Minneapolis Blues II – Part 3

It must have been 1988 or 1989- I was a teenager on Long Island- and my friend Toast and I used to join our other friends in riding the bus to Babylon (about 30 minutes west of our hometown) in order to shop at a record store there that carried punk and hardcore records (there was also a pretty good donut shop next door). It was on one such Saturday trip that- with my limited funds- I purchased a Replacements cassette tape compilation- Boink!!- and while this import collection had only eight songs each one was totally different and I couldn’t stop listening to it. I had found my band. Over the next couple of years, Toast and I managed to acquire every album by the Replacements who were without a doubt one of our band Twinkie Force’s biggest musical influences.

I’m not big on nostalgia but a few years ago Toast and some of my other Long Island friends went to see the Replacements live on the band’s “reunion" tour (Paul and Tommy were the only original members- Chris declined to participate). While I would have loved to see the Replacements live back in the ‘80s, I had no interest in seeing them a quarter of a century later in what was obviously just a shameless cash grab. But that doesn’t change what the Replacements’ music meant to me- and still means to me- which is try to get some fun out of life. Here are some more of my favorites. Enjoy!

01. The Replacements – “Portland” (1989)

02. The Replacements – “Shiftless When Idle” (1981)

03. The Replacements – “Go” (1982)

04. The Replacements – “Customer” (1981)

05. The Replacements – “Takin’ a Ride” (1981)

06. The Replacements – “Careless” (1981)

07. The Replacements – “Another Girl, Another Planet (Live)” (1989)

08. The Replacements – “Here Comes a Regular (Alternate Version)” (1985)

09. The Replacements – “Johnny’s Gonna Die” (1981)

10. The Replacements – “Kiss Me on the Bus” (1985)

The Jean circa 1989 (Photo courtesy of Toast)

Listen to the playlist on Spotify...

... or check out the playlist on YouTube

(To open music in separate window, click title bar at top of video box)

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