by Bob Mehr
Chris Mars had sworn off the sauce for this particular tour. “Chris seemed a little fragile, the most wary of what I was doing and the least outgoing,” said Smith. “He showed me some of his drawings. He was more observer than participant in a lot of things.”
Smith found Bob Stinson elusive but likable. Mostly it was Paul and Tommy Stinson doing the carrying on. The bassist exhibited his brattiest and most hedonistic tendencies, partly for Smith’s benefit. “When I’m impressed or in awe or appalled, people can read it on my face pretty quickly,” said Smith. “I think he had a good time showing me what he was capable of.”
Smith’s interaction with Westerberg was more personal—yet another writer who felt a deeper connection with him. “Paul was at this incredible moment where he was unguarded about his yearnings and his vulnerabilities, certainly a lot less protective of himself than he became later on,” Smith said. “He had the gambler’s instinct to take a shot that might be good for their career.”
The story also showed precisely how un-DIY the Replacements were, how reliant on Jesperson. “He was willing to do all kinds of stuff that was way outside the usual résumé description,” Smith said. “I could tell: ‘Oh boy, this is not going to end well.’ He loved them too much.”
Smith was also able to see the cracks forming between Bob and the band, as when Bob complained to Paul about Jesperson: “I just don’t know why he’s here.” Westerberg replied: “Because he liked us when nobody else did.”
Reading the exchange surprised Jesperson. “It was odd. The only way that Bob resented my presence was that maybe I was one of the guys he saw giving Paul too much credit, and allowing Paul to take over the reins. Where in Bob’s mind he still saw himself as the leader. There [was] some resentment building there.”
Though the story, “The Replacements: A Band for Our Time,” landed them on the cover of the Village Voice, the group was dismayed by the piece. “Everyone sorta groused about it,” said Jesperson. “It painted us like a bunch of drunks that weren’t going to go anywhere.” Tommy Stinson would later allow that Smith “probably captured everything pretty accurately, which is really what bugged us.” While the article caused a major stir in music biz circles, “it was the worst-selling issue of the Voice that year,” noted Smith, “as the paper’s editor reminded me repeatedly.” A few days after the issue came out, Smith was walking through the East Village when a vehicle pulled alongside him threateningly. Just then a cackling Paul Westerberg popped his head out of the window before it sped off: “Hey, RJ. Get a job, ya bum!”
The Replacements booked a secret gig—as Gary and the Boners—at CBGB’s December 9, in advance of their “proper” New York City show at Irving Plaza five days later. The Village Voice hype helped to turn it into a label showcase. Owen Epstein and George Regis lined up executives from Columbia, Warner, Chrysalis, A&M, and other labels to see the band Sunday night on the Bowery.
Jesperson knew this was the big opportunity of the band’s career, and he feared it: “As soon as you let them know there were important people in the audience, it was a good bet that they were going to pull something really ridiculous.” Sure enough, the band spent two hours sticking out their tongues at the New York A&R community. “It was a drunken lollapalooza,” said Regis. “It was absolutely fucked up.”
The show began with a snippet of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” then turned the early “Lookin’ for Ya” into an underwater boogie jam. Next came the West Bank blues of “Never Been to College,” the four of them making a racket like gears meshing. It only got weirder. The audience was soon shouting lines from the Voice story: “Do the ‘pussy set’!” “Play your ‘goofy covers’!” They obliged, delivering a light-fingered “Color Me Impressed” before zigzagging randomly from Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” to Led Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop.”
The most focused moment came when roadie Bill Sullivan sang Elvis Presley’s “Do the Clam.” When they actually got all the way through U2s “I Will Follow” without falling apart, Tommy almost sounded shocked: “Hey, we did one!” he said. The show featured forty-three songs and snippets, including maybe half a dozen by the Replacements, most of those mangled. “This is our last, last fucking performance ever,” croaked Westerberg.
