Vet's Memorial, part five - The New York Dolls, Sunday, May 19th, 1974 by Ricki C.

To paraphrase Bette Davis in All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts, kids, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

I can tell you the entire story of the downfall and eventual long, slow, sad Death of Rock & Roll in one fell swoop in a single story about The New York Dolls at Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium, 41 years ago today, Sunday, May 19th, 1974.

As you can see from my tickets reproduced below, it was a pretty big week for rock & roll in my little hometown of Columbus, Ohio.  I saw the Dolls on Sunday the 19th, The Eagles at Mershon the next Saturday, May 25th, and Mott The Hoople the next night, Sunday, May 26th.  I fully acknowledge that the 1970’s were indeed the heyday of live rock & roll concerts, but I must point out: Columbus did NOT routinely get three acts of that rock pedigree in seven days’ time; it was definitely an aberration.  

Anyway, what does this have to do with The Death of Rock & Roll?  I’ll tell ya.  The Eagles show and Mott The Hoople sold out the 2500-seat capacity Mershon Auditorium.  The New York Dolls drew 150 people to the 3000-seat capacity Vet’s Memorial.  I couldn’t believe it.  When my girlfriend (and later wife) Pat and I arrived at the show that warm Sunday evening there were a scattering of cars in the huge Vet’s parking lot, and nobody going into the show.  “Oooooh man, the show must be cancelled,” I moaned to Pat, dispiritedly.  Shows were constantly getting cancelled and/or rescheduled back in those pre-Rock As Big Business early 1970’s times.  Drug problems, sick band members, routing problems, missed flights, equipment truck breakdowns all contributed to missed shows back in the day.  Art and commerce were still somewhat separate then.   

“Let’s get a refund and see if the show’s rescheduled,” I said to Pat as we walked up the steps to Vet’s.  Weirdly, there was a full crew of ushers in the Vet’s lobby.  I walked up to one of the ushers who had been a friend of my dad’s (see last month’s Vet’s part 4 installment) and said, “Is the show cancelled?”  “No,” he said, tearing my ticket.  “Then why aren’t there any cars in the parking lot?” I asked.  “Because there aren’t any people in the venue,” he replied, pointing over his shoulder.

I just couldn’t figure any of this out as Pat and I crossed the deserted lobby & concession area and walked up the steps to our balcony seats.  (In those days I always bought front row balcony seats and brought a little portable Panasonic tape recorder to tape the shows on.  I put the recorder right on the balcony overhang and got great sound right off the stage with minimal crowd noise.  It was great.)  There were four people in the entire balcony: Pat & me and one other couple, who soon joined the “crowd” downstairs.

I couldn’t believe my eyes looking down at the main floor of Vet’s: the first ten rows weren’t even full.  The ENTIRE MAIN FLOOR was all but empty.  Ladies & gentlemen; that was not what happened at rock & roll shows in 1974.  Since the Woodstock Festival in 1969, rock & roll shows SOLD OUT Vet’s Memorial.  And it really didn’t much matter WHO PLAYED at Vet’s: it still sold out.  Aerosmith, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Rush, Frank Zappa, Foghat, etc. all sold out Vet’s.  Christ, the fucking Mahavishnu Orchestra sold out Vet’s Memorial.  (But they had Aerosmith opening, that’s a whole other blog for another month.)    

Creem magazine – my Rock & Roll Bible of those days – had been telling me for over a year that The New York Dolls were The Next Big Thing, and I had no reason not to believe them.  As far as I knew, until that May evening, the Dolls were selling out 3000-seat venues (or bigger, I assumed, in cities like Boston, Detroit & L.A.).  This, folks, was definitely a rude awakening.

I really believed to my soul that 1974 was going to be the year that The Great Rock & Roll Reset would kick in.  (Reboot was not yet a term anyone outside a few scientist computer nerds in white lab coats would be familiar with.)  The New York Dolls would become the New Rolling Stones and Mick ‘n’ Keith & company would retire pleasantly to their English mansions and while away their remaining days playing cribbage, growing roses and/or shooting heroin; Mott The Hoople would become the New Bob Dylan and Mr. Zimmerman would live out his dotage in a Woodstock – the town, not the festival – idyll (actually, that very nearly happened); Elliott Murphy & Bruce Springsteen would be Assistant New Dylans, or at least replace the likes of Van Morrison and Crosby, Stills & Nash in the Singer/Songwriter Sweepstakes.  I wasn’t sure who The New Who were gonna be, because Cheap Trick hadn’t been invented yet to my knowledge, it was at least another year before I saw Rick & Robin and the boys open for some long-forgotten lame hard-rock act at the Columbus Agora. 

I wasn’t sure who The New Beatles were going to be.  I think I figured they were just Too Big, Too Outsized, Too Iconic to be replaced.  We would just have to do without.

