When I got this record from my Grandma for Christmas, with her typical holiday greeting embedded into the cover through the wrapping paper, I was excited. If you look at it in the right light you can still see the “Merry Christmas!” engraved there. She decided in previous years when she wrapped presents such as Peter Frampton's "I'm in You", or Nugent's "Double Live Gonzo", or even AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" that her etching of "Merry Christmas!" would be a part of each of those records and simply used her ball point pen to do so. I love that she did that - despite her complete absence of knowledge about those records, it was a gift. They will stay with me forever. She was more of a Barry White or Engelbert Humperdinck fan.
As a huge Replacements fan since my pal Jon let me listen to his Walkman playing 'Stink' on a school bus while we were trying to figure out how to get high or otherwise somehow smoke pot - on the bus - and then finding "Sorry Ma, I Forgot to Take Out the Trash' at Record City, and then farther on in a dorm room hearing 'Let it Be' for the first time with my pal Larry that firmly believed The Replacements would be bigger than the Beatles, I thought finally someone was paying attention. What I didn't anticipate was the let down. I knew they signed to Sire, which the Ramones had done, and Danny Fields and Clive Davis were looking for the next unknown wonders. The fact that the Replacements would rather fail and be contrary to fame wasn't really evident at the time. They played shows - they had a good time and did precisely what they wanted to do, and more importantly - not giving a shit what the audience reaction was. Rock and roll was whatever you wanted it to be, whether it was a shitty cover, something with beautiful intent and delivery, or a middle finger. The talent was there, and it was always a good time, which was the expectation for the fans. Seeing a bunch of drunk guys kick my ass at 3PM in the afternoon at a college student hall was likely not something I anticipated, but my GF & I were utterly compelled by the sheer balls of it. This was no bar band, this was the Replacements, and they didn't really care. That shrug was what made me a fan.
So when Tim came out, it sounded thin and melted down. When the needle dropped, my expectations were really fucking high - "C’mon dudes - make this shit happen - don't be idiots - don't make us all lose faith…"
But that's exactly what happened. I taped the record so I could play it in the car for a while, shared it far and wide, and the unfortunate thing is that it left me flat. It just...
Sure, I'll put a couple of songs on a mix tape, but the back to front left me feeling sorta empty.
"Pleased to Meet Me" restored some faith, but my ultimate response was that 'Tim' was lame in comparison and it confirmed the thought that a contract with a record company would result in nothing more than a diluted and jaded version of a band that had attitude and merited my eternal respect. Pretty sure at the time that I knew Bob was on the way out - it was obvious that the synthesis was getting messy, and the songwriting Westerberg was doing was evolving towards more drama and emotional areas than complaining. Right around this time Husker Du was on the Joan Rivers show and Bob Mould memorably said to a rather clueless Joan, “It’s not just screaming about your mom and dad or the government anymore. Your emotional spectrum evolves.” The fact that both bands were from Minneapolis may be more telling than it seemed on the surface.
Emotional spectrum. Think about that. Mould is getting older, as were the artists. And he’s not wrong. As we age, perspectives about what we’re pissed off about do change. Not an argument. Hardcore was waning, real money was being made and the pressure to progress and either keep the fan base or find new ones to garner more mass appeal I would assume was immense.
But I was excited that heroes that wrote songs like "Kids Don't Follow" or "Fuck School" were getting recognition. Did I intentionally want them to be mainstream? Did I want to keep them to myself and my little clique or club? Hell no, but I liked and empathized with their attitude and I wanted to get that ‘attitude’ to be more pervasive. When Jon Bon Jovi bitched about The Replacements being on the cover of Musician magazine and asked the question, I knew something was changing. "Who the fuck are the Replacements?" said JBJV. Well, they might be more legit than being a 16 magazine pinup, bubby. At this point even Bruce Springsteen was more legitimate than a grown man writing songs about how he wants to be a fucking cowboy.
So when the latest remix of ‘Tim’ got in my box, I had a fair amount of trepidation.
It's not just that the songs are different, they just have more impact - the drums kick harder - the vocals have a persistent and aching delivery, there's actually a bass, and Bob gets a buncha more stretch. Some would say it’s “crispier”, whatever the fuck that means. It's remarkable how a mix enhances these recordings. I don't want to dis the original mix, I know what’s involved initially, and it's a lotta work, but holy shit. This is a new record.
