The Number Nine/September: Big Star, September Gurls

Purchase:
Big Star, September Gurls

In terms of musical discovery, I find myself often turning to the influences of those who influence me. Reading about an artist’s musical education often effects my own explorations into past genres and movements. In a beautiful, somewhat karmic turn, the influences of my influences become my own influences.

I find musical biographies the most interesting way to discover new, or otherwise unheard, music.  Digging deep into the history of music is as interesting and digging into actual, archeological history: what you find from the past informs the future. That’s why Magic Sam is almost daily listening for me. That’s how I discovered the Red Dirt Music movement, Jimmy LaFave, Stoney LaRue, and Jason Boland. 

In the same vein, I love a good name drop in songs. A few songs come to mind: Adam Duritz lamented Richard Manuel’s  (The Band) suicide along side the metaphorical impermanence of his own life in If I Could Give All My Love. John Mellancamp is pretty big name dropper (R.O.C.K in the U.S.A). The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon has made a brilliant career out of not only name-dropping, but wholesale lyrical montage, or is it collage, by taking lines from famous rock songs and seamlessly weaving the lyrics into his own. And, as we shall explore further later on, Paul Westerberg famously paid reverential homage to Alex Chilton and declared we could all use a ‘little Big Star” in the class ‘Mats track, Alex Chilton. 

I’m spanning across some divergent ideas here, but the point is: I feel listening to an artist who really moved you necessitates digging into their musical heritage. The same holds true for contemporary artists who run in the same packs. But, this is September, and history class is in session, so let’s dwell there, back there, not in the back of the classroom, but in the stacks. Dust off your vinyl, pull out your vintage t-shirts that you bought when brand new and let’s talk about a band I have always loved, to a degree, but have a complicated relationship with: I'm talking about the aforementioned Alex Chilton's Big Star.

I came to Big Star, and Alex Chilton, because of Paul Westerberg and The Replacements. Big Star, I know a little about; The 'Mats? I worship at their altar, so it was almost a necessity that I dig into someone they wrote a song about.

But, as often happens, one man's treasure doesn't always turn out to be the same or the next. The reason I say my affinity for Big Star is complicated is simple: like a lot of short lived bands, their catalog runs the entire spectrum of absolute greatness to songs that, while I might not call them bad, do probably speak to why they never hit it bigger than they did. They wrote great songs, and they put of some junkers. I feel a band like The Who exists on the same level: some of the greatest rock songs ever written and some of the worst. Literary minded folks could say the same for say, Charles Dickens. Big Star has that appeal and occupies that strange place between greatness and…mehhhh. The great stuff is just that; a lot of the rest of it is filler, at best.

I think that inconsistency has kept me from making a total embrace. But this is also me being utterly, assholishly subjective...I've had this discussion about the Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons. I think his short lived career was marked with nothing but brilliant, but I know a lot of folks thinks Return of the Grievous Angle is the starting and stopping point when it comes to evaluating his output. 

Add to the fact that the hipsters have gotten ahold of Big Star  (at least their t-shirt) which makes any relationship to a band, movie, book or whatever a heck of lot more complicated. 

Big Star's Alex Chilton is an eponymously blistering tribute to one of Westerberg’s heroes. The lead singer of Big Star, Chilton never hit it huge, or as huge as he probably should have, but he was a critics darling, and many a rocker’s legendary founding father of power pop. You’ve heard Big Star, for sure, but a lot of you (not you, SMM readers), might not know it. Their most well known track owes its celebrity to serving as the theme song to That 70’s Show. In the Street. Google “Big Star Hanging Out”—you’ll know exactly what I’m talking out.

While Big Star had many great songs, my favorite remains, and believe me, this doesn’t put me in unique company—a lot of people love this song—September Gurls. It’s a brilliant, chiming, churning pop gem, as great a radio song as I’ve ever heard. It makes its way onto almost all of the mixes I make, and I can't think of a song I more want to hear when I’m sipping drinks on a summer day.  Or that goes better with any beautiful girl you fall in love with, even if it's from across the room or jsut walking down the street.  September Gurls is two minutes and 56 seconds of a pop jewel in the crown of love songs. And will always be the soundtrack for a heart that breaks way too often at meeting, and losing, one of many girls from one of many dreams.

