(this bit of genius appeared in The Skyway #46, 1996, composed by one Brueso@aol.com - wherever you are, dude, I hope you don't mind my stealing it!)
Liverpool 1960.
In the grimy city streets, a club called the Cavern has been slowly drawing young Liverpudlians for its lunchtime concerts. After a customer in the record department of the furniture store owned by his parents orders a copy of the single "My Bonnie" by Tony Sheridan backed by the Beat Brothers (known locally as the Beatles), young Brian Epstein decides to visit the Cavern to see what all the excitement is about.
Upon entering the dimly lit hall, Epstein is immediately drawn to the pounding drums and churning guitars of the band playing onstage. Peering anxiously over the heads of the undulating crowd, Epstein sees two members of the band with tousled hair that makes them look like they've been electrocuted- one of them looks barely 14. The lead guitar player weaves around the stage haphazardly- clearly three sheets to the wind- clad only in a red union suit. Just barely Epstein can make out the chorus of their song "We're takin a ride! We're takin a ride!"
After a few songs, the lead singer spins around and pulls the bass drum out and throws it into the audience, the bass player pulls apart the cymbals and, laughing wickedly, throws them also into the nearly riotous crowd. The lead guitar player by now is seemingly comatose, sprawled on the floor. Epstein realizes that these "Beatles" have the potential to redefine pop music as it is known and shake it out of its lethargy.
the band, although he is able to glean from them that they are actually four Americans from the province of Minnesota on holiday, and they call themselves "the Replacements". As the conversation continues, Epstein is able to hear the actual Beatles onstage and the opening strains of "Love Me Do"; however, noticing half of the crowd has left by now and finding the Beatles lackluster after the Replacements, Epstein leaves the Cavern, confident he has the better band now under his belt.
London 1963. Epstein continues to struggle to get "his" mats what he feels is their due. While they continue to play to wild crowds of nearly 100, Epstein begins to notice, to his horror, that it is the SAME nearly 100 fans following the band from venue to venue. Unable to get the mats a recording contract with a major label, Epstein begins his own "Why Not" label and releases a series of long-playing albums and extended play singles by the mats, but he is stymied by the fact that each release only sells nearly 100 copies.
Meanwhile, Epstein notices that the Beatles, the band he almost signed, have gone onto rising mainstream success- appealing to the youth of England with their good looks, but also to the parents of the youth of
England, with their matching suits and well-scrubbed faces. Epstein is barely able to get mats guitarist Bob Stinson to show up for photo sessions fully clothed, and he finds the bathing habits of the band in general to be woefully inadequate. Although privately the members of the Beatles and the mats are close, the alcohol-soaked and sarcasm-laden all-night binges of their respective leaders John Lennon and Paul Westerberg having already achieved local legendary status, publicly the bands are fiercely competitive as they wrestle to dominate the airwaves of the BBC.
One evening, at an exclusive gentleman's club known to be frequented by London's homosexual elite, Epstein manages to convince one Geoffrey Spencer, organizer of the annual Royal Command Charity Performances before the Queen, to put the mats on the bill of that year's concert programme at the London Palladium after the Beatles. Epstein realizes that the Command Performance, which is also being televised, will afford the mats the opportunity to be seen by a greater audience than any of their previous appearances. The day of the concert, in an effort to keep the mats sober for their important evening performance, Epstein kept the mats under lock and key in his London flat, allowing them only tea and biscuits for sustenance. Unfortunately for Epstein, having guessed Epstein's intentions to "tame" them for their performance, the mats had filled their pockets with handfuls of a variety of both legal and illegal pharmaceutical substances secured from their friends the Beatles prior to their imprisonment.
