Great Band, Worst Song: Mötley Crüe’s “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”

A new on-going feature on Pencil Storm, “Great Band, Worst Song,” will cover some of the best bands of rock n roll who squeaked out a rotten egg – a song so bad that it’s an embarrassment.  We kick off our first installment with our 80's hairband expert, Wal Ozello.

Mötley Crüe… the bad boys of rock ‘n roll. They lived the phrase “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘N Roll” to the extreme.  Two of their members had sex tapes which were made public: Vince Neil with a porn star and Tommy Lee with Pamela Anderson. Google their bass player, “Nikki Sixx and Overdose”, and you’ll get dozens of different stories when he overdosed on heroin and died… only to be revived so he could do more heroin. I mean, the guy was declared dead. Woke up and then went home to do more drugs.

These guys wrote raw hard rock… Shout At The Devil, Livewire, Looks That Kill, Wild Side, and a dozen other songs.  Even their covers, Helter Skelter and Smoking in the Boys Room, rocked harder than the originals.

One of their best albums, and their last good one, was Dr. Feelgood.  It had tracks like Kick Start My Heart and Dr. Feelgood that oozed out the sinister hard rock they were known for. Even the power ballad, Without You, had rawness to it that swung closer to metal, on the pop/metal continuum.

But the last song on this album, Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away), sounds more like a New Kids On the Block song than something from the bad boys of rock n roll.  This song is just awful, even for a pop tune. It's got a dance beat and not a pump-your-fist-in-the-air beat. The acoustic intro is lame and the bass meanders like a 50's shoo-bop tune. The lyrics are cheesy and don't even make sense. If you’re a Mötley Crüe fan and think this song rocks then just imagine if Poison released it – you’d think it was worse than Unskinny Bop. Don’t Go Away Mad belongs on Flesh & Blood instead of Dr. Feelgood.

In a year when Guns N Roses dominated the airwaves with Welcome To The Jungle and Paradise City, the Crüe was singing about “two kids in love, trying to find our way.” That lyric sounds like it came from a Milli Vanili song and not from the guys who wrote about skydiving naked from an airplane.

I’m convinced it was this song that ruined Mötley Crüe and hard rock forever.  Somewhere in Seattle a young Kurt Cobain listed to Don’t Go Away Mad and thought, “This is shit. This band is over,” then sat down and wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit.

And that wasn’t just the end of Mötley Crüe. It was the end of heavy metal and hard rock.

Wal Ozello, a child of the 80s, is the former singer of the Columbus hairband Armada. He's the author of the science fiction time travel books Assignment 1989 and Revolution 1990 and a frequent customer at Colin's Coffee.

A Blinn Family Reunion: The Handsome Machine and Black Leather Touch Play @ Art For Your Ears, Delaware, This Saturday - by Ricki C.

Rock & roll has attained an age in which I am now watching the CHILDREN of rockers I grew up with taking the stage.

I guess it started in the 1990’s when Jeff Buckley came on the scene, and I had to pay attention, having really liked his father Tim’s folk-rock balladeer act when I was a teenager in the 1960’s.  Teddy Thompson – son of Richard & Linda Thompson, an act I WORSHIPPED in the 1970’s – followed in the 2000’s, and now here we are in the second decade of the 21st century with homegrown Columbus father/daughter team, the Blinn’s.

Erica Blinn leads The Handsome Machine, probably my favorite rock & roll act in Columbus, Ohio, that doesn’t pay me to say that (as opposed to my employers, Watershed and Colin Gawel & the Lonely Bones).   Erica and the guys stomp, shout & work it all out on a set of originals that is the equal of virtually any band I’ve witnessed in Columbus, and could hold their own nationwide, for that matter.

