Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History - Hardcover

Here, finally, is the rollicking story of the notorious and celebrated band, as told by veteran music journalist Jim Walsh, an eyewitness who was always at the periphery of the storm, and often at its eye.

The Replacements were superheroes: They rescued a whole planet from 80s music. Jim Walsh s loving, engrossing oral history is the book they deserve.

Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch, and Songbook

The Replacements were all at once 100-percent right and totally and completely wrong; absolutely inspiring and thoroughly infuriating; gloriously brilliant and utterlystoopid. Any writer who would dare tell their story would have to match those attributes and contradictions, but there was only one up for the task, and Jim Walsh has done a tremendous job of it.

Jim DeRogatis, pop-music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, co-host of Public Radio s Sound Opinions, and author of Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America s Greatest Rock Critic

The rest of us have only seen the Replacements through a crack in the drapes. Jim Walsh actually took the wheel from time to time and managed to get closer to the band than I ever thought possible. He makes me lonesome for the 80s.

Joe Soucheray, St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist and host of KSTP-AM s Garage Logic

The Replacements made a mark on Minneapolis serrated and deep, like a battle scar, as one person remembers in this book. Can the life of a band be captured in mere words? Jim Walsh uses oral history as the way to know if any of it mattered, or if it even happened.

Diane Middlebrook, author of Suits Me, the bi

They were a mass of contradictions . . . they were kings of irony before irony was everywhere . . . they were an ongoing critique of absolutely everything, including themselves . . . and they hated rock stars, but loved rock. Author Jim Walsh, from his Preface

Formed in a Minneapolis basement in 1979, the Replacements were a notorious rock n roll circus, renowned for self-sabotage, cartoon shtick, stubborn contrarianism, stage-fright, Dionysian benders, heart-on-sleeve songwriting, and ultimately critical and popular acclaim. While rock then and now is lousy with superficial stars and glossy entertainment, the Replacements were as warts-and-all real as life itself.

In the first book to take on the jumble of facts, fictions, and contradictions behind the band, veteran Minneapolis music journalist Jim Walsh distills archival interviews with bandmembers and hundreds of hours of new interviews with their friends, families, fellow musicians, fans, and co-conspirators into an absorbing oral history worthy of the scruffy quartet that many have branded the most influential band to emerge from the 80s. Former manager Peter Jesperson, Paul Stark and Dave Ayers of Twin/Tone Records, Bob Mould and Grant Hart of rivals Hüsker Dü, the legendary Curtiss A, Soul Asylum s Dan Murphy, Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland, R.E.M. s Peter Buck, power-pop hero Alex Chilton, Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, and replacement Replacements Slim Dunlap and Steve Foley among dozens of others explain the scene that spawned the band, offer insights into the band s workings, and explain the Replacements lasting influence more than fifteen years after their breakup. The story is illustrated with both rarely seen and classic photos, as well as archival materials.

Long overdue, here finally is the rollicking story behind the turbulent and celebrated band that came on fast and furious and finally flamed out, from one eyewitness who was always at the periphery of the storm, and often at its eye.