Graeme Thomson – Paul Westerberg

Three things for your Saturday

Jodi — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:15:18 +0000

1.) In case you missed it, Graeme Thompson (author of I Shot a Man in Reno. . . ) had a great piece in the Guardian UK about the ‘Mats. This is one of my favorite bits:
Westerberg’s creative division caused considerable internal tension. Tommy Stinson recalls that the band, particularly Bob Stinson, were uncomfortable playing Westerberg’s more introspective material. “We were full of testosterone, drugged-up drinking kids, and here’s Pauly with some fucking torch ballad. It was like, ‘Who wants to hear that shit, dude?'”

2.) Remember that sweet cover of Skyway by Baby Scream? Well he’s put out a record of called Nobody Seemed to Care that includes covers of Bastards of Young and Sadly Beautiful (you can listen to samples here).

3.) I am shocked, SHOCKED!, that Bastards of Young beat Left of the Dial in the cage match. There’s a new match over there now.

Paul Westerberg talks about death

Jodi — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:29:58 +0000

Late last night I got an e-mail from Graeme Thomson author of I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease, and General Misadventure, As Related in Popular Song. He told me about about an interview he did with Our Man Paul. Thompson has a short excerpt from the interview on his site. It’s hard resisting the urge to clip out the best lines and paste them here for you. But I am not gonna do that. You can click the link and go read it for yourself.

It is really, quite fascinating. Paul talks a bit about death and discussing it with his son Johnny. It’s only a few short paragraphs, but might just be one of my favorite interviews of recent note. Why? Because it’s not about reunions and legends and blah, blah, blah, but something different.

Want more? You should take a look at Thomson’s Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay.