Justin Townes Earle can’t hardly wait

Man, something about these warm summery weeks, or maybe an aural hangover from my driving journey through West Texas, but lately all kinds of down-home music is grabbing me. Something about the authenticity of a good campfire sad song, or a mandolin + fiddle. I mean, sure I’m still going to dance my ass off at Ghostland Observatory this Saturday, but for today, this is hitting the right notes:

Justin Townes Earle (whose name I just learned how to pronounce correctly, because I am retarded) is Steve Earle’s son and a proper heir to that surname. Named partly after Dad’s friend Townes Van Zandt, 27-year-old Justin infuses his brand of Americana with a vibrant, organic streak of youth.

He does a surprisingly great cover of The Replacements’ 1987 classic “Can’t Hardly Wait.” It amazes me how this song is from an album typically thought of as all sloppy punk, but has these sterling country-road roots that Justin brings out so well. Justin’s also got strong strokes of that same off-kilter howl that Westerberg trademarked. Hearing this has made me smile.

Can’t Hardly Wait (Replacements cover, live 9/28/08) – Justin Townes Earle

I’ll write you a letter tomorrow
Tonight I can’t hold a pen
Someone’s got a stamp that I can borrow
I promise not to blow the address again

Lights that flash in the evening,
Through a hole in the drapes
I’ll be home when I’m sleeping
I can’t hardly wait

Can’t Hardly Wait – The Replacements

Listen to the rest of this show over on the Live Music Archive, for a fine sampling of Justin’s original songs interspersed with classic covers of Woody Guthrie, Mississippi John Hurt, dad Steve Earle, Blind Blake, Townes Van Zandt, and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

JTE’s Midnight At The Movies is out now on Bloodshot Records, and he’s massively on tour this summer.

Also — check out the recent Aquarium Drunkard feature of Justin Townes Earle and Jason Isbell (of the Drive-By Truckers) interviewing each other. Nice.

49 minutes of new Paul Westerberg coming tomorrow?!

Here’s some news out of nowhere (thanks Gregg!):

Tomorrow Paul Westerberg will be releasing “49 minutes of music for 49 cents” on his website (yes, that does actually still direct you to an AOL page, don’t hold it against him). I believe this is the first new solo material from the former Replacements frontman since 2006’s Open Season soundtrack. Curious!

LISTEN: Lots of Westerberg/Mats tracks

UPDATE: Buy it here – sounds pretty good!

The craft of Paul Westerberg’s songwriting: “Everyone’s Stupid” (new) and “Make The Best Of Me” (unreleased)

Speaking of the Twin Cities region, Paul Westerberg did this very cool interview + performance for 500 people last weekend at First Avenue in MPLS for a series called The Craft (not to be confused with the superb artistic statement of the Neve Campbell movie; this is a program hosted by musician Warren Zanes). I had heard about this but don’t have friends in Minneapolis that were planning to attend. But hey! Bruce from Some Velvet Blog happened to be gone from his native Philly that day, was in Minneapolis, and wrote up a wonderful little piece about the session and set, as well as details on some of the things Paul shared about his music and The Replacements.

Westerberg performed ten tunes altogether (a truly lovely setlist), including one new song and one unreleased:

VIDEO: PAUL WESTERBERG – “EVERYONE’S STUPID” (NEW SONG)

VIDEO: PAUL WESTERBERG – “MAKE THE BEST OF ME” (UNRELEASED)
(from the All Shook Down era)

Audio removed by request of original taper, but you can apparently find more about it over on either www.paulwesterberg.com or www.colormeimpressed.com. It may also be up on Dime in lossless format.

Hey, I want to repost the original mp3s I ripped from these YouTube videos, marginally crappy as they may be, but I overzealously deleted them off my computer. I know this sounds odd, but if you snagged ‘em when I first posted them, could you email them to me? Save me some hassle. Thanks.

And in related news, here’s one other unreleased ‘Mats song that someone recently sent me; add it to your folder of Westerberg/Replacements Rarities and B-Sides.

Perfectly Lethal (Let It Be outtake) – The Replacements
(basically “Seen Your Video” with different lyrics)

[photo credit]

Jesse Malin’s new album to feature Springsteen, Ryan Adams & a Replacements cover

From today’s news:

Boss and More Guest on Jesse Malin CD
09/13/06

“Jesse Malin has just finished recording his third record titled Glitter In The Gutter, to be released in early 2007 on Adeline Records/East West. This album follows his two previous critically acclaimed releases: 2004’s The Heat, and 2002’s The Fine Art of Self Destruction. Glitter In The Gutter was recorded in various studios over the summer in Millbrook, New York; North Hollywood, CA; and in Jesse’s native borough of Queens, New York.