It was never a big hit, but September Gurls makes multiple lists of greatest pop songs ever. The Bangles covered it on their 1986 LP Different Light, and much in keeping with the theme of this post, it was their version that led me down a long path to Big Star (influences of influences, remember?). Though I should state that since I was listening to The Bangles, in 6th grade,my musical tastes hadn’t quite refined yet to the point where I would not listen to The Bangles. The Replacements followed within a few years, after I’d grown a little more discerning. Yet, now that I’m even older, I can kind of get down with The Bangles, and see they had some great songs—their cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Hazy Shade of Winter has a fiery snarl that the original folk duo could never have achieved…not that they needed to, but again, I love seeing how the influence of a precedent setting artist informs the later one, and how different the sound becomes.

All that being said, influential or not, popular or not, Big Star deserved more. And not this enlightening bit of trivia from MTV.

Thanks, Katy Perry.

Child: The Replacement's Kids Don't Follow

Purchase The Replacements, Kids Don’t Follow

 Kids Don’t Follow is the first track off the Replacement’s first release, the EP Stink.  It’s a bold statement from a band that would go on to make many statements. The Replacements are a band that took on a far greater prominence than the drunken shenanigans of Stink would promise.  But, then, this is the Replacements and their influence, lazy ambition, sneaking brilliance, and pure, astounding genius and capacity to bring the shock and awe (or one good dose of thunder) made them one of the greatest bands ever to never really make it. Starting with Stink, and hopping along like an exposed electric wire for a total of 6 more albums and a few lifetimes of madness, what the ‘Mats did for music is almost immeasurable. Even if they would deny it. Then or now. Which they do.

I like to talk a lot about firsts in music. First tracks, first times a song was played, first time one heard a band, what must it have been like to see a legend in the making when they first started out. Kids Don’t Follow is another first, an opening shot of punk muscle that would start a career that would morph and go in unexpected directions, but never lose that ‘fuck you’ attitude that in retrospect was so essential.

One of the best parts of Kids Don’t Follow is the opening recording of a party being broken up by the Minneapolis Police. Amid the ambient noise comes out a clear, angry, “Hey fuck you, man!” to the otherwise kindly, Barney Fife-kind of sounding cop politely asking everyone to please disperse. It’s such a visual moment. Supposedly it was recorded at First Avenue. Supposedly, the kid who yells the expletive is Soul Asylum’s Dave Priner. Supposedly the cop was Danny Murphy’s father. Supposedly, the Replacements put their original demos in the river and set them adrift, hoping Prince would discover them, ala the infant Moses in the Nile in a reed basket…There are a lot of what ifs with a band like The ‘Mats. And a lot of could have been...But what they left behind is like a great promise that might still come true.

...The Replacements, one of rock’s closest near-miracles...Kids Don’t Follow. A song like this makes sure they never will… 

Side Projects: Golden Smog

Golden Smog: V
[purchase]

For the next couple of weeks, we will be writing about “Side Projects,” the musical projects that are created when an artist decides to moonlight away from his “regular” band. These projects happen for many different reasons—the desire to explore a different kind of music, the opportunity to play with different people, the chance for a sideman to step to the front, or even just to fill time between releases.

Golden Smog appears to have developed because a bunch of friendly, similarly inclined musicians from different bands had fun playing together. As befits their name (which was taken from the second episode of The Flintstones), the origins of Golden Smog are clouded in the mists of history. They started in the late 1980s in Minneapolis as a loose collection of musicians who joined together to play mostly covers, possibly at first in 1987 to support Kraig Johnson, of Run Westy Run, at a solo show. According to Marc Perlman of The Jayhawks, and a member of Golden Smog, that show included guitarists Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, Perlman on bass and Soul Asylum vocalist Dave Pirner on drums. Other early members included Chris Mars of The Replacements and Jim Boquist of Son Volt, and they became a regular feature of the Minneapolis bar scene. Gary Louris remembers it all somewhat differently, and if you really want more on the band’s origins, read this article from No Depression.

