Customer Reviews

The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It is an absolute travesty that it has taken this long for a book on the 'Mats to find its way to print. Kudos to Jim Walsh and Voyageur Press (a Twin Cities publisher) for rescuing the die-hard, Mats-starved fans. While many oral histories can be tricky reads, Walsh made the absolute best decision when he chose this format for his book. Rather than hearing only one voice tell the story--as legitimate as Walsh's voice may be--he tells the story through the many voices of those who had consumed the band in all its tragic greatness over the years. After all, the Replacements were never a band to simply be heard...they had to be experienced. This book helps readers who may have never seen the band live do just that.

On another note, I would like to provide some clarification as to a previous 2-star review of the book. The reviewer lodged a complaint about the author not letting us know who each person is throughout the book. I won't address how we disagree on the value of this book, but I did want to let folks know about a very helpful list starting on page 269 entitled "The Players." Each person quoted in the book is listed, along with a brief description of who they are.

While I loved the chapter devoted to The Replacements in the terrific book, "Our Band Could Be Your Life", I always hoped someone would put together a more complete history of this incredible band, and Jim Walsh did a great job putting "All Over But the Shouting" together. I'd highly recommend the book to any fan of The Replacements, and to anyone curious about 80's underground music in general. Oh, and in response to the person who found all the names in the book confusing, there's a list in the back of the book that briefly explains who all those people are, or in some unfortunate cases, were.

This is a fascinating documentation of one of the greatest, most unique bands that ever existed. The author was so much of a part of the band's history (he gave the eulogy at guitarist Bob Stinson's funeral!) that he wisely chooses to step back and let the participants tell their sides of the story, while filling in details when needed.
When you hear so many different viewpoints, you get a much more well-rounded feel for these characters who raucously carried the rock and roll torch through a generally bad decade of music.
This book is a must-read for anyone who loves The Replacements. It could be used as a textbook for any aspiring bands or musicians in the "school of rock".

So says Bob `Slim' Dunlap shrewdly of the effect his recruitment to The Replacements' ranks in 1987 had upon his daughter. Emily's discomfiture however, is indicative of the love-the-band/hate-the-group relationship that many have with the `Mats, and this is certainly one of the most enduring impressions left by Jim Walsh's oral history, All Over but the Shouting. As Paul Westerberg himself famously sang, "the ones (that) love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest," and Walsh's account certainly bears out the notion that the closer you got to the band the harder they were to love.

Herein, Walsh has collected a multitude of accounts from band members, associates, contemporaries, scenesters and onlookers and aptly synthesized them into an affectionate and engrossing chronological account of the turbulent history of one of rock's great bands.

A positive feature of the text is that Walsh has assembled much varied discourse from Westerberg, as well as from the 6 other major players: original lead guitarist Bob Stinson, teenaged bass player Tommy Stinson, drummer Chris Mars, Bob Stinson's replacement Slim Dunlap, roadie Bill Sullivan and original manager/mentor Pete Jesperson. Favourably, he also avoids falling into the trap of merely reiterating previously available information on the band - most notably in the Sire-years greatest hits collection All For Nothing/Nothing For All and Michael Azerrad's compendium of epochal independent 80s bands Our Band Could Be Your Life in which the `Mats figure prominently.

Ironically, given his rather paradoxical position within the band's history it is Slim Dunlap whose sensitive, articulate and altogether rational recollections provide the most objective and absorbing reading, detailing the highs and lows of living alongside the band as a close friend and respected contemporary to living within the band as the oft-maligned replacement to the elder Stinson.

Westerberg's accounts, on the other hand are more inconsistent, ranging from an initial reticence to discuss his band in anything other than vague peripheral terms to an eventual realisation that printed word could be used for his own means - seemingly too late. Tommy Stinson is more ambiguous still - disappointingly he is not greatly represented - but generally shoots from the hip, yet even his fond memories are always tinged with a sense of ambivalence. An overriding sense of each of the pair's striking ego pervades much of the accounts on them also, with instances of commendable actions few and far between.

Bob Stinson, predictably is portrayed as the fallen hero of his generation; a gentle-giant of a man with no discernable assets beyond his ferocious lead guitar skills and a big heart. Touching testimony from former partners rounds this out but also repudiates the cultivated image of him as something of a simpleton. The comparative lack of comment from or pertaining to original drummer Chris Mars however, serves to further marginalise him from the Replacements' myth.

An integral problem the book suffers however, is that there is a striking sense of Twin Cities' `in-crowd cool' to it in that responses to the `Mats from an audience outside of Minnesota are not well documented (save for two scathing snippets from (journalist/Big Black/Shellac frontman) Steve Albini, and the ubiquitous hometown-hero reverie demonstrated toward Prince is misplaced. A further problem with this issue is that the scope of those interviewed is neither great nor varied. Minneapolis' own Soul Asylum (Dave Pirner & Danny Murphy) and Hüsker Dü (Bob Mould & Grant Hart) are two of too few bands who made it beyond the indie ranks to contribute and the Hüskers' testimony is disappointingly non-revelatory considering the rivalry between the two. However, R.E.M.'s Peter Buck does offer some insightful backstage anecdotes - yet again, there is a simultaneous longing to read something attributed to Michael Stipe.

