Color Me Obsessed

I want to write to you about the Replacements. Why? Because I need to talk to someone about them but I don’t know who with. So I’m going to put this out into the universe. I’m also trying to share things I love instead of hoarding them inside myself like an exclusivist and I think the world will be a better place if more people fall in love with the Mats.

Last night instead of writing a paper for my meeting with my chiller prof I was watching Color Me Obsessed (among other things).

So. Right now, the inside of my head is best represented by the Replacements Stink EP. Kids don’t follow. FUCK SCHOOL. I need a goddamn job (future plans). Nothin on the left nothing on the right, stuck in the middle (present conditions). White Brown and lazy. I’m occasionally a dope smokin moron. And all I want is for someone to Gimme Noise.

When I was about 15 and just really getting into punk rock, I downloaded an album called ‘Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash’. There were these scruffy punx on the cover and I was smitten. I had seen a picture of them and I had a crush on Chris Mars, the flannel wearing, thin, young, silent drummer. And I pictured him singing these songs…nay, shrieking. It was Paul’s shriek but I imagined Chris. I had only one album and I repeated it for a few years. I didn’t get any more and didn’t find out more about the band (apart from the fact that they were a trainwreck, a hot mess live, brawlin and antagonizing the audience and getting kicked out before their gigs even began). The album spoke to the adolescent me. The adolescent me who I love and nurture to this day and will never let go of. I heard Westerberg scramble madly ooohkayiminlovewithagirlwhoworksatthestorebutimnothingbutaCUSTOMER. And I was theirs. I would dare, I would go where they would take me. You’re in love and I’m in trouble (attitude to relationships) They kick-kicked the door down in my head. The rasp and the balls to the wall methamphetamine pace of Rattlesnake (and the last few seconds of scoffing countryblues hipcocking).

Any band that can make a song like ‘I hate music’ is a band that just doesn’t give a fuck. And not in the clichéd sense, but they just didn’t. And in that they were truly subversive. No punk rock guilt, no indie wankery, just exactly what it says on the tin. And then they make songs like ‘Johnny’s gonna die’. And Johnny did … die. The bass on that song tells you that Tommy Stinson (yes, Tommy currently of GNR) probably like 13, at this time, is one of the coolest 13 year olds ever to exist. He was a snotty teenage punk fantasy with his Robert Smith-esque nest of hair and his greyish eyes somehow piercing through, and like all of us he looks up to Paul. The last 20 seconds is Bobby Stinson betraying his hidden depths and pop sensibility that he tried often to negate in his hate of ‘fluff’.

Shiftless when I idle ‘I ain’t got no idols’ but you can’t help but idolize the Mats. How can you not idolize the people who made ‘Bastards of Young’? That song is what Smells Like Teen Spirit wants to be in its 20s. The best part is, this is where Westerberg’s genius lies, is that he doesn’t care about your expectations, he doesn’t care what you want. What he writes is what he sees, feels, right in his heart/guts/internal organs. And it didn’t matter if he alienated the hardcore kids, or his own bandmate (Bobby). He’ll just write a song that will spear you, bullseye, through and through – if you’re a ‘Regular’ or if you’re ‘Androgynous’ or if you’re simply ‘Unsatisfied’.

Unsatisfied is probably my favourite song by the Mats. How do I know? Because I can’t listen to it. I’m not listening to it now, in the metro. There have been times where I have, but in certain states I couldn’t bear it. You know those songs that you just bury inside you? Unsatisfied is one of those. And what is so amazing is that it’s one of the most universal statements of frustration ever written. What kind of MONSTER wouldn’t like that song? And this astonishing genius work of the 20^th century, is on the same album as Gary’s Got A Boner. I’ve not mentioned many songs and some of the later albums, which is not to take away from any of those, but I feel like I’ve exhausted myself. I’m sleepless and my stop is coming. The point is, the Replacements embody all that means anything to me and I’ll die a happy woman if I make anything 1/18^th as good as any of their songs. Or if I’m ever as unafraid to gloriously fail at anything like they were capable of. They were not perfect people in their lives or their work, but who wants the perfect ones anyway? We idolize the heroic fuckups.

So I’m going. With the image of Westerberg in a white shirt, jeans, dirty converse, his me type nose, his lips, his disheveled hair, a twinkle in his eyes as he says “to the bar gentlemen?”