Scrapbook
Before enduring a boring/galling 45 minutes of football on Sunday, I spent 5 hours across two train journeys. Normally my train journeys exist as pockets in time where I run through RPGs from the 90s on a handheld console from 2005; Chrono Trigger was dispatched in such a manner on regular trips to Edinburgh, as Dragon Quest IV is soon to be. Every so often, however, the intrinsic stigma attached to playing video games and, furthermore, playing them in public becomes too much to bear and I read a book instead.
For a while, I have owned Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground, 1981 - 1991 but never particularly engaged with it. I tried last summer but could barely make it through the introduction, despite being fascinated by the majority of bands involved - I am not a reader.
But in the past few weeks, as anyone who reads Twitter accounts associated with us might have gathered, I have become obsessed with The Replacements. Such is the affection I feel towards them, I refuse to introduce them to you as a YouTube video embedded in the beginning of this. In a period when I don’t pirate music (and haven’t done for nearly a year), I’m trying to make a statement. This is serious.
Of the two chapters I read on that train journey, one was about Sonic Youth and the other was about The Replacements. Narrative veracity and bias aside, the one thing I found fairly illuminating about both of these bands was the disparity between their public image and work ethic. Early in their career, The Replacements got labelled as too drunk and too dumb by some local reviewer. Every mention of them since had fed off, and into, this perception.
That public perception, and the media’s role in shaping it, is a big thing.
Way back when in a former life, Venue Magazine published a print review of our self-released debut EP. Placed directly above a review of Snoop Dogg’s 2008 release Ego Trippin’, it represented a watershed moment and an immense source of personal pride. A physical version of a critical reaction to something self-created essentially marked a point where the band became ‘real’. That feeling cannot be understated at all.
And so, with that in mind, it was fairly terrible to hear of the news that Venue is soon to be closed indefinitely. The local “scene”, which I have been fairly critical of in the past, has shown a rare sense of community and organised various concerts to raise awareness and drive to save the magazine. We are very grateful to be playing at The Louisiana leg of this series.
PS. If you liked this extended piece, tune in next time for “Pavement And You: How Working Hard Means Playing Hard”, inspired by our recent showing at Start The Bus.
DB x