I’d watch a hundred nights of this band: I’d watch Erica belt out her incredibly well-written tunes like the bastard girl-child of Rod Stewart & Chrissie Hynde;  I’d watch her peel out her rhythm guitar parts from a low-slung Fender Tele like a Harley winding out on a Midwest dirt-track;  I’d watch her wail harmonica solos like she was born on the South Side of Chicago rather than the West Side of Columbus, Ohio;  I’d watch PJ Schreiner bash out drum-pounding fever/beats behind her while simultaneously pitching in note-perfect harmonies along with bass player Mark Nye;  I’d watch guitarist Greg Wise melting faces in the front row with incendiary riffs straight outta the Keith Richards/Fred “Sonic” Smith school of lead guitar, yet ultimately fresh, new, up-to-date and ROCKIN’.  And I’d watch Will Newsome over there stage-right, unassumedly knocking out riffs and solos like the second coming of Mick Taylor from 1972.

And Erica’s just the KID half of the equation.

Her father Jerry Blinn was one-quarter of Black Leather Touch, my second favorite late-1970’s Columbus rock & roll act.  (Hey, c’mon, Willie Phoenix was leading Romantic Noise at the height of his powers at that time; they HAD to be my favorite.)  Black Leather Touch played a no-nonsense brew of originals and kick-ass covers that took in the best of 70’s hard-rock: from The Rolling Stones to Ted Nugent to their big-brother band The Godz, plus a slew of Chuck Berry & Jerry Lee Lewis, just to illustrate they knew their roots.  To a song, Black Leather Touch did ‘em all justice.  And their cover of Garland Jeffrey’s Stones-esque “Wild In The Streets” was truly a thing of rock & roll beauty.  (For a contemporaneous review I did of a Black Leather Touch show in 1978 – when they opened for Steppenwolf, of all people, 10 years past that band’s “Born To Be Wild” prime – check out Three Easy Pieces in my earlier blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll.)

I saw the reunified/reconstituted Black Leather Touch last summer at some Delaware bash and singer/guitarist Tom Cash, bassist Jerry Blinn, his twin brother & lead guitarist Garry Blinn and drummer Greg Hall were just as solid as they were in their long-ago, halcyon late-70’s heyday.  I couldn’t stop smilin’.  I couldn’t help rockin’.     

This Saturday evening – May 16th, 2015 – The Handsome Machine and Black Leather Touch will appear at Art For Your Ears, an adjunct of the Delaware Arts Festival in historic downtown Delaware, Ohio, home of Ohio Wesleyan University.  Music kicks off at 6 pm with Delyn Christian, followed by Hootie McBoob, followed by the daughter/father rockin’ of the Blinn family.  (Full disclosure: I’m stage-managing this show in my capacity as roadie-for-hire around town.  In no way, shape or form does that have any influence on one word I’ve written here.  I consider it a gloriously happy accident that I’m getting paid to work a show I’d do for free, or, furthermore, would PAY to see.)   

It’s gonna be Saturday night rock & roll on a gorgeous Midwest evening.  You could do worse with your Saturday night.  Take the road trip to Delaware. - Ricki C. / May 12th, 2015.
 

Art For Your Ears takes place Saturday, May 16th, 2015, adjacent to the Delaware Arts Festival.
Music kicks off at 6 pm, goes to about 11 pm.  Admission is free, whattya got to lose?

The Point Is Playing at Bernie's on Monday. You Need to Get to The Point - by Ricki C.

When Dave Masica first joined Watershed in 1998, I really couldn’t believe my eyes and ears.  “Where did you find this guy?” I asked Colin, marveling at how good a drummer Dave was and how lucky they were to find him to replace Herb Schupp (a noted skins-basher in his own right).  “Oh, Dave was in some band that opened for us in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and when Herb left we called him up.”

I totally believed that story right up until sometime in 2005 when I joined the Watershed road crew and casually asked Dave at breakfast one morning somewhere in the south what band he was in before Watershed, up in Michigan.  “Whaaat?” Dave replied, perplexed, “I was never in a band in Michigan.”  “Colin told me you were in a band from the U.P. that opened for Watershed and they scooped you right into the van after a show.”  “No, that’s total Colin bullshit,” Dave replied, “I was in The Point before Watershed.”  “THAT’S where I know you from,” I said, “I saw The Point a bunch of times.  I always thought you looked familiar.  You guys were GREAT.”

