|
Post by Kathy on Sept 16, 2014 21:16:20 GMT -5
A few bits from the RS article:
Westerberg says he thought about working as a producer or trying his hand as a Nashville songwriter, but he has learned over the years that he “doesn’t work well with others.” “He was doing stuff in the basement by himself, instead of making records with other people,” says Stinson about Westerberg. “The artistic palette just kinda dries up. But I think he’s gotten around that corner.”
Last summer, after watching bands from Pavement to the Pixies re-form, and after turning down some “ridiculous” offers, the Replacements became one of the last of the great indie-rock titans to reunite. That turned into a series of high-profile (and lucrative) gigs with Freese and guitarist Dave Minehan, including two headlining shows at Coachella in April.
Westerberg says it hasn’t been a huge windfall,because the band had some old financial obligations. “We owe the Mob,” he says. “Dead rats in the mail.” Certain performances have been excellent,others less so. (“If I could remember every song and how to play them, I would choose to do that,” says Westerberg, who often forgets lyrics onstage. “When I forget, it’s fun to have the crowd continue the song with the proper lyrics.”)
---------------------------------
Playing the shows themselves has been a thrill, but Westerberg hasn’t relished life back on the road. “We spent four days in Seattle,” he says, “and by the second day I was gripped with a sort of agoraphobia, afraid to go do anything.”
---------------------------------
Now, the Replacements say they’ll likely make an album at some point in the future. Westerberg, who often writes on piano as well as guitar, has plenty of songs in the hopper. One candidate for inclusion might be called “Are You in It for the Money?”; another is titled “Dead Guitar Player” (which he says was written before Dunlap’s illness). This fall they’ll play their first show in New York since 1991, at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, and their first Minnesota gig too, which will happen at a minor-league baseball park.
And unlike many rock reunions, which are pure business, this one has actually brought two far-flung old friends back together, perhaps for good. “We’ll call each other up when things go south, because we know we can get a laugh out of each other,” says Westerberg. “How many people do you know that you can call up and get a guaranteed gut-wrenching laugh? Sometimes it’s worth all the money and kissing and hugging in the world.” And then, on cue, Westerberg and Stinson let out a simultaneous “awwww” and throw themselves at each other in an over the-top hug that looks like a wrestling hold. “I think,” says Stinson, “we got to realize we might need each other a bit.”
|
|
|
Post by chisel93 on Sept 16, 2014 22:17:42 GMT -5
What issue is this? Is it the one with Robin Williams on the cover?
|
|
|
Post by watts on Sept 16, 2014 22:50:39 GMT -5
A new Replacements album would likely sound like a cross between 'Eventually', the 'Open Season' tracks, and the the two new tracks from 'Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?'. And that would be a damned fine thing (what with Josh or Michael Bland on the skins), but it will sound about like 'Eventually' (his most solidly commercial album IMO, and one of his finest collections, even with the 'Mats).
An approach such as the 'Songs For Slim' tracks would be much more appealing to many (and me), but would require a bit of thought to get that sort of result. Or perhaps a complete lack of thought, dunno. Maybe when Keef gets off the road for a bit and gets his calender clear he could help the lads out?
|
|
|
Post by jess on Sept 16, 2014 23:54:04 GMT -5
What issue is this? Is it the one with Robin Williams on the cover? Taylor Swift. The issue after Robin Williams.
|
|
|
Post by Otto Jr. on Sept 17, 2014 0:35:16 GMT -5
When does this damn thing go on the newsstands? I can't find it anywhere.
