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. 

A Year Ago Today, The Replacements Wholeheartedly Whored Their Past On Fallon

A year ago today, on what was my 45th birthday, I received one of my favorite birthday gifts ever: my favorite band, The Replacements, made their first TV appearance in over two decades when they appeared as the musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. 

Previously, the acclaimed Minneapolis rock band’s last time on the tube was on the short-lived “International Rock Awards” in 1989 playing a somewhat censored version of their song “Talent Show” (ABC had issues with the line “feeling good from the pills we took”) from their new at the time album Don’t Tell a Soul.

After a decade of being on the brink of success (or “suck-cess” as they put it in a song we'll get to in a few paragraphs), The Replacements, or ‘The Mats’ as fans call them, broke up in 1991, but their cult grew larger over the years as their influence spread to new generations of fans, and other bands.

When they re-grouped in 2013 for a trio of headline slots on North American alt-rock road-show Riot Fest, with founding members rhythm guitarist/principal song-writer Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson joined by replacement Replacements drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Dave Minehan, it seemed like it may just be a temporary reunion. You know - play the hits, cash-in, get out. 

But the response to the three concerts was ginormous, with the biggest audiences in the Mats’ entire career so why not extend it, and add a bunch more festivals into the next year? Many fans, like me, had never seen them live before, so it was a major treat to get this chance again.

It was also a lot of fun to follow the coverage, watch the YouTube clips, and bask in the band’s renewed glory as they played to enthusiastic (for the most part) crowds at such fests as Coachella, Shaky Knees, Forecastle, Osheaga, Bumbershoot, and Boston Calling (whew, That’s a lot of fests!) way into 2014.

Then the news came that the band was going to appear on “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday September 9th. This promo dropped several days before the broadcast:

This promo calls attention to the last time the Mats performed at 30 Rock on NBC, their infamous two-song appearance on Saturday Night Live during their tour promoting their 1985 album Tim that got them in trouble with the network brass back in February, 1986. The Replacements, as scruffy as can be, were introduced by an equally scruffy Harry Dean Stanton, to perform this ferocious version of “Bastards of Young.”

This, in my book or blog, was great rock ‘n roll TV, but because the Mats trashed both their hotel and dressing rooms, and were obviously very drunk on live television – Westerberg yells “C’mon, fucker!” to then guitarist Bob Stinson at one point – producer Lorne Michaels was reportedly extremely unhappy with the band.

Their second song later in the show, “Kiss Me on the Bus,” was also controversial as the band members had switched clothing with each other for an even sloppier look, and it suspiciously sounds like Westerberg sings “Kiss Me on the Butt” for the song's chorus.

Michaels considered this crude lyric change to be a “cheap shot” (according to an interview with Bob Stinson), and the angry producer banned the Replacements from ever appearing on SNL again. Years later, when Westerberg appeared on the show to promote his first solo album 14 Songs in 1993, it was said that Michaels didn’t make the connection that his musical guest had been in the banned band until it was too late. 

Longtime SNL mogul Michaels is now also the Executive producer of “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” but by this point either he’s let bygones be bygones or he’s simply forgotten. Anyway, the news last year that the Mats were going to grace the Peacock’s airwaves was sweetened somewhat surreally by the announcement that Keith Richards, legendary guitarist for the Rolling Stones, was going to be on the show that night too.

The Replacements had opened for Richards, on his birthday (December 18th) incidentally, back in 1988 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, and Richards and the Stones’ music was a big influence on the band (Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, and former Mats guitarist Slim Dunlap’s solo music also all has shades of Keef’s dirty brand of rhythm and blues), but despite these connections, and many fanatics’ wishes, the two forces didn’t collaborate on this occasion – Richards was there only to promote his new children’s book “Gus and Me.” They did, however, pose for this picture in the studio’s hallway:

Fallon, only 8 months after taking over as the host of “The Tonight Show,” joked in his monologue when listing the night’s guests that “they couldn't clear the rights for any Replacements songs, so they’ll be singing ‘All-Star’ by Smashmouth.”

Later in the show, after actress Debra Messing and Richards’ visits, the host displayed a limited edition poster print for one of the Replacements’ upcoming shows, and, with his trademark enthusiasm, told the audience that his next guests are “a massively beloved and influential rock band in the midst of their first tour since 1991,” plugged their Forest Hills gig on September 19th, and introduced the band to thunderous applause.

The Mats, older but still somewhat scruffy, bashed out an incredibly rousing rendition of one of their best songs, “Alex Chilton,” from their 1986 classic Pleased To Meet Me. The choice was perfect as the song dreams about a world in which the late, great Box Tops and Big Star front man Alex Chilton is as big as the Beatles (“Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ‘round”); a place where the power pop legend was actually hugely popular.

The song’s invested, clever lyricism, gusto and intense tempo is such that one can believe this world is possible, maybe even within reach. In this moment playing “Alex Chilton” on national TV, it felt like The Mats themselves were finally the Big Stars that they long deserved to be.

For the Mats to be having this moment, long after the flame was supposedly extinguished, and use it to both pay homage to the man who Westerberg claimed was his mentor in his 2010 eulogy for Chilton in the New York Times, and prove that this old band has still got the goods helped make their performance as infectiously invigorating as rock music on TV can get. 

The band wholeheartedly nails the song in a version that's largely faithful to the original, but since Westerberg has to always screw around with something, he changed the location of Memphis to New York in one stanza, and in the line “I’m in love with that song” he replaced “with that song” with “Daff-o-dil” for some reason. 

Nine months later, after a sold-out spring tour of the U.S. dubbed the “Back by Unpopular Demand” tour, and some celebrated stops in Europe, The Replacements broke up again. Westerberg made the announcement onstage during their performance at the NOS Primavera Sound festival in Porto, Portugal on June 15th. The news wasn’t a complete surprise as throughout the tour, Westerberg had hinted at it by wearing T-shirts with a different letter on both front and back every night. When put together, the shirts spelled out: “I have always loved you” on one side, “Now I must whore my past” on the other.

He may have had a point about whoring his past since, because except for one throwaway half-assed novelty tune called “Whole Food Blues,” the reunion produced no new music. There were reports that the band had attempted laying down new material in the studio, but couldn’t quite get it together.

If The Replacements had stayed together I had fears that they might become like The Pixies, who re-united in 2004 to play the same songs at live shows for a decade, and when they finally put out some new stuff it wasn’t very good, so maybe this was for the best.

Drummer Freese may have put it best when he posted this on Facebook right after the news: “Who would want The Replacements to hang around too long anyways? I sure wouldn't.”

Still, I had been hoping that the Mats would strike while the iron was hot and crank out a new record before getting into that rut, but in the end I was happy enough that I got to see them twice - in Chicago in 2013, and Washington D.C. earlier this year - during their two-year, 33-show reunion run. Both shows were among the best live rock shows I’ve ever attended.

The Replacements' appearance on Fallon was a undeniable highlight of their time back in the spotlight. It helped make more folks into fans, while it highly pleased the hardcore. Yet again, it felt like children by the millions were singing for their heroes as they came around, possibly for one last hurrah. If this was indeed simply a case of whoring their past – consider me a satisfied customer.

More later...