______________________________________________________________________________ // // The \\kyway \\ // skyway@novia.net Issue #59 May 22nd, 1998 ______________________________________________________________________________ (c) 1998 Bastards of Young (BOY/BetaOmegaYamma) Productions list manager: Matthew Tomich (matt@novia.net) technical consultant and thanks to: Bob Fulkerson of Novia Networking ______________________________________________________________________________ SKYWAY SUBSCRIPTION/LISTSERVER INFORMATION Send all listserver commands in the body of a letter to "majordomo@novia.net" To subscribe to the //Skyway\\: subscribe skyway To unsubscribe from the //Skyway\\: unsubscribe skyway _______________________________________________________________________________ THE //SKYWAY\\ WEB PAGE Check here for back issues, lyrics, discography, and other files. http://www.novia.net/~matt/sky/skyway.html _______________________________________________________________________________ Send submissions to: skyway@novia.net _______________________________________________________________________________ 0. Time Flies Tomorrow (M@.) I. Westerberg's new album rumors (Tony Buechler, David Carroll) II. Hi. (Rodney Paris, Chrissy, Kim Splaine, Aaron Rushin, Scott Sherpa, Amy Kennebec) III. Tommy + Ryan from Whiskeytown (Dammarie, Tom Minarchick) IV. Yard sale! (Rupe) V. Love Untold: St. Paul's Letters To The Philistines (Jeremy S. Gluck) ________________________________________________________________________________ 0. TIME FLIES TOMORROW. Hi. I'm rushing to get this thing out. I'm going to Greece for two weeks. I'll be back. See yah then. - M@ ________________________________________________________________________________ I. WESTERBERG'S NEW ALBUM Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 22:55:32 -0500 From: Tony Buechler I was listening to a list preview of the new Soul Asylum record on a station in Canada and Dave Pirner, the lead singer of the band said that while they were finishing the record very early in the year in Florida Paul W. was down there cutting his record, Dave said he did some backing vocals and such with Paul. Just wanted to pass on that at least the new record has begun. Tony ----------------------------------------------------------------- | Tony Buechler tb8@bigfoot.com |Webmaster of: | | |http://www.wonderdrug.net | | Home Address: |http://www.mellencamp.com | | 8774 E State Road 164 |Founder of the John Mellencamp| | Celestine, IN 47521 |and Wonderdrug Internet | | http://members.tripod.com/~tb8 |Mailing lists | ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Word is that the new tenative release date for the Westerberg album is August. - M@] Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 00:15:38 -0500 (CDT) From: David Carroll Subject: Westerberg's new album I saw Tommy Keene on Thursday in Chicago and Saturday in Milwaukee. I asked what he knew about Paul's new album. He said that he had talked to Peter Jesperson the week before and that the album was still being mixed. Tommy said that Bob Clearmountain is mixing it. Peter said that Bob had already mixed it but Paul didn't like how the ballads were mixed. It will probably be a while (fall) before we see an album or Paul tour. See ya. Dave Carroll ________________________________________________________________________________ II. HI. Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 13:19:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Rodney Paris Well as I just got my first skyway issue, I figured I had better drop a line to tell ya'all about my introduction to the 'Mats. I got into Paul Westerberg through some friends and 14 Songs a few years back. Then I started working my way through all the old Replacements albums. In a couple years they have easily become my artists of choice. There is almost nothing that makes me happier than rolling my driving home from work on a Friday with my windows down and blasting some rocker off of Tim or Pleased to Meet Me. To pick out my favorite Replacement song is way too much thinking for this early in the morning, but I love "Here Comes a Regular," "Can't Hardly Wait," "A Little Mascara," and so many others, of course "Skyway." The first 'Mats album I bought was Pleased to Meet Me, and I am glad I did, because I have to say that even though I loved the entire album it was the simple beauty of Skyway that made my jaw drop. Listening to those songs, especially "Red Red Wine" will always bring me back to my days in college with a big jug of wine. The cheap kind with the small little handle at the top and a little orange price tag that never read anything more than $5.99. That is the joy of great music - it intertwines with your memories and popping in that CD can take you back to where ever you want to go, even if your memory is as bad as mine. A lot of times I can't even remember specific memories, but amorphous feelings, and P.W. can always bring those to the surface. Thanks for this great outlet for us 'Mats fans, I will look forward to the next one. --R. Paris, San Francisco From: Auroragrl1 Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 17:49:41 EDT Subject: Hey good lookin' I've been on the list for awhile now, but as if I haven't posted in ages, I felt the urge to reintroduce myself... I got into the 'Mats in the summer of 1996. A friend made me a tape, and I listened to it that night... it was amazing. It was like boom boom bang, it all connected at once... and I loved it. I remember crying as I listened to "Here Comes a Regular". It's one of those priceless moments of just thinking "someone