The band’s first release was a 1992 EP of covers, On Golden Smog. Because of contractual issues, the band members used pseudonyms derived from their middle names and the street they grew up on, and included Murphy (“David Spear”), Pirner (“Anthony James”), Louris (“Michael Macklyn”), Perlman (“Raymond Virginia”), Johnson (“Jarrett Decatur”) and Mars (“Eddie Garfield”) who also created the cover art. The relaxed nature of the collaboration was demonstrated by the fact that one song had lead vocals from Soul Asylum roadie Bill Sullivan.

Over time, the members of the band started to bring original songs to the group, and this culminated in 1996’s release, Down By the Old Mainstream, in which Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (“Scot Summit”) replaced Pirner, and Mars was replaced with Honeydogs’ drummer Noah Levy (“Leonardson Saratoga”). The album contained mostly original songs, with two covers. At the time, Soul Asylum was already a couple of years past their breakthrough hits, The Jayhawks had released a couple of well received albums, but were reeling from the loss of singer Marc Olson, and Wilco was still gaining its footing. Tweedy, who as a Bellville West High School student had actually interviewed Murphy for a music magazine, reportedly appreciated the support he received from his fellow Smoggers following the breakup of Uncle Tupelo and the mixed reviews for Wilco’s debut.

As a fan of Wilco, Soul Asylum and The Jayhawks, I was inclined to like Golden Smog, and this album got me hooked. I especially loved the opener, “V,” featured above, a wistful remembrance of a friendly and supportive barmaid, that, nevertheless rocks. This was a disc that was played to death in our house. I know that some reviews, predictably, denigrated some of the songs as ones that were not good enough for the member’s regular bands, but I think that is too facile a critique. Not every song is a gem, but even the weaker ones are worthwhile.

It took a few years for the band members’ schedules to align to allow the recording and release of a second album, this time with Big Star drummer Jody Stephens instead of Levy. Weird Tales was released in 1998, and consisted of all originals (and all of the members got to use their own names). It has a somewhat more somber tone than the prior disc, but also has a few rockers, including my favorite track, “Until You Came Along.” One review described it as “long and sloppy and uneven and enjoyable, and thus easily pigeonholed as the kind of long, sloppy, uneven, enjoyable record that happens when a bunch of people who kind of know each other sit down with some guitars—yes, we understood, Golden Smog was a Traveling Wilburys full of people nobody really knew.”

My family enjoyed this album, and my wife and I saw the band put on a great show at Irving Plaza in New York. By that time, it was clear that Tweedy was getting most of the attention, as Wilco had released both Being There and the first Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg.

And that seemed to be pretty much it for Golden Smog, as the members’ regular bands and projects took precedence. I was, therefore, excited when the band announced a concert at the Bowery Ballroom in the summer of 2004, and my wife and I went. One of our favorite memories of that night was sitting in this little alcove in the balcony with our friends before the show started, and the actors Adam Goldberg and Christina Ricci, who were a couple at the time, came and sat with us. We became close friends and still hang out. Not really. They actually ignored us and we played the blasé New Yorkers and ignored them, but it was still pretty cool. It was a fun, very loose show, filled with Golden Smog songs and lots of random covers ranging from Carly Simon, to The Fugs to Neil Young to Talking Heads. No Tweedy this time, but the band included Louris, Perlman, Murphy, Johnson, Steve Wynn (of the Dream Syndicate) and his wife, drummer Linda Pitmon, David Poe, Jenni Muldaur, James Mastro (of The Bongos) and others.