Near set’s end, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons sauntered in. Jesperson was at the soundboard: “They had a talkback system at CBGB where you could communicate from the booth into the monitors.” He alerted Westerberg to the God of Thunder’s presence, and the band went right into “Black Diamond.” “Simmons was looking all around like ‘How did they know I was here?’” recalled Jesperson. The ’Mats’ “suck ass version” quickly chased Simmons from the venue. The band followed up with an X-rated version of the “Ballad of Jed Clampett,” then whistled their way through the theme from The Andy Griffith Show before finally leaving the stage.
The crowd’s exodus had begun earlier. “About halfway through, all of these senior executives from these various labels, one by one start to leave,” said Regis. On their way out, they stopped to shake Epstein’s hand and pat Regis on the back, offering condolences. “They were commiserating with me. It felt like I was at a funeral.”
Watching the band self-destruct at CBGB’s, it occurred to Regis that the Irving Plaza concert a few days later was likely to be spectacular. “I was already aware of that propensity in them,” he said. “And it made me want to see the next show.”
At least one person loved the Replacements’ CBGB set: Alex Chilton.
The erstwhile Big Star leader was no stranger to desultory performances or ruinous displays of self-sabotage. He’d recently emerged from several years in “hiding,” during which he’d moved to New Orleans, quit drinking and music, and worked as a dishwasher. In the fall of 1984, Chilton began to play shows again, reemerging as a quasi-legendary figure to a generation of bands who saw him as an alt-rock forerunner.
Chilton and the ’Mats shared a booking agent in Frank Riley. The band hoped to tour with Chilton, but the economics hadn’t worked out. Instead, they invited him to open the CBGB gig—he was living temporarily in New York. “We were in awe of his set, and then he went into the audience and watched the Replacements,” said Jesperson. “That was a huge deal.”
When the ’Mats went through their routine, Chilton had a grin plastered on his face. After the show, both Jesperson and Chilton were waiting to get paid by CBGB owner Hilly Kristal. Jesperson offered to buy breakfast the next morning. Chilton accepted.
Getting ready to leave the Iroquois Hotel, Jesperson stopped by Westerberg’s room to remind him of the day’s interview schedule. Still sleepy and hungover, Westerberg asked where Peter was going. When he found out, Paul shot out of bed, threw on his clothes, and tagged along.
Paul did not impress easily, but he was very impressed with Alex Chilton. They taxied to the Gem Spa newsstand on Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place. “He was standing by a trash can with a bag full of matches,” said Westerberg. “He was playing a game . . . pretending, ‘I’m Alex the Weirdo.’ I sucked up to it, and played the role.”
Over an Indian buffet lunch, Westerberg and Chilton circled around one another with a guarded curiosity. “His aura is different than the average person’s,” Westerberg said. “He could be from another planet.”
At one point, Westerberg got up to go to the bathroom and Chilton leaned over to Jesperson. “Man, I gotta tell you I thought they were great last night,” he said. “I’d love to work in the studio with them someday.” Once Jesperson was sure he was serious, he practically ran to a phone booth to call Steve Fjelstad back in Minneapolis to book a week of studio time in early January.
Meanwhile, everyone else in the Replacements’ camp was feeling various degrees of panic about the performance the night before. Dave Ayers waited in Minneapolis for news of the show. “The next morning the phone didn’t ring. I finally called George like, ‘So?’ And he said, after the longest pause, ‘Dave . . . they were awful.’ My heart sank.”
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A process was establishing itself. When it came to choosing a label, manager, booking agent, or producer, the Replacements would behave in horrible, offensive, alarming ways, and whoever survived was typically who they’d work with. “That’s Westerberg,” noted Regis, “in all of his [professional] relationships.”
Seymour Stein was in bad shape. It was a Friday night in mid-December, and the Sire Records head was making the rounds of music-biz holiday parties, getting progressively more wasted. By his final stop, the annual MTV bash, Stein was, in the words of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, “gakked to the nines.” There he ran into his lawyer, Owen Epstein, who immediately steered Stein away from the party and out of the building.
“Owen saved my life,” said Stein. “I could’ve died that night from excess. He said, ‘Look, I’m going to Irving Plaza to see the Replacements, and you’re coming with me.’” Epstein plied Stein with coffee and told him the ’Mats truly belonged on Sire.