understands". So that was it... I got "Tim" and I've been hooked ever since. I know that compared to most people on the list, I haven't been listening to the 'Mats all that long. I'm sixteen... but a young'un, eh? But I know beautiful music when I hear it. There's no age limit on good taste. Besides blasting Let It Be morning, noon, and night, I adore the Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, the Beatles, Patti Smith... I know that there must be more... but I can't think of them at the moment. La la... let's see... I fancy myself a poet, and keep up a web page with my online journals and stories and poetry. I play guitar... as Paul once said, "I can do play anything - badly"... I live on Long Island... despite being connected to New York City, it's incredibly dull... the land of diners, I like to call it... I can't wait to go to college in Boston... um, I'm running out of interesting things to say about myself. I wonder if that means something... :-) Well, I'm always looking for new Replacements tapes... anyone who wants to trade can see my list here. I'm just startin' out --> members.aol.com/Auroragrl1/tapes.html Oh, and I love hearing from fellow 'Mats fans... email me anytime. peace, Chrissy --------------------------------------------- 'TiNe AnGsT http://members.aol.com/Auroragrl1/index.html From: "Kim Splaine" Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 09:16:25 PDT Hello finally! My name is Kim and I have been a subscriber for a while now, I'm just a little slow at getting around to doing this. Well, this is my "how I came to love the Mats" story. First, I'll start by admitting I wasn't always a fan. I guess it all started around 1988 (I was 18) when my boyfriend came to visit me at school. We were driving in his car to go get some food or something, listening to "his kind of music", which at the time I referred to as "crap", and I was complaining about something I'm sure. Then, this song came on that I kinda liked, a verse I loved, and then, every time we talked (he lived 5 hours away at the time) I would ask him to play me that "write you a letter tomorrow" song. Well, we all know what that song was. Slowly but surely, I began to realize that maybe this "crap" I had been listening to all this time wasn't really that bad. Maybe it was kinda good. Well, that same year, my boyfriend introduced my little brother (he was 14) to The Replacements. My brother got it instantly. So, just so happens that the Mats were touring to promote Don't Tell A Soul, and miracle of them all, they would be doing a show in Cedar Rapids, IA! My boyfriend was going with his friends, and my brother really wanted to go, so I said why not?. It's only a 5 hour drive and I'll get to see everyone. Needless to say, I loved every minute, every note. Yes, they were drunk and absolutely hilarious! After the show, my brother decided we should wait around out back to see if we could run into the band. Being the great sister that I am, I agreed. My boyfriend, however, was not optimistic and bailed. Well, our efforts paid off, because after waiting for a VERY long time, Slim came out and stopped to talk to us for awhile, signed our stuff, and told us to be sure to watch them next week on ABC-The International Music Awards. He said they were scheduled to play I'll Be You, but they weren't going to. They thought it would be pretty funny if they played Talent Show instead. (By the way, we watched, and they did play Talent Show!) Anyway, Slim left around the corner to the bus. We were so stoked! Well, then this guy came out & locked the door and said that was it. No one else was coming. Bummed, we decided to walk around the front and go to our car. It had been a really long time now and we figured we had missed every one else. So, as we were walking, we see the bus, and then all of a sudden someone kicks open the door, it was Slim and he said "come on in"! Obviously we did. He offered us a beer and we talked about all sorts of crazy stuff. I asked him if he had played on Pleased To Meet Me and he said "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, nobody knows". He was smoking Parliaments. He recommended Hootenanny to my brother, since he didn't have it yet. And best of all he gave us his version of the story about stealing the Hootenanny tapes and throwing them in the river! Very cool!!!!! Well, pretty soon, the door to the bus opens and on walks Tommy, Chris and Paul. They all signed our stuff, talked for awhile and then we went our separate ways. We were lucky enough to catch the Replacements 2 more times. I also saw Paul on both his solo tours (14 Songs in Denver and Eventually in San Francisco). I'm married now (not to the old boyfriend - hello David if your out there - thanks for opening my eyes) and I have a little boy who's 2 1/2. My husband does NOT share my affection for Paul and the boys. My son however loves it! The first song he ever learned to sing was Mamadaddydid and he even has his own Mats/Paul tapes for his Fisher Price tape player, courtesy of Uncle Ralph. I consider myself very lucky to be among the Mats fans of the world. A day doesn't go by that I don't hear the Mats. I love listening to Paul's voice & the songs cut deep into my soul. I can't imagine life without these songs. I love them all so much. Thanks for listening. Catch you all Left of the Dial! ---K Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 00:36:29 -0500 From: Aaron Rushin My name isn't all that important and I'm not promoting some lame-ass website. I've read your electronic rag for a little while and jammed on the Replacements for quite a while