The Replacements (band)

The Replacements were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1979. Initially a hardcore punk band, they are one of the main pioneers of alternative rock. The band was composed of the guitarist and vocalist Paul Westerberg, guitarist Bob Stinson, bass guitarist Tommy Stinson and drummer Chris Mars for most of its existence. Following several acclaimed albums, including '' Let It Be'' and '' Tim'', Bob Stinson was kicked out of the band in 1986, and Slim Dunlap joined as lead guitarist. Steve Foley replaced Mars in 1990. Towards the end of the band's career, Westerberg exerted more control over the creative output. The group disbanded in 1991, with the members eventually pursuing various projects. A reunion was announced on October 3, 2012. Fans affectionately refer to the band as The 'Mats, a nickname that originated as a truncation of "The Placemats," a mispronunciation of their name.

The Replacements' music was influenced by rock artists such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Faces, Big Star, Slade, Badfinger, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Bob Dylan as well as punk rock bands such as the Ramones, the New York Dolls, the Buzzcocks, the Damned, and the Sex Pistols. Unlike many of their underground contemporaries, the Replacements played "heart-on-the-sleeve" rock songs that combined Westerberg's "raw-throated adolescent howl" with self-deprecating lyrics. The Replacements were a notoriously wayward live act, often performing under the influence of alcohol and playing fragments of covers instead of their own material.

History

Formation and early years (1978–1980)

The Replacements' history began in Minneapolis in 1978, when nineteen-year-old Bob Stinson gave his eleven-year-old brother Tommy Stinson a bass guitar to keep him off the streets. That year Bob met Mars, a high school dropout. With Mars playing guitar and then switching to drums, the trio called themselves "Dogbreath" and began covering songs by Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Yes without a singer. One day as Westerberg, a janitor in U.S. Senator David Durenberger's office, was walking home from work, he heard a band playing in the Stinsons' house. After being impressed by the band's performance, Westerberg regularly listened in after work. Mars knew Westerberg and invited him over to jam. Westerberg was unaware Mars drummed in Dogbreath.

Dogbreath auditioned several vocalists, including a hippie who read lyrics off a sheet. The band eventually found a vocalist, but Westerberg wanted to be the singer and took him aside one day to say, "The band doesn't like you." The vocalist soon left and Westerberg replaced him. Before Westerberg joined the band, Dogbreath often drank and took various drugs during rehearsals, playing songs as an afterthought. In contrast to the rest of the band, the relatively disciplined Westerberg appeared at rehearsals in neat clothes and insisted on practicing songs until he was happy with them.

"They didn't even know what punk was. They didn't like punk. Chris had hair down to his shoulders," Westerberg chortled to an interviewer. But after the band members discovered first-generation English punk bands like the Clash, the Jam, the Damned and the Buzzcocks, Dogbreath changed its name to the Impediments and played a drunken performance without Tommy Stinson at a church hall gig in June 1980. After being banned from the venue for disorderly behavior, they changed the name to the Replacements. In an unpublished memoir, Mars later explained the band's choice of name: "Like maybe the main act doesn't show, and instead the crowd has to settle for an earful of us dirtbags....It seemed to sit just right with us, accurately describing our collective 'secondary' social esteem".

Demo tape and Twin/Tone Records (1980–1981)

The band soon recorded a four-song demo tape in Mars's basement and handed it to Peter Jesperson in May 1980. Jesperson was the manager of Oar Folkjokeopus, a punk rock record store in Minneapolis, and had also founded Twin/Tone Records with Paul Stark (a local recording engineer) and Charley Hallman. Westerberg originally handed in the tape to see if the band could perform at Jay's Longhorn Bar, a local venue where Jesperson worked as a disc jockey. (The band's first performance at a bar was at the Longhorn on July 2, 1980.) He eavesdropped as Jesperson put in the tape, only to run away as soon as the first song, "Raised in the City", played. Jesperson played the song again and again. "If I've ever had a magic moment in my life, it was popping that tape in", said Jesperson. "I didn't even get through the first song before I thought my head was going to explode".

Jesperson called Westerberg the next day, asking, "So do you want to do a single or an album?" With the agreement of Stark and the rest of the band, the Replacements signed with Twin/Tone Records in 1980. Jesperson's support of the band was welcomed, and they asked him to be their manager after their second show. Later that summer they played at the Longhorn on a Wednesday "New Band Night". They also played several club gigs to almost empty rooms. When they finished a song, apart from the low hum of conversation, the band would hear Jesperson's loud whistle and fast clapping. "His enthusiasm kept us going at times, definitely," Mars later said. "His vision, his faith in the band was a binding force."

