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With their back catalogue reissued in expanded form this week, RBP revels in the ragged glory that was the early Replacements. Herewith a rave review from Minneapolis native Blake Gumprecht, penned for Op in summer 1983. -- Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

BOB STINSON drinks a lot, plays guitar loud, idolizes Steve Howe and Johnny Winter, looks like a janitor, and works as a cook in an Italian restaurant.

Chris Mars paints and draws, doesn't talk much, and looks like he's seen his own murderer when he's playing drums. Tommy Stinson is 16, likes mirrors, leaps and kicks while playing his bass, but has gotten over yelling "f**k" into the microphone for the adolescent thrill of it. Paul Westerberg wears flannel shirts, sings out of the right side of his mouth, writes songs simple and direct, and prefers to be alone. All live at home. They play rock and roll from the basement, with nods to early '70s radio metal, punk, blues, 60s pop. Indeed, on the surface, there is almost nothing extraordinary about Minneapolis' Replacements. But they're the best band I've ever heard.

They've been around since late 1979. Tommy was 12, stood about half as high as his amp stacks, Mars had hair down to his shoulders and his ear to bands like Aerosmith and Ted Nugent, and Bob preferred '70s art rock and flashy blues guitar. They took speed, got drunk as hell, and jammed loud-as-f**k, playing 180 miles an hour versions of "Roundabout" and the like.

Westerberg was a janitor and would stop and listen to them play, by the bushes, on the way home from work each day. He had no idea who they were, but one day got a call from Chris, who he'd known from school. Soon he was playing guitar, and after single-handedly getting rid of a couple different vocalists, also found himself in front of the mike.

From a bunch of drunk and stoned obnoxious teens who did little more than piss off the neighbors and the family upstairs, they quickly began writing originals. Four of those – "Raised in the City," "Shut Up," "Don't Turn Me Down," and "Shape Up" became their first demo. Westerberg gave a copy to Peter Jesperson, co-owner of Twin/Tone Records who also booked a local club at the time. So knocked out was Jesperson that he immediately became the band's manager, and began planning demo time for Twin/Tone. All before the band ever played live. That came July 1, 1980, at a halfway house for alcoholics of some sort. Tommy wasn't there (he'd fallen out of a tree and broken his arm), but the other three were drunk and speeding and got thrown out without playing a note. The man responsible said they'd never play again. They were called the Impediments. The next day they became the Replacements.

Two weeks later they were in the studio recording their first Twin/Tone demo, with tentative plans for a single. What resulted were the first two tracks for their debut album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out the Trash, released in October, 1981.

I'd never heard of 'em, and still might not have had I not called Twin/Tone to get a copy of the new Suburbs album for KJHK. Also in the package were albums by the Pistons and the Replacements. Almost immediately something clicked: four guys who really didn't give a sh*t whether anyone liked them, playing raw, loud, fast, and sloppy – all with humor, innocence, honesty; you knew they couldn't be doing anything else. Power trash, they called it – eighteen real life accounts of their day-to-day lives in the city, all in a reckless, out-of-control fury of guitar noise and speedway rhythms, but with that something extra, something magical, that makes you feel rather than just hear.

The difference was Westerberg, an ordinary guy with an extraordinary talent for capturing it all in a song. Oh sure, I'd heard it all before, the drunken nights, pissed off fights, bratty anger. But Westerberg has the ability to make you feel like you're in the car with him, alongside him at the door, drinking from the same bottle.

The follow up, an eight-song, 12-inch called The Replacements Stink, was really more of the same. Louder, hotter, and better recorded, it immediately got them pegged as "hardcore." Quite simply, they're not. While I still played it constantly, Stink ultimately left me dissatisfied. I dunno, I guess it's just that they almost did sound like a hardcore band, and I knew they were so much more.

But the Replacements' new one, Hootenanny, is a dream come true. It's their first record to show all sides: bluesy rockers, loud fast stuff, poppy, f**king around and almost folky, and Westerberg all by himself. The Replacements fool around all the time with the kinds of things most bands these days don't have the guts to put out as b-sides. Hootenanny is an album in the truest sense, and, befitting the title it's a hoot from start to finish.

The two tracks that make this one really special are "Within Your Reach" and "Willpower." The first is Westerberg's first serious, truly solo piece on record, just him on vocals, guitar, even synthesizer, backed by a rhythm box. It's a heart-wrenching love song with a cool sound. "Willpower," tense and chilling, is the most jolting song I've ever heard. Haunting production, an ominous rhythm interrupted by bursts of anguish and noise, and vocals that rise three octaves during the song build to a terrifying climax of simultaneous anger, resignation, and strength. Shivers my spine every time, and nearly makes me cry.

I don't know the blues, but Westerberg's voice speaks the blues to me. Cigarette and whisky choked, it's rough, expressive, and so human. His unpretentious ability to capture the drunken loud and insane moments with the quiet and lonely, the frustrated with the angry, the smartass fun with the quiet empty solitude, is unmatched. There's a simplicity and honesty to his words that reminds me of Alex Chilton. He's no poet, his words just don't make it on paper, but when he spits 'em out...oh my soul.

To be honest, without Westerberg the Replacements would be nothing. But for as much of a goon as Bob seems to be, his guitar speaks. Sometimes you wonder whether he has any idea of what he's doing, where his fingers are going even, or what he'd be like if he weren't stoned or drunk, but his bursting noise leads are sometimes chilling, and, somehow, almost always fit, y'know. It's all gone to the kids' heads a bit, but Tommy's nonetheless only gotten better on bass, like the rest of them, and Mars is as good a rock-n-roll drummer as you'll find. I'm moving to the Twin Cities in two weeks.

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