longer. Only my mother and my friend Shawn know how long that is. At any rate I feel it necessary to impart to you (the readers) my first meeting with Paul Westerberg. Heretofore known as "denimdrunkindude". The day was hot and wrought with trouble that only we (my gutless friends and I) could get in. The show was months in the planning. Requiring many logistic switches, alterations, and switches of personnel for the catastrophic reasons of no booze, no car, and no blow. Soon I began to realize that our journey, unlike most others, was not going to be what was remembered. All day there was beer, whisky, and other nutrients. But when my friend Dave shoved a quart (it could have been a quart) of Jack Daniel's into my baggy shorts (It was hot as fuck out that day) right before we got into the ticket line. I knew or at least I felt or at least I suspected...something. Finally I was going to see a show I cared about. Finally this kid from the sticks was going to hear the music that shaped my life. Finally, finally some real art amongst the rednecks. But first, it was time to drink. And drink we did. Throughout the Pedal Jets set we downed our snuck-in liquor and beers bought by fake ID, but suddenly I turned to Dave expressing the need that all true drinkers feel minutes after it absolutely necessary. "Dave let's find the latrine", I said. Or at least that's what I meant. After the ugly business was over, both Dave and I were walking side by side down what amounted to a pretty desolate hallway, until..."Eh, Ahhh, ahhh, Uh, Dave!" was all I could muster as the man himself, denimdrunkindude, passed within our mist. Dave was always the bold one, always the one to give the fuck you flag to world. "You're Paul Westerberg", he screamed. Our drunkindenimdude nodded and mumbled something about wanting to check out the crowd. "It's so cool to meet you", Dave said pretty much screaming now. Suddenly I caught eye contact with the man who had meant so much to me. The man who allowed me to forget Eric Clapton. I leaned forward and, I'm sure it was the Jack Daniel's, I hugged the man who for my money is the Bob Dylan of the eighties. For some reason I spoke. "You're my hero", I managed to spit out of my measly mouth. He hunched back, pulled together his denim Levi's jacket and squinted, "Don't say that". If I could change things maybe I would have said something else, done something else, but there is so little I remember from youth, so few lessons I could tell my kids (if I ever have any). There's been a lot drugs, hard knocks, and heartaches since then, but I still listen to the Replacements and I think I always will. AR from the Mac of: Aaron R 1309 Carrollton Ave. Apt. #231 Metairie, LA 70005 (504) 836-3757 "I had a bad day. I had to subvert my principles and kowtow to an idiot. Television makes these daily sacrifices possible. It deadens the inner core of my being."-H.H. "Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer."-O.W. From: Mats311 Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 06:30:18 EDT Hello fellow Mats fans, my name is Scott Sherpa and I live in Hoover, AL. as far as I know there are only 4 Mats fans here: Me, My brother Brian, B. J. Miller (friend of ours), and Scott Register (works at WRAX 107.7 the X (which is a local radio station Scott does a show called Reg's Coffee House on Sunday's from 10-12 CST in the morning and He will play any Mats song I request. I love this guy)). Anyway, I've been a Mats fan for a long time but as most people I will never get to see them (born too late) but I was able to catch a Westerberg show here. It was fucking awesome. Theremador opened for him and they were great too. After the show we went to Paul's bus to get his autograph it was so intense. I finally get to meet GOD. I told him I had been waiting a long time to meet him. I also ended up with one of Tommy's pics and me and one of the crew went looking for him so he could sign it but he was nowhere to be found. But getting to meet Paul was the highlight of that whole year. I'm 21 now and I regret that I never got to see them. I will possibly be moving to Portland with my brother and his wife, so maybe ill meet up with some more Mats fans other than the four I know of here. Anyhow I blab to damn much so that's the end of my story. Long Live The Mats!! Scott Sherpa "Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end." Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 11:34:16 -0500 From: Amy Kennebec I heard an interesting story the other day about the origins of a song line... I guess Martin Zellar is a huge Replacements fan, as well as just about everyone I meet from the Cities who is into music at all. Anyway, at some point, he was hanging out with Mr. Westerberg one night, playing Scrabble. The conversation turned to drinking, etc. Westy asked Martin if his parents drank. Martin replied, "Not really. Red wine on a Sunday. With dinner, you know." Lo, a few months later, the new disc comes out... "Red red wine on a Sunday, just like Martin said..." AMY "I forgot my one line so I just said what I felt." -- The Replacements ________________________________________________________________________________ III. TOMMY + RYAN FROM WHISKEYTOWN From: dammarie@aol.com (Dammarie) Newsgroups: alt.music.replacements Subject: Ryan Adams and Tommy Stinson According to Ryan, the project that he, Tommy, Gersh (and that Goo Goo drummer sometimes) have been knocking about with is to go under the working title FUCKER. He said they'll play a few shows billed as this around LA. As for a record, nothing's been taped yet but they've written some