OFFICIAL REPLACEMENTS / TOMMY STINSON Thread

[FunkyMonkey]

New Old Music: The Replacements: "Kiss Me on the Bus" (Demo) / "Photo" (Demo) / "Talent Show" (Demo) [Streams]

Sep 5, 2008

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/145276-new-old-music-the-replacements-kiss-me-on-the-bus-demo-photo-demo-talent-show-demo-streams

[CheapJon]

oh i love kiss me on the bus

[crazycheryl]

Paul Westerberg posts two more tracks

By Eric R. Danton on August 29, 2008 11:58 AM

The former Replacements leader has been busy lately. In July (or, in his parlance, an extra-long June), Westerberg made available 49 minutes of new music for 49 cents.

Now he's back with two new mp3s he's made available here. The first, "Finally Here Once," is one compact song. The other, "3oclockreep," is 20 minutes of overlapping fragments, songs and, intriguingly, an outtake with Tom Waits from the sessions that resulted in "Date to Church," available on a Sire sampler released in 1989 and, soon, on a reissue of "Don't Tell a Soul."

The Waits portion features Westerberg, Waits and bassist Tommy Stinson messing around on "If Only You Were Lonely" and Waits singing some of "We Know the Night."

Both mp3s are available for $3.99; separately, the cost is $3 for "3oclockreep" and 99 cents for "Finally Here Once."

So, Paul. How about a tour? 

http://blogs.courant.com/eric_danton_sound_check/2008/08/paul-westerberg-posts-two-more.html

God, I would love that. Have you heard any of the new songs? They are supposed to be great and as classic as some of his stuff from 14 songs. I need to find some time to download because I really want to hear this stuff. Thanks for posting!

[AdZ]

49:00 is excellent.

[crazycheryl]

49:00 is excellent.

Where did you get the download? I tried the link above but it says it has been pulled from Amazon and some other place. I want to download bad. Thanks!

[AdZ]

Maybe I bought it when it was available

[crazycheryl]

Maybe I bought it when it was available

Maybe I'm shit out of luck then. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! If you see something, anything, email me link or whatever please? I would appreciate it!

[GypsySoul]

Bill Holdship's original liner notes for the new Pleased To Meet Me reissue can be read at:

http://metrotimes.com/music/review.asp?rid=24460

[FunkyMonkey]

Paul Westerberg's Replacements reissue four albums

BY KEVIN AMORIM | kevin.amorim@newsday.com
September 21, 2008

This is typical Paul Westerberg.

The singer-songwriter was paying his respects to the Replacements' second drummer, Steve Foley, a few weeks back. "I'm standing there at the casket looking at him, and then wafting over the PA comes 'Sadly Beautiful,'" Westerberg says. "OK, I gotta leave."

He wasn't expecting one of his songs from the final Replacements' album, 1990's "All Shook Down," to be played at such a somber event: Foley drummed on the group's last tour and accidentally overdosed on prescription medication in late August.

"It doesn't seem to get any easier," sighs Westerberg, who said goodbye to the band's original guitarist, Bob Stinson, more than a decade ago. But - here's the Westerberg twist - "I would have preferred Glen Campbell's new version of the song."

That's his self-deprecating way of dealing with his legacy - a legacy that gets dusted off this week with Rhino Records' deluxe reissuing of the legendary Minneapolis rock band's final four albums (the group was also known as the Placemats and, in shorthand, simply the Mats). Each disc has rare and previously unreleased tracks tacked on. (Rhino similarly released the band's earlier indie-label albums in April.)

"Are they coming out as one big thing?" he asks of the individual Tuesday releases. "Or are they rereleasing the last three or four records?"

Typical Westerberg. He has no idea.

He opens the Rhino package while on the phone at home - they sent him the post-production discs. "I have to take off my glasses to see the track listing," he says. "There are some good songs on these things."

Westerberg mentions "Tiny Paper Plane," an evocative rough cut from the final album. "This was from the era that they were seriously pushing us to compete with The Cult, and that's not the type of song that makes for band material," he recalls. "You know, if they send me some vinyl, I might put it on."

And maybe, just maybe these albums will turn on a new generation to the hard-partying, but always eloquent outfit that began at the very end of the 1970s and finished things with a final show in Chicago on July 4, 1991.