The Point epitomized my central idea of rock & roll: that rock & roll should be Deadly Serious Fun.  All of my favorite rock bands from the very beginning – The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Who, Mott The Hoople, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, The Dictators – were simultaneously intensely serious rockers with an equally killer sense of humor: Deadly Serious Fun.  They didn’t take themselves too seriously, and they rocked like motherfuckers.

The Point – in their 1985-1990 heyday – were that kind of band.  They would romp through their sets at Bernie’s or the Alrosa Villa (and, for that matter, they might have been the ONLY Columbus band to regularly play BOTH of those venues) playing a bizarre mix of originals like “Suzie,” “Big Dead Gay Vampire Monsters,” “Lemmings” and “Men Are Pigs” (their big hit song) with covers that ranged – in a single set – from Deep Purple to Devo to Cheap Trick.  They were the only band I ever saw that played a Broadway show tune (The Beatles’ cover of “‘Til There Was You”) AND Nick Lowe’s “Heart Of The City” IN SUCCESSION and made it work.  They were a killer power trio that could blend power-pop, metal & punk like they were meant to be blended. They were a throwback to an earlier, infinitely more innocent and great time in rock & roll when bands PLAYED SONGS THEY LIKED, no matter who originated them or whether they fit into any kind of “format.”

I must have seen The Point – “Merv,” “Greed” & “Dixon” by (nick)name – 20 times in that five year period and never once SET OUT to see them.  They would just kinda appear from nowhere in front of me when I was out for the night on campus or up north at Alrosa, and they were never once less than white-hot GREAT and hilarious.  But this was no joke band, my friend, those fuckers could PLAY.  (This was roughly the same period of time I would go see Jim Johnson, Mike Parks & Phil Stokes in a band called The Retreads that mined a similar, though marginally more serious, style of Deadly Serious Fun rock & roll.)  

Anyway, I could go on like this all day about The Point, but here’s all you gotta know: I know it’s tough to get your sorry rock & roll asses out of the house on a Monday night to go see a band, but The Point is starting at 8 pm; and campus isn’t far from anywhere in Columbus; and the “Gotham” season finale was last week, so really, what have you got better to do on a Monday evening than have a coupla beers and go see some Deadly Serious Rock & Roll?  C’mon, people, in the words of Ian Hunter: “Just get yourself out on the street.”

Get to The Point. - Ricki C. / May 8th, 2015

The Point will play at Bernie’s Distillery,1896 N. High Street, just across the street from 
the Wexner Center on the O.S.U. campus, at 8 pm on Monday May, 11th, 2015. 
There’s no cover, admission is FREE, so whattya got to complain about? 

Ricki C. Turns Down a Roadie Job With The Replacements

Click here for previous Mats' article - "Tommy Stinson is the George Harrison of the Replacements"

It was the winter of 1984, I had just left my day-job at Ross Laboratories in January.  (Ross Labs, by the way, was simultaneously my highest paying AND easiest warehouse job ever, but also came with a boss who once called me into his office and told me, quote – “I am going to make it so you don’t have one single interest outside of this job.” – when I dragged-ass into work one too many Monday mornings after roadie-ing for Willie Phoenix & the Shadowlords all weekend.  He was wrong.  I quit.)  One cold morning in February I got a phone call from Curt Schieber, who was then the co-owner of Schoolkids Records on campus and local promoter of “alternative” rock shows.  (Curt is currently the host of Invisible Hits Hour Sunday nights on CD 102.5.)