stuff. Ryan on Tommy: "We're both sort of brats and we have a lot of mutual friends and they eventually started hooking us both up. And we both have an affinity for the same sort of musical style. Tommy's a good guy, a good songwriter, a good friend." From: "Tom Minarchick" Subject: Perfect and Replacements CDR's Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:27:55 PDT I'm lookin for really good and clear sounding 'Mats and Perfect or Tommy solo, live tapes or CDR's. I've already ordered the two but can't seem to find any Perfect, Bash n Pop, or Tommy shows of great quality. I hope you can lead me in the right direction. Thanks, Tom mINARCHICK ________________________________________________________________________________ IV. YARD SALE From: Rupe33 Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 09:00:56 EDT Subject: Shit Hits The Discs...Minneapolis A local record store has a copy of Shit Hits The Fans, which has now made it to CD, most likely in a not wholly authorized version; they also have the 2-CD Beat Girl (I think that's what it's called) CD... If anyone's interested in trying to get these, please contact me off list! Oh---and I find I'll be in Minneapolis first week of June; can anyone let me know as to places to go, things to do, local bands to see? Cheers, Rupe Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 15:37:27 -0500 From: bkenealy@jelsert.com For Sale/Trade: 'The Shit Hits The Fans And More' CD I don't know the origin of the performance, but it is a full-length CD and features a number of covers in excellent quality. E-mail privately if interested. I would accept the new 'Putting On The Ritz' CD in exchange. ________________________________________________________________________________ V. LOVE UNTOLD: ST. PAUL'S LETTERS TO THE PHILISTINES From: "Jeremy S Gluck" Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 13:19:52 +0100 Dear SKYWAY: I am a diehard Mats and St Paul fan. You may have seen the attached piece, posted now at Kathy's pages; maybe your subscribers would enjoy it. I was in a band myself, The Barracudas, and as Paul would say, "...at least we tried." Now I younger and less wise, and have a five year old son who rejoices in wandering past assembled "adults" singing, "One foot in the door, the other one in the gutter" and, especially, for Granny, the chorus to Bastards Of Young :-) I will be brief, but just want to thank you for your wonderful list, which is living proof of the fact (IMHO...if an opinion can be a fact, that is!?!) that St Paul is the greatest American songwriter of his generation, and the Mats certainly one of the greatest bands of all time. You can bet I'll keep taking the SKYWAY Jeremy S Gluck Jeremy Gluck/ B.O.B./ Paul Westerberg Love Untold: St. Paul's Letters To The Philistines "Summary: The Replacements. Not only were The Replacements the best band to come out of the entire worthless decade of the Eighties, but Paul Westerberg is the best rock and roll songwriter since Elvis Costello." - http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edn:~rgreene/mats.htm "Y'cram your dreams with computer chips/ Gimmie tambourines and a pair o' shakin' hips..." - "You Ain't Got Me" "I think the marriage of honesty and melody are my two main things. If I'm short in one suit, then I try to overcompensate with the other. It has to be one of those two for me to be truly interesting." - Westerberg 1. Someone Takes The Wheel "Around the time of the fourth album, Let It Be, things were really rolling. Everyone was saying we were headed for the top. For a while we were the coolest band in America. We thought, 'We're going to be rich in a couple of years', and then two years later the crowds are thinning out and you suddenly realise that that was your heyday." - Westerberg 4/96 In the hallowed halls of the Mystery Schools of the Great Hardcore Gnosis one question may never be answered: Why Minneapolis? I was in Minneapolis once, for a night, and although my perception may have been preconditioned by a love affair with Husker Du there was no doubting that here was a rock'n'roll town. But that doesn't quite explain why, by the mid-Eighties, it had become the Liverpool of the Midwest! Check it out: Husker Du, a band to forever put any place on the map, and also many others, some on Twin-Tone, some not. So, the Huskers...Prince (!?!)and...The Replacements. The thing is, see, Husker Du made my year (or, to be precise, three years) but the Mats (the nickname came out of 'the Placemats', used by Minneapolis hipsters when first the great ones appeared) changed my life. As usual, being the pig-headed slob I am, it took synchronically and divine intervention to drag me to them: I had to review 'Don't Tell A Soul', had never really heard the band before (shameful, I know), had some cockamamie idea that they might be just another hard-core combo trying to slow down before fickle fate fucked 'em over - but one protracted exposure (approximately the time it took me to memorise the entirety of 'Don't Tell A Soul' and perform penance's too degrading to detail) and I was nearly evangelical in my conviction that Paul Westerberg was/is the greatest American rockin' songwriter of the past, what?, ten...maybe fifteen years (for what it's worth, Bono calls him "way ahead"...) Flash-forward. Late 1990. The Replacements final album (or Paul Westerberg's first solo album, depending on your bias and access to tales of Sire's refusal to release Westerberg without a Mats tag) 'All Shook Down' is released. Meanwhile, just when I should be in London poised to review it, I am in fact on a Godforsaken comeback (or