Despite some of its short-comings however, the positives outweigh the negatives substantially, rendering All Over but the Shouting an engaging and comprehensive chronicle of the life and times of one of rock's greatest and most shambolic bands.

Wow! I loved this book way more then I initially expected to. Walsh has managed to craft a well-written, engaging narrative out of other people's quotes. It was like reading a novel with rising action, climax and all that other good stuff you often turn to fiction for. I even knew what was going to happen and I still couldn't put the book down.

Reading the names I see the faces. I never met the writers but knew most every one of them from reading City Pages and the Twin Cities Reader--then seeing them buying records at Garage D'or, the Fetus, Oarfolk, or on stage at the 400, First Ave, Entry, Uptown. Out buying records. The memory of a hometown place like that causes homesickness.

The weather keeps me away. This book brings me back.

If you want a book filled with a rock journalist's blow-hard musings of why and how the Replacements were the greatest band in the world and "what they meant to ME!" go elsewhere or write it yourself. There are too many rock books our there that are just a writer expressing his/her unsolicited opinion on a band or musician and how the writer was directly affected and what they meant personally to the writer (biggest exception here is Peter Guralnick gives us exceptional accounts without his own ego getting involved.) This book is none of that. It's done properly, taking the writer out of it and letting those that lived through it, including the 'Mats themselves, tell the story with often hilarious, and sometimes touching, mind-boggling, or brutally honest anecdotes. Witten in the "oral history" style, we learn through the fans, non-fans, and the members of the band (including deceased guitar god Bob Stinson) how the 'Mats came to be and what it like to have a part in what was the greatest (though they'd argue this) rock 'n' roll band of all time.

Whether you liked, hated, or just didn't care about The Replacements, buy this book. It's an exceptional documentation of a time in music history when any band in any basement in any town still had a solid chance to rise to the top without first being sanctioned by Simon Cowell and his machine.

Note: In response to Jonathan F. Coscio's review above, there is a neat, handy index at the end of the book, telling who each speaker is, etc. in case you, too, query "Who, exactly, is this 'Bob Mould' character?"

Got this for my Christmas/Birthday yesterday and to no surprise, Walsh took inspiration from the at times conflicted/at times corroborated primary source collecting narrative Legs McNeil and Gillian McKain used in the equally wonderful Please Kill Me.

This, until Paul and Tommy write their books (yeah, probably come out about the same time as the boxed set Pete wants them to sit down with Chris and compile (i.e. NEVER), works as a history of the Replacements, which is more legend than truth, given the comments by previous reviewers who were there. Such is the up and down sides of bands associated with college radio before the Internet showed us the man behind the curtain operating the Wizard. The same was said of Camper Van Beethoven in their Cigarettes and Carrot Juice boxed set's liner notes.

There's precious little here that people who grew up and old with the band didn't know already, if only told from a slightly different viewpoint at times. However, considering a whole generation has grown up and weren't even born or speaking beyond babble when the Mats called it a day in Chicago and maybe know Paul as the "Dyslexic Heart" guy or Tommy as the guy who replaced Duff McKagan in (it kills me to type this band's name) Guns n Roses (BLEARGH! Tommy, WHY?!!?), it's great Walsh did this book, even though Paul and Tommy didn't participate and Chris only sent a summary e-mail in the book's epilogue.

The problem I have with this book, and it's really inexcusable since it was only last year when the best of came out with the two new songs on it, that no mention was made of Paul's statement that he hasn't played with anyone who had that telepathy he had with messrs. Mars and Stinson and if you haven't heard "Message to the Boys," it stands up with their best work from the middle period. It closes with the group still at each other's throats and it's not really the case. So that does a really big disservice to the group, that like the Pistols before them, they can't stand to be in the same room together, which really isn't true considering how Tommy's played on every one of Paul's solo CDs, either as himself or Grandpaboy and Chris and Paul finally talked before the reunion tracks. Gallons of water have gone under the bridge since the days of Chris titling his album 75% Fat Free. No doubt the Twin/Tone masters went under that bridge, too.

Buy it, but know it stops short.

Signed,
epsteinsmutha

This somewhat disjointed oral history is an essential read for any mats fan, although those of us who closely followed them during the 80's have probably already read most of the interviews from which Walsh quotes (which makes up the bulk of this book). Far from a comprehensive bio of the band, but a lot of good nuggets do exist. I did find that the chapter on the mats in "This Band Could Be Your Life" told their story more completely, although succinctly. You won't find too much insider information here that hasn't already been reported elsewhere - no real stories of what is was like during the recording of Let It Be, or their appearance on the American Music Awards, etc. This could book have been a contender - just like the mats could have been.

