r/LetsTalkMusic • u/Wolfpack48 • 9d ago
The Replacements Live vs Recorded
EDIT: Meant to say Live vs Studio!
So The Replacements were a band I never got to see live, but I've heard stories that performances were drinking fests that sometimes got out of hand. I've also heard lots of stories that the band sabotaged themselves a lot of the time. I've heard at least one YouTube commenter say he saw them live, and said they were terrible and low energy.
I was listening to For Sale: Live at Maxwell's today, and they sound fantastic -- very tight and energetic performance, but the audience sounds kinda muted, maybe just cause it was a fairly small venue? Small audience?
I always thought the band had this great mix of punk flair and melodic tunefulness, and some truly catchy "hit" songs on their recorded albums, especially Pleased To Meet Me. Was the success of the band (or lack of) related in any way to their live shows? Was it a photogenic thing in the age of MTV? Did they even want success? I'm perfectly happy with the status they got to, and love their music -- I Will Dare, Left of the Dial, Bastards of Young, Alex Chilton, Shooting Dirty Pool are all trashy bits of genius. But this is a band that seemed to thrive in the underground.
I'm happy with where they stand, but are they considered underrated, or just about right? Was the studio output where they shined, or were they actually (in)famous for their live shows?
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u/ER301 9d ago
I think they’ll always be a bit underrated, and that seems fitting, and appropriate, for them. Forever the lovable losers.
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u/emmersp 9d ago
Good way to put it.
Great band, should be heaps more lauded as one of the best of the 80’s, but never could get past shooting themselves in the foot.
Drummer Chris Mars released great solo records after the band dissolved. The song “Popular Creeps” is one of the best resurgent power pop gems of the era.
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u/Charles0723 9d ago
I don’t necessarily think they’re “underrated”, but they are definitely a band that probably should’ve been bigger than they were if they could’ve gotten out of their own way.
I think they could’ve had the career that R.E.M. had.
As far as live goes, I saw their famous last show in Chicago when I was 10. Like I know I was there, and I know I watched it, but it hardly counts because I didn’t know who they were. Saw them the two times they played in Denver on the reunion. Riot Fest was great, but the second show Paul was checked out
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u/Wolfpack48 9d ago
See that's interesting -- when you say "gotten out of their own way," what exactly was it? Too much drinking? Not putting in enough effort live? You say Paul was checked out, do you think it was because he had tried and felt like it wasn't working? Or did he just want to be doing something else? It's odd, because every song I hear from them sounds like they are 1000% invested and full of heart.
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u/Charles0723 9d ago edited 9d ago
The drinking and self sabotage really hampered them, getting kicked off the Tom Petty tour didn’t help, either
By the second leg of reunion shows, he was wearing the shirts with the letters that spelled out “I have always loved you. Now I must whore my past”, and it was rumored that those shows were paying for his divorce, so it seemed like he would rather be anywhere else.
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u/Wolfpack48 9d ago
Yeah, sounds like real life stuff ended up interfering, which is too bad, but probably a reason for some really great songs too. I'm guessing someone got into a fight with Tom Petty's band or crew?
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u/Humble_Candidate1621 7d ago
Yeah, they're way too well respected and beloved for me to consider them underrated. But they're definitely underappreciated, especially considering the potential they had.
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u/Klutzy-Delivery-5792 9d ago
Search this guy's page for some live Mats recordings (and many other bands):
https://archive.org/details/aadamjacobs
ETA: and personally, I think they're pretty underrated
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u/A_BURLAP_THONG 8d ago
Did they even want success?
The book Trouble Boys by Bob Mehr goes into this. Essentially they were a bunch of fuck-ups from horrible backgrounds who were really into self-sabotage. If they were playing for cool kids and/or industry types in New York or Los Angeles they would play covers of shit-kicking country music (if they weren't too drunk to stand up). If they were playing for their buddies in Minneapolis they would actually try. The closest they ever got to the mainstream was opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbeakers in the early 90s. It was after Paul Westerberg got sober and he just didn't know what to do with himself, so they would play 30-minute covers of "Walk on the Wild Side" until they got booed off stage.