Two hours later, nearly the time they were due to be onstage, the mats arrived at the Palladium. The bobbies assigned to guard the backstage entrance nearly didn't allow Epstein and his by now deranged looking crew through, but luckily Geoffrey Spencer had sent an assistant to be on the lookout for Epstein and whoever he had with him. The mats stumbled into the spacious Palladium backstage and, to Epstein's horror, descended upon the beer and liquor selection that had been provided for the performers. In the flurry that followed, Bob Stinson picked up the leafy centerpiece from the sandwich tray and plopped it on his head, completing his Caesar-like appearance.
his now famous comment to the audience that "For the next number, those of you in the cheap seats can clap along. The rest of you can just rattle your jewelry". Those words broke through the haze in which Westerberg had drifted and he realised in a flash what had happened; his best mate had STOLEN his line! Westerberg had first said the line to Lennon during one of their rambling all night "sessions" when Lennon had asked Westerberg what he would have to say to the Queen at the Performance; at the time Lennon said "I'm going to remember that, Paulie" and scribbled the line on a cocktail napkin; now, Westerberg realized, he had done it with the intention of stealing the line for his own use, realizing that since the Beatles were scheduled to perform before the mats in the programme, Lennon knew he would be able to use it first.
The fab four made their last orchestrated bow and raced backstage, flushed with the big reaction they had received. Seeing the mats (three in drag, Bob Stinson in his kingly garments) sprawled all over the backstage sofas, Lennon grinned and said, "Well, lads- nice of you to show up". Lennon barely got the words out of his mouth before Westerberg clocked him one with a champagne bottle, knocking him to the floor. Westerberg leapt on top of him, choking Lennon as the rest of the Beatles tried to pull him off. Tommy Stinson grabbed a champagne bottle from one of the shocked attendants and shook it up, spraying everyone in the area with the foamy elixir, Chris Mars picked up handfuls of watercress sandwiches and threw them wildly, in the process hitting the Beatles, Epstein, the mats and a Ventriloquist (and his dummy!) waiting to go onstage. Somehow, in the midst of the turmoil, the backstage security forces broke through and dragged the Beatles away, their neat suits now caked with champagne and watercress, Lennon's nose bleeding. The mats were rolling on the floor laughing hysterically while Epstein collapsed (conveniently, into the arms
of an attractive young male backstage attendant) sobbing hysterically.
Paul strode up to the microphone in the deafening silence. "Cliff Richard and the Shadows are playing in Manchester tonight, but we're better, so Fuck em!" The Palladium audience was aghast, the television crew horrified that Paul had uttered the "F" word (and it wasn't "fudge"). Then in the silence, a shrill giggle trickled down from up in the balcony. All eyes turned to the balcony, and there was the Queen, trying to look dignified but at the beginning of a giggling fit.
Taking the Queen's response as a cue that they could continue, Chris counted off and the band launched into "Talent Show", a song Westerberg had written in honor of their Palladium appearance (when the band had run through it at a rehearsal of the programme a couple of days earlier, the director had informed Epstein that if Westerberg uttered the line about "feeling good from the pills we took", he would have Epstein fined). The sound exploded into the cavernous Palladium- the audience, previously lulled by the Beatles, rocked back in their seats in horror, several matrons burst into tears, their husbands alternately clutching their chests in terror or their ears in pain.
disbelief, some (particularly the young) in amazement. In a pub in Richmond, Michael Jagger and his bandmate Keith Richards watched the TV intently over the noise from the celebration of a victorious rugby team. Lately they'd been trying to imitate the Beatles "clean" look- seeing Tommy and Paul on screen, their hair standing up as though pasted, Keith started absentmindedly plunking his fingers into his pint and pulling his hair into a rooster-like fashion in imitation of the mats'. They could barely make out any of the words to Talent Show over the din in the pub, except when Paul, with Tommy joining him, loudly screamed "FEELING GOOD FROM THE PILLS WE TOOK!" while at the same time he rolled his eyes drolly. Jagger and Richards couldn't believe their gall! This was rock'n roll! This was anarchy! Suddenly the "safe" image the Beatles were projecting which they themselves had been begun to follow seemed like a cop-out.
