Please allow me to begin this review with an anecdote, most likely apocryphal. Seems Minneapolis’ The Replacements went into a recording studio, and when they left the cleaning person, or whoever, found vomit–on the ceiling.
True or not, the story serves as a testimony to The Replacements’ reputation as a band of drunken don’t give a fucks–they were the band that got a big break in the form of an invitation to appear on Saturday Night Live and literally sabotaged themselves by getting drunk beforehand and sending the word “fuck” out to an entire nation–live and on the air. SNL producer Lorne Michaels’ exact words afterwards were “Your band will never perform on television again!”
The Replacements were infamous for the falling down drunk live shows; put ‘em on stage, and there was a good chance they’d muck it up. Whether they did so on purpose is a good question, but they seemed to take a perverse pleasure in falling apart in public. Songs would disintegrate in real time, vocalist Paul Westerberg and guitarist Bob Stinson might get into a tussle, and on many a night the band said to hell with playing their originals in favor of playing a bunch of cover songs they’d never played before. Depending on your point of view, such shows were either a rip-off or one of the most liberating experiences of your life.
This is where 1985’s The Shit Hits the Fans comes in. The cassette-only live album captures the band at their hit-or-miss best at a show in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and depending on who you talk to the cassette was a) seized from an illegal taper by the band’s sound guy or b) stolen by the band’s sound guy from the club’s manager, who’d asked for permission to record the show (Westerberg’s reply: “Why? We suck.”).
Doesn’t much matter which story’s true; what matters is that The Shit Hits the Fans is a staggering demonstration of the band’s who gives a shit approach to performing live. And what makes it even more mind-boggling is the fact that The Replacements weren’t just getting on their feet; they were touring after the release of the critically acclaimed Let It Be, and had every reason to play nice.
Granted, the show was a tour-ender and the band was playing to some 30 people in a club that could hold some 1,200. Still, The Replacements were touring to promote a product and one can only assume they wanted to sell it. The Replacements had a different idea.
Consider this: of the 24 songs the band played that night, only 5 were originals. The remaining 19 songs were by everyone from BTO to U2. Some of the songs were covers any bar band might play; Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” Led Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Heartbreaker,” Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” and the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Others are more surprising: Mötley Crüe’s “Merry-Go-Round,” Robyn Hitchcock’s “Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus,” the Vertebrats’ “Left in the Dark,” the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There,” and the Carter Family’s “No More the Moon Shines on Lorena.”
It would have been one thing had the Replacements known their way around this mangy collection of odds and sods. But one listen to The Shit Hits the Fans makes it manifestly obvious they were playing most of them for the first time. U2’s “I Will Follow” falls apart within seconds. REM’s “Radio Free Europe” is an off-key disaster.
Both Mötley Crüe’s “Merry-Go-Round” and Elvis Presley’s “Lawdy, Miss Clawdy” are unrecognizable. On the fragment that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special,” Westerberg slurs his words like a bar drunk. I’ve heard dozens of bands cover “Iron Man,” and The Replacements’ version is by far the worst. Westerberg’s unintelligible on “Misty Mountain Hop.” On “Heartbreaker” he blows the opening riff and calls it a day. On an almost half-decent “Can’t Get Enough” Westerberg name drops Hüsker Dü. Set closer “Let It Be” dies before it’s even begun.
Were The Replacements simply too messed up to play that night, or were they saying, “We could be on our best behavior and blow you away, but we prefer to make a shamble of things out of sheer perversity”? It’s a valid question. Here’s what the band had to say about the cassette:
“Ever wanted to be popular, the life of the party (just plain liked, ever)? Well, we did. And now that the absurd dream seems to be within reach, we’ve come to the sobering realization that we don’t fuckin’ know how to pull it off.
People come to see us and what do we go and do? What we want – play covers, basically wing it and embarrass a lot of people in the process (a dunce cap never fit so well). For worse or for worser, it’s us, and without that stuff we’d die a dull death.”
The band fares better on its originals, making it clear they could have played a coherent set had they wanted. But that would have been a dull death, and the band preferred to blow things up real good. True, they make a mess of “Lovelines” and “Have You Been to College” (a band rarity), but both songs have their chaotic charm. And on both“Sixteen Blue” and “I Will Dare” the band holds things together while Westerberg pours out his soul on vocals. As for the hard-charging “Can’t Hardly Wait,” it’s a shambolic showcase for the band’s raw punk power.
The Shit Hits the Fans is a goof, a statement of purposelessness, a work of dada art even. Many a one-chord wonder has fashioned an aesthetic out of amateurism, but The Replacements were accomplished musicians and were doing it out of perversity.
There’s a fine line between getting fucked up and fucking around, and on The Shit Hits the Fans that line is impossibly blurred. But one things for sure–this remarkable document is an audacious middle finger to professionalism, earnestness, and every other bugaboo the band despised, and a proud poke in the eye to the specious notion that it’s a band’s responsibility to give an audience what it wants. That said, the folks who attended the show obviously had a great time. Out of sheer ineptitude is great art made.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