After the Replacements signed with Twin/Tone, Westerberg began to write new songs and soon had a whole album's worth of material. Mere weeks after their live debut, the band felt ready to record the album. Jesperson chose Blackberry Way, an eight-track home studio in Minneapolis. However, as the band had no clout there, time spent in the studio was intermittent, and it took about six months to record the album. Although not important at the time, Twin/Tone could not afford to release the album until August 1981. Because they were suspicious of the music business in general, the Replacements had not signed a written contract with Twin/Tone Records.

Early releases (1981–1982)

When the band's first album, '' Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash'', was released in August 1981, it received positive reviews in local fanzines. ''Option'''s Blake Gumprecht wrote, "Westerberg has the ability to make you feel like you're right in the car with him, alongside him at the door, drinking from the same bottle." The album contained the band's first single, " I'm in Trouble", Westerberg's "first truly good song". ''Sorry Ma'' included the song "Somethin to Dü", a homage to another Minneapolis punk band, Hüsker Dü. The Replacements had a friendly rivalry with the band, which started when Twin/Tone chose the Replacements over Hüsker Dü, and Hüsker Dü landed an opening slot at a Johnny Thunders gig that the Replacements had wanted. Hüsker Dü also influenced the band's music, and the Replacements began playing faster and becoming more influenced by hardcore punk. Despite this, the band did not feel part of the hardcore scene. As Mars later stated, "We were confused about what we were."

Sometime in late 1981, the Replacements played a song called "Kids Don't Follow". Jesperson was convinced the song sounded like a hit and pleaded with the Twin/Tone co-owners Stark and Hallman, "I will do anything to get this out. I will hand-stamp jackets if I have to." The partners agreed to fund the recording, but Jesperson and virtually everyone he knew had to hand-stamp ten thousand white record jackets. The band recorded eight tracks within a week, with Jesperson as producer. Their "balls-to-the-wall hardcore punk attempt", their first EP '' Stink'', containing "Kids Don't Follow" and seven other songs, was released in June 1982, six months after the Chicago show.

The Replacements began to distance themselves from the hardcore punk scene after the release of ''Stink''. "We write songs rather than riffs with statements," Westerberg later stated. Inspired by other rock subgenres, he had been writing songs that incorporated a wide range of musical styles. He even wrote an acoustic ballad, "You're Getting Married One Night", but when he played it to the rest of the band, it was met with silence. "Save that for your solo album, Paul," Bob Stinson said. "That ain't the Replacements". The track remained unreleased for years. Westerberg realized his toughest audience was the band itself, later saying, "If it doesn't rock enough, Bob will scoff at it, and if it isn't catchy enough, Chris won't like it, and if it isn't modern enough, Tommy won't like it."

''Hootenanny'' and ''Let It Be'' (1983–1984)

With a batch of new songs, the Replacements entered a warehouse in Roseville, Minnesota, to record their next album, with Twin/Tone co-owner Stark engineering. Westerberg wrote songs in stops and starts, so it took several sessions of recording to finish the album. Stark's meticulous approach to recording contrasted with that of the Replacements, often frustrating the band. In one session, Mars and Westerberg switched instruments, and the band began to improvise, with Westerberg repeatedly shouting, "It's a hootenanny." The band then declared it to be "side one, track one" of the new album. According to Stark, the recording "was a complete joke from their point of view—they did not care what they delivered".

''Hootenanny'', the band's second studio album, was released in April 1983. ''Hootenanny'' saw Westerberg expand his songwriting capabilities, In songs such as "Willpower", with echoed vocals and a sparse arrangement, and "Within Your Reach", which features Westerberg on all instruments, he revealed a more sensitive side. It was a more mature album than ''Stink'' and ''Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash''. ''Hootenanny'' was played on over two hundred radio stations across the country, with critics acclaiming the album. Robert Christgau, writing in the ''Village Voice'', deemed it "the most critically independent album of 1983".

By ''Hootenanny'''s release, the Replacements had begun to attract a following outside of Minneapolis. The band embarked on its first tour of the United States in April 1983, joined by Bill Sullivan, a young security guard, as roadie, who approached the band after a show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Tommy Stinson dropped out of the tenth grade to join the rest of the band on tour. The Replacements toured venues on the East Coast, including a tense gig at City Gardens, in Trenton, New Jersey

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