The band thundered "Talent Show" to a close, and then, not waiting for what they (correctly) assumed would be a negative response, jumped into "Color Me Impressed", one of the songs off the "Hootenanny" album Epstein had released in the hopes of cashing in on the folk craze hitting the States (ironically, by that time the folk craze was to soon end, as Westerberg had recently encouraged his fellow Minnesotan Bob Dylan to start playing electric instead by taunting him "Come on Zimmy, plug in and stop being such a pussy"). At the side of the stage, stood the Beatles, bedraggled, Lennon aching for a rematch-and yet entranced by the sight of the mats, stumbling around in their high heels, nylons dangling around their skinny legs, Tommy and Paul jumping in the air OUT of their high heels as the song hit its "Can! You! Stand! Me! On My Feet!" climax, and then falling to the stage, repeating the line lying prone. By now, the horrified Palladium patrons had begun booing and throwing things at the band- their programs, items from purses and whatever else was handy. At the end of their song, in a knock at the Beatles politely orchestrated bowing, the mats all turned AWAY from the audience and mooned them in unison. Now, the retired admirals and gentry in the audience were incensed, they ran towards the stage, faces seemingly ready to explode in rage, wanting to rip the mats to pieces. Bobbies ran from backstage to the front to keep back the angry crowd, forming a human wall at the stage edge.
All of a sudden, Bob Stinson kicked into the opening of their friend Chuck Berry's "Around and Around". The quick tempo kicked up the audience's fervor, a respectable looking military man climbed through the guards and was crawling towards the mats, but was smacked in the face by Tommy with his bass and he fell back into the crowd. Paul changed the lyrics to the song to suit themselves "Bout twelve o'CLOCK! My eyes were JACKED! Just one hit MORE! And I laid to rest! But when the Po-lice KNOCKED! Them doors flew BACK! WE KEPT ON ROCKIN! GOIN ROUND AND ROUND!" The band pounded their instruments, strangling notes out of them, whirling and jumping, Bob Stinson slipped on the now trashed stage and fell into part of the drum set, then all of the band started pulling the drumset apart, throwing it into the audience, then Paul and Bob began smashing their guitars on the stage, while Tommy pulled out a bottle of lighter fluid and poured the mixture on his guitar and set it on fire, then cackling madly, he ran off the stage and dove into the crowd. More bobbies poured into the hall trying to calm the riotous crowd, and, seemingly feeling all was forgiven due to the mats amazing performance, the Beatles rushed onstage to help defend their friends, pulling away an angry businessman who was kicking a now prone Chris Mars. Westerberg grabbed the microphone and screamed "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! SHE AIN'T NO HUMAN BEING!" Somehow, this comment seemed to incense the crowd even more-they howled like banshees for the mats' blood. Westerberg continued, "THIS IS OUR LAST PERFORMANCE! (the crowd cheered) DID YOU EVER FEEL YOU'VE BEEN CHEATED?!!" and then Westerberg pulled the microphone from its stand and swung it in the air like a lariat to fend off the angry crowd that had now made their way onstage, they lunged for him, but he jumped off the stage to join the pandemonium down front. The television broadcast finished off with the sight of Bob Stinson unwrapping his tunic, parading before the cameras clad only in a pair of woman's red panties, and then jumping into the crowd.
The Aftermath
Immediately after their Palladium performance, Brian Epstein fired the mats and, in the emergency room of the hospital where they were being treated for injuries sustained at the Royal Command Performance, managed to convince the Beatles to let him manage them. As soon as he returned to the Why Not offices, Epstein gathered the master tapes of the material he had already recorded of the mats, as well as the material that would have been put on the "Let It Be" album, and threw the tapes into the Thames. Later that night, the Why Not offices were burned to the ground by a mob angered by Westerberg's insult to the Queen. The next morning the mats were promptly deported back to their native land, never to return. Epstein was later fined five hundred pounds for Westerberg's on camera profanity. Epstein never re-released the mats albums, and the copies that had been bought by their hardcore fans were cherished and passed down generation to generation.
