You don't listen to this record enough

There isn't enough time or space to tell you how much I love the Replacements. So I'll try to just keep it short... youth, lots of real cheap beer, midwesterners, crazy talent and rock roll. The Replacements were the best American rock n roll band that ever happened during my life time.

And then they started sucking really hard. And they broke up. Sort of like that relationship you had with that crazy alcoholic girlfriend in '88. It was red hot. Then you realized she is nuts and there is no fucking way this can last. And it hurts, sucks, makes you cry. In the meantime, Pearl Jam has taken over the airwaves.

Rough stuff, brother.

GrandpaBoy album Dead Man Shake is Paul Westerberg's brief, lone contribution to musical greatness since the demise of the Mats. Its horribly cheap sounding. He plays drums and he's really bad. And yet the lp is filled with so many great songs. He just peels off the hooks. The lyrics are barbed and the notes very, very bluesy. Even a Jimmy Reed cover.

Do yourself a favor and get a hold of this. It will make you love music, remember when you lived and died for musical heroes and you weighed 20 pounds less. And that crazy hot girl that could never have lasted.

And didn't.

Jack of Heart- San Francisco/Ponytail

Apparently, this is one former Fatal and a Creteen making sounds nothing like their previous bands. Things slow down with just a touch of cowboy, but there's a groove if you wait for it. The A-side finds its particular stride nicely and settles in, even if the flip sounds like a couple of guys in mom's basement with a bong and a bucket. If both were soundtracks, the hit would be for a Gallic march into the sea, and the B-side would nicely support that new Danish comedy, "Idiots at the Beach."  I kept staring at the back cover, wondering if that juxtaposition of titles was harkening back to the SF ponytail boys of the 80s, psychefunkepuss lovin' and Naked Lunch showing but not reading pricks that rode rice rockets and talked a lot about process. Do those guys still exist? Speaking of the 80s, Larry Blakes on Telegraph is closing its doors after over thirty years. That downstairs space should have been the greatest east bay rock venue ever, but instead they gave that chick from the Heinz Club, what, three months? It's depressing that I spent more time in the upstairs bar, often trying to beat up the jukebox every time the Eagles came on. It was indeed a ponytailed bartender who 86ed me after that first attack.  I met my draft-dodging friend Harold in that bar, when I noticed he was drawing what looked like a scene from Under the Volcano on a cocktail napkin. We stopped here on a couple of bar crawls, and I think I even managed to avoid ever eating. Clearly, Telegraph has fallen on hard times in the last decade, but if somehow they could find a new owner who hates blues and rap, that street might have a chance.

Sandwina, God of Bloat

All hail the bloat of Sandwina, our symbol of that most religious of American holidays, Super Bowl Sunday.  We wish you reflux, indigestion, flatulence and halitosis at your Monday meeting. May Roger Goodell go with you . . .

Soundtrack to a Stained Pillow

It's as close to drugs as I get these days, the last few days of the flu, and  I was seeking a soundtrack to the fever break and the rancid sweat staining the pillow. John Prine's "Sam Stone" has always been a friend of mine, and this morning I wondered which was the greater line from that famous couplet ("There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes/ Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose."). Perhaps they can't be separated.  Roy Wood's "Nancy, Sing Me a Song" had that otherworldly quality suited for the half-dream state to thrash in, and Skip James' eerie falsetto on "Devil Got My Woman" made me cry for mommy. The undisputed king of the saturated sheets, though, is Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. You can mutter "bombast" all you want, but in the throes of the fever grip the critical judgment tends to take a holiday, and this sounds like the fullest ambition met.  The scale of this man's reach makes the glory of last Saturday's weeding effort feel rather small, and the lyrics have their moments, too ("Sometimes I take my breakfast right off of the mirror"). OK, it's r'n'r decadence 101, but a little self-mythologizing self-destruction almost sounds refreshing these days.  Next time that useless doctor gives you the weak antibiotic, try Mr. Pierce instead, a drug for those too old to take the traditional variety.

Straight Arrows- Can't Count/Something Happens

Was pleasantly surprised to find this in the dollar bin having heard good things from multiple sources, and them sources don't lie. Big hooks on both tunes nearly lovingly buried in boombox production. Charmingly inept two-note leads that keep the kids dancing, and a stomping drive to the pop that conjures images of sweaty hair flung aggressively side to side, letting out the week's frustration in two minutes of release. In other words, more Aussie power. Word is a new record just hit, and I want it.

No respect!

Pitchers and catchers report in about 10 days and something is stuck in my craw. According to the "national media", the Phillies are now the best team in the NL. Not your defending champs, the San francisco Giants. This is bc Philly signed Cliff Lee and they have a hot prospect to replace Jayson Werth, who left for Nationals and $1 trillion.

If memory serves the Giants beat the Phillies in the post season. They also beat Cliff Lee TWICE in the World Series. But somehow if you now add the Phillies and Cliff Lee they are now so much better than the Giants, that the defending champs don't get the benefit of the doubt to repeat.

No respect!

Down Home Ways

Muddy Waters was the first bluesman I discovered without help from an adult. My dad liked BB King and John Lee Hooker, but I discovered Muddy as a California kid transplanted near Chicago. It's his voice and stellar backing band that I really dig. Check out the great harmonica work on so many of his songs. That's James Cotton. It didn't hurt that Muddy recorded for the legendary Chess label. The Stones even named a song after the address of Chess.

Anywho, this is pretty good introduction to his music. My faves are Hoochie Coochie Man, Forty days and Forty Nights, Young Fashioned Ways and I'm Ready. It's pretty sexually charged stuff from a Chicago OG by way of Mississippi.