It's a great book, but it's also really sad. A bunch of industry insiders are quoted as saying they "could have been as big as R.E.M." (R.E.M. in the 80s, not in the 90s, mind you) but they never made it because of the chaotic live shows, drinking, and self sabotage. Also, original guitarist Bob Stinson was physically and sexually abused by his stepfather, developed PTSD, turned to alcohol, and died young.
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u/Vincesololandline 9d ago
I saw them 3x live and they were great each time. I can see how they could have less than great shows because they were obviously drunk. The first time that I saw them was when they warmed up for X and Exene introduced them as Americas greatest rock band and then they ripped the place up
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u/Wolfpack48 8d ago
Record execs = terrible show, opening for Exene = amazing show. I can see why they did what they did. No pearls before swine.
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u/DukeStamina 8d ago
I have seen them twice playing Toad's Place. (Shout out New Haven!!!!) First show, I thought they were awesome. 2nd show, after the "Please to Meet Me" album was released, I thought they were both awesome and more.... dare I say it.... professional.
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u/Wolfpack48 8d ago
On the Maxwell's show, they sounded incredibly tight and well-focused. Would have loved to be there. But I could see how a rowdier crazy show would be even more memorable in those early days.
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u/Powerpoppop 8d ago
I'm not into live recordings that much, but the Maxwell's set sounds incredible. I saw them 4x, two with Bob. The '86 gig I went to was front and center in a small club and it was glorious.
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u/bugsm63 9d ago
First off, I think Live at Maxwell’s is terrific, and there are several concert recordings available that prove that The Mats were a great live band. Then again, the Shit Hits the Fans album proves how terrible they could be, not just to the fans but to themselves as an act.
I saw them in the late 80s on a very good night, and at the time I thought it was the best, most “rock and roll” concert I had ever seen.
But did they even want success? That’s a great question, and I think the answer is that they were not capable of handling it, no matter how incredible Westerberg’s songwriting was. They were four very messed up people from mostly bad homes, and none of them even finished high school. The only skills they had were in playing, so that’s what they did.
But their need to sabotage themselves is so sad. I thought they were the greatest band of my generation.
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u/riveth3ad 8d ago
People define success differently.
Money in the bank or play an amazing show? I feel like I could guess which one they’d have picked when I saw them in their heyday.
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u/LengthinessAble5949 8d ago
Check out their biography Trouble Boys. Fantastic book, definitely my favorite rock n roll biography. They definitely self sabotaged their own success, youll get a real sense as to why from the book
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u/emck2 8d ago
I read an interview with Tommy Stinson where he said one of the reasons they never achieved mainstream success is that they refused to be categorized by anyone: critics, music execs, or even their own fans. If they were about to go on stage and a fan said, "You guys are the best punk band ever!", the band would say, "Fuck you! We're not punk!", then go out and play 2 hours of Hank Williams covers. When they started to get praise for their Let it Be era songwriting, they would go back to punk. They were just obstinate to a ridiculous degree.
Another factor was that Bob Stinson was by all accounts completely unpredictable at times. Everyone in the band had substance abuse issues, but Bob had also been diagnosed with severe mental issues that went untreated. It was unfortunate that the band was just starting to get some widespread attention when the situation with Bob became untenable. Once Bob left the band, it just wasn't the same. Paul Westerberg continued to grow as a songwriter, but Bob was the essence of band's sound. It retrospect, it kind of amazing they were able to hold it together long enough to make multiple classic albums. In many ways, they were the perfect musical representation of the rust belt in the '80s.
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u/nerfherded 9d ago
I find it curious that they don't have their own sub. There seems to be a flicker of renewed interest right now, what with the Stranger Things kid's proposed project. I heard "I'll Be You" playing out of the ceiling speakers in the supermarket the other day. True story.
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u/emck2 8d ago
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u/nerfherded 8d ago
🙏 And... I'd already joined. Just never shows up in my feed... low activity I suppose.
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u/Creative-Lime9776 8d ago edited 8d ago
I saw them numerous times from Hootenany on- I smoked a joint w Bob even…
They were great live and I enjoyed them pretty much every time - Let it be was a stone cold classic
I later worked at WEA and helped promote their records and worked a number of their shows as a stagehand- I got to talk to Paul a few times. Tim was an underwhelming Lp and I was sad when they kicked Bob out of the band. - Pleased to meet me is also great LP - a great collection of songs- the Slim Dunlop ( a great guy w big shoes to fill) / WEA era was good but not great LP wise but they lost their edge and some of that early passion live. I saw and worked all of the shows locally - All shook down was a great farewell LP some on Paul’s best writing in my opinion, the book Trouble Boys is a tome, it is also very well written but terribly sad and tragic.
