Loving 80s Underground Rock

A couple of music tidbits related to two of my all-time favorite bands:

The Daily Swarm discovered a few gems from the epochal 1980s Minneapolis music scene. Among the nuggets is a recording of a Replacements show from the 7th Street Entry, "the ugly, piss-stinking Siamese twin" of legendary music venue "First Avenue." The 'Mats are my favorite band of all-time, so even with the uneven sound quality this discovery makes me a bit giddy.

Meanwhile Carrie Brownstein, from another of my favorite and much-missed bands, Sleater-Kinney, has started a new band, Wild Flag which is floating on a cloud of massive buzz from some live shows. They do not as of yet even have dates set to record, but the rumblings are that they are awesome.

Hold My Life

It's no secret that my favorite band of all time, by a long way, is the Replacements. The quintessential postpunk band, the Replacements mixed a sloppy garage d.i.y. ethos with some of the most achingly perfect music and lyrics ever recorded. Paul Westerberg was the genius frontman who poured his pain through the mic. Bob Stinson was the tragically drunk guitarist whose antics always overshadowed his casually brilliant skills. Tommy Stinson, Bob's brother, was the precocious bass player who joined the band at the age of 11. Chris Mars was the unspectacular but sound drummer. Together they helped define an 80s underground sound. But they barely survived the 80s and broke up during the latter half of the first Bush administration.

Paul has gone on to have a fine if underappreciated solo career. Chris and Tommy have been in bands that produced serviceable-to-good but ultimately disposable postpunk/pop. And Bob, as if fated, died in 1995 basically because his body gave out on him after years of abuse. This 1993 Charles Aaron story from Spin captured Bob when he was on his downward spiral. Mats fans will probably find that this one cuts a little too close.

Remembering Alex Chilton

While a huge bummer, the death of Big Star and Box Tops singer/songwriter/guitarist, producer, and postpunk icon Alex Chilton this past week served to remind us what a vital artist he was. It also had the added effect of bringing my favorite group of all time some much-deserved attention. One of the Replacements great songs, "Alex Chilton," is devoted to their hero. Paul Westerberg, the Mats' lead singer and songwriter, wrote a short piece on his "mentor" Chilton in today's New York Times and last week Carrie Brownstein of another of my favorite bands, the late and lamented Sleater Kinney, remembered Chilton (and the Replacements) at NPR.

The Reissue Game

I'd like to put forward a brief commentary on one of the newest trends in the music industry that has suckered me in entirely.

First off, let me be straightforward. I love capitalism. I love a variety of goods, I love free options, I love the fact that I can buy books and music and beer and tacos. Capitalism is good. It is not a perfect good, and much bad, indeed evil, has been done in the name of capitalism. And I have no stomach for people who talk about a revolution or who maintain that Marxism or communism are the solution, because they are not. I've lived and spent enough time in enough places where there is serious poverty, where capitalism has failed or fallen short, and what people always want is not less capitalism, but better capitalism. But I'll echo the old line about democracy, which I'm sure is Churchill's because Churchill said all the cool shit, and maintain that capitalism is flawed and imperfect and problematic and better than every other option.

That preface is by way of saying, the trend I'm about to bitch about is one I could completely avoid by not buying into it. Free will and all that.

I still buy cd's, which makes me an anachronism. And the latest attempt to sucker serious music fans is the reissuing of great old albums with supposed remastering and a few new songs. This seems especially common among a particular genre, notably post-punk, proto-indie music. Pavement did it a few years back with the reissue of Slanted and Enchanted, one of the ten greatest albums in the history of albums. In addition to the original, with all of the supposed aural enhancements, came a whole slew of rarities, B-sides, demos, live songs and the like. A formula was born. If the album was essential to its devotees, a version costing twice as much with extra stuff -- even if the fans have some or all of that same extra stuff in different configurations -- becomes doubly essential. Especially if the generation of diehard fans now has a lot more disposable income than it did some fifteen years ago.

Now my favorite band of all time, the Replacements, is in the reissue business, having released the first four or five albums with the expected extras and audio enhancements that may or may not be a step up. And of course like Pavlov, I salivated as soon as they rang that bell and immediately bought two of the reissues, Let It Be (the greatest album of all time) and The Replacements Stink, their second album, which pretty much captures the transition from punk to postpunk in one fifteen or so minute burst. And they are great. And I'll buy the others. And I'll fall in love with the Replacements all over again, and with Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville all over again.

But this still seems like a pretty cynical manipulation of the truest fans of a band. The only out I'm giving both the labels (Rhino has taken over the 'Mats catalog, for example) and the bands is that a lot of these bands never became rich. I have no problem with the Replacements making a little more money off of their music given the incalculable amount of joy I have gotten from them. Still, I wish there were some sort of code on each album so that I get a free download of the inevitable re-rerelease of Let It Be in 2018. Sucker me once, shame on me, after all, but . . .

The Greatest Indie Rock Albums Ever

Blender has a list of the 100 greatest indie rock albums ever. This should start a few arguments. I agree with the top three, but would place them in a different order. (The Replacements' Let It Be is the greatest album ever. I won's entertain any arguments that say otherwise!) Start here with albums 100-91 and follow the countdown in increments of ten.

On Ryan Adams and Wilco

Two of my favorite music artists, Wilco and Ryan Adams (with his band the Cardinals) have released new albums in the past few weeks and are now touring. Both played in Boston in the last few days and both received nice reviews in the Boston Globe. Go buy both albums.

Here is the review of Wilco, touring behind Sky Blue Sky, and here is the Ryan Adams performance review. Adams released Easy Tiger on Tuesday and after three listens I think I am very fond indeed of the newly sober Adams, onetime bete noir of the y'alterantive scene. Adams was the front man for one of my very favorite bands of all time, Whiskeytown, and today I was thinking that his career might well trace the path of the leader, Paul Westerberg, of my favorite band of all time, The Replacements: Brilliant, volatile (Adams far more so than Westerberg) and chemically fueled singer and lead songwriter of seminal (and criminally underappreciated) band goes solo after band's breakup, eventually tempers a dissolute lifestyle, and goes on to long and successful (if criminally underappreciated) career as rock balladeer-sage. There are worse fates. Adams has entered Westerberg territory for me in another way -- if he releases it, I'm buying it right away.

Incidentally, Jeff Tweedy's career trajectory shares some similarities with that of Adams and Westerberg as well, but rather than go solo after the breakup of his epochal band, Uncle Tupelo, he helped form Wilco; his longtime partner in crime with Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar, formed Son Volt, also adamned good band, though not as acclaimed as Wilco. I cannot currently envision a scenario in which I would not buy a new Wilco or Son Volt album almost instantly as well.