The Replacements meant a lot to me, and to Jim Walsh, and to a plethora of other people, some of whom are quoted in Jim Walsh's book, The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting (an oral history). Why did The Replacements, or The Placemats, or as their fans called them, The 'Mats, mean so much to us all? As author Jim Walsh says in his preface: "Because they were a mass of contradictions. Because they were the kings of irony before irony was everywhere."

Jim Walsh played in bands in Minneapolis during the Replacements era (the 80's) and knew Paul Westerberg personally. He is now the music editor for City Pages, an alternative weekly in Minneapolis, as well as a performing musician in his band, The Mad Ripple. Though Walsh is an excellent prose writer, his writing in this tome is confined mostly to the preface and a eulogy for 'Mats guitarist Bob Stinson. Though he chose to tell their story mostly through the words of others, he has assembled the various shards and fragments into a mosaic that tells the fractured fairy tale of The Replacements very well.

As Diablo Cody, tattooed screenwriter, winner of the Oscar for the Juno screenplay, and the author of Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper said on the dust jacket blurb: "Immeasurably more transporting than an ordinary memoir, here is a poetic toast to a band so effusively careless that everyone who saw them instantly cared. At turns wounded and joyful, the voices brought together here chime like a Strat and build like a heartbeat."

Musician magazine had a cover article about The Replacements with the title: "The Last, Best Band of the 80's." To which Jon Bon Jovi responded with "How can they be the best band of the 80's when I have never heard of them?" And that my friend, to be unknown to someone of Jon Bon Jovi's ilk, is the sincerest compliment you could ask for.

I remember being in Vesuvio, a cool bar in San Francisco, at 255 Columbus Avenue, overlooking the topless bars on Broadway, a bar where Jack Kerouac used to drink. It was right across the alley from City Lights Bookstore; in fact, the alley was named Jack Kerouac Alley in his honor. This was hallowed ground, this bar. The bartender, who would have to be a high priest of cool, to pour in such an esteemed establishment, played a 'Mats song on the jukebox, and remarked that they were one of the best bands, ever. Eavesdropping, I would have to agree.

Billie Joe Armstrong, of Greenday, would have also agreed. He claims that hearing The Replacements play at The Fillmore in San Francisco when he was a 15 year-old altered the course of his life. Funny that he would mention that show, because, though I didn't attend the show per se, I was there at the venue earlier in the day, and I recall there was a prank by either Paul or Tommy involving a turd and an ice bucket on the service elevator. Or a later show that I also missed, at The Berkeley Square. How could I have been so stupid and missed both of these historic shows?

But I had already seen them, at Ruthie's Inn, at a really early-in-their-career show, and a band that I wrote songs for and "managed" opened up for them. It was before the release of "Let It Be," but I was really knocked out by "Take Me to the Hospital" that I heard on the college radio station KALX. I recall that Paul Westerberg looked really scruffy, like he was in dire need of a shampoo. Like he had just rolled off of someone's couch or he'd been crashed out in the van. I met the people who the band had been staying with, and they were starting an alternative music magazine. I wrote a review of the show, which they hated and never printed, because I cast their pets in a less-than-flattering light. I was just trying to catch the contradictions, the frustrations, the greatness of The Replacements, but also their stink. My article failed to do that, but The Replacements, the band, and the book, The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting (an oral history), succeeded.

Tim One of my favorite 'Mats albums, and there is a funny story in the book I can relate to, because my brother is named Tim, and someone was given a cassette tape of this by his brother, Tim, and he crossed out the name and put his own on, not realizing that Tim was the name of the album. "Kiss Me On The Bus" and "Swingin' Party Down the Line" are my favorites, but let's not forget "Here Comes a Regular" and dedicate it to Bob Stinson.

Don't Tell a Soul "Talent Show" is the greatest 2 chord, D and A song since Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down." The song "They're Blind" reminds me of my secret current crush (Shhh. Don't tell J.L. Don't Tell a Soul). Love "I'll Be You" along with every song on here.

Let It Be A bold move, to name it this after The Beatles already had a song and album with that moniker. But whereas the boys of Liverpool where calling it quits, the boys of Minneapolis were just getting started.

Pleased to Meet Me First album recorded post-Bob Stinson, it nevertheless contains the great "Alex Chilton" and the super-fantastic "Skyway."

All Shook Down This is the last Replacements album, and it is a saddly beautiful exit strategy.

Hootenanny Besides the title track, this early effort also contains the fantastic "Take Me to the Hospital."

Stink I am unfamiliar with their early stuff, but this EP is punk rock.

Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash More punk rock, but this time an actual album's worth, of whose contents I am, alas, unfamiliar.

Paul Westerberg - Come Feel Me Tremble This is a DVD that documents the post-Replacements solo tour of Paul Westerberg.

#1 Record/Radio City Paul wrote a song called Alex Chilton, about the singer in The Boxtops, who sang "The Letter" and was later in the band called Big Star.