The tour led to another album, Another Fine Day, mostly recorded in Spain, with additional material (including Tweedy’s contributions) added later. It is a good album, but I never really fell in love with it, nor did I love the also perfectly fine (but Tweedy-less) EP Blood on the Slacks. I can’t say that my lack of interest in these later discs is a result of their quality or just the fact that I didn’t listen to them over and over again, but it is what it is.

Golden Smog has turned out to be a pretty long-running side project, which allowed its members to have fun, try new things with different band members, but never seemed to get in the way of the members’ “day jobs.” And I think they put out a bunch of good music.

Radio:Wavelength

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I don’t really remember listening to the radio when I was really little. It just wasn’t a big deal to my parents. I guess I have some memories of the standards that played on their clock radio when they woke up to WNEW-AM in the mornings. It wasn’t until the summer of 1969, when I was picked up in the mornings to go to day camp, that I remember listening to the top-40 station, WABC, and for the first time really being captivated by rock music. I think my life-long obsession with music and radio truly began during the summers of 1972 and 1973 when I worked as a DJ at the radio station at Timber Lake Camp, WTLC (which appears no longer to exist). Somehow, my 11 and 12-year old self understood the mystery and power of broadcasting, even on a tiny, closed circuit station in a sleep away camp in Phoenicia, New York. I learned that radio was best for allowing imagination to fly. You didn’t know who the DJ was, you didn’t know what the studio looked like, and you could envision anything you wanted about the songs. Also, it was fun to play music that you liked (although we had very few records at camp), and talk about them.

My musical tastes moved from pop hits on tinny AM stations to the more interesting FM dial not too long after, and again, there was a progression from the more commercial outlets, like WPLJ to the then free-form “progressive” WNEW-FM. I remember during high school spinning the dial on the stereo in my room, looking for good music, on all of the rock stations in the New York area, and even discovering the wild world of college radio stations at, what the Replacements later referred to as the “Left of the Dial.”

By the time I went to college, I was hooked on music, and I’m pretty sure that my father still has nightmares about helping me carry box after box of heavy vinyl records up the four flights to my freshman year room. I considered joining the college station, WPRB, but held off until second semester, when I had gotten my feet wet academically, and my first extracurricular activity, the marching band, wound down a bit after football season. Working at WPRB was a transformative event in my life, much of which I’ve discussed in other pieces here and elsewhere. It exposed me to all sorts of music, it gave me a peer group of similarly minded people with strong opinions about music and the willingness to argue about it, it gave me ability to think on my feet, speak publicly and educate others. It exposed me to the music business, gave me the chance to interview musicians and humorists and allowed me to introduce acts from the stage. It gave me some experience with running a business, dealing with both managers and volunteer workers and taught me something about leadership. And it conditioned my brain to think of musical themes.

Each of these things has, in some way, affected my subsequent life—school, work, relationships, raising children, volunteer work and music blogging. So, yeah, radio has been important to me. Even with the options of CDs, iTunes, streaming services and satellite radio, I still listen to radio regularly (both in the car, and streaming on my computer), mostly to WFUV-FM, whose DJs clearly have a similar love of the medium (and more so, I guess, because they have been willing to take the risks inherent in making radio a career). But outside of WFUV, I find most radio around here unlistenable for long periods, either because of dullness of their playlists, or their commercials, or their lack of intelligent DJs, which is, ironically, the result of the success of the medium in making money.

Van Morrison has clearly been deeply affected by radio, although in his case, it has influenced the creation of his music. I’ve often joked that every Van Morrison song mentions radio, and while that is a bit of hyperbole, other than “Wavelength,” which I feature above, there are, at least, “Caravan,” “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Domino,” “In The Days Before Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Call Me Up In Dreamland,” “Take Me Back,” “On Hyndford Street,” “T.B. Sheets,” “Real, Real Gone” and “The New Symphony Sid."