"They were a band that was made up of their own persons," says Peter Jesperson, who discovered, managed and co-produced the group's early work. "They liked what they liked and weren't embarrassed about it. It's a little bit like what Big Star did, that combination of Gibson guitars through Marshall amps and great melodies."

Jesperson, now senior vice president for A&R at New West Records, still marvels at the growth he witnessed during the early days - from "Johnny's Gonna Die" to "Go" and "Color Me Impressed."

"I had the best seat in the house," says Jesperson, who also produced the reissues. (There isn't much more fully developed Mats material left to release, he admits.) "They were real mavericks."

So will the college-rock standbys reunite, perhaps?

"I think we still exist in some sort of fragmented form," Westerberg says. "It's just a question of whether he and I can ever get together again ... that's how close we are, I can't even mention his -- name."

Typical Westerberg. He's talking about his longtime bassist and foil, Tommy Stinson. "One day Tommy wants to sue me, the next he wants to jam. I think he's in the jamming mood this week, but by the time he gets here we might just meet and fight."

Continue reading here: http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-ffmus5847165sep21,0,7351711.story?page=1

[cineater]

1, 2, 3, 4

ooops

I turned Tommy into a can of tomato soup.

lol--a little stage magic.   Saw Tommy in St. Louis tonight with Soul Asylum.  Perfect night, beautiful weather and the band sounded great.  Tommy looked like he was having a great time.

[GeraldFord]

I really want to buy the remasters, but am broke...

[FunkyMonkey]

Westerberg & Stinson together again

Posted on September 30th, 2008

By Chris Riemenschneider

I just got off the phone with Tommy Stinson, for an interview to discuss the four new Replacements reissues (look for an article in Sunday?s Variety A&E section, online over the weekend). He was down in New Orleans writing some songs with Dave Pirner. That was great news to hear, but even better was the mention he nonchalantly dropped into the conversation about being back in town last week to ?mess around? with Paul Westerberg and Michael Bland. Wow.

He sounded enthusiastic about the sessions and said, ?It was a lot of fun.? When I asked if they did any recording, though, he answered, ?Nah, that?s getting to first base. We?re sort of still in the dugout chewing gum.? As for the general state of the two former ?Mats mates relationship, he said, ?We?re good friends, and I?m sure we?re going to work together again.?

What do you think? Should we get excited about this, or file it under ?We?ll See???

http://ww3.startribune.com/blogs/poplife/2008/09/30/westerberg-stinson-together-again/

[FunkyMonkey]

Bassist Tommy Stinson dissects the bonus tracks in the second round of 'Mats reissues.

By CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER, Star Tribune

Last update: October 4, 2008 - 2:32 PM

Like a lot of things that involve rehashing the Replacements' legacy, Tommy Stinson admitted he was a tad skeptical about reissuing their eight albums with bonus tracks. In the end, though, he realized "you get a little more of the story of those records in those extra tracks."

After reissuing the Minneapolis band's first four discs in April, Rhino Records put out new versions of the final four albums two weeks ago with six to 10 bonus cuts apiece.

"We grabbed the best that there was, and some of it was still pretty rough," said Stinson, who joined the Replacements on bass when he was only 12 and stayed alongside frontman Paul Westerberg until the end (1991). "All the tracks we picked helped tell the story. You can hear the time and the moment captured. Whether it was a good moment or not is open to debate."

Stinson talked by phone last week from New Orleans, where he was writing songs with Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum, another band he sometimes plays in, along with Guns N' Roses. He also jammed with Westerberg in Minneapolis recently but described it only as "messing around." We'll see.

Here's how Tommy described some of the extras on the reissues.
"TIM" (1985)

"Nowhere Is My Home," an outtake from scrapped sessions with the band's hero Alex Chilton producing: "It wound up being probably the best track of those sessions. It was one we had played quite a bit before it came time to record, so when we did record it, we were probably kind of sick of it.

"We were inspired to work with Alex, because we were such big Big Star fans. Like so many things, what it was supposed to be and ended up being wound up completely different, and in this case it wasn't all that fruitful."

Continue reading here: http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/30190319.html?page=1&c=y

[FunkyMonkey]

Westerberg & Stinson together again

That was great news to hear, but even better was the mention he nonchalantly dropped into the conversation about being back in town last week to ?mess around? with Paul Westerberg and Michael Bland. Wow.