It seems The Replacements were headed from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Columbus for a show that week when their van broke down.  They had it towed to Krieger Ford on the West Side and the band was all crashing at Curt’s house.  (We should get Curt to write an entire separate blog about the amount of damage done to his home by the band that week.)  (Also the amount of drugs & alcohol ingested by said band.)  Anyway, the band’s manager – Peter Jesperson – needed to run errands that day, Curt knew I wasn’t working and asked if I wanted to make a quick $50 driving Jesperson around all day.  (Note: asking an unemployed West Side boy if he wants to make a quick $50 is like asking Colin if he wants a beer at a gig.)

I picked Jesperson up around 11 am at Curt’s house near campus.  The band was splayed around the living room in sleeping bags, sound asleep & snoring.  I don’t really remember all the places we had to go that day, but at one point we drove out to see how the van repair was coming along at Krieger.  Peter decided while we were there that we might as well get a load of laundry together so we could hit a laundromat.  When he slid open the side door of the van I couldn’t believe my eyes: EVERY SURFACE of that van was covered with beer cans, liquor bottles, fast-food wrappers, cigarette butts, porn magazines & other sundry garbage.  We literally COULD NOT TOUCH the actual floor of the van from the dashboard to the back door as Peter & I bundled around picking through the debris for articles of clothing: a flannel shirt here, some t-shirts there, jeans spread around everywhere.  (I wouldn’t TOUCH the underwear; that was their manager’s job, as I saw it.  I was only makin’ fifty bucks.) 

By that point, in 1984, I had been a musician since I was 16 years old in 1968, a roadie since 1978.  I had been in a LOT of band vans, and I had NEVER laid eyes on anything like the condition of that vehicle.

By the end of the day, Jesperson and I were getting along like old buddies from the war.  He mentioned that Curt had told him I was a roadie and a recovering alcoholic.  Jesperson said they were looking for somebody sober to drive the van and help roadie the shows, offered me the job.  My family was proudly Italian, I had started drinking wine with dinner at age 12, mixed-drinks by 14 with total parental approval.  I was solidly an alcoholic from 16 to 30.  And I just couldn’t get the sight of the floor of that van out of my head.  I KNEW I hadn’t been sober long enough, knew I wasn’t strong enough to counter that brand of temptation.  (I had moved from the West Side to up around Northland just to put some literal distance between me and my old drinking buddies.)  

The Replacements stayed at Curt’s house for a week on that tour – renting vans each day to make it to gigs in Ohio & Kentucky, and then driving back to Columbus to crash – until their van was repaired.  Looking back, I should have gone along on those short hauls just to see if my sobriety would hold up.  But I didn’t: shoulda, coulda, woulda.  

I have very few rock & roll regrets in this life: one of them is turning down a job writing for England’s New Musical Express in 1978; the other, perhaps bigger, regret is not being smart enough or strong enough to become a roadie for The Replacements in 1984. – Ricki C. / Sept. 10th, 2014.

ps. It's been brought to my attention that my contributions to Replacements Week here at Pencilstorm might lead people to believe that I'm not that crazy about Westerberg & the guys.  NOTHING could be further from the truth.  From the very first time I heard "I'm In Trouble" in some now-forgotten campus record store - remember when you could still discover great new music IN A RECORD STORE? - I was hooked.  And, as time went on and Westerberg's songwriting got better & better - from "Take Me Down To The Hospital" > "Unsatisfied" > "Kiss Me On The Bus" > "Left Of The Dial" > "Within Your Reach" > "Here Comes A Regular" > "I'll Be You" - CHRIST, what more are you gonna ask for than that from one guy from Minneapolis?  Plus the fact that Westerberg could move effortlessly from "Alex Chilton" to "Skyway" - from flat-out rocker to killer ballad - in the same breath and on the same album, put him in a league with Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, Ian Hunter & Bruce Springsteen, four of my other all-time favorite rock & roll songwriters.    