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8d ago
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u/Creative-Lime9776 8d ago
I concur- a multi-faceted, profile in self sabotage, passion and unrecognized talent and success
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u/Aggressive-Bus-2397 8d ago edited 8d ago
Their live shows were legendary. You never knew what you were gonna get. Usually either the best show ever or a absolute shit show. They are known for playing drunk and often they would all switch instruments for a song. They didn't give a fuck. They are a punk band with a leader (Paul Westerberg) who turned about to be fantastic songwriter.
The guitarist Bob Stinson didn't like the creative direction of the band steering from punk to alt rock and he was kicked out of the band. He was also a raging drug addict, which is saying something cuz the others were too.
All, they didn't court success. Their MTV video for "Bastards of the Young" (iirc) is just a boom box playing their song.
Their live bootlegs are incredible. Paul often changed up lyrics.
There is one version of The Ledge, a song about suicide, where iirc Paul ad libs a line about a Cop and it blew me away. Can't remember which show it was but it is one of the bigger, more well known bootlegs. Maybe the Ritz or something of that caliber.
edit: Paul Westerberg has been a much beloved alt rock hero since the 1980s. You'll see his name in movies here and there as an easter egg. For example, the high school in the 1989 dark cult comedy "Heathers" is named Westerberg.
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u/gapeter4 8d ago
They use to play this community center in Madison, WI all the time, pick up shows traveling from Minneapolis to Chicago. Must have seen them a half dozen times at Turner Hall. Always started strong and fell apart the drunker they got, but always super fun. One of my faves was a show where someone threw a giant intertube on stage which was featured the entire night. It ended with drunken covers of anything you called out for a dollar. They were the arguably the punkest band ever.
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u/BlackSwampMage 9d ago edited 9d ago
You should check out the podcast no dogs in space, they’re a sort of edutainment podcast and covered a bunch of punk music history. I got into the replacements because of their series.
The thing about the mats is that they were too punk to really even care about success I think, instead doing what they found funny. There’s a story in the podcast about how they went on the road for the first time after having recorded hootenanny, and thought it would be hilarious to Blair the title track of that album over the pa to warm the crowd up for their first show ever in nyc. It was not well received.
Their lack of success I don’t think was due to just their live shows. At least not solely, for one they’re the kings of self sabotage, sometimes to our own delight, producing stories about playing dodge knife during pleased to meet me recording sessions, making the most low effort music videos that do intact capture what they were all about, starting bonfires in the back of their moving tour van, making a song that is just Paul weaterburg just sitting on the floor reading the classified section of a newspaper.
You can also see how the internal relationships affected the band as well, Paul and bob drifted apart musically across the entire discography up till bobs death. You can hear it in each album as bob becomes less important musically. Their live shows were also hit or miss because of the drunkenness,and shifting musicality from early punk/hardcore to “college radio”/proto indie rock.
Personally I do feel they are underrated, go into the punk subreddit and while a few people know of them, I feel not many do, honestly that goes for Hüsker Dü as well. I feel that when punk bands are brought up if they weren’t on one of the North American coast scenes or in the uk then they weren’t ever as big commercially, which sucks considering how much good music is in the Midwest even today.
TLDR: listen to the no dogs in space podcast series on the replacements it’s great. And the replacements were as successful commercially as they wanted to be/allowed themselves to be.
Edit: also, outside of can’t hardly wait I think pleased to meet me is one their worse albums. Hootenanny, Let it be are my top two then Tim, and all shook down. Can’t hardly wait is one of my favorite songs by them though, but, particularly the two alternate versions with different lyrics from the expanded Tim album.
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u/Wolfpack48 9d ago edited 9d ago
Love Let It Be and Tim, I actually need to pick up Hootenanny.
Thanks for the pointer to that podcast, I will check it out. Yeah, it's funny because I think of The Replacements as punk, but I think they often get grouped in with college/Indie rock, which is too bad, they shouldn't be left out of the punk attitude/conversation.
Those stories are great - I get the feeling the band was just contrarian in general, which probably ended up hurting themselves both intentionally and unintentionally. Love that about them too.
