The chicken or the egg? Part one.

Posted by pzp | Filed under Westbergesque

For many years, Aerosmith was dismissed as a Rolling Stones knockoff. Oasis openly embraces its Beatles roots. Stone Temple Pilots were dubbed Pearl Jam Lite. But no symbiosis between bands has been as commented on – and heatedly disagreed upon – than that of Van Halen and the Replacements.

Ever since Bob Dylan cracked about ‘David Lee Westerberg’ and Mick Jagger claimed he couldn’t tell the difference between ‘Jump’ and ‘Here Comes a Regular’, rock and roll historians have debated which band first influenced which. While there’s no doubt that Diamond Dave’s patented hip shake would not exist without Paul Westerberg’s flamboyant stage presence, it can also be said that ‘Unsatisfied’ is little more than the poor man’s ‘Everybody Wants Some’. So close are Dave and Paul in performance and philosophy that researchers from Harvard have traced back their lineage to try and find some common ancestor ; an eighteenth-century Aborigine named Umlakalaka is rumored to be great grandfather to both singers.

 

Most everyone expects an eventual Replacements-Van Halen joint tour: some with jubilation, others with trepidation. Stephen Hawking has expressed great concern over what might happen to the space-time continuum if Paul and Dave were to appear on the same stage together. 

Next week: Were Tommy and Mike actually born identical twins? We go to the Smithsonian to find the answer.

Read more | Comments (8) | July 31st, 2007

Merry Go Round live from Irving Plaza in 1996

Posted by Jodi | Filed under Seen Your Video

Since I spent last night writing the “Sestina That Blew So Many Goats PETA is Concerned,” you get a video today! Maybe we should institute some sort of “Video Tuesday Policy” here on Paul Westerberg.net.

It looks as though Blasty the Silent of Baconshire has uploaded a few clips from Paul’s ‘96 Irving Plaza show. Oh hey, yeah, why I’m here and talking about Blasty, make sure you go vote in the new Poll over there down on the right. It’s a poll in Blasty’s honor. You can read past polls, here, and you can suggest your own damn poll by contacting me.

So, as I was saying, though the sound is better on the other clip, I am putting Merry Go Round up here, solely because, well, Merry-Go-Round was the very first Replacements song I ever heard (and yes it makes me sad that it wasn’t, in fact, I Will Dare that I heard first).

Read more | Comments (0) | July 31st, 2007

Things you could write about if you only got off your ass to do it

Posted by Jodi | Filed under Thx the mgmt

Okay, now that I told you how you can write for Paul Westerberg.net, you’re probably sitting there thinking, “Hrmm, what can I write about?” Have no fear, great ideas are here!

  1. The first time you ever heard The Replacements or how you discovered them/who introduced you to them
  2. Your favorite Replacements/Westerberg related moment
  3. Meeting weird Westernerds from the Internet and how PW has brought strange and exciting people into your life
  4. Any sort of Random Replacements Siting of the Day (like when you’re watching Scrubs and you suddenly hear “Attitude” and it’s just so weird)
  5. How much you love and adore me
  6. What prompted you to buy your very first Replacements album (was it on CD/vinyl, where did you get it?)
  7. Which is better “Can’t Hardly Wait” or “Left of the Dial,” why?
  8. The weirdest thing you’ve ever done because of your ‘Mats/Westerberg fandom

Read more | Comments (12) | July 30th, 2007

All In Their Place

Posted by Wolfdog | Filed under 'Mats Memories

You know how music can bring you back to a place and time?  Here’s an attempt for me to nail down the time and place Replacements albums take me to.  It’s harder than I thought, probably due to 20+ years under the bridge and how some of these albums (Pleased To Meet Me) encompassed all parts of my life for a long time.

Sorry Ma/Hootenanny - Oddly, these came last for me. I didn’t own them until the early 90’s. Don’t really have a place to pin them on.

Stink - 1983-84 School bus to basketball away games. Other kids had Van Halen and The Scorpions in their warm-up headphones. I had White & Lazy. It showed on the court.

Let It Be - 1970 Dodge Dart. Metallic Pea Green. $20 cassette deck. 24 bottles of Old Mil returnables. My age was the hardest age, or so I thought.

Tim - UW-Milwaukee dorm room. At one point I was convinced the key to getting a girlfriend in my co-ed dorm was to play this record constantly with my door open. Plan B should have been to leave the room once in a while.

Pleased To Meet Me - My first apartment, a dive in St. Paul. Sundays were party day with water balloon launcher fights in the living room and Red Red Wine cranked and repeated.

Don’t Tell A Soul - St. Louis Park townhouse. Trying to live ‘upscale’. Trying to be something I wasn’t. Maybe I don’t like this one too much because I didn’t care for me then. We were both trying to act slicker than we were.

All Shook Down - Me and my future-wife’s first apartment. Playing it over and over to try and make her ‘get it’. Being in awe of her when she did.

