despite the dramatic decline in the records, I actually saw some pretty good live shows in the Slim era. Maybe Slim lent Paul his guitar tuner or something.

The corny Power of Rock and Roll eulogy the author gave at Bob's funeral really showed the book at its worst.

Matos' is right on in his book review. Furthermore, I only lived in Minneapolis for less than a year, and I would have no idea how someone unfamiliar with the place could follow along some of the anecdotes told in the book. And God bless him, but yeah, I think the author was a bit too close to the subject to be completely objective. Coming from a perspective where all my Memphis relatives have some sort of Elvis or Chris Bell story, exposing the same "ok, we get it" kind of sentimentality that I think Matos points out, I don't think that the winners should get to write the history books all of the time.

A few years ago, i participated in the making of a documentary about my hometown. After seeing it in the theater, I wanted to move to Topeka.

I hope Bob Mould's book is better than this shit. It was disappointing.

I love the Mats and Du. Always did always will.

Depending what mood I'm in. It'll be one or the other. Never both.