So after an opening set by a seven-piece, all-female, funk/boogie band (with a horn section!) called Isis – no association with the current Mideast terrorist organization that I’m aware of, although they WERE torturous – The Dolls came out and, truthfully, THEY WERE WEAK.  It was the first time I realized that big-time rock critics might be ENTIRELY FULL OF SHIT.

The Dolls couldn’t BEGIN to fill up the big stage at Vet’s, they stayed crowded together like they were in a small club or a bar; the sound – because the huge Vet’s expanse was ESSENTIALLY EMPTY – was just boomy & terrible; and – worst of all – those motherfuckers just DID NOT KNOW how to play their instruments.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that was what all the 1960’s Batdorf & Rodney and Grateful Dead hippies that the Dolls were supposed to wipe off the face of the Earth said about them, but unfortunately – and I was an incredibly sympathetic first-hand witness, ready to give David Johansen & friends every benefit of the doubt – THEY COULD NOT PLAY.

Don’t get me wrong, the songs were – and still are right up to when I was blastin’ ‘em on CD today – great, but once Johnny Thunders & the gang got OUTSIDE of those song structures, they were finished.  Case in point, the Dolls went into a jam in the middle of “There’s Gonna Be A Showdown” from Too Much Too Soon and COULD NOT FIND THEIR WAY BACK INTO THE SONG!  They muddled around for a full minute while guitarists Sylvain Sylvain & Thunders and bassist Arthur Kane tried to find the beat, then just simply petered out to a full stop before drummer Jerry Nolan counted off 1-2-3-4! and they lurched back into the last verse.  It was humiliating.  To this day I have never witnessed a major band demonstrate that big a trainwreck onstage.  

I thought things would get better.  I desperately WANTED – almost PRAYED – for things to get better, thought maybe the band just had to get warmed-up, but it never got better.  At one point, while the band was pissing around between songs, trying to get their guitars in some semblance of tune, I yelled “DO SOMETHING AMAZING!” from the balcony.  Johansen looked up into the stage lights, almost smiled, then shook his head like he knew there wasn’t gonna be anything amazing to be had that night in Columbus.    

The first time I saw Kiss top-billed over the Dolls in Cleveland later that year, I knew things were all over.  I discerned from the beginning that Kiss was just Deep Purple or Uriah Heep in comic book get-up’s, but it didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter how good the Dolls songs or records were, if you couldn’t deliver the goods LIVE to the stoned, bluejeaned masses in the Great Midwest, all the rock critics on the East & West Coasts couldn’t save you.  (Further, my love for the 1973-1978 Aerosmith knows no bounds.  They pinched just enough from the Dolls – attitude-wise and fashion-wise – with the added bonus of ACTUALLY KNOWING HOW TO TUNE & PLAY THEIR INSTRUMENTS.) 

So here we are in the 21st century, in 2015.  The Who played Columbus last Friday night.  Bob Dylan played Columbus last Saturday night.  KANSAS, for fuck's sake, played Newark's Midland Theater a coupla weeks ago.  The Rolling Stones are playing May 30th.  Rush is playing June 8th.  We never exactly got that Rock & Roll Reset I was lookin’ for 41 years ago today.

Up to 1974 or so, rock & roll was a living, breathing thing: Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly & Little Richard gave way to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Velvet Underground and The Kinks who should’ve given way to Elliott Murphy, Mott The Hoople, The Modern Lovers, the Dwight Twilley Band and The New York Dolls, who would then have given way to some group of bands in the early 1980’s, and so on. 

Instead, right around 1975 the instigators of what would become Classic Rock Radio decided that we were all gonna listen to The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and, yes, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, and Rush for the REST OF OUR NATURAL LIVES.  And then – after we were sick enough of Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page” to puke in our mouths every time it came on Q-FM 96 – then we’d start puttin’ the songs in COMMERCIALS, thereby sucking every last iota of vitality, life & integrity of the Baby Boomer’s precious rock & roll.

I should’ve seen it coming that Sunday night in 1974, but I didn’t.  I see it now. – Ricki C. / May 17th, 2015 

(By the way, it was this 1974 Dolls show that sparked my "celebrity encounter" with David Johansen detailed in my Exchanging Pleasantries With David Johansen blog in Growing Old With Rock & Roll.)

Shows I Saw at Vet's Memorial May Honorable Mentions 

May 14th, 1968 / Cream

May 11th, 1969 / Janis Joplin & the Full Tilt Boogie Band

May 3rd, 1970 / Sly & the Family Stone (instead of attending my senior prom, exactly the right choice)

May 2nd, 1974 / The Mahavishnu Orchestra w/ Aerosmith opening (more on this in September)

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.