The mats never performed again. Westerberg changed his name and became a high school English teacher in Maryland, reappearing only to produce an album for a fledgling rock group called Big Star (their leader Alex Chilton had managed to track Westerberg down, later writing a song "Paul Westerberg" as an ode to his mentor, although it remains unreleased as of the time of this writing). The Stinsons returned to Minneapolis and began a stump removal and towing service out of their mother's garage, which lead to their eventual opening of a full service automotive center, leading eventually to a prosperous chain of such automotive centers. Several years later, Bob Stinson was elected Mayor of Minneapolis and he served in that capacity for some fifteen years. Chris Mars became a recluse and dedicated himself to his paintings. His series of portraits of sad clowns and teary big-eyed children brought him great fame and wealth.
The effect of the mats Royal Command Performance broadcast reverberated for years. Firstly, on the basis of the mats raunchy performance of his "Around & Around", Chuck Berry's career picked up from its slump. He often substituted Westerberg's improvised "naughty" lyrics to "Around and Around" whenever he performed it. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began taking the Rolling Stones into a "harder" rock sound. The Stones paid small homages to the mats on at least three occasions; when the Stones played the Ed Sullivan show in America, under pressure from the Sullivan staff and the network, Jagger was forced to substitute the line "Let's spend some time together" for "Let's spend the night together"; but in a small homage to Westerberg, recreating Westerberg's performance of "Talent Show", Jagger rolled his eyes each time. Later, in the video for their song "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows", the Stones paid a small tribute to the mats by performing in drag. The Stones went so far as to title an album "Let it Bleed" as a minor tribute to "Let It Be", the mats album that never was.
The Beatles began a new direction for their music. Impressed by Westerberg's "Unsatisfied", Lennon stopped writing simplistic lyrics like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and began writing more introspective songs, beginning first with "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away". In later albums, the Beatles did direct takes from the mats; first Lennon copped the opening of "Mr. Whirly" from the last mats album, the aforementioned "Hootenanny", for his "Strawberry Fields Forever", and McCartney later took a great portion of "Whirly" for his "Oh Darling" on the Beatles Abbey Road album. McCartney even wrote a song called "Let it Be", which was, as Westerberg said during the Royal Command performance, to be the next mats album before Epstein pulled the plug on their careers. Despondent over the fact that Westerberg was driven out of the music business and by the possible role he may have played in it, Lennon remembered his old friend when he droned "I buried Paul" at the end of his "I Am The Walrus".
Countless other musicians made their own tributes to the mats; the mod group the High Numbers, later known as the Who, began smashing their instruments at the end of their gigs, and their lead singer Roger Daltry began swinging his microphone as Westerberg had done during the mats Royal performance. At the dawning of the psychedelic music movement at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, at the climax of his performance, Jimi Hendrix set his own guitar on fire in a small salute to Tommy Stinson and the mats. The effects of the mats Royal performance were seen even some fifteen years later, when the Sex Pistols recorded a "God Save the Queen" that used Westerberg's final utterance from the broadcast as its chorus
(Sex Pistol John Ritchie aka Sid Vicious even clubbed an audience member with his bass during the Pistol's brief US Tour in 1976. In an interview after the gig, Vicious said "I seen Tommy Stinson do that on telly when I was 7".) In their final concert at the Winterland arena in 1978, John Lydon, crouched onstage and surveying the damage around him, blurted out Westerberg's line about "Did you ever feel you've been cheated?"
Finally, the effect of the mats even carried over into the world of comedy, when the English comic troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus did a skit showing members of their troupe in drag "reenacting famous battles", which consisted of the actors throwing mud at each other until, by the end, as Eric Idle stated to a friend "We wanted to look at least half as bad as the mats did during the Royal Performance".
The Replacements were a textbook example of how the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. But in the short time that they were together, and particularly during one legendary performance of less than twenty minutes, the Replacements changed the direction of popular music forever.
fin.
Replacements wiki
Replacements allmusic
The Skyway - archive of the apparently defunct Replacements mailing list. Worth a read.