And then there are the ‘Stasium’ mixes. The irony that Ed Stasium worked on so many Ramones records isn't lost here - I'm sure he tried his best to herd cats, and maybe he gave up at some point, sighed and punched buttons. However, that’s sorta genius. It changes the perspective. These mixes are pretty incredible examples of an entirely different record. Completely night and day, foggy mist and bright early morning. Drunken haze versus crisp sobriety. Even though the players themselves were the same, the mix changes everything I ever thought about these songs.
There’s a movie from the 70s called ‘The Parallax View’ with Warren Beatty, and I had to look up what the word ‘parallax’ meant; which is essentially your current point of view and its relationship to what you're looking at. It might be different up in the cheap seats, however a front row would likely change your experience. So what I’m thinking with this release is that your mileage will vary based upon your approach or seating. Perspective is everything. As is getting drunk sick.
If I recall correctly - wasn't this the record where the engineer couldn't figure out how the puke got on the ceiling, and then realized they had puked in their hands and tossed it up there? I’m not sure that was a ritual for every record session - how could it be - but I wouldn’t be surprised if it started with these recordings. I know ‘Pleased to Meet Me’ has stories hilariously detailing this… I’m sure Ardent Studios hated this ritual.
But now, The Replacements were going to be a serious band, for a serious amount of time. Fun time was soon to be over.
Wrong.
After what many considered to be a disaster of a show on Saturday Night Live, where Bob & Paul exchanged costumes, stole things, drank excessively and famously short-circuited every aspect of their moment in the light possible in an effort to flip off the monumental amount of implied pressure to find ‘the next thing we can grease our hands with for some bucks’. Whether what they did was intentional or not remains a question - personally I think they just walked about doing whatever the fuck they wanted to, damn the consequences or results.
Now.... The revelation of the Ed Stasium mixes has changed that thought dramatically. It could have been so much better in 1986! But, really is that good?
When I dropped the needle on the original mix on Christmas Eve 1986, the drums reverberated and booshed; the bass sort of driving - but not really heard. The vocals eq’d almost directly in line with the guitar and solos buried. I liked this. A glorious noise. Messy and fucked up without being what current bearded gentlemen smoking wooden pipes would call ‘lo-fi’. Certainly a far cry from Bon Jovi and whatever cliff he was yelling from about the wild west or something.
The Stasium mixes, on the other hand sound crisper and more polished and accessible, and had they been released instead I would think the reception would have been more in line with being radio-friendlier and less imposing. Less shabby. Same guys, but more like the dBs or Let’s Active than the morning drinkers stretching their arms, yawning and guzzling whiskey with bad attitudes.
At this point I’m assuming that there is agreement about these songs in terms of content, lyricism, structure and so forth; the songs are strong and bold. It’s just that the original mixes seem to be packed in a solid peat moss muck of grumpiness, and what we really have here is a tale of two Tims.
So. So what?
Why release a thing like this? To cash in? To achieve new fans that ought to realize by this point that music that sounds like shit is probably inherently more valuable and interesting than pretty much anything else available or suggested? Or is it to prove to the world that yes, this is what could have been.
Well, maybe both things are true.
It’s really a revelation to hear clear arpeggios, vocal nuance and drums that are crispy. Oh hey, there’s the bass line I never noticed before! Holy shit, the mix is amazing! Paul sounds great! Tommy’s bass lines are throbbing in my ear buds! Bob’s solos sound like they belong to the song! If I were sophisticated enough, I’d say that damnable 60hz hum is erased! Huzzah!
But does this diminish or enhance the record itself?
Any time any record is ‘enhanced’ or ‘remixed’, I think it’s a good idea to question what was wrong with it in the fuckin’ first place, and wonder what the point of it is. But as fans we appreciate the effort, I suppose.
For what it’s worth, my grandmother fucking hated it.
Hey Bryan, interesting perspective from someone who was a fan. Along with fellow Substacker Dan Epstein, I did a podcast recently on this re-release (Crossed Channels, if it's cool to post link here I can do) and we came to different conclusion, that context being everything the album sounds better as it was released at the time. However, my teenage son who really digs it and has no perspective or context to base it on, and who is into mixing, considers it a no-brainer, that Ed Stasium has brought stuff out previously hidden. I do maintain that if Tim has been released at the time with the new mix, there might have been more accusations of selling out than there already were. Cheers!