Plead for Patience

Posted on 29 September 2013 | 2 Comments

I am embarrassed that I left you guys hanging here since my last posting.

Long story short, I got my passport.

Long story long, I’m getting to it. I promise. And I hope it will be soon. Life tends to get crazy sometimes over here.

This entry was posted in Blog Sweet Blog, music, Play Time and tagged #Blog Sweet Blog #Music. Bookmark the permalink.

2 responses to “Plead for Patience”

Harry Ramble (@HarryRamble) | 2 October 2013 at 3:06 pm |

Where’d I leave off? ’87, I guess. Oh, it’s THE girls, not their girls, in the previous. After the Pleased To Meet Me tour was over, they opened two shows for Keith Richard at the Brendan Byrne Arena. The show I saw featured the Replacements playing 40 surly minutes to forty acres of empty seats. They were inaudible and they looked pissed. It might have been the only arena gig they ever played(?). Later on, they said they never even got to meet Keith. Anyway, the promoter who thought Keith Richard and a bunch of session pros dubbed the Xpensive Winos could sell even one-third of Byrne Arena was sorely deceived. Keith went scurrying back to the Stones as soon as the lights came up. After that it was the last tour in ’91. By then, I was working in the CBS Building on 52nd Street and had to walk just a couple blocks west to see them at the Ritz again. This was the tour for All Shook Down, with its infamous liner note, “Fifteen musicians played on this record,” and then the names in alphabetical order. Chris Mars was gone, too, at this point, and it was a solo Paul show in every respect. I brought a girl from work to this show, but she made it very clear from the outset, I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. What do I remember from this show? Many of the ballads from the last two records were in the set. No goofy covers. The whole crowd singing Skyway. Not getting anywhere.

People say the Replacements were unappreciated in their time, but I always thought they got as far as they could get with what they had. Paul’s thing was intensely personal songs sung in a heart-wringing way, mixed with punk songs and novelty numbers. The band had very few arena-ready rock standards (a “Driver 8,” or a “Sunday Bloody Sunday” or a “Why Can’t I Be You?”) where Paul could take his foot off the emoting pedal and let the song carry him along. His audience expected him to tear his heart out in every song. Or worse, make a drunken ass of himself, something he had clearly tired of by 1987. So he pulled the plug at more or less the right time, and never had to pull a 9-5 for the rest of his days. Not a bad deal.

That’s how I remember it, anyway.
One Wink | 18 May 2014 at 12:58 am |

Thanks for this Harry! You can’t imagine how I enjoy reading your recollections 🙂 Keep ‘em coming if you’re so inclined and I hope you are.