The Foshay Tower - an essential guide to rarities, bootlegs, etc
Paul Westerberg: Man Without Ties - pretty much go-to central for Westerbergs/mats news and sundry
Chris Mars' website
Tommy Stinson - Tommy's web presence
Slim Dunlap - news on Slim's situation and the "Songs For Slim" benefit
Essential Listening
The Replacements catalog is all in print and easily available in any format thou shalt desire. In order of personal preference, I would go after the Twin/Tone sides first: Let It Be, Sorry Ma Forgot To Take Out The Trash, Hootenanny and The Replacements Stink!, roughly in that order. The Sire sides are less shambolic but more consistent, so it depends on which aspect of the band you want. Tim and Pleased To Meet Me are the musts. After Meet Me and the departure of Bob Stinson, their records become more mature and slicker. This was inevitable but you have to lose some thing to find some things - whether what they lost was worth what they found will be debated for a long time to come. In any case, Don't Tell A Soul and the dispirited All Shook Down wrap the story. Both have enough good in them to make them worth the investment. The compilation All For Nothing/Nothing For All contains a jumble of tracks from the above, but the disk of outtakes contains some gems ("We Know The Night") and is worthwhile. Other rarities which now appear on the reissued disks, such as their cover of T.Rex's "20th Century Boy" (Let It Be), "If Only You Were Lonely" (Sorry Ma), and "Nowhere Is My Home" (Tim) are must-hears, so get the right versions!
The only official live Mats documents to date are the Inconcerated EP, recorded in `89 - It's not bad, and the versions of "Answering Machine" and The Only Ones' "Another Girl Another Planet" are very fine. It's out of print but can be picked up at an affordable price; and 1984's The Shit Hits The Fans - a cassette-taped show from Oklahoma which the mats loyal roadie pulled out of some kids tape recorder at the gig. Aside from obviously less-than-sterling sound quality, the bulk of the show consists of the drunken band playing the intros to a dozen or so rock and punk classics. There's a nice take on "Can't Hardly Wait" with its original lyrics and The Vertebrats "Left In The Dark", but, given that Shit Hits will set you back $100 to $200 these days, I'd give it a pass. Better bets are the Live At Lingerie boot, an `84 show from Los Angeles that displays them at the top of their game, with an out-of-tune but still stunning "Answering Machine." For those who want the band's more erratic side, the CBGB's show from the same tour gives you plenty of it, but is musically stronger than Shit Hits. A show from the 7th Street Entry in 1985 is well worth hearing, as is an equally winning gig from 1981 (also at the Entry), which features several never-recorded numbers from the Sorry Ma era.
Of later, post-Bob shows, the widely-circulated Shit Shower and Shave features all of Inconcerated and good-sounding performances, mostly from sets opening for Tom Petty in the summer of `89. Highlight: a stomping take of Chuck Berry's "Around and Around." A Beacon Theater show from `87 is another drunken mess, but their obnoxious take on "Born in the USA" and a hilarious "Hello Dolly" are worth a hear. Finally, a Grant Park, Chicago show from July 4, 1991 - their final gig, is widely circulated and not bad, although you can clearly hear that the inspiration's gone.
Post-mats, all five ex-members have embarked on careers. Bob Stinson recorded albums with Model Prisoner, Static Taxi, Shotgun Rationale, Dog 994, The Bleeding Hearts and finally Trailer Trash. Most of this appears to have been either rootsy punk (ala the mats) or Stones/Faces rawk - or country swing in the case of Trailer Trash. The recorded legacy of the above is hard to come by, but it reveals that Stinson was (a) a great guitar players and (b) not the source of the mats' inspiration, sorry.
Tommy Stinson, meanwhile, has had a rambling career, starting his first post-mats band, Bash and Pop (with fellow ex-mat Steve Foley, who took over the drum stool after Chris Mars' departure). They lasted for one album, Friday Night is Killing Me. This was followed a few years later by a new band, Perfect, who pulled off an EP, When Squirrels Play Chicken, and Once Twice Three Times A Maybe, which got shelved for seven years before finally seeing the light of day in 2004. That same year brought his first official solo album, Village Gorilla Head, which was followed by One Man Mutiny in 2011. Last year saw the single "It's A Drag"/"Spork My Ears". He also played for several years with Soul Asylum, and has been a member of Guns`n'Roses since 1998. All of the above, by the way, are good, melodic, Stonesy rock not unlike ... the mats. Tommy has proved himself an estimable singer and writer.
