Sunday, July 15, 2007

the 'mats

my sweetie told me that maybe i oughtta try and write (not for public consumption, of course) about the stuff that's bothering me of late, but i knew that wouldn't work. going to see my folks in new joisey next week. happy to have the chance to. regarding my kids, it's a mixed bag o' emotions, but what i always say (and really do believe) is that as long as all the parties in question are walking around, it's still a work in progress.

so i tried to find some mott the hoople on youtube, because they were the band we (david relethford, ronald rowe, john wilmshurst, peter mengler, myself) usedta pretend to be when i was in high school and we'd meet up at dave's house to play air gtr to (which was funny, because a couple of us could actually play at that point; we also watched nixon resign there in the middle of a met game and boy, were we pissed when they broke in and interrupted the ballgame). all of the mott clips i found had embedding disabled, tho, which means they weren't bloggable, and where's the fun in that? besides, most of 'em were from the '73 tour with, um, ariel bender on gtr that i caught with ronnie at the uris theatre on broadway (with the debut noo yawk performance of queen as the opening act). that show kinda blew, to the point where it put me off big rawk shows for awhile (such contrived theatrics, roger ruskin-spear's mechanical marionettes, etc.), and i remember looking at ian hunter through my buzz and thinking "that guy's _really old_" (which it turned out he actually was).

the replacements are a lot more fun than mott the hoople ever was and made more good rekkids (i draw the line at brain capers; to these feedback-scorched ears, glam just hasn't stood the test o' time very well). when i got back from spending the decade between '82 and '92 guarding freedom's frontier, i went to see uncle johnny bargas at what was then blockbuster music and asked him what i missed. he told me, "the minutemen, husker du, and the replacements." the 'mats albs he recommended were tim and pleased to meet me but in the fullness of time, i've come to appreciate their earlier output on twin/tone (when westerberg sounded more like joe strummer than ray davies) even more. altho i associate "can't hardly wait" with woodeye more 'n the 'mats (as does every fort worthian of a certain age/time), the 'riginal's still a stirring slab o' wax (or aluminum). katboy loves 'em (especially stink), which gave me my first inkling that a sophisto muso like he would be game for something as down 'n' dirty as the stoogeband. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

anyway, here's a bunch of prime, sorry ma, forgot to take out the trash-era replacements, shot on their home turf in mpls. r.i.p. bob stinson.





2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Replacements (I refuse to use the abbreviation lol) taught me that even music that was brash and loud and sloppy and fast and loose could also be poignant and meaningful.

Gread vids ... that would be back when Tommy was 14-15 years old I think. And now he's playing with Guns & Roses. I'm not sure what lesson that teaches, but there's gotta be one in there somewhere.

10:53 AM  
Blogger stashdauber said...

hope tommy's on salary with g'n'r

10:04 PM  

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