There is an argument to be made that I should have written about “Caravan,” which I think is a consensus pick as a better song, in general, and a better song about radio, but I decided to go with “Wavelength,” in part because of its title. But the song is cleverly about radio in two different ways. Morrison starts the song off by making it clear that, at least initially, he is talking about “wavelength” metaphorically as the connection between a couple—

This is a song about your wavelength 
And my wavelength, baby 
You turn me on 
When you get me on your wavelength 

But later, the song segues into a reminiscence listening to music on the Voice of America, particularly Ray Charles, and then Van throws in a little reference to hearing his own “Brown Eyed Girl.”

The version in the video above (I recently got a “take down notice” for posting “Come On Eileen,” and I am concerned that posting a downloadable version of another mainstream hit like “Wavelength” might lead to another) is the original, featuring the distinctive synthesizer part (played by Peter Bardens, best known, I guess, as a member of Camel), which is reminiscent of radio waves. Here’s a live version, from a 1980 performance in Montreux that downplays the synths for horns and a bit more soul.

The power of radio has stayed with me since I was a child, which has been great for me, and clearly has influenced Van Morrison to create his brilliant body of work, which is even better for the world.

Laughter: Trumpet Clip

Paul Westerberg: Trumpet Clip
[purchase]

This was the second song that jumped into my head when I heard the theme. The Joni Mitchell song was the obvious choice, but once this song got in, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head for more than a week. Even after reading this article about getting rid of earworms.

Paul Westerberg is a great songwriter, and his style has matured from his early days with The Replacements, but there is definitely a Westerberg sound, which is not to say that all of his songs sound the same, just that he has a distinctive style. “Trumpet Clip” is one of his minor gems, with an infectiously, even insidiously, catchy tune. And I am of the opinion that most songs are improved by a horn section. But the lyrics are completely ridiculous.

When I discussed Joni’s “Big Yellow Taxi” last week, I pretended that I understood the recording process that resulted in her giggle. Here, I want to believe that Westerberg wrote the tune, and just sort of made up nonsense lyrics, which he decided to keep. About 50 seconds in, after he sings, “pin the tail on Demi Moore,” he can’t hold it together, and kind of chuckles, as he continues, singing the classic lyric, “ring around the donkey core.”

To me, a good song is something you feel in your gut, and great lyrics aren’t necessary, but they can be a bonus. I mean, how many of us think that a song containing the line: “If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, It's just a spring clean for the May queen” is one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization? And on the other hand, there is, say, pretty much every Richard Thompson song.

But in “Trumpet Clip,” it is that moment where the artifice is stripped away, and it is clear that Westerberg realizes the absurdity of what he is saying, that gives this song extra charm. Now, listen to it and let me know if you can get it out of your head. And if so, how.

Name-Droppers: Alex Chilton

The Replacements: Alex Chilton

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Whenever I listen to an '80s album from a great rock band like the Replacements, I can't help but wonder what it might have sounded like had it been recorded in some other decade--any other decade, really. The major-label '80s production on Pleased to Meet Me takes some of the excitement out of the band. But for for 1987, it rocks.

The album was recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis, where Alex Chilton's second important band, Big Star recorded, and it was produced by legendary producer Jim Dickinson, who helmed Bg Star's 3rd album, so it's pretty safe to say that Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg was a fan. That admiration came to full fruition on his ode to the Box Tops/Big Star singer (who actually played guitar on a different track on the album).

Color My World: Sixteen Blue

The Replacements: Sixteen Blue

[purchase]

It's common rock and roll currency to appeal to the pathos of adolescence. Here The Replacements lament how difficult it is to be sixteen, bored, and naive. Great song from a really great album.

Record Labels: Twin/Tone

"Massive success would have been a dream come true, but a person's dreams are so different at 30 than they are at 20. Maybe my dreams did come true and I didn't notice ... or maybe they weren't such great dreams to begin with." --Paul Westerberg

Minneapolis-St. Paul was an amazing place for underground rock 'n' roll in the 1980s and Twin/Tone Records was there to capture nearly all of it. Co-founded in 1977 by Paul Stark and longtime Replacements fix-it-man, Peter Jesperson, Twin/Tone all but documented the Minneapolis scene. The label peaked in the mid-'80s when The Mats went semi-large nationally and Soul Asylum followed closely behind. Sure, there were important bands not on Twin/Tone, Hüsker Dü most famously. But, no other label had so many essential Twin Cities acts: The Suburbs, Babes In Toyland, Poster Children, and today's three representatives, The Replacements, Soul Asylum, and The Jayhawks.

