When I called a buddy here in Durham to ask if he wanted to go to Chapel Hill to see a new documentary on The Replacements, he said “Every once in a while something cool goes on in that town and, whenever it does, I can’t go.” Behind the humor and little jab at Chapel Hill, I know he was really bummed. He’s usually fine missing these few and far between events in our sister town, but missing this one really seemed to bother him. It’s a film about The Replacements after all. I first heard The Replacements in my friend Andrew’s beat up, late 80s Honda Civic. I was in tenth grade and All Shook Down had come out the previous year to much critical boo-hooing about the end of The Replacements, music writer one-upmanship about the death of a great band, and grumbling about the inauspicious beginnings of a watered down, lackluster Paul Westerberg solo career. The record turned out to be all of these things, but I didn’t have any clue at the time that this record was any of that. It was simply the first Replacements album I would hear and my introduction to a catalog of music that still astounds me.
The first Replacements song to enter my orbit was the roughhewn pop of “Merry Go Round,” perhaps the best track on the record. Maybe I think it is the best because it was the simply the first Replacements song that I heard and it happened to be in the car of a friend who I looked up to and who introduced me to loads of bands I still listen to (Sonic Youth, Firehose, Dinosaur Jr. come instantly to mind) sometimes with somewhat moist eyes. But after a couple of decades, “Merry Go Round” still sounds great to me and, most importantly, it doesn’t sound like a Paul Westerberg song, but like a Replacements one. Andrew’s car stereo was about as cranky and finicky as he was. The tape had to be inserted just so, the speakers rattled and hissed, and the volume knob was so picky that you had to turn it up and down several times before finding the right level of sound in each of the ornery speakers. But all that just added to the beauty of the song and the moment. As we drove out of my neighborhood to whatever high-school Friday night shenanigans were ahead of us, I knew Westerberg’s rattle and rasp and jingle jangle guitar would become our soundtrack for the night. Continue reading →
Feeling a little spicy?
It’s hot in Durham. Like 81 degrees on March 15 hot. Yesterday it hit 84 at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Which should be called Durham-Raleigh International Airport, but that’s a topic for another post. Back to the weather. Apparently, 