|
|
|
Post by hootenanny58 on Sept 17, 2014 0:54:46 GMT -5
Westerberg says it hasn't been a huge windfall, because the band had some old financial obligations. “We owe the Mob,” he says. I've heard that one before - and from a pretty reliable source: my Mats "claim to fame" I guess. I dropped out of work for a bunch of days to join the Slim Circus around the end of 1997 in the midst of his unplugged tour of the north-east. (It was actually Slim, a black Charvel acoustic guitar and a station wagon, the Sam Adams in Philly, the Elvis Room in Portsmouth and the Green Street Grill in Cambridge, but who's counting? I would have gone on to Cleveland with him except I got a message on my home phone threatening me with a good old fashioned firing.) I've been an unusually dedicated collector of stories since I was old enough to mumble, and wouldn't you know it, but the guitar player in "my Beatles" turns out to be the king of all story tellers!? (The man has THE prime requisite for writing great songs; and great songs he did give us.) I've recounted a good many of the yarns I picked up from him - on the old alt.music BBS as well as the MWT blog. (Replacements lore. The best kind!) Mr. Dunlap was a side-splitting goldmine. Slim was on grape soda at the time but I wasn't, so eventually the irresistible reunion question hopped out of the Guinness stew. Slim answered that the minute some musical animal calling itself The Replacements came out of the woodwork, there was a "bar tab" and a bunch of lawyers - not saloon keepers! - waiting to collect. I mean, WTF. Isn't there a statute of limitations on these things? What kind of contract was that that 23 years on, the Heinekens come back to slam you? (Talk about hang-overs.) Musta been one helluva tab LOL. (Or maybe it was those sh!tty DTAS and ASD videos?)
|
|
|
Post by FreeRider on Sept 17, 2014 9:00:54 GMT -5
you know, that pisses me off about the goddamn label. why can't these guys catch a break? This SHOULD be a nice windfall financial reward for them, but the label, which has probably made a lot more money off of them, could write off some of the debt---IF they wanted to.
Yeah, yeah, I know it's a business. But hell, this is what happens when you have nothing but MBA suits who are not appreciative of the art trying to squeeze your lemon. Look, I understand that the label put their investment into the Mats and shelled lots of money for studio time, etc...but they also share in the blame of not knowing what to bloody do with the band, how to promote them in the best way. If they had suit who was smart enough, they'd have let the Mats be.....just like Reprise records (which is owned by Warners!) let Neil Young be who he was.
I remember in some interview, Paul has said that the Mats did make thousands of dollars---none of which he and the band ever saw. It was all gobbled up by Warner. I mean, how much could they still be on the hook for so as to make these reunion gigs less financially rewarding?
If they can get those DVDs and CD's out, then I hope it sells well enough to help them out and to earn a profit. I mean, kick baby Jesus in the face, these record label lawyers and suits are persistent bastards.
|
|
|
Post by pleased2meetme on Sept 17, 2014 13:00:55 GMT -5
I would be willing to bet,to some extent,the unpaid debt to the label is what prevented any sort of reunion from happening sooner...obviously Slim's stroke pushed them over the edge to finally do something. I had a contact at Sire back during their run at that label and yes they were way in debt by the time ASD came out...and yes ASD was most certainly recorded as a PW solo album,but the label refused to let it be marketed that way,and that is a fact.
|
|
|
Post by adamapple on Sept 17, 2014 15:16:04 GMT -5
they spent very little time "thinking" when they did their best, including the SLIM stuff, so i imagine them sticking with no overdubs, keep it simple, and have fun! also Paul's voice is back to that Let it Be/Tim era sound, more from the gut then the throat, good stuff!
|
|
|
Post by FreeRider on Sept 17, 2014 15:32:12 GMT -5
ah well...i know it's a business. There probably is some funny accounting on the part of the label, given that the Mats were not necessarily focused on the legal stuff. He may be a little naive about the business end, but if anyone had to pay for the debts being racked up, I hope it was the MBA and suits who were overseeing the Mats---I hope they all got fired.
here's what Paul had to say from an interview with StarPolish, some years back (the full interview is in the PW article thread):
STARPOLISH: Is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
WESTERBERG: We were not ignorant, and we were not smart or savvy, but we had the brains -- I had the brains; we did not sign anything with our first independent label (Twin Tone). Nor did I sign anything when it was licensed over to someone else. So at this point now I'm going to contest the validity of what they're calling a contract, because I had a lawyer advise me when I was 19 years old not to sign it, and I didn't. So I've never signed anything. Their claim will be that they poured all their resources into promoting the band, and that may be well true, but I think they probably made their money tenfold by now, and it's about time they cough up.
STARPOLISH: So youre hoping to get the early Replacements master recordings back?