Guests on the album include a special vocal performance by Bruce Springsteen, Chris Shifflett of the Foo Fighters, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, long time pal Ryan Adams as well as members of Jesse’s own touring and recording band “The Heat.” Many of the songs on the new album were written on electric guitar in Jesse’s basement rehearsal studio in New York City over the past year.

After working up demos of the songs, Jesse chose to work with producers Rob Caggiano and Eddie Wohl of Scrap 60. The album will include an intimate acoustic version of The Replacements‘ classic ‘Bastards of Young.’ CD will hit stores in early 2007.”

I love that title, Glitter in the Gutter. Can’t wait to hear it. He’s got a handful of shows coming up, mostly East Coast. Tomorrow night (9/13) he headlines one final show at The Continental in NYC, on 9/19 at the Barnes & Noble (!!) in Union Square, 10/1 in Ringwood NJ, 10/12 at the Tin Angel in Philly, 10/14 at the Club Cafe in Pittsburgh, and 10/18 at Schuba’s in Chicago.

Here’s the original ‘Mats track that he covers on the new album, if you don’t have it:

Bastards of Young – The Replacements

And I wrote about some demos from the new album (the fabulous “Black Haired Girl” and “Don’t Let ‘Em Take You Down”) in this post.

New Replacements: “Message To The Boys”

Oh, this is soooo good: classic ‘Mats flavor and a rocking sound on this, the first new Replacements song in 16 years. I am loving it. The song was premiered earlier today on the Jim Rome show, which seemed an odd choice to many (apparently he is a sports radio guy), but his passion about music came through as he talked about his time working on college radio and his love for the Replacements.

Message To The Boys – The Replacements

(rip from streaming online radio, up for a limited time)

I heard Stinson’s interview, and Westerberg was also supposed to call in. Anyone catch the whole thing? I am anticipating the forthcoming album Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was: The Best Of The Replacements, due June 13 from Rhino Records.

Listen to the new Replacements songs

Rhino Records now has streaming audio samples of the two new Replacements tracks from the forthcoming Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was: The Best Of The Replacements. Take a listen to the clips, I especially like Message To The Boys:

[stream] Message To The Boys – The Replacements

[stream] Pool & Dive – The Replacements

If these links don’t work on your computer (it should pop up a window to play the clips in Quicktime), go to the main page to select a sound sample.

Also, according to the Men Without Ties fansite, The Jim Rome show will play both new songs in their entirety this Thursday, May 4. Both Paul and Tommy are scheduled to call in as well. For a list of stations that play the show, as well as online listening information, see here.

Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was comes out June 13. Read my previous post on the news, or go download a whole bunch of Westerberg & Replacements rarities.

After 16 years, new ones from the ‘Mats

Replacements Reunite For New Songs
(Info from Billboard.com, Pioneer Press, and Pitchfork)

The web was abuzz earlier this week after a mysterious photo circulating on the Internet sparked rumors that the Replacements had reunited to record new material.

The picture, which was posted Monday on the gossip site Buddyhead.com, shows Replacements drummer Chris Mars, bassist Tommy Stinson and vocalist/guitarist Paul Westerberg posing in a recording studio with session drummer Josh Freese. By mid-day Tuesday, it had been removed from Buddyhead.com as well as from a Westerberg fan site.

However, as of today ‘Mats fans everywhere are doing the happy dance after it was confirmed that Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars reunited to record two new songs for an upcoming retrospective, Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was?: The Best of the Replacements. Due June 13 via Rhino Records, the set will feature “Message to the Boys” and “Pool & Dive,” the band’s first new recordings in 16 years.

Session drummer Josh Freese was behind the kit for the new recordings, while Mars, who in recent years has foregone music for an art career, contributed backing vocals. The songs were written by Westerberg and were recorded at producer Ed Ackerson’s Flowers studio in Minneapolis. Currently it is unclear if any further activity is brewing within the Replacements’ camp.

Westerberg said in 2005 that he still reflects fondly on the Replacements’ early days, especially “when we were riding in the van and we ripped the seats out and would just listen to tapes and listen to Black Flag. [We would] sort of slam dance and stuff around in the back of the van and be drinking hard liquor at noon and it was just, you know, carefree times. We didn’t give a damn.”

Meanwhile, sources say the long-awaited Replacements boxed set is still in the planning stages and will not be out until 2007 at the earliest. Rhino is also working on expanded editions of the Replacements’ albums, but no release date has yet been announced for those packages either.