Stein had heard about the Replacements, most of it bad. “Hilly Kristal hated them . . . and Hilly hated no one,” said Stein. “I’d never seen him be this down on a band. He said, ‘I couldn’t even distinguish the music.’”
His interest piqued, Stein had the band’s records delivered to his office. He was impressed with what he heard, but what he would see that night would surpass anything on vinyl. Irving Plaza was one of the best gigs anyone—including Jesperson—ever remembered the ’Mats doing. “They really went for the throat that night,” said Jesperson.
“Whatever state I was in, I knew they were fabulous,” said Stein. As the band worked up songs by Bill Haley, the Beach Boys, and Vanity Fare, Stein began scribbling down other cover ideas. When Stein met the group backstage afterwards, he greeted them excitedly as bits of paper spilled out of his pockets. “We partied, we sang old songs together,” said Stein of their post-show soiree.
Even before the evening was over, a relieved Regis pointed to Stein and whispered to Jesperson: “He says he’s going to have you guys signed before you even get home from this trip.”
CHAPTER 21
Born Seymour Steinbigle in April 1942, he was raised in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst section, the youngest child in a heavily religious, lower-middle-class Jewish family. Weaned on Big Band music, then discovering the earliest R&B and rock-and-roll records being spun on New York radio, Stein became consumed. “I was a fan in the truest sense of the word. I was a fanatic,” said Stein. “Growing up, I wasn’t good at sports. I hated school. All I cared about was music.” As a twelve-year-old, he began visiting the Billboard offices to study bound volumes of back issues and learn the history of the music business. “After my first year, Tom Noonan, the chart editor . . . offered me a job,” said Stein. “I thought I was just paying him back for accommodating me. They actually gave me a check. I ran home and told my mother, ‘I can’t believe it! I should be paying them!’”
In high school, Stein spent summers in Cincinnati apprenticing under King Records owner Syd Nathan, whose biggest star was James Brown. Stein eventually would work for King full-time, learning every aspect of the business at the company’s one-stop operation. Back in New York, he became an assistant to record man George Goldner in 1963, then in 1966 broke off with producer-writer Richard Gottehrer. Their label’s moniker scrambled the first two letters of their first names—SE and RI—to get Sire.
Each put up $10,000 in seed money. Stein’s funds had come from Beatlemania’s 1964 height, when Capitol Records in Canada sold a selection of Beatles singles not available in the United States. Stein had spirited a mass of the records out of the country, then offloaded them to US wholesalers, making a small fortune in a week. “The statute of limitations has passed,” said Stein. “But that’s where my share of the money came from.”
Sire’s early roster was a hodgepodge, mostly licensed from Europe: Climax Blues Band, Renaissance, Barclay James Harvest, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Focus. Gottehrer left the label just as Stein turned his attention to New York’s nascent punk scene to sign CBGB acts the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Dead Boys. He also coined the phrase “new wave” to sell them to consumers leery of the term “punk.”
During its first decade, Sire had been distributed by various companies, including London Records and ABC. In 1977 Warner Bros. would come on as distributor; a year later they bought a 50 percent stake in the label. Two years after that, they would purchase Sire outright. Stein remained the label’s president and was also made a Warner VP. Sire moved into a corporate office complex on East Fifty-Fourth Street, and its publicity, sales, and promotion were taken over by Warner.
The Sire/Warner union was successful, if occasionally fraught. Stein could be excessive in his personal behavior and demanding and difficult when it came to business. He was a collector: of artwork, of antiques, and especially of bands. His perceived profligacy was a source of irritation to Warner Bros.’s head, Mo Ostin, and other executives at the company. “There was always the idea that Seymour was signing too many things, spending too much money,” said Warner A&R man Michael Hill. “Seymour has voracious appetites, and if he wanted something, he could be very petulant if he didn’t get it. But at the end of the day, everyone knew he would deliver the goods. He was the key to so much for that company.”