I just wish they'd've rehearsed a little more, or drank a little less, or tried a little harder when they played live.

pps. Apropos of the Replacements appearance on Jimmy Fallon's show earlier in the week, and the song "Alex Chilton" in general: The Westerberg line (which I love, make no mistake) "Children by the millions wait for Alex Chilton when he comes 'round" is either the hugest overstatement or the biggest lie ever rendered in a rock & roll lyric.  I would venture to say that even at the peak of the popularity of The Box Tops - when "The Letter" hit Number One in 1967 and was awarded a gold record - that children by the millions DID NOT, in fact, wait for Alex Chilton when he came 'round-'ound.  I think even Alex Chilton would have concurred.  But God bless Paul Westerberg for making the claim.  (Conversely, the bridge-statement/advice - "Never travel far / Without a little Big Star" - might be the TRUEST, MOST ACCURATE rock & roll lyric ever penned.) - Ricki C. / Sept. 13th, 2014.

Learn more about Ricki C. and other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here.

I Just Saw The Replacements Play in Denver. Actually,.. by Colin G.

I just saw The Replacements play in Denver.   Actually, that isn't exactly true. I saw Tommy Stinson and Paul Westerberg play 23 Replacements songs with two other dudes in a dusty hole 80 miles east of Denver. And it was great.

Q: "Wait just a second, I read Hitless Wonder and I'm wondering how you and Mike "Biggie" McDermott ending up seeing this show in Denver when you could have caught it in Chicago the week before? Did you guys hit the Powerball or did Biggie just prefer driving the van an extra 1200 miles for the hell of it?"

Speaking for myself, it doesn't take an accountant to figure:  coffee sold + music royalties - real life expenses = way less $ than it takes to fly me to Denver for a rock show. But that is exactly what happened.

As Mats' guitarist Slim Dunlap use to preach to me at a very impressionable age, "God* takes care of his writers and musicians. He may not get you a new car, but he gives you little gifts every once in awhile to let you know that he appreciates you. The key is to notice those gifts and not get hung up on what everybody else is getting. If a pile of cash is important to you, work at a bank. Songwriters get different gifts."

So about a month before this show, I get a call out of nowhere from a longtime Watershed friend who happens to live in the Denver area that I haven't heard from for a  while. "Hey, you and Biggie need to get your asses out here to see the Replacements show. It wouldn't be the same without you. It's on me. I got your tickets and just booked your flight. See you there." (click)

Now that is an offer you can't refuse. And a pretty obvious gift from whomever doles out that sort of thing.  

Speaking of Slim, sadly, his illness is also the reason Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson ended up wearing pink skirts performing in a dust bowl for Biggie and myself. Slim had a serious stroke awhile back and a number of musicians released some music to help raise money for his health expenses. (Unfortunately, health care is not a gift typically given to musicians.) Anyway, Paul and Tommy reunited to release a single as The Replacements and I can only assume had enough fun to want to play a couple of gigs in the meantime. They paired up with Paul's original solo band compadres David Minehan (The Neighborhoods) on guitar and Josh Freese (everybody!) on drums to round out the line-up. The show in "Denver" was the third and final of a three show run as part of Riotfest. The previous two shows were in Chicago and Toronto.

The reason I write "Denver" is because although the flyers said "Denver" the actual show was 80 miles east of Denver at May Farms, which, to the naked eye, looked to be a dirt farm.  It would be like advertising a show in Columbus while setting up the stage in Tipp City. 

I'll write another post about the rest of the bands at the festival soon, but let's stick to The 'Mats for now. I was curious about the crowd make-up for the event, because even as an over-the-hill rocker myself, I would be on the young side for a typical Replacements fan. I had never even heard of them until Joe Oestreich showed up at the Watershed house on 65 E. Patterson with a copy of "Don't Tell A Soul" and said, "Somebody said we should check this new band out". We listened, weren't impressed, and if I recall correctly even went so far as to sell the record back. (Probably got a good trade on the latest Dokken or something.) 

But then two things happened that changed my life forever. I turned twenty-one, so I could now drink beer whenever I wanted and I purchased a used copy of The Replacements "Pleased to Meet Me" on cassette tape. The opening of "I.O.U." tore open my sheltered suburban soul and suddenly a world appeared where I could hang out at bars in the afternoon if I felt like it. Like Slim once said, "When Tom Petty stands behind a microphone everybody feels safe. When Paul Westerberg stands behind a mic, it feels dangerous." 

