You know how music can bring you back to a place and time? Here’s an attempt for me to nail down the time and place Replacements albums take me to. It’s harder than I thought, probably due to 20+ years under the bridge and how some of these albums (Pleased To Meet Me) encompassed all parts of my life for a long time.
Sorry Ma/Hootenanny – Oddly, these came last for me. I didn’t own them until the early 90’s. Don’t really have a place to pin them on.
Stink – 1983-84 School bus to basketball away games. Other kids had Van Halen and The Scorpions in their warm-up headphones. I had White & Lazy. It showed on the court.
Let It Be – 1970 Dodge Dart. Metallic Pea Green. $20 cassette deck. 24 bottles of Old Mil returnables. My age was the hardest age, or so I thought.
Tim – UW-Milwaukee dorm room. At one point I was convinced the key to getting a girlfriend in my co-ed dorm was to play this record constantly with my door open. Plan B should have been to leave the room once in a while.
Pleased To Meet Me – My first apartment, a dive in St. Paul. Sundays were party day with water balloon launcher fights in the living room and Red Red Wine cranked and repeated.
Don’t Tell A Soul – St. Louis Park townhouse. Trying to live ‘upscale’. Trying to be something I wasn’t. Maybe I don’t like this one too much because I didn’t care for me then. We were both trying to act slicker than we were.
All Shook Down – Me and my future-wife’s first apartment. Playing it over and over to try and make her ‘get it’. Being in awe of her when she did.
All Shook Down – Somewhere out west on a business trip,about eight years ago, bought it one night at a mall near my hotel, listened to it the next day driving through miles and miles of flat dry nothingness. Remember hearing ‘When It Began’ and thinking ‘what happened to these guys???’
It grew on me quickly, though. Love Happy Town; feels sadly autobiographical.
don’t tell a soul is where it began for me. saw the video, bought the tape. then one day at the beginning of some summer, my friend, scott, and i were picking up (in a ford pinto) his uncle from the greyhound depot listening to said tape. he says, “you like the replacements, huh?” we sort of nod. he responds, “you know… they have songs like ‘fuck school’ and ‘gary’s got a boner’…”
the pure rebellion factor of listening to a song called ‘goddamned job’ sealed the deal (the deaper meanings came a little later). i suddenly started to understand what all the skater boys’ tee shirts meant. bands i used to have no idea about… the replacements, husker du, soul asylum… i started on the journey, but a little later than i would have liked. it wasn’t enough to “save” my high school listening. i was a weird mix of the rolling stones, rush, steve miller band, and then out of left field the replacements, jesus & mary chain, the alarm, and the clash.
the real journey didn’t start until 1991, when it became an obsession.
When I think about DTAS now, I think about the other albums in our house party rotation at the time. Robert Palmer’s Heavy Nova, INXS’ Kick, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby…..it wasn’t as out of place as it should have been.
I laughed and cried when I read your comment about Tim / dorm room. It sounds so pathetic and yet it is scary how similar my approach to social life was my first trip through college. “If I play this really loud someone will come see if I’m as cool as I seem”… brilliant!