He sounded enthusiastic about the sessions and said, ?It was a lot of fun.? When I asked if they did any recording, though, he answered, ?Nah, that?s getting to first base. We?re sort of still in the dugout chewing gum.? As for the general state of the two former ?Mats mates relationship, he said, ?We?re good friends, and I?m sure we?re going to work together again.?

From Billboard...

Westerberg, Stinson 'Mess Around' In Minneapolis

October 06, 2008

Jonathan Cohen, N.Y

Westerberg's manager, Darren Hill, confirmed the sessions to Billboard but added there are "no plans beyond that right now."

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003870797

[GypsySoul]

RollingStone (mag) >> Issue 1064 >> October 30, 2008

REVIEWS REISSUES & RARITIES

The Replacements
Tim Rhino

RS Rating:  Four Stars
Average User Rating:  Four and a half Stars

Midwest punks broaden their sound with a barfly classic

Released in 1985, Tim caught a great American garage band stretching out, working Big Star pop and Fifties-style rock into a mix of punky abandon and regular-dude romanticism. This version ? reissued along with three other 'Mats albums, none of which is quite as tuneful as Tim ? brightens the sound and adds six bonus cuts, including a bare-bones version of "Here Comes a Regular," Paul Westerberg's moving acoustic ballad about directionless barflies. Rarely did Westerberg write so poignantly, and Tim marked the height of the band's powers ? it was its final album with Bob Stinson, the notoriously soused guitarist who helped give the group its lovably shambling sound.

CHRISTIAN HOARD
(Posted: Oct 30, 2008)
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/111437/review/23589295/tim

[FunkyMonkey]

Cool song and you've gotta like Tommy. 

Bash and Pop, "Loose Ends"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyirpNZyWyo

[GeraldFord]

Just got my Replacement CD replaced!

[Chief]

i dunno if it's been mentioned but what the hell happened to tommy's website?

[crazycheryl]

RollingStone (mag) >> Issue 1064 >> October 30, 2008

REVIEWS REISSUES & RARITIES

The Replacements
Tim Rhino

RS Rating:  Four Stars
Average User Rating:  Four and a half Stars

Midwest punks broaden their sound with a barfly classic

Released in 1985, Tim caught a great American garage band stretching out, working Big Star pop and Fifties-style rock into a mix of punky abandon and regular-dude romanticism. This version — reissued along with three other 'Mats albums, none of which is quite as tuneful as Tim — brightens the sound and adds six bonus cuts, including a bare-bones version of "Here Comes a Regular," Paul Westerberg's moving acoustic ballad about directionless barflies. Rarely did Westerberg write so poignantly, and Tim marked the height of the band's powers — it was its final album with Bob Stinson, the notoriously soused guitarist who helped give the group its lovably shambling sound.

CHRISTIAN HOARD
(Posted: Oct 30, 2008)
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/111437/review/23589295/tim

Tim rocks! I wish they would get back together.

[FunkyMonkey]

An interview with Tommy and Paul Westerberg, here is some of it....

'We kicked a lot of doors open'

Shambolic, gifted and drunk - the Replacements staggered their way to the edge of fame in the 1980s, only to realise they didn't want it. But their sound - and influence - lives on.

The Guardian, Friday October 24 2008

Westerberg's creative division caused considerable internal tension. Tommy Stinson recalls that the band, particularly Bob Stinson, were uncomfortable playing Westerberg's more introspective material. "We were full of testosterone, drugged-up drinking kids, and here's Pauly with some fucking torch ballad. It was like, 'Who wants to hear that shit, dude?'"

Looking back, Westerberg can see the irony. "It's funny now to see [the reissues] with all my home demos considered deluxe, extra bonus, blah blah blah. At the time those songs were looked at like, 'This isn't rock'n'roll. Take this back home, Paul, and keep it in your basement.' Twenty years later, of course, that's the stuff they're trying to sell. It was frustrating at the time, but I lost myself in the whole fervour of the noise, the loud amps, loud clothes and louder girls. That was as much a part of me."

As they quickly established themselves as one of America's foremost alternative rock bands, they also earned a reputation for being notoriously undisciplined, usually drunk and downright wasteful. "People would come up to me and say, 'Man, I saw you once, it was the greatest show I ever saw - you were so fucked up you didn't even play any of your own songs!'" recalls Tommy Stinson. "And I'd think, 'Why would that be a great show? What made that so good for you?' Chances are it was terrible."