Twin/Tone went into hibernation in the mid-'90s, about the time the initial wave of indie-to-major signings ran its course. The label failed, not because of a lack of quality product, but due to simple economics. Said Stark, "Unless you were on one of the two coasts and had connections to major label distribution, there was nothing you could do. You need to go out to lunch and spend face time with people that are going to influence, whether it be press or radio or distribution, stuff like that. I just never really cared to play that game. I was more interested in developing groups."

Replacements - Take Me Down To The Hospital [purchase]

The kings of the drunk tank. From their 2nd album (and 3rd release), Hootenanny (1983), this is probably my favorite Mats song and a sleeper in their Twin/Tone catalog. Great dynamic, the song constantly threatens to fly apart, but never quite does. Chris Mars (drums) and Tommy Stinson (bass) lock into a tight, almost '50s kinda groove, Paul Westerberg (guitar/vocals) howls to perfection, and Bob Stinson (alien guitar spillage) plays lead like a madman falling down stairs. God bless Bob, perennial member of the All-Underrated Team.

Soul Asylum - Closer To The Stars [purchase]

Given Dave Pirner's later dalliance with Winona Ryder, this song has taken on an ironic cast. Nevertheless, this track from While You Were Out (1986) is one of Soul Asylum's best performances and remains in the setlist for a reason. Great vocal by Pirner (in his absolute prime), the band rocks, but it's original drummer Grant Young who steals the show. The production isn't all that good, but you can hear Young carry the band through a few different sections. Live, this would've been face-melting.

Jayhawks - Martin's Song [purchase]

The Jayhawks actually hit their stride after leaving Twin/Tone. I think Hollywood Town Hall (1992) and Tomorrow The Green Grass (1995), released on Def American, are equally brilliant statements and on the short list of best alt.country albums of all-time. But, Blue Earth (1989), from which "Martin's Song" comes, certainly has its moments. It's a great country-rocker, Mark Olson's vocals eerily echoing Gram Parsons. Meanwhile, Gary Louris' harmony vocals ride on top as his deft string bending pays homage to Clarence White. The drums kind of fall apart at the end, but hey, these were basically gussied-up demos. No one ever accused Twin/Tone of overdressing for the party.

Johns: Johnny Thunders

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers: Born To Lose [purchase]

Johnny Thunders: You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory [purchase]

Johnny Thunders may have had a junkie's appetite for self-destruction and few figures in rock history have certainly done less with more. Hell, in terms of pure work ethic, Gram Parsons looks good by comparison. But, make no mistake, Thunders was a monster talent and is absolutely essential in the "godfather of punk rock" discussion. As lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter with the New York Dolls and then co-founder, lead guitarist, and songwriter with The Heartbreakers, he married street-smart lyrical content to a fearless, Chuck Berry-via-Keith Richards guitar sound that profoundly influenced every NYC punk band that played CBGB in the mid-'70s and every British punk band that wished it did. You can also hear the Thunders influence throughout the first wave of LA punks, in bands like X, Gun Club, The Blasters, Lone Justice, and then later, Guns 'N Roses.

In my opinion, you should start with L.A.M.F. and then move on to So Alone, but you could do a lot worse than vice versa. And if you don't already have the Dolls' S/T and Too Much Too Soon, what the hell are you waiting for???

As a bonus, here's the Kinks song from which the kid born Johnny Genzale copped his stage name:

Kinks: Johnny Thunder [purchase]

As another bonus, here's The Replacements' tribute to Thunders from their debut album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash:

Replacements: Johnny's Gonna Die [purchase]

Johnny always needs more than he takes,
Forgets a couple chords, forgets a couple breaks,
And everybody tells me that Johnny is hot,
Johnny needs something what he ain't got,
And Johnny's gonna die.

