A Few Highlights From The Peter Jesperson/Tommy Stinson Summit At Schoolkids 6/24

David Menconi, Peter Jesperson, & Tommy Stinson at Schoolkids Records, Raleigh 6/2/24.

Last month, Peter Jesperson and Tommy Stinson did a few gigs in my area at Schoolkids Records in Chapel Hill and Raleigh, N.C. The events were promoting Jesperson’s bio, Euphoric Recall: A Half Century as a Music Fan, Producer, DJ, Record Executive, and Tastemaker, a book I’ve been enjoying reading lately. 

Jesperson is bast known as the former manager of the Replacements, a band he discovered when working at the legendary Oar Folkjokeopus in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1980, but he also road managed R.E.M., c0-founded Twin/Tone Records, and worked A & R at New West Records from the ‘90s to the 2010s, as well as a lot of other side jobs along the way so there’s a lot of fascinating anecdotes in the book.

The events also featured ex-Replacements (also ex Bash and Pop, G N Roses, and Soul Asylum) member, Tommy Stinson, who was plugging his latest record by his outfit, Cowboys In The Campfire, Wronger. Stinson, and his bandmates, Chip Roberts (guitar) and Chops LaConte (bass) played solid sets of tunes off the new album plus a Bash and Pop song or two if I remember correctly.

Peter Jesperson, Tommy Stinson, & Jon Wurster at Schoolkids, Chapel Hill 6/1/24.

On Saturday, June 1, in a session that began at 4pm, Jon Wurster (Superchunk drummer/comedy writer) moderated the discussion/Q&A with Jesperson and Stinson, and it largely touched on the Replacements’ rowdy early days including the story of the “Magic Slacks,” a garish pair of pants that road manager Bill Sullivan bought that the Replacements members had to wear to shame them if they “F***-ed up.” They were what Bob Mehr wrote in Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements were a “peculiar touring talisman.”

 

The Magic Slacks came up again at their Q&A in Raleigh the next day, which I attended because the first was so damn entertaining for this Mats fan. I wanted to share a few moments that I recorded, and transcribed from the Schoolkids stage in Mission Valley Shopping Center (a strip mall complex where the Replacements played back in 1987).

David Menconi, former music critic and arts reporter for the Raleigh N&O, and author of several music tomes including his latest, Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music (great read) moderated this time, and I was glad to capture a few fun stories.

 

Let’s begin with a question I asked them, and was quite amused at the answer:

 

DANIEL COOK JOHNSON: “We talk about books about the Replacements, I think one of the first books that had significant writing on the Replacements was Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life from, like, about 20 years ago. Well, something that stuck in that book to me was you were playing, the Replacements were playing Duke, and Peter Holsapple gave you a single of the dB’s, right? And then the story goes that Tommy broke it in half…”

 

PETER JESPERSON: “And threw it out the window - in the van while we’re were driving.” 

 

DCJ: “Right, so I was wondering if that was true or not – what was your reaction? I mean, did you yell at him? Did he have to wear the magic slacks the next day?”

 

PJ: “I was not in charge of the magic slacks portion of things, but, you know, I guess, this is what happens if you have something that you care about in the van with the Replacements, you don’t know if it would make it out in one piece.”

 

TOMMY STINSON: “Shitty little kids.”

 

PJ: “It was fun you know, I mean there were times where like, you know, where Bob [Stinson] would fall asleep, and they’d tie his shoelaces together, and then we’d pull up at a gas stop and he’d get up, and try to walk out, and he’d fall on his face, and we’d all laugh; or there’d be times where…I remember you guys shredding a whole Sunday newspaper, and lighting it on fire in the van while we were driving.

 

Or one of my favorites was when I’d be driving, and we’d see a police car and they’d shake up a bunch of beers and then spray me with them so that if we got pulled over, I would reek of alcohol. And usually when I was actually driving, I wasn’t drinking.

 

Another bit of talk that I’m glad I recorded was Stinson talked about meeting Bob Dylan when the Replacements were recording All Shook Down in Los Angeles in 1990 while Dylan was working on his 27th studio album, Under the Red Sky at the same studio. Tommy also recalls meeting David Bowie so read on:

 

TOMMY STINSON: “We were recording at Sunset Sound, I guess it was, on Sunset Boulevard, in Hollywood, and I went across the street to the liquor store, and I came back and it’s – it’s so funny, there are a couple of different things that happened to me on that particular record in this way that was funny – another one I’ll leave out, the story about … Walked in the front door, and the whole studio was built around this square. There’s a courtyard in the middle and all the studios were on the outside. And so (motioning) A was here, B was here, C was the big room where Pet Sounds, and all that stuff was recorded. And so I walk in, and the studio doors was open, and there was a couch right there with a guy sitting on it. He goes, ‘Hey, you’re in that band, the Replacements?’ And it was Bob, he was laying on the couch, he said, ‘Hey, come in here.’ And so I walk in, and he sits up, and we sat down, and I chatted with him about like for 45 minutes. And he asked me all kinds of questions, ‘how’s it going,’ and he seemed real interested in what we were doing. And he goes, ‘Would you guys mind, if I, my kids love you guys, do you mind if I bring ‘em down to meet you?’ I said ‘Sure!’ 