The Replacements gave me the guts to push the envelope a little bit. Not to the point of real trouble, but just enough to quit being such a pussy. You know, if you happen to stay up for a few days and make out with a stranger every once in awhile, the world isn't going to end. Embrace a little danger. And Paul's lyrics were like discovering a long-lost brother I never knew about. A really smart, older, crazy brother.  The songs of Ray Davies, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Westerberg shaped me, for better or worse, into the person I am today. And I am not talking about musicality, I am talking about my actual personality. 

So yes, I was quite excited to see Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson perform together again as I stood about 30 feet straight back from center-stage with a mouth full of dust and my ears still ringing from Iggy and The Stooges. 

I won't bore you with a review of the show as actual music writers do a very good job of that already. I will say that they looked and sounded great. The crowd was about 7,000 strong and knew every word. I was probably in the middle, age-wise. The younger kids are hip these days, so quite a few hung around to see what all the fuss was about. The ones I saw seemed to be digging it. 

I suppose some Albini types could knock the band for going on a nostalgia trip but I don't think that is fair in this case. I mean, they hadn't played in 22 years so it's not like they are out milking it, and, more important, these songs deserve to be played. To paraphrase Pete Townsend - "Write your own fucking songs and then you can choose not to play them. I'll do what I want with mine."

Speaking of songs, the set-list is as follows: Takin' a Ride, I'm in Trouble, Favorite Thing, Shiftless When Idle, Hangin' Downtown, Jingle Jangle Jingle (Tex Ritter cover), Color Me Impressed, Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, Kiss Me On the Bus, Achin' to Be, Androgynous, I Will Dare, Maybelline (Chuck Berry), Merry Go Round, Wake Up, Borstal Breakout (Sham 69 ) , Little Mascara, Left of the Dial, Alex Chilton, I Don't Know, Hold My Life, Can't Hardly Wait, Bastards of Young. Encore: Hootenanny 

Having never seen The Replacements before, just Paul solo, it is always interesting to notice what songs the band seems to really enjoy playing. Maybe they aren't the best songs to listen to, but just fun songs for the band to play, dig? I would throw "Hangin' Downtown," "Tommy Get His Tonsils Out," and "I Don't Know" in that category. The version of "Androgynous," sans keyboard was stunning. I was mildly disappointed they blew off show-closer "I.O.U" after an inspired mess of "Hootenanny," but really, it was all I could have asked for and more. Okay, got to run. I hope to write another essay soon about the under-appreciated Tommy Stinson and some thoughts on the other bands at Riot Fest, but don't hold your breath. I've got a kid to raise, a coffee shop to run, songs to write and The Wire  to watch. Oh, and football & baseball. I'm swamped. 

* God, as in some mysterious higher power. Not the one made famous from the Bible. 

Colin Gawel writes stuff sometimes for Pencilstorm . Learn more about him and the other contributors by clicking here.

Below are my favorite three Youtube clips of the show. 

Somehow I ended up backstage and on stage for THE REPLACEMENTS in Denver. I hate people who take videos at shows, but it was THE REPLACEMENTS, when are you ever going to get this chance again? Here is a video of them playing BASTARDS OF YOUNG! Make sure to watch CAN'T HARDLY WAIT!

The Replacements playing "Androgynous" into "I Will Dare' live at Riot Fest 2013 in Byers (Denver), Colorado. 0:00 - Androgynous 3:53 - I Will Dare Filmed on my HTC One on 9/21/2013.

The Replacements' performance of "Takin' A Ride" on the Riot Stage at the Riot Fest Denver http://riotfest.org, September 21, 2013 in Byers, Colorado.

The First Time I Saw The Replacements by Ricki C.