rather, don't comeback) tour with The Barracudas. Day after day, through many lands, I listen with wonder and awe to the album, drinking in its meta-demo genius as, one after another, Westerberg songs the like of which the world has never seen - 'Sadly Beautiful', 'Nobody', supremely 'Someone Take the Wheel' - trip off the bombed capstans of my dented Walkman. And then I see the review that, but for my inexcusable absence, could have been mine...and the bum basically says, Could do better. Westerberg? Do better!?!?! What, and Michaelangelo blew the Sistine Chapel, too, I suppose? To me it was obvious (as truth so often is, and I'm not even perfect!): 'All Shook Down' was, not in style and content, but in lineage every bit the titanic equal of that other great American sonic home movie 'Blood On The Tracks'. Yes, I am comparing Westerberg to Bob Dylan and I don't care if they hang me for it ('A' students will already have realised that it is no mere accident that both Bob and Paul hail from Minnesota)! We're into Zen shit here, this is deep, this is, like, that most elusive of sub-genres...call it 'I Need Somebody', call it 'Cherree', call it 'Two Faces Have I', call it 'Idiot Wind' call it ...white blues. And what Westerberg did on 'All Shook Down' was nail it down (and the lid on the tribute-laden, flag-draped Mats coffin, lowered July 4, 1991 at an outdoor festival in Chicago's Grant Park). Now don't you 'placements purists go gnashing your teeth and demanding blood. Of course, dear ones: 'Let It Be', 'Tim', 'Pleased To Meet Me'...ageless meisterwerks all. Despite a glossy production purists found inimical and puzzling, I believe 'Don't Tell A Soul' is a masterpiece, too (although the band's latter-day manager, former Soul Asylum inmate Peter Jesperson has said that "...songs like 'Anywhere' and 'We'll Inherit The Earth' were phony little anthems that Paul was feeling pressured to write"). But only with the great divorce from the Mats could Paul really take wing and find his nest, uh, niche. Despite the nature of evolution - and that includes pop evolution - remaining somewhat mysterious, we can still venture that it is not only a material but also spiritual process. This is why someone like Brian Wilson, the paragon of spiritualised pop, can be writing about cars and girls one minute and the meaning of life the next (not that the two necessarily aren't synonymous, mind you...): a leap in evolution, plain and simple, a pole-vault through a window of pop opportunity. Ditto St. Paul. One minute it's close to perfect, like 'I'll Be You' or 'Darling', and the next it is: 'The Last', 'Nobody', 'Bent Out Of Shape'. Nothing fancy. No 48-track hand-jobs. Remember 'Blood On The Tracks'? Same deal: Dylan and his buddies cut a session monster, he gets all moody and re-records simple. 'All Shook Down' also, except that St. Paul skipped the superfluous first step. (I have to admit that when I first heard it I was confused... enchanted, but confused...it sounded like demos...there's one place where the drums fall behind, the tracks criss-cross each other fairly randomly...) No fat. Sounds like a shit someone had. But read those stools, there's messages in that shit! A tale of Twin Cities. Minneapolis-St. Paul! O mighty symbolism!! Let us pray! And speaking of simplicity, one recalls Alan Vega deriding The Beatles as the beginners of "that rococo crap", and although Westerberg and the Mats surely derived much from said "crap" and kin, they were never prey to excess; Westerberg even showed consternation for his perceived over-production of 'Don't Tell A Soul', which to most of us is busy but hardly adorned! But to Westerberg quality-control is self-control, and he disdains any breaches. "That was a bad period," said Westerberg of the album, which, like its predecessor was, for reasons largely inexplicable to this writer, derided by Mats diehards, "Everything was falling apart - the band, my marriage, my own life." And boy, does it sound like it. But 'The Last' shall be there first...and between cooling his heels and engine, Westerberg knocked out the soundtrack to Singles, buying himself time to metamorphise into the post-high, dry, regular guy who, with foresight to the front, finally picked out tools to sculpt the next masterpiece of his career... When '14 Songs', St. Paul's first official solo album, was released, I got it right away. My God was it wonderful to be assaulted by the hoary scratch of chords that heralds it, 'Knockin' On Mine'. As it unfolded, '14 Songs' obviously signified a turning point. 'All Shook Down', with its couplets calling down junkie partners, had been The End...'14 Songs' was the beginning, and this time the songs about junkies were conspicuously second-person, i.e. 'Black-Eyed Susan', a genuine demo, stunning enough for its key couplet "See her slight body relax/ Soon her young veins will collapse" even without maybe another dozen as sadly beautiful. The album had moments of rough-hewn grandeur as witty, wild and uncompromised as any the Mats ever did, for example 'World Class Fad', of which Westerberg has said, "The song is about me. It's just a rock and roll song that people are reading a much deeper meaning into. The whole crux of it is just remember to leave a trail of crumbs. And it's like, I did leave a trail of crumbs, and I went all the way to the edge and couldn't go any further. It's more of a reflection of what I went through and probably am still faced with going through now. It's like if you want that bad, if you want to go all the way, remember where you started from and remember where you're going to end up again. And yeah, if it offends anyone, great! But it absolutely is about me. I don't know I'd I've mellowed that much, but I'm not at the point where I just want to give young bands shit. It's like, I'll give you some shit but I can take it too, so ...No, I mean, that's pretty fuckin' small to think that I'd write it about a popular band." Or 'Something Is Me', priceless for "Something went wrong/ My name is Paul" (ever noticed how all the real greats get all self-referential...c.f. Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee, Van, The Ig etc.?), and 'Down Love', with its flailing cry of defiance, "Love is deaf!" But beyond its songs pitched just right between introverted bemusement, bare-faced bewilderment and abundant beauty bespeaking St. Paul's bottomless pit of cherries, '14 Songs' intimated a new way forward not yet entirely within grasp, a toned-down, grown-up Westerberg with both hands on the wheel...the bum note being sounded, as ever, by the masses, whose misfortune it was not to submit to psychic surgery en masse, then offer their still-warm internal organs to the Great One in crass obeisance. Simply inexcusable... And so it came to pass that 'Eventually' eventuated. Thirteen songs this time. It began in Atlanta, under the aegis of Pearl Jam producer Brendan O'Brien, but the collaboration didn't gel, and most of it was co-produced in LA with Lou Giordano. As soon as I read about it, I thought..."Jeez, whaddoes this one or that one sound like??" Almost better'n'having it was thinking about having it. Hearing it. Because with a writer the magnitude of Westerberg you just know that inside and all around a title as cute as 'Century' must be packed wisdom, melody and purpose-muted machinations the measure of the architecture of the Taj Mahal. Westerberg does not fuck around anymore. These days when he writes a song, he goes the whole nine yards. So it proved. 'Eventually', appearing a scant three years after its predecessor, is the album not only St. Paul but every songwriter of worth should be able to write. It screams "maturation" with all the restrained self-knowledge only corroded cult status confers. This is where Westerberg stakes his claim. It starts sad, gets a little mad, gets very lost, gets over it, gets first-personal. If music can ache then this is the sound of a full set of wisdom teeth begging extraction. Just cop 'Once Around The Weekend' or 'Time Flies Tomorrow', the latter a prime contender for all-time greatest Westerberger, and tell me you don't want to hop on a flight to Minneapolis with a bouquet for the bum! Now, any selection from this album warrants at least ten thousand words (and if you really believe I couldn't knock out 130,000 words on Westerberg you should have your head examined!), but for the purposes of brevity I will single out only one here and use it to, if you will, provide a cut-away guide to the glories of 'Eventually'. And the song in question? 2. "Love Untold" "Actually, Paul was writing quieter songs early on, but he was reluctant to show anybody because he thought it was weird. So at the same time he was writing stuff like, 'I need a goddamn job', he was secretly writing these plaintive acoustic ballads." - Peter Jesperson "I've made a folk-pop record. I'm very comfortable with that. I'm totally aware that people are going to say it isn't as raw as it used to be. Well, it's not supposed to be. I would be embarrassed." - Westerberg, Vanity Fair "I think a lot of the album is perfect in its imperfection. Like the breakdown at the end of 'Love Untold', it could have been redone to make it more dramatic or something but that's really how it was, we just all sort of stopped playing. It was real. It was passionate." - Westerberg, Hide'n'Seekin' with Paul Westerberg, WWW First, a little context. 'These Are The Days' starts the album (apparently it took only four years to write: "I've written 50 songs since the day I tried to write it, and it would still keep cropping up, whether I was riding my bike or walking down the street"). Quiet. Very hummable, very much the public service renouncement: "Mr. Westerberg's ego has left the building". "These are the days no one needs/...they'll never call nobody like me." (If I had your home number, Paul, you'd be filing for harassment!). Followed by 'Century', which manages to accommodate about thirty brilliant couplets with cops from The Sweet's 'Ballroom Blitz', which St. Paul may not have been consciously fleecing I know...but there such a thing in pop-psychology known as the Collective Unconscious (Light Entertainment Division) wherein resides every stinking riff and line ever stirred into the unholy pot that is these past forty-plus years of popular music. ('Louie, Louie' is the only song with an entire dimension to itself, incidentally. {So it comes as no surprise that, at his wedding in 1987, St. Paul had the Young Fresh Fellows ring them bells!