 

So cut to – I didn’t really get into it with the guys because there was more stuff that was like going on - so cut to Bob comes to the studio with his kids and it’s like announces in the studio ‘Hey, Bob Dylan’s here, he’s got his kids, you wanna meet them?’ Oh sure, you know, we’re in the lounge area room, and I don’t think I told the guys that I hung out with him, or said to bring his kids down, I might have said I saw Bob Dylan all checked out, I wasn’t really a fan yet. It wasn’t until Peter told me to get Blonde on Blonde, and I just like studied it and was like ‘Oh shit.’ And that was later in life obviously. 

 

And he walked in, he left his kids outside so wanna introduce him to the band, and stuff like that, and it was then that he asked if he could have a beer, and I said, ‘Yeah, they’re five bucks,’ and the guys were mortified. And he got a chuckle out of it and was going through his pocket, and was ‘I’m kidding, kidding!’ And they were all like, ‘What the f*** are you doing?’ ‘cause I had already hung out with him, I already knew it was kinda funny, from then we had Jackob and Anna, and it was just one of those funny things, it was, I met David Bowie the same kind of way. 

 

He sat next to me on a couch at the Rock and Roll Awards show, he came and sat down next to me. They put the boys on one side and girls on the other side. And he just came and sat down and said, ‘how are you guys doing, man? Like how are things going,’ he was like real engaging, and unfortunately for me, I had been there real early and we already on drugs and drinking at that point, but, it was, I remember, you know, being sober enough to like sit and have a conversation for him for about half an hour, I got up, and walked away and was like ‘Jesus, I was just talking to f***-in’ David Bowie!’ It was like I was just having coffee with him.”

 

Good talk, Peter & Tommy, good talk. 

Son Volt, Bob Dylan, Postmodcast and the coming summer movie season

I haven't posted in months because I've been so busy over at Film Babble Blog with coverage of Awards season, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and, of course, the regular routine of reviewing current films, but I'm back and hope I can get back here more often.

First up, the last show I saw was Son Volt at the Cat's Cradle and it was a great one. Jay Farrar and crew mostly played material from the new album, Honky Tonk, but a few of their alt country classics popped up in their set including “Tear Stained Eye” (from 1995's Trace), which I captured crudely on video:

Tomorrow night (May 2nd), the legendary Bob Dylan performs at Red Hat Amphitheatre in downtown Raleigh. This is going to be my 20th show of Dylan's (yep, big big fan), so I'm psyched. I don't care that he's pretty much been playing the same setlist this tour, I just want to hear his raggedy vocals take on some of the songs from his latest masterpiece, Tempest (particularly “Pay in Blood”).

I made another appearance on my friend Kevin Brewer's podcast, postmodcast (Episode 49: Daniel and Kevin and the Movies). Click on the highlighted title in the previous sentence to hear it.

Lastly, another call back to Film Babble Blog as I'm gearing up for the summer super hero sequel season. IRON MAN 3, opening on Friday, kicks off the season, so let's take a look back at my reviews of the first two films in the franchise, plus last summer's smash THE AVENGERS:

IRON MAN = AWESOME And Other Random Babble (5/4/08)

IRON MAN 2: The Film Babble Blog Review (5/10/10)

THE AVENGERS Starts The Summer Movie Season Off Right (5/4/12)

Be sure to check back on Film Babble Blog on Friday for a review of IRON MAN 3, and a report here on Pop Goes The Babble about how Dylan went down. That is, if I don't lame out and neglect this blog again.

More later...

Pop Goes The Babble’s Favorite Album of 2012: Bob Dylan’s Tempest

Welcome to Pop Goes The Babble!

This is a new sister site to Film Babble Blog, that will be mostly focused on pop culture other than movies - television shows, music, books, whatever. 

This blog will be more indulgent than Film Babble as I’ll be posting on stuff I’m into at the moment - like classic and indie rock ‘n roll, and TV series I’m currently making my way through (I’m exercise-biking through the X-Files right now, but you’ll hear more about that later).

For this first post, which I believe will set the tone for the babblin' to come, here’s an essay about my favorite album of the last year:

Bob Dylan’s Tempest: Songs about love, death, the Titanic, and John Lennon

Bob Dylan has one of the most divisive voices in all of pop culture. It’s a raspy croak of a voice, that’s gotten raspier and croakier throughout the years - to the point, at times, of extreme indecipherability, especially in the realm of stage performance. 