WESTERBERG: I'm hoping that the people who are releasing the records either give me a fair deal or give me the records back. They don't have a contract with my name on it.
STARPOLISH: Do you have a timetable in your mind for sorting this out?
WESTERBERG: I don't worry about it. If I put too much thought to that, I'll start worrying in the wrong direction. I talked to the lawyers and they said, "Well, why didn't you bring this up 10 years ago?" And I said, "Well, 10 years ago I was on tour and writing songs and doing my job. I was being a performer." It's still the same today. It's not my job to sit down and fight these legal things. I'm not made of that kind of material. But I knew something was rotten to begin with and we'll take care of it in the end. I threw half the tapes in the river anyway.
STARPOLISH: So the musician is still as the bottom of the food chain. Do you see that ever changing?
WESTERBERG: If you're talking about dollars, it's always been the case. It's always been the managers and the handlers and the publishers -- the ones who don't play the instruments -- who make the money. The artist gets the bitch goddess albatross: success and applause. You get laid and you get your drugs and your hotel rooms and your sweet death all alone -- it hasn't changed a hell of a lot from back when it began. Maybe performers are more self-contained, producing and recording and writing their own material like I have-- maybe that might help a little bit. But in the end, there's always somebody that comes between you and the audience that has to get the music to them, and you have to roll the dice and let it go. If you get screwed, you get screwed.
STARPOLISH: Can a recording artist make a living today if they don't have a distribution system in place?
WESTERBERG: If they're good enough. You could play the major label game, and you've just got to be aware that they're going to throw you away as soon as they're done with you. But they'll love you when you're on the top, and it's much more comfortable to be on a level where they're not expecting you to be the cornerstone of the company. If you've got the talent, you're a damn fool not to go for it. I wouldn't tell the most talented person in the world to stand back and do it yourself. Take care of your art and your music and make sure you look good. Seriously. That's more important than any of this other shit. It's still rock "n" roll. Let someone else count the beans.
|
|
|
Post by FreeRider on Sept 17, 2014 16:25:05 GMT -5
as for the economics of a band, as to why they don't make money off of album sales, check out these links: www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtmlThis one is about Warner's creative accounting: Excerpt: As you hopefully know, with a major record label, the band gets an advance to record the album. From then on, the label no longer pays the band anything. Even though the band accrues royalties on albums sold, those royalties simply go towards repaying the advance. Most label bands never fully repay the advance, and are thus considered "unrecouped." This does not mean (as record label defenders will claim) that such bands were money losers for the label. The labels still take their own hefty cut from any album sales. They just also hang onto the tiny fraction of album sales that are officially designated for the actual musicians. Basically, what Quirk notes, is that whether through malice or indifference (or a combination of both), the general major label attitude towards "unrecouped" bands is that the accounting is meaningless, so they don't even bother. That means they make massive mistakes -- such as the time Warner just happened to make a $10,000 mistake in Warner's favor, and then mocked Quirk for even caring about such a measly sum. www.techdirt.com/articles/20091201/1957497156.shtml
|
|
bside
Star Scout
Posts: 356
|
Post by bside on Sept 17, 2014 16:59:48 GMT -5
I remember seeing some pretty poor sales figures for the remastered reissues in particular. Not sure how some of the recent vinyl did, like record store day, but I always felt that if half the people who actually namedrop the Replacements supported them financially, they'd be a lot better off. Tried to do some research on this site and found:
"In April, Rhino reissued the Replacements' first three albums and an EP for hometown Minneapolis label Twin Tone. They've since sold 22,000 copies combined in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan."
"Songs for Slim debuted at #108 on the Billboard Charts! 108 THE REPLACEMENTS SONGS FOR SLIM 3,930 Last week it sold another 1150 so it's up to just over 5000 sold."