}) On to 'Love Untold'. It might be said that the riff rings, its highly-strung twang catchy enough to adhere flies to its very surface. Such is the art of St. Paul: if you must have a riff then have one that exerts enough sheer melodic gravity to bring down a Russkie satellite. And so the tale begins: "They were gonna meet/ On a rocky mountain street/ Two bashful hearts beat in advance..." Whoah! Is there a lifejacket handy? Deep! What words! Oh yes, and you think you can do better? What makes them so special? I dunno, what makes the smile on the Mona Lisa special, Jethro...it ain't the quantity, it's the quality. One stroke: "Two bashful hearts beat in advance." It gets better, too. "Their hands were gonna sweat/ It was all set/ She ain't showed up yet/ But there's still a good chance." Hold me down, someone, before I implode! If you could just hear the inflection on that last line..." ...there's still a good chance." ! It is positively enough to cripple you. Y'know, back on '14 Songs' our patron saint gave Carson McCullers, the famed novelist, a l'il name check, and now we know why (and, come to think of it, Westerberg's even reading an eponymous book on the cover of said solo debut): because St. Paul is writing books-as-songs. Dammit! Each line is a sort of hyper-textualised tune-cum-novella. And the frightening, almost intimidating thing is that he knows exactly what he is doing. I read somewhere that he told some guy he wanted people to glom the words on this one, hence the very low-key backing. Sure he does, the way a peacock wants you to see his feathers! What's he been doing these past three years? I bet he's been pacing a weird little purpose-built laboratory, tinkering day and night with words, trying numberless combinations...to do this: "Checkin' on her face/ Checks his sleeve for his ace/And both just in case/ Their clean underwear..." "Face/...ace" What? You think such a couplet happens by accident?? Go on, chump...don't you see what's happening? Paul Westerberg is angling to monopolise every perfect pop couplet in existence in perpetuity! World class domination, no less! Well, better Westerberg than Sting. But back to the point (whatever that was)... "Games will be played/ Excuses will be made/ The stupid things they say in their prayers..." "...in their prayers..." Still wonder why I call him St. Paul? Make no mistake, St. Paul burned mucho midnight oil on this one! Words, but what words...and a melody to bring tears to the eyes of Genghis Khan, enhanced in its gentle margins by keyboards conveying a universe of lost love. Not just another song but nearly an evil statement of intent. Diabolical St. Paul wants it all. Which is why he goes on to complete 'Love Untold' thusly: "They were gonna meet on a crummy little street/ It never came to be I'm told/ Does anyone recall/ The saddest love of all/ The one that lets you fall/ With nothin' to hold?" Face it. You and I could not hope to write that last verse, even in twenty lifetimes. Perhaps, with a support team we might manage the first two, but that last verse, sung in a voice so world-weary as to require constant monitoring by a dozen paramedics, is beyond the reach of all but Westerberg...and, curiously enough, maybe one Bob Dylan. Ha! I've got you now! You can't deny it! VICTORY IS MINE BUT ALL GLORY MUST GO TO ST. PAUL WHO ALONE HAS IT IN HIS POWER TO FORGIVE THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE TOO TRAGICALLY MISLED TO MAKE HIM INORDINATELY FAMOUS AND WEALTHY. 3. A More Sane (sic) and Rational (not) Appraisal of the Same Song. "I was very relaxed about the writing and pace at which I recorded this album, and I think that's reflected in the songs. And I chose a batch of songs that all felt the same way. I wanted to make this album easier and more accessible than 14 Songs." - Westerberg, The Times 4/96 'Love Untold', then, is the pivotal track of St. Paul's latest and most perfect work to date. It is, in essence, a surgical exposure of the romantic dreams of youth and a retrospective glance at same. To paraphrase the words spoken to me by the great Dictator, Andy Shernoff, Westerberg's voice is soulful, and indeed what St. Paul seeks to download is his soul's experience in this world. Don't laugh: listen to Iggy's scream at the beginning of 'Death Trip' and then tell me what you're hearing isn't a soul being rent by experience. Likewise, listen to Westerberg sing "The one that lets you fall/ With nothin' to hold" and try to kid yourself that what backs up every intonation and intimation of his delivery is not his very soul. That's the thing about real white blues: it has soul. And the reason folks get lost trying to find it in obvious, formalistic expressions - say, George Thorogood - is that they are tuned to an imitative note, not a true, intuitive one. White blues is not about shotgun shacks, it's about penthouses. Mark Eitzel - who is St. Paul's only serious competition for the Midwestern Heavyweight Division - has it down pat, too, but that's another, equally beautiful story. There's a bridge in 'Love Untold', by the way: "Soft hands slowly move across a blank white page/ Looking for words for my silence and fears to obey". I keep asking myself: why the sudden switch to first person? A hip shrink would have a field day: oh, Westerberg is making explicit the fact that we all carry within us numerous distinct personalities, the song is, of course, only about him. And they'd be right, too, but it's worth adding that the universality he taps into is not just an accident but the result of a process of lengthy apprenticeship to an art that descends from the troubadours of olde: I'm talking folk tales, fairy tales ("Once upon a love untold"), spooky stories. Singer-songwriting is a noble calling and nobler vocation, but until it can really break through to authentic folk storytelling (anyone who just thought "Dylan again!" gets a gold star) it is a hall of mirrors. What Westerberg and fellow masters do is smash - exhaust - so many mirrors that, finally, what they write becomes real. Being nearly pathological in his self-effacement, St. Paul will say, for example, "I collect one-liners. It's more like writing jokes. If I find one a line that works I'll throw a couple of chords in and then try and write a melody around it. I usually write the chorus