Read more | Comments (4) | July 29th, 2007

A long time coming

Posted by Jodi | Filed under asides

I just finished the Discography, and I really think someone should get me a donut. I totally earned it.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2007

So you wanna be a rock and roll writer, or Hey Jerky Part II

Posted by Jodi | Filed under Thx the mgmt

Okay so last week I started to tell you about how to post your own stuff here to Paul Westerberg.net. But then I never got around to the meat of it all. I’m a dirty liar, you should know that.

So here’s virtually everything you need to know about posting your own content. It’s too late to turn back, so here we go:
Read the rest of this entry »

Read more | Comments (7) | July 28th, 2007

operation: generate content

Posted by scooterboy | Filed under Uncategorized

so, like, i really enjoy “the big lebowski”, right? who doesn’t? these things are awesome! they are apparently being unveiled at the upcoming lebowski fest in ye olde london towne.

what’s all this, then? why the lebowski (s)talk? i’m just wondering if we (or some other sufficiently nerdy contingent) could/would put together a “westfest” or “matsfest”. hear me out.

i am loathe to admit that i like rush. most of you know that already. i have never gone, mind you, but rush has a yearly thing called “rushcon” or some damn thing. additionally, rush has these:

BANG YOUR HEAD!!!!

(i am looking at my own versions of these right now - deduct cool points accordingly)

i look at it thusly: if rush can have a yearly “convention” and bobble heads, why not the replacements? if a movie (albeit, a good movie) can have a successful yearly get together & action figures, why not the replacements?

i call bullshit on the notion that it wouldn’t work for a band like the replacements. i just don’t want anything to do with the planning. oh, and please make sure the first “con” happens in mpls so i don’t have to travel.

get to it.

p.s. i just had delicious jimmy john’s for lunch, and goddamn they are freaky fast.

p.s.s. voila! content!

Read more | Comments (8) | July 27th, 2007

I am that guy.

Posted by pzp | Filed under Westerberg Memories

I am that guy. 

The one who didn’t know who Paul Westerberg was until ‘Singles’ came out. The one who was listening to 1984 in 1984, not ‘Let it Be’. The one who looked vaguely uncomfortable at the ‘Come Feel Me Tremble’ shows because they weren’t in an arena. 

I am that guy. The one that you kinda sorta wished didn’t claim to be a Paul Westerberg fan because he smells vaguely of popular mass entertainment. And I guess I can’t blame you. But, hear me out, because for me a funny thing happened on the way to middle age. As I delved into the history of PW and  the Mats, and listened to the raggedy songs that veered from third grade humor to thirty-something disillusionment, I felt a bond with the music that had never existed between my multi-platinum selling heroes and me. On most days, I feel a little unsatisfied. Ready to ‘Rock Rock Til I Drop’? Not so much. 

Don’t get me wrong – I still love my glossy eighties tunes and their choruses sung by no less than a hundred voices. But sometimes when I listen to them I can’t help but feel a little . . . silly. So now they find their way into my CD player less and less, often shoved to the back of the line by a grumpy Minnesotan who could no more play Answering Machine than he could Uriah Heep. And when you see the man with a tie in the passing lane who looks like a card-carrying member of the unwashed masses but is singing ‘Soldier of Misfortune’, you’ll know that . . .

I am that guy.

Read more | Comments (4) | July 27th, 2007

Because I am a liar, and nobody else is generating content

Posted by Jodi | Filed under Seen Your Video

I present to you the ‘Mats on Saturday Night Live.

This is fitting because I’ve been obsessed with Bastards of Young for about a month now. I am not sure why. But the refrain gets stuck in my head while I am supposed to be sleeping at night and, well, it just gets worse from there. I will not bore you with the details.

What I’d like to know is how many of you actually saw this performance when it originally aired? I know I didn’t, because I was 14 13 and the only band that existed in my world was Limited Warranty Madonna (I just checked the actual date, see, I told you I am a liar).

Read more | Comments (6) | July 27th, 2007

Download The Replacements’ July 23, 1987 concert at Hidden Track

Posted by Jodi | Filed under Concert you can download

Glide Magazine’s Hidden track is offering a FLAC and mp3 download of The Replacements’ July 23rd, 1987 concert at the Beacon Theater in New York.

Writer Scott Bernstein had this to say about the show:

The coolest part of this recording is the copious amount of covers. Whipping Post is nearly complete and sounds fabulous with Westerberg pretty much screaming the lyrics. The ‘mats also played some high-profile covers in Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. and the Stones’ Honky Tonk Woman. Westerberg and Co. also hit upon some more obscure covers such as Love Goes (Where My Rosemary Grows) and California Sun. All in all, The Replacements played 11 covers, a staggering number. Do yourself a favor and check this show out.

So any of you bootleg afficionados, have any opinions on this show? Should we be scrambling to download it post haste?

Read more | Comments (2) | July 25th, 2007

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