Maybe I'm reaching for a correlation here and we can all argue that the record industry is dead, but they just sold out a 14,000 cap stadium and roughly 1/3rd that number bought the latest, Songs For Slim, arguably a charity album, in the first two weeks?
|
|
Chris
First Class Scout
Posts: 156
|
Post by Chris on Sept 17, 2014 18:36:44 GMT -5
A few bits from the RS article: Westerberg says it hasn’t been a huge windfall,because the band had some old financial obligations. “We owe the Mob,” he says. “Dead rats in the mail.” Well that settles it - the boys just have to keep these high-profile shows going for the next few years. Hopefully with some new tunes in tow.
|
|
|
Post by thematsarealive on Sept 17, 2014 20:00:31 GMT -5
Has anyone been able to scan the article or find text of the entire thing?
|
|
|
Post by FreeRider on Sept 17, 2014 21:33:30 GMT -5
I remember seeing some pretty poor sales figures for the remastered reissues in particular. Not sure how some of the recent vinyl did, like record store day, but I always felt that if half the people who actually namedrop the Replacements supported them financially, they'd be a lot better off. Tried to do some research on this site and found: "In April, Rhino reissued the Replacements' first three albums and an EP for hometown Minneapolis label Twin Tone. They've since sold 22,000 copies combined in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan." "Songs for Slim debuted at #108 on the Billboard Charts! 108 THE REPLACEMENTS SONGS FOR SLIM 3,930 Last week it sold another 1150 so it's up to just over 5000 sold." Maybe I'm reaching for a correlation here and we can all argue that the record industry is dead, but they just sold out a 14,000 cap stadium and roughly 1/3rd that number bought the latest, Songs For Slim, arguably a charity album, in the first two weeks? you know, that's what is so puzzling. but maybe not...I thought in an interview, someone asked Paul about the Pixies reunion and he said the Pixies had a waaay bigger fanbase than theirs. And I thought he put the Mats fanbase around 70,000? I dunno. If the record label is trying to recoup their losses from their initial "investment" (actually, let's call it for what it is--a friggin' loan and marketing campaign), then I guess the poor record sales ain't gonna cut it. Then they're forced to tour to make money....and as Paul has said before, they never made money from the tours either. So all that Warner's can sink their teeth into is the royalties from the songs, the ownership of them, which would make them money???
|
|
|
Post by FreeRider on Sept 17, 2014 21:38:47 GMT -5
this is really amazing to see where the money goes for a band.
|
|
|
Post by redowl on Sept 17, 2014 22:40:52 GMT -5
When does this damn thing go on the newsstands? I can't find it anywhere. They had big stacks at the downtown Mpls. Barnes and Noble today, finally. I've never been happier to see Taylor Swift.
|
|
|
Post by ClamsCasino on Sept 18, 2014 1:18:56 GMT -5
It was delivered to retailers last Friday. Everyone who's stocking it should definitely have it on the shelf by now.
|
|
Jer
Beagle Scout
Posts: 1,182
|
Post by Jer on Sept 18, 2014 7:03:58 GMT -5
So all that Warner's can sink their teeth into is the royalties from the songs, the ownership of them, which would make them money??? Actually, that's the one thing they can't touch, the songwriting royalties. Most modern-era songwriters own their own songs, and I'm pretty certain Paul does. There are exceptions, like a special contract where they're a ghost writer, or write a song for someone else, and throw in ownership, for an agreed one-time fee, but that wouldn't apply to most of what Paul's done. The label owns the album-versions (recordings) of the songs, but not the songs. Paul can't turn around and re-release Tim. He would have to negotiate to get his tapes back - like a few bands have done - Social Distortion, Motley Crue, Dinosaur Jr (I think), and Husker Du is trying to do. If one of the songs on Tim were used in a commercial, the label would get a decent cut. Now days, artists are re-recording their hits - sounding as close to the original as they can - to use in video games and commercials, because as a separate performance of the song the label won't get a cut and the artist gets more. That's what Bob Mould did for See a Little Light in the TIAA commercial - it's not the Workbook version, it was re-recorded for the commercial. Crafty!
|
|
|
Post by BronxTeacher on Sept 18, 2014 8:19:44 GMT -5
I read the article yesterday as I was browsing through the local book store. One line threw me a bit: Tommy lives in Hudson, NY "with his daughter." Like most people here, I don't like to pry too much into the personal affairs of the band members, but what about his wife? Am I reading too much into that one line?
|
|