Songwriting: Portland. Talent Show.

Many times, rather than labor over it, the smith will melt the song down to it's constituant parts and recast it. The creator might take the constituant parts and wield them in an entirely different way: "It's not a sword now, it's a pen."

Paul Westerberg was first working the specific ingredients of this song as "Portland," which my ears hear as anger and resignation directed at the other members of the formarly-fun bumper-car he was being jostled in.

The Replacements: Portland

I think it was a sound editorial decision to cut the song (it ended up on the All For Nothing, Nothing For All compilation, as an outtake), 'cause it was too 'present' and vicious.

But it was also afflicted with hookiness and hum-ability! Westerberg, the smith, recast the song as "Talent Show".

Opposite from upset resignation, "Talent Show" harkens the butterfly-in-stomach, optimistic/worried feeling of 'way back when'... when they could'a been. Of course, like just about everything about The Replacements, it fizzled.

This bookend version of the song, then, is from the band's last show:

The Replacements: Talent Show

1984: Favorite Thing

The Replacements: Favorite Thing

[purchase]

In '84, I had just finished the eigth grade and was looking forward to high school... As with every summer between 1982 and 1988, I spent a week in Minneapolis, staying with my brother. I'd get to see what living in a cool place was like (as opposed to the hick-ville town I was growing up in.) Each summer he'd choose a week for me to visit when there was a good concert to go see. The summer of 1984 was a two-fer, seeing Rush on the Grace Under Pressure tour and the opening show of the Born In The USA tour by The Boss.

Actually, I'd seen Bruce Springsteen one other time before the opening date... the day before! The close-ups for the "Dancing In The Dark" video (featuring Courtney Cox; directed by Brian DiPalma) were filmed at the St. Paul Civic Center that day. Seventeen takes. The next night, during the show, they filmed it an additional two times. And if you know when to look, and don't blink, you can see me all blurry for about 1/2 a second a couple of times. Whoo!
After the filming was done, Bruce and the band played a mini-set for about an hour. There were only about 150 of us extras there, and it was (do I even need to say it?) amazing!

So why am I not featuring a track from Born In The USA? Well, I only have a cassette copy (an autographed cassette copy, mind you), with no easy way to get it to my hard drive right now. So I'm going with a tune from another great album from that year. Let It Be may not have sold a bazillion copies, and launched The Replacements into the Stratosphere, but dammit! it should have.

City Songs: Minneapolis

Tom Waits: Post Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

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I'm sure all you informed-musically folk are familiar with that lead-off song. I'd feel comfortable betting that you know the follow up, too... (so, many less downloads for these tunes, right? ha! I bet not... I'm plaqued with massive bandwidth usage over songs posted on this site. Are you? And how can it be stymied?) But, I digress...

I moved to Minneapolis four years after Tom Waits was talking about things... and the doughnuts still had names that sounded like prostitues. For about four more months.

Things started getting shut down, in seedy downtown Minneapolis, about when I got here.

But, it was still true what the Replacements sung... "Better TV and a whole lot to see," when you are hanging downtown. (I'm time-traveling to the past, mind you. Downtown Minneapolis sucks donkeys, nowadays. At least when it's not busy sucking off professional sports team owners).

But at least they (The Replacements) would tell you how to get out of it...

...and into Prince-Uptown. (Which, as far as I've been ever able to acertain, was never as cool as Prince made it to be. Still ain't, fer my money. But it's where I live, so... pride!!!) There may be whites, blacks, and Puerto Ricans, but... no body is freaking. Promise.

And after you've had enough of Uptown, and want to grab a bus out? Catch a #4 which will deposit you at 66th and 35W... Southtown! There is a bowling alley, fabric store, and whatever-else I forgot to mention that The Hold Steady remembered.

Oh, and if it's Wintertime? Make sure you get to Buck Hill!