Here is the track list for Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was?:

01. Takin a Ride
02. Shiftless When Idle
03. Kids Don’t Follow
04. Color Me Impressed
05. Within Your Reach
06. I Will Dare
07. Answering Machine
08. Unsatisfied
09. Here Comes a Regular
10. Kiss Me on the Bus
11. Bastards of Young
12. Left of the Dial
13. Alex Chilton
14. Skyway
15. Can’t Hardly Wait
16. Achin’ to Be
17. I’ll Be You
18. Merry Go Round
19. Message to the Boys *
20. Pool & Dive *

On a related note, Jerry Yeti has recorded an interesting observation about the Replacements. And the zip files of Westerberg and Replacements rarities that I posted a few weeks ago are still live links for the taking.

Paul Westerberg & Replacements: b-sides, rarities and live goodies

Sometimes in this world someone takes time to do something nice simply out of the goodness of their heart. Recently, Friendly Guy Jerry took the time to make and mail me two CDs jam-packed with some great rarities, b-sides, live cuts, and non-album tracks from some of my favorite rough rockers Paul Westerberg & The Replacements. Why? Just because.

Now I share my largesse with you. Both are in zip format, and there are some real standouts here (and tons of covers, which I find fascinating to see how they put their own stamp on such a wide variety of influences). And thanks to Dean for filling in some of the provenance blanks.

PAUL WESTERBERG RARITIES DISC

Dyslexic Heart (Singles soundtrack)
Waiting for Somebody (Singles soundtrack)
Seein’ Her (b-side of Knockin’ on Mine)
Men Without Ties (b-side of Knockin’ on Mine)
Dice Behind Your Shades (Festicle version, b-side of Knockin’ on Mine)
Can’t Hardly Wait (live ‘93 Whiskey a Go-Go, b-side World Class Fad) (Marah cover here)
Left of the Dial (live ‘93 Whiskey a Go-Go, b-side World Class Fad)
Another Girl, Another Planet (live ‘93 Whiskey a Go-Go, b-side World Class Fad)
Answering Machine (live ‘93 Whiskey a Go-Go, b-side World Class Fad)
Daydream Believer (live, b-side British single?)
(Can I tell you how shockingly happy this song makes me?)
A Star is Bored (Melrose Place Soundtrack)
Backlash (w/ Joan Jett) (Notorious LP)
Let’s Do It (w/ Joan Jett) (Tank Girl Soundtrack)
(…you’re a rocker, too cool for lovey dovey mixtapes. Throw this one on there.
Sunshine (Friends Soundtrack)
(take that, Ron Burgundy!)
Stain Yer Blood (Friends Soundtrack)
Make Your Own Kind of Music (Eventually Bonus Track Japan)
(I love the slightly off-key warble here, and the grand rebellion in singing along to this, especially if you can’t sing)
I Want My Money Back (Grandpaboy Single)
Undone (Grandpaboy Single)
Wonderful Copenhagen (Suicaine Gratification Bonus Track Europe)
33rd of July (Suicaine Gratification Bonus Track Europe)
Nowhere Man (I Am Sam Soundtrack)
Be Bad For Me (Folker Bonus Track Europe)

WESTERBERG RARITIES AS ZIP FILE

REPLACEMENTS RARITIES DISC

If Only You Were Lonely (b-side of I’m In Trouble)
Hey Good Lookin’ (b-side of I Will Dare)
20th Century Boy (T Rex cover) (Let It Be Outtake)
Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive (Let It Be Outtake)
Temptation Eyes (Let It Be Outtake)
Street Girl (Let It Be Outtake)
Nowhere Is My Home (Boink LP – England)
Bundle Up (PTMM Rehearsal, Jungle Rock w/ new lyrics)
Empty As Your Heart (aka PO Box) (PTMM Rehearsal)
Time Is Killing Us (PTMM Rehearsal)
Kick It In (PTMM Rehearsal)
Run For The Country (PTMM Rehearsal)
Going Out Of My Head (PTMM Rehearsal)
(“We’ll learn it tomorrow. Think of another one.”)
Trouble On The Way (PTMM Rehearsal)
Make This Your Home (PTMM Rehearsal)
Cool Water (PTMM Rehearsal)
Route 66 (b-side of Alex Chilton)
Tossin’ and Turnin’ (b-side of The Ledge)
(great rockin version of the Bobby Lewis classic)
Ought To Get Love (Don’t Tell A Soul Outtake)
Kissing In Action (All Shook Down Outtake)

REPLACEMENTS RARITIES AS A ZIP FILE

What a great way to start the weekend. Bring out the sloppy raw rawk.

Oh! And this reminds me of a great book I read a bit back: Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, by Michael Azerrad. Excellent chapter on The Replacements.