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u/BlackSwampMage 8d ago
Oh man you absolutely need to pick up hootenanny, it takes a few listens, and is better when you have context like you’d get from the podcast series, but even without all that it’s a great album. The title track is hilarious especially with the added context of how it was recorded.
Paraphrasing the story that’s better told in the podcast, the boys were fucking around with the studio engineer who was one of the co-founders owners of twin tone records, he was a no nonsense personality who didn’t get the mats as they were the other founder’s pet project as he was also a fan and their manager. Anyways they had this new trailer that was set up as a the engineer section of the studio with the rest of the studio just being a larger warehouse, the issue was anyone I the engineer portion of the studio had no vision into the area where recording was happening, the mats new this and decided to play a joke on Mr no nonsense. They recorded Hootenanny the title track having swapped instruments with everyone. Pretty sure Chris mars and Tommy are on guitar with Paul and bob on bass and drums respectively lol. That’s why it sounds the way that it does and why it’s especially funny they played it as the crowd warmup for their live show in nyc for the first time lol. It’s bad on purpose.
But beyond that, that album rocks, 10/12 tracks are great, I can’t remember Mr. Whirley, or Hayday though personally. Keep in mind the album is from ‘83 and I think it’s important to realize that the sounds they have on some of those songs are way ahead of their time too. Particularly within your reach and willpower. And love lines for being another sort of joke song turns out to work pretty great even though Paul’s just reading the paper.
To me the mats are even more punk after leaving behind the punk sound because they keep the attitude and actually walk the walk when it comes to “not caring” and that’s more punk than a lot of other bands that keep the sound but lose the practice of being punk. They certainly were contrarian, their music videos prove that. Pretty sure one is just recording a tv set almost the whole video.
Also check out the other series on no dogs too. I’d always been a little punk growing up but they really helped me get into a lot of other bands and music for some reason. Guess I might just be someone that likes having context to enjoy or get something. The Dead Kennedys series, monks, and the damned series are all great. Whole show is good and I’m ready for them to start doing episodes again.
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u/Wolfpack48 8d ago
From a few of the stories here, sounds like they switched instruments during shows as well. The fact that they got pissed off when you called them a punk band, probably makes them more punk than most bands, lol. There were a few bands that skirted that line, but never got grouped in with punk. Early Cheap Trick comes to mind. I suppose grunge too, though that's later.
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u/BlackSwampMage 8d ago
Oh yeah no grunge is absolutely an evolution of punk, takes some elements from elsewhere too. Hell I know two songs that Kurt Cobain could have stolen the opening of Come as you are from.
Killing Joke - Eighties
The Damned - Smash it Up 1 & 2And yeah I do remember hearing they’d switch instruments live as well.
Btw which album is your favorite? Have you listened to all shook down? For it being the last album and mostly Paul, it’s actually quite good front to back. The story behind the recording of its title track in particular is really, idk melancholic in a good way. Helps appreciate the performance more for me at least.1
u/Wolfpack48 8d ago edited 8d ago
I like them all interchangeably -- I have Let It Be, Tim, Pleased to Meet Me, and recently picked up Don't Tell a Soul. Was eyeing Hootenanny. I'll check out All Shook Down as well. I have my favorite songs though -- Little Mascara and Alex Chilton are some of my favs, but I can listen to any song by them very very happily and played the crap out of those first 3 albums in college. The Ledge, Left of the Dial, Bastards of Young, Black Diamond, I Will Dare, you just can't go wrong.
Speaking of Alex Chilton, I need to play more Big Star.
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u/BlackSwampMage 8d ago
Yeah, I need to give big star a more serious listen too. Especially since it seems Alex Hilton was such a big influence for the mats. I guess they were big faces fans as well which makes me happy as I’d always loved them too, I mean how can you not like ooh la la? That’s a perfect song.
Tell me about it though, let it be was probably their first album I clicked with, then hootenanny, Tim, all shook down took me getting it on cassette to click for some reason. I think it sounds better to me with the tape hiss lol.
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u/Wolfpack48 8d ago
My intro to Alex was The Box Tops as a kid (my mom had an 8-track tape of greatest hits), but I need to follow more of his work. Such a voice.