first, because that's easiest." Haha. Paul, cute. But you give yourself all away, because what to you is "easiest" is to lesser mortals (lesser gods??) about as "easy" as picking your teeth with your toes...blindfolded. That's why 'Love Untold' and the other amazing songs on 'Eventually' are important not just for Westerberg, his loyal following, his record company and his dog and Japanese guitar but for rock'n'roll in general: the guy has taken risks, he's let himself evolve and deliver in a way that even on 'All Shook Down' still seemed an impossible dream. It's what Springsteen flashes on 'Tunnel Of Love' and 'Lucky Town', what Eitzel does on 'California' and everything else. What Iggy did on 'Zombie Birdhouse', what Bowie did once or twice on 'Low'. What Suicide always did. Blues. Soul. Oddly, perhaps, what 'Eventually' also exemplifies is the kind of God-haunted explorations undertaken by Morrissey at his best, which might be sacrilege to some; nevertheless, lyrically at least, there are moments, such as 'Good Day'- about the late Mats guitarist, Bob Stinson, taken at 25 by the combination of drink, drugs and destruction that characterised the band's whirlwind progress- where the levels of parched emotion equal those attained by Mr. Smith on, say, 'I Know It's Over' or, better, 'Asleep': "Hold my life for the last time/ A good day is any day that you're alive". In a Rolling Stone interview at the end of last year, after 'Eventually' was in the can down at Paisley Park, Westerberg simply said, "There were two years after my last record where I didn't have to do anything. I'd just sit and watch the day roll by. And then somebody you know suddenly stops being and it's like, 'Why am I wasting my time? I've got to do something and grab this fuckin' day by the horns.'" Those two lost years fit neatly into 'Once Around The Weekend', where St. Paul wearily intones, "I stay in every night of the week/ They try but I won't speak/ To be my friends/ You'll see me once I'm on the mend..." 'Love Untold' is remarkable, but then so is 'MammaDaddydid', Westerberg's explication of his disinclination to breed: "Decided not to have any part of wonderful live love/ Decided not to have any children like my MammaDaddydid/...That was their way, though it's not mine/ Guess they did okay, at least they tried". To the cold-blooded this is just piffle, perhaps, some sad sack spreading his middle age. But it's so simple and powerful and pure: the guy doesn't want to have kids, which is fine, but between the lines the emotional charge is: All I want is kids. Westerberg does this all the time, twisting the knife from the inside out. Only the greats do it. Only they know how. Take the refrain to 'Good Day': "A good day is any day that you're alive". Wisdom, and in context quite heartbreaking (indeed, in one interview Westerberg, beginning to discuss the song, actually broke down), purchased at the price of a melody and verse that volunteers to roll itself in an acid bath of melancholy. Ditto 'Time Flies Tomorrow': "Time flies tomorrow/ But it ain't made a move yet/ ...And tomorrow makes a day since we met." (The other great thing about it is that, in the midst of its elegiac splendour Westerberg keeps tossing in these two very fuzzy chords, chords that are not just embellishment but some very funny, very serious self-referential gesture, a keeping of faith with The Replacements at once touching and utterly corny.) But is isn't all black and blue. 'You Ain't Got Me', with its sprightly intro, comical lyric (its opening gambit, "You've got call waiting/ It's irritating me no end" is yet one more magical word ploy) and enough backing vocals and harmonies for six songs as long, all arranged with loving care, is Westerberg Lite, preposterously upbeat amidst the soul wreckage of the set's tooth-n'claw numbers. And what of 'Trumpet Clip', many minutes of convoluted funk topped with Tommy Stinson's unschooled trombone? Words don't fail me, but my words fail Westerberg, and that just ain't good enough. You've read this and probably think, What a jerk. So I'm a jerk! But to be tired of Westerberg is to be tired of life. To never to have heard him is to need to get a life: Buy 'Eventually', give it three days, and if you don't find yourself somehow saved then by all means grab a Black & Decker, fix a monster bit, bore through your sternum and see if you have a heart. "I'm in a difficult position," Westerberg says. "These are almost the impossible years for a rock 'n' roll singer, or a pop singer, because I'm not quite revered or old enough to be considered an old veteran who would get the respect of a Tom Petty or a Costello or a Dylan...I'm still young enough where I can be looked at as, 'Well, he used to be younger.' Once you reach about 40 or 41, no one expects you to be young anymore. So I'm still battling that stigma, and I think the problem is that I'm ahead of my time. I've always been ahead of myself a little bit. I'm already preparing for people to accept me as to what I am now, and I realize they're not going to until they see me physically hobbling up there on stage, ENDS. fin. ________________________________________________________________________________ The //Skyway\\: The Replacements Mailing List (digest only) http://www.novia.net/~matt/sky/skyway.html Matt Tomich | 117 Green Street | Chapel Hill NC 27516 | USA ________________________________________________________________________________ "For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say 'Canada'.. Maybe we should invade North Dakota or something." - Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S.