Chris Mars recorded four solo albums in the 90's - Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, 75% Less Fat, Tenterhooks and Anonymous Botch. All are enjoyable grungey pop, reminiscent of ... the mats. Mars hung it up after the last and professes no interest in continuing his music career. He's been a success as a painter, so more power to him.
Slim Dunlap also recorded two enjoyable slices of country/roots/punkoid rock, The Old New Me and Times Like This. These are both modest but good listening, and "The Ballad of the Opening Band" off Old New Me is a mini-classic. I had the pleasure of meeting Slim in San Jose back in `96-`97 and he was a sweet, charming guy. He told me a great story about meeting Lightnin' Hopkins.
Paul Westerberg has followed the oddest course of all. After the expected Big Solo Debut, 14 Songs, a good album, but not the knock-out we'd expected/hoped for, failed to ignite the charts, he followed it with the tentative, polished and craftsmanlike, but slightly soulless Eventually. Having aborted two tours by now, Sire dumped him. Suicaine Gratification languished before getting a high-profile release by Capitol, but the mix of sometimes-inspired rock and painfully self-indulgent balladry confused fans, critics, and everyone else, and successfully alienated all but the die-hards. After that, things get weird. Westerberg had a kid and holed up in his basement for a few years, finally releasing the odd, acoustic, and mostly successful Stereo, simultaneously with Mono, released under his Grandpa Boy alter ego - a slab of chunky, Stones-y, off the cuff rawk that was modest but invigorating. Between these two was a great album, and Westerberg seemed back on track. The similarly minded one-two of Come Feel Me Tremble and Folker was undercut by the albums themselves, which alternated winning moments with misfires. The Dead Man Shake album was an odd pisstake. A Rhino collection, Besterberg, misses too many highlights, but does have the non-album singles/soundtrack numbers "Dyslexic Heart", "Seeing Her", "Stain Yer Blood", "A Star is Bored" and the otherwise unreleased "C'mon C'mon C'mon" - all of them winners. Sadly, it misses his cover of Jonathan Edwards "Sunshine" (he rocks it) from the Friends soundtrack, his duet with Joan Jett on Cole Porter's "Let's Do It" from Tank Girl, and "Waiting For Somebody" from the Singles soundtrack - all essential and not hard to find. In 2006 he provided several originals to the soundtrack of Open Season, including the worthwhile "Meet Me In The Meadow". Several obscure songs have been released only as vinyl 45's as well. Since then he released a series of odd mini-albums, usually available only online, usually at astoundingly cheap prices. Look them up here. These are messy and weird, seemingly haphazard collections of pisstakes and whatever he has laying around that he cares to release at the moment. There are times when the old spirit shows through, though, and diehards (like me) will want to hear them. The bootlegs Lucky's Revenge (from Los Angeles, 1993) and Gravel Pit (from New Jersey, also 1993) are also worth hearing - Westerberg running through the best of 14 Songs plus some mats classics with a crack band.
Finally, Westerberg and Stinson recorded the EP Songs For Slim, as part of a benefit project for Slim Dunlap, who suffered a stroke and concussion in 2012. This marks the first official new Replacements release since 1990. Those expecting a return to former glories will be disappointed, but this is solidly enjoyable garage-y rock, and for a good cause.
Essential Reading
The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History by Jim Walsh is the first of what will doubtless be several Replacements-related books. It's not bad.
Essential Viewing
The mats video-shyness was legendary, so an official live DVD is out of the question. Officially, however, there is Color Me Obsessed, a documentary which features no footage of the band in any form, but instead interviews countless fans (some famous) talking about their love for the band. Those who know the mats will agree that a film they don't appear in makes perfect sense, though admittedly they'd be more likely to embrace a film about people who hate them. A video bootleg of a show at the Orange County Speedway in 1989 circulates and isn't half bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15eIWY7knYY