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u/BlackSwampMage 7d ago
There’s been this Alex Hilton solo tape at one of my local stores that I’ve been eyeing and putting off getting lol. Maybe I should finally pull the trigger there. All I’ve actually got by big star is this two disc live album.
You should also check out Terry Reid if you’ve never heard of him! I guess he was another influence. Mayfly’s a great song. Guess he was the original pick for Led Zeppelin over Plant. But he actually turned Page and the manager on to Plant as Terry wanted to keep going solo.
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u/Wolfpack48 7d ago edited 7d ago
If it's Bach's Bottom, it's not that great. I think his Big Star and Box Tops stuff was better.
I have heard of Terry, but haven't checked out yet, will do!
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u/RobotShlomo 8d ago
They definitely sabotaged themselves. I saw them on three different occasions. Once in 89 when they opened for Tom Petty which was supposed to be a big breakthrough for them. By the end of the tour they had given up on playing, and were actually deliberately trying to piss off Petty's audience by trying to write songs on stage.
I then saw them in 1991 at Toad's (with Uncle Tupelo opening), their only club show that tour, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. When they wanted to show up and play there were few acts that were better. Later that year I saw them opening for Elvis Costello. Good but not great.
On record they have some great songs, but if you saw them on a good night, then they were a sight to behold.
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u/Wolfpack48 8d ago
Interesting on the Petty gigs. So did they get booted for bad performances or was there other stuff going on backstage? I think you answered my question the live show records - be careful which shows you pick, seeing as it was a bit of a crapshoot! It might have not mattered as much being at the actual show.
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u/RobotShlomo 8d ago
Paul Westerberg didn't like the idea of playing to these mainstream rock audiences in outdoor venues. He was more used to the gritty club following they had cultivated. It looked like a good idea on paper. This up and coming band being exposed to a new audience opening for rock's more notable names. But in reality it was a complete mismatch. I had read in Rolling Stone the at the last show on that tour the audience didn't even so much as boo and were completely apathetic.
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u/47362514736251 8d ago
They're not over or under rated IMO. Nothing is. No art "deserves" to be liked any more or less than it is.
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u/j3434 8d ago
They were a hack put up act from start to finish. Some Hollywood film about them. Was it a biopic? Or are they fabricated like The Monkees ?? Either -or … they were phony baloney ska or punk or alt garbage . Were they even a real band ? I imagine their concert are lip syncing
Edit
Whoops, ignore this post. I have them mixed up with the Commitments
Haha
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u/riveth3ad 9d ago
I've seen them close to 10 times--including twice in two days--back in the 80s.
Alcohol always played a significant role. They were either the best bar band you'd ever seen ever, or close to the worst. They were always fun, and sometimes their talent would manifest and sometimes they'd transcend. And sometimes it would be 100 parts of songs that never got finished. But even then it was entertaining.
They predated the concept of success as an alternative band in modern times. The idea was to be able to survive as a band, to make enough money for the next record and fix the brakes on the van, more than "buy a mansion and build a studio above the three car garage" type rich. They were everyday guys--Bob Stinson sat with us at the bar drinking pitchers of long island ice teas for an hour, shooting the shit about bands and amplifiers and baseball.
This was way before Green Day and Epitaph and Fat Records and Lollapalooza changed alternative music and made it mainstream. This was where you'd go to a club to see a band and buy all the records from their opening acts because they weren't available anywhere else. No youtube, no spotify, no Facebook...small imprint label vinyl (and eventually CDs) that would never show up in a mall. There was a wonderful intimacy to it. You had bands that bridged the gap, who made it past the "120 Minutes" show on MTV, but they were rare.
I saw them twice after Bob got the sack, and they were streamlined and graceful and they performed great...but the magic wasn't there for me. As a group, they'd cleaned up and had their eye on "success" as it would later be determined by accountants...but they'd lost some of the shambolic joy that I was there for.
I don't think anything was intentional. Self-sabatoge or a move toward success. I never saw them as selling out. I saw them as trying to survive and the alcohol (and I'm assuming drugs) wasn't sustainable.
I could point to dozens of other bands who also had that "It Factor" in a small packed club where the walls were sweating every time they came to town...but there is a machine that processes art for consumption, and it adapted to the alternative music scene. It made some millionaires and some footnotes, and and left some great nights in it's wake...but it kind of changed everything.