By the early ’80s, Stein was constantly globetrotting, picking up cutting-edge bands from all over. He spent much of his time in Britain, using the country’s hip indie label entrepreneurs—Geoff Travis at Rough Trade, Daniel Miller at Mute, Martin Mills at Beggars Banquet—as a kind of unofficial A&R staff. Stein would sign the UK groups the Undertones, Pretenders, Madness, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Smiths, the Cult, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Modern English, and Aztec Camera. His forward-looking vision would pay off in a big way when he signed Madonna, a New York dance club ingénue, in 1983 and watched her explode into a pop culture phenomenon.
By bringing these artists into the Warner Bros. fold, Stein helped raise the company’s hip quotient. Warner was a Burbank, California–based company, a fact reflected in a roster loaded with West Coast boomer acts. While it was an artist-friendly haven, Warner wasn’t especially attuned to what was happening in the underground scenes of New York and London, much less in marginal Middle American cities like Minneapolis.
Michael Hill had been trying to convince Warner Bros. to sign the Replacements for the better part of a year. None of his A&R superiors were sold on the band. Karin Berg felt the group would be better served maturing and making another album on Twin/Tone. “She didn’t think it was time yet for them—they were so raw,” said Hill. “She felt, these guys really need to show they can be professional musicians.”
Stein had no such qualms. He came swooping in after the Irving Plaza performance, ready to offer a deal, convinced they were his next great discovery. “Seymour was always willing to be the first one there when he saw the potential,” said Hill. “There were visceral things that appealed to him about the Replacements.”
To Stein, the ’Mats had the benefit of great songs, as well as the perfect rock-and-roll tandem in Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson. “It was like when the Smiths were brought to my attention,” said Stein. “I signed them instantly because of the combination of Morrissey and Johnny Marr. Most bands are lucky to have one superstar, and this band has two superstars. That’s really the way I felt about the Replacements.” (Tommy’s good looks and raffish manner held particular appeal to Stein, who had an affinity for handsome young men. “Lord knows I flirted enough with Seymour to where I thought it would help our career,” cracked Tommy.)
Quickly, Michael Hill became part of the package to entice the ’Mats to Sire, with the idea that he would serve as their A&R man. “It put me in a slightly odd position,” said Hill, whose boss, Karin Berg, had a long-standing rivalry with Stein. “But in the end it was a win-win for me because I was gonna be with the band I wanted.”
To the Replacements, Stein was unlike any label exec they’d met: he was loud and wild and raged right a
long with them. “There would be lots of drunken dinners with the Replacements, and Seymour can drink with the best of them,” said Sire staffer Sandy Alouette. Westerberg gravitated toward outré, larger-than-life figures. “And Seymour certainly was that,” he said. “I always got a kick out of him.” At the same time he was a little suspicious: Stein’s impetuous interest in signing the band seemed too good to be true. “Maybe he wanted a tax write-off,” said Westerberg.
In addition to Stein, the setup at Sire was especially attractive. It offered the cool factor of a boutique label associated with the paragons of punk, but also had the money and muscle of the Warner machine behind it. Plus, as Westerberg would note, Sire had “the best-looking chicks.” “The girls in the office, we were all in our twenties, and we all had crushes on the Replacements,” said Alouette. “Paul and Tommy could charm the socks off of anyone, including Seymour. They were a little wayward—these outsiders who were trying to fit in by not fitting in. But their charisma kinda pardoned all their sins.”
Seymour Stein was ready to waltz this charismatic band of outsiders through the doors of Warner Bros.
The year 1985 began with Alex Chilton arriving in Minneapolis to cut tracks with the Replacements—a trio of new Westerberg tunes inspired by his romantic and road experiences: “Nowhere Is My Home,” “Left of the Dial,” and “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
Chilton was not a producer per se, though he’d helmed several rollicking records for horror-punks the Cramps, among others. “The rumor was that when he’d produced them he’d ordered a case of beer and moved the faders with his feet,” said Westerberg. “We thought, ‘Yeah—this will be right up our alley.’ But it was nothing like that. He was sort of adult about it.”