The first time I saw The Replacements was autumn 1983 at Stache & Little Brothers – a 170-capacity hole-in-the-wall club in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio – that everybody here called Stache’s.  (I also later saw Richard Thompson, Joe Ely, Lucinda Williams, Soul Asylum, Dave Alvin and a fuckload of other acts there, but today we’re talkin’ Replacements.)

I know Hootenanny was already out, but I don’t know if Let It Be was.  I do know that Westerberg & company were being touted as The Next Big Thing in “alternative rock” after REM, so I wanted to check ‘em out.  The Replacements staggered up onto Stache’s “stage” – literally one step up from the floor – and lurched into some kinda unholy din that I think was supposed to resemble a song.  Bob & Tommy Stinson were cutting huge ragged swaths of guitar & bass noise through the Stache’s PA, but nobody was anywhere close to being in tune, nobody was changing chords at the same time (if indeed those WERE chords being played) and Westerberg was so drunk you couldn’t understand a single word he was singing – it was a MAJOR fucking train-wreck of a set.  The only person even close to being on the ball was drummer Chris Mars, who was striving manfully, single-handedly, to hold the songs together, and he was failing, badly.

I was standing at the back of Stache’s by the soundboard with local scenester Ron House that night, surveying the carnage that was The Replacements, and I shouted over the din, “These guys are supposed to be The Next Big Thing?  This is HORRIBLE.”  Ron, yelling back in my ear, concurred and Ron and I seldom agreed on ANYTHING.  Just at that moment – fully a half-hour into the set – the band launched into “Take Me Down To The Hospital” from Hootenanny and it was fucking FANTASTIC!  They were AMAZING.  It was really quite unbelievable.  From “Hospital” they went into the yet-to-be-released “Unsatisfied” and it was even better than “Hospital.”  They went from total indeterminate, out-of-time, out-of-tune noise to one of the greatest rock & roll bands I’d ever seen in the course of three songs.  “Can you believe this?  They must just have been getting warmed up before.” I yelled to Ron, unable to take my eyes off of them.

And then, after “Unsatisfied” they went right back to sucking.  Right.  Directly.  Back to sucking.  Ron and I just stared at the stage and then at each other as the band veered off-course back into The Rock & Roll Wasteland.  They did that at least two more times in the course of an hour & ten minute set.  They would be world-beaters for a song or two, and then go completely off-the-rails for four or five more.  It was the weirdest, most off-kilter set of rock & roll I have ever witnessed.          

I’ve said ad infinitum for years that all of my standards of rock & roll professionalism are based on the 1969 Who – nature’s most perfect rock & roll organism – and in all the times I saw The Replacements (four or five more shows, at least) they never even managed a competent live show, let alone the lofty heights of Townshend & Moon and company in 1969.  (Plus, it’s not like I don’t understand loose, sloppy & fun in rock & roll.  I saw Rod Stewart & the Faces a number of times and they were great.  The Replacements weren’t loose, sloppy & fun, they were just drunk & shambolic.)

The last Replacements show I saw – in 1991, with Slim Dunlap on lead guitar, at the Riverbend outdoor venue in Cincinnati, opening for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – the band was a defeated, downcast, worn-out, ghostly echo of its former self.    That show was just tough to watch.  Until his first solo tour, promoting 14 Songs in 1993 at Peabody’s Down Under in Cleveland, I never saw a Paul Westerberg song played competently.  (That first solo tour backing band, by the way, included David Minehan – drafted in from Boston’s superlative pop-punk assemblage The Neighborhoods – on lead guitar and Josh Freese on drums, who now reprise their roles as Bob Stinson & Chris Mars’ substitutes in the new Replacements.)  (Notice how I avoided an obvious bad pun, there?) 

The long and the short of it is; I should not have had to wait a full TEN YEARS – from 1983 to 1993 – to see justice done to the songs of The Replacements.  I should have seen it the first time I saw The Replacements.  I wish I could go along to see it this Saturday. - Ricki C. / September 7th, 2014.  

Next time: In 1985, Ricki C. turns down a job as a roadie for The Replacements.