Following 1984's Let It Be, their fourth album for TwinTone and arguably their peak, the Replacements made the leap to a major and signed to Sire. As they watched contemporaries and tourmates such as REM slip into the mainstream, they, too, engaged in sporadic attempts to "serious up". Bob Stinson - a heavy drinker - was by 1985 no longer stable enough to make a regular contribution and was sacked - "The most painful thing I ever had to deal with," according to his brother - and the loss of his wild guitar runs levelled the sound out into something a little less primal and thrilling. Though the songwriting was frequently still superb, the later albums suffered from trying to perform an impossible balancing act: trying to make records that might sell without losing the sense of unpredictable wildness that was what made them attractive. Westerberg nailed the dilemma in the song I Don't Know, from the Replacements' second major label album, Pleased to Meet Me: "One foot in the door," runs the chorus, "the other one in the gutter."

"We embraced the idea of having a hit, but the thing that always got us was our personalities," says Stinson. "We were oil to the industry's water. We just couldn't play that game. Fundamentally speaking we were all doing it for age-old reasons - girls, drugs, fame, fortune - but as you go along and you see people like REM getting successful, and you see what it turns them into, you turn away from it a little bit. There may have been a subconscious self-destructive streak, sure, but when you see what happens to people, and what they have to do to get there, you realise it's maybe not worth whoring yourself out." Jesperson reckons they were simply "scared shitless" of success.

The Replacements fell apart in instalments. Following Bob Stinson's departure, Chris Mars left in 1990, having made only sporadic appearances on the band's final album, All Shook Down. At the end, only Stinson and Westerberg were left standing, surveying a few golden chances that had slipped through their fingers.

"Like any good, young, stupid idiot of a band, we had no idea when we were at our peak," says Westerberg. "A serious amount of money was thrown at us later on, but we were really drunk. Ten thousand people would show up to hear [the song] Alex Chilton and could not believe the kind of monstrosity we were on stage. The label didn't know what they had, but sadly I don't think we did either until it was too late. When we started to slide downhill we thought, 'Oh my God, is that it? How come there's less people this time? How come we have to play a club instead of an arena?' I'm totally fine with it now. I can laugh at it. We just weren't cut out to be pop stars. We got to the party and we saw it wasn't for us."

Yet despite Stinson's current day job playing bass in Guns N' Roses and Westerberg's increasingly off-radar solo pursuits, you sense that neither has quite succeeded in putting the Replacements to rest. The day before we speak, the pair were playing together in Minneapolis (with a new drummer and guitarist in tow; Bob Stinson died in 1995 while Mars has retired from music), kicking around the ashes of the Replacements' past and contemplating its future. They played old hits-that-never-were like I'll Be You and Can't Hardly Wait, some new Westerberg and Stinson songs, and "a little medley of Rocky Top Tennessee and Won't Get Fooled Again which I thought had something going," says Stinson.

It was, says Westerberg, "fun-ish". Stinson concurs. Promoters are waving tempting sums under their noses for a reunion tour and few fans would begrudge them a second tilt at it, but there's an obvious reluctance to commit to anything. Westerberg claims he's unafraid of the band's legacy - "none of this is sacred, holy stuff" - but acknowledges "there's a missing element. Tommy has become very grown up and efficient, and I feel I have to bend the other way to add the extra let's-make-fools-of-ourselves element to make some magic. I sat there and pondered for a moment and said the unspeakable words: 'Perhaps this requires alcohol.' And at the moment I'm not drinking."

Instead, after Glen Campbell covered the Replacements' Sadly Beautiful on his new album, Westerberg is busy writing songs for the next Campbell record - "I called my manager and said, 'Tell Glen I'll be his next Jimmy Webb' and he took the bait" - while Stinson has his finger in "too many fuckin' pies". At 48 and 42 respectively, they're adopting a tentative wait-and-see approach. "Certainly Tommy and I could go around as the Replacements and draw 10 times more and make some money," says Westerberg. "But I'm not there yet, I gotta say." Perhaps the same strange, self-defeating spirit of skewed nobility and fool's honour that prevented the Replacements ever fully grasping the nettle of fame and fortune may yet prevent them from clearing up any unfinished business.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/24/popandrock1