When Dylan last played the Triangle here in N.C., at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park three years ago, a lot of people left during his set, simply because they could not understand what the Hell he was singing. Even much loved Dylan (and rock) standards such as “Like a Rolling Stone” and “All Along the Watchtower” were unrecognizable to a large part of the audience.

However, there are folks, like me, who speak fluent Dylanese, that actually enjoy the man’s particular brand of ever-changing phrasing, no matter how hoarse.

I’m part of what author Jonathan Lethem dubbed “the Biograph generation,” that is, the wave of fans that, because of their age, came to Dylan twenty years after his prime ‘60s period, around the time his career-spanning box set Biograph was released in 1985. Bob’s voice was considerably shot even by then, but the power of his back catalog, and the fact he still had stellar work like Infidels (1983) and Oh Mercy (1989) in him, that blunt instrument sounded pretty damn good to me.

Sure, Dylan’s voice has deteriorated much more since, but on a strong run of studio albums starting with 1997’s Time Out of Mind, he’s delivered critically acclaimed, award-winning, and, most surprisingly, chart topping music - very vital stuff that’s proved that that oh-so difficult voice is largely beside the point. 

The 71-year old Dylan’s newest release, his 35th studio album Tempest, should further cement that position. It’s a stirring collection of songs about love, death, the Titanic, and John Lennon, that’s maybe the man’s best since 2001’s Love and Theft.

Tempest, which was recorded with Dylan’s touring band Tony Garnier, George G. Receli, Donnie Herron, Charlie Sexton, and Stu Kimball, shares some of Love and Theft’s atmosphere and love of old timey blues and rockabilly (as well as a 9/11 release date), but much of it seems set in much more savage terrain.

Take for instance, “Pay in Blood,” a stand-out rocker, with stinging Stones-like chords, that muddies up the melody from Love and Theft’s “Mississippi” to a great gravelly effect.

When Dylan growls such lines as “You’ve got the same eyes that your Mama does, if only you’d could prove who your father was,” “this is how I spend my days, I came to bury, not to praise,” and the chorus’ “I’ll pay in blood, but not my own” we know we’re in the midst of a severely different psyche than the one who sang “I've got nothing but affection for all those who've sailed with me” a decade ago.

In appraising the other songs, the moon-lit ballad “Soon After Midnight,” sounds like a sequel to Time Out of Mind’s “Standing in the Doorway,” or a spiritual descendant of Oh Mercy’s “Where Teardrops Fall,” in the tradition of Dylan’s late-night laments.

“Scarlet Town” channels “Ain’t Talkin’” from Dylan’s Modern Times, likewise the opener “Duquesne Whistle” has a “Thunder On The Mountain”-thing going on, but it doesn’t come across like Bob repeating himself. More like, he’s refining a style he’s been pursuing since his first album fifty years ago. 

The dark brooding nine minute “Tin Angel” is probably the darkest and bloodiest song here, as it tells a love triangle suicide story, which gets more menacing with each verse.

Of course, with Bob, you’ve got to expect a few blues shuffles and they’re there in “Narrow Way,” and the “Mannish Boy”-ish “Early Roman Kings” (featuring David Hidalgo on accordion). Some may complain about how obvious and done-to-death these swampy rhythms are, but if you’re not a fan of Bob churning out cutting couplets over deep blues progressions, then you’re just not into Bob. 

In his fourth self-produced disc in a row, Dylan shifts through a variety of genres including ragtime, vaudeville, Chess Records R & B, swing, cocktail-lounge crooning, and, his old standby folk, which, intertwined with an Irish waltz ambience, rules on the epic Titanic-themed title song.

“Tempest,” an almost 14-minute track about the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, makes me envision Bob sitting on his couch with his guitar watching “Titanic” on TBS, and riffing on what’s happening onscreen. How else do you explain the name dropping of “Leo” (DiCaprio), and the line about a woman telling “a sad, sad story of the great ship that went down”?

As pivotal and engaging as the track “Tempest” is, and it does immediately join the pantheon of essential long-form Dylan songs like “Desolation Row,” "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” “Joey,” “Brownsville Girl,” and “Highlands” (still the longest Dylan song at 16:31), Dylan’s John Lennon tribute “Roll on John,” the album’s fitting closer, is definitely more affecting.

In what could be considered another late-night lament, Bob quotes from Beatles’ songs, and utters the epitaph: “From the Liverpool docks to the Hamburg Red-light streets, down in the quarry with the Quarrymen, playing to the big crowds, playing to the cheap seats.” A few years back, Dylan visited Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool, and that can be felt in the affectionate reverence of “Roll on John.” 

Dylan’s previous album, 2009’s Together Through Life, had its off-the-cuff, live-in-the-studio charms, but Tempest is a vast improvement in arrangement, production, and songwriting, with lyrics that are as sharp as the singing is raggedy. It makes a compelling case that Bob’s voice, even at this late date, still has a mighty place in our present culture.

More later...