Medias in res

Rock and roll has been known to occur in the Midwest. There is a city called Rockford, Illinois, for example, that is famous for more than its water park. But let's face it. The great prairie touring circuit is not where one goes to live fast and die young. The whole point of Axl Rose is that he took a bus right the hell out of Lafayette. No, the cocaine and cadillacs and cooze are not generally sought at church hall gigs between Duluth and Madison. But try telling that to the Replacements.

I've discovered my favorite band of the eighties. The beauteous crash of the Pixies had once assured me that someone tended the flame during the long night between London Calling and Nevermind, but honestly, who can really relate to Frank Black? Incest and aliens are not that central to my life. Somehow the insectoid yelping of the Kirkwood brothers, in all its senseless glory, speaks more clearly to the sun-fried coyote of my heart. But still, my brain will never be chemically damaged enough to love the Meat Puppets as well as they deserve. The Minutemen, aah now there's a band you want to cuddle and cook breakfast for...if only you didn't feel dirty for intruding on the perfect love of Mike Watt and D Boon. Sigh. I've yet to penetrate the shroud of fuzz that cloaks Hüsker Dü, although when I learned that both Mould and Hart are gay (formerly an open secret) some light shone through. My sense is that they prefer to be somewhat obscured, which intrigues but does not affirm me. So I've circled from Boston to Phoenix to San Pedro to the Twin Cities, and finally found them. The other gang of punks from Minneapolis.

The Replacements, like many of the best punk bands, don't seem to know or care that they are a punk band. They have no mission statement, no agenda, no uniform, no anthem. While most groups seek to define themselves with a consistent sound, the 'Mats don't even try. On their first record they frequently toy with a poppy hook, then throw it away without committing. Each LP veers in tone from vitriolic hardcore to jangly goofs to heartbreaking piano ballads. Evidently Minnesota was a long way from the skatepunk/crossover scenes gestating in California.

It is however closer to Cleveland, where the Dead Boys provide something of an antecedent; the sneering bravado on Young, Loud, and Snotty is broken up by Not Anymore, a skid row funeral hymn that lays bare the underlying desperation. It's difficult to understand the Replacements' mood swings, unless you've ever known a drunk. Here are four shambolic miscreants possessed of more talent than ambition, lead by a songwriter who fearlessly documents the emotional vagaries not of an iconic frontman but of a bitter and cocky and hopeful and broken person like you or me. Paul Westerberg's raw throated bleary eyed confessionalism reminds me of a couple of my other favorite singers, Conor Oberst and Spencer Moody.

Falling in love changes you. The thing you love becomes part of you.