Cool Times Call for Cool Shirts

You probably know that if I had to name my all-time favorite band it would be The Replacements of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. That's if I had to name my favorite band. If I didn't have to, it would most likely be Queensryche.

Anyway, I have tried for years to convince people of the Replacements' excellence, with little success. But I will try again.

Usually, in my attempts to win people over, I play them one of my favorite Mats songs, such as:

I Will Dare
Unsatisfied
Swingin Party
Left of the Dial
Sixteen Blue
Here Comes a Regular
Waitress in the Sky
Skyway
Alex Chilton
Hold My Life

There are probably 15 or 20 more in that category but these all come to mind and they are all fairly catchy and accessible. Still, most people are like, "Yeah, that's nice Hans. Now will you stop calling? It's 4 in the morning." Whatever. There's no wrong time for cool tunes (or cool shirts for that matter).

Since that technique has failed, and since I have nothing better to do than plug defunct 80s bands on a stoopid website read by precious few, I will attempt a new approach. I will play you a song that demonstrates that they had something that a lot of other bands could desperately use : a sense of humor (you reading, Bono? Oh, that's right, you're still mad because I took your blog off my honor roll on the right).

This song is by no means their best, and it's probably only charming to me because it's The Replacements, but who cares. It comes off their third release, Hootenanny, an album full of half-baked efforts mixed in with a few real gems. The story goes that when they went into the studio to record the album, they started screwing around, playing jokes on the engineer, switching instruments mid-song, and generally failing to give a shit. When they finally pulled it together and were ready to dig in and start giving it a real effort, they were told that the album was done. Oops.

Yeah, all we have here is Paul reading the City pages classifieds to music. But that's good enough for me.

Enjoy: Lovelines and the accompanying graphic aid.

***

Yeah, it was Bucky's time to go tonight. I was sad but it was the right thing to do. Good job, America. Now let's agree that Ace's run must end next week. Dude is annoying as hell.

I am shocked, I gotta say, SHOCKED, by cW nailing the Hypercolor clothing. But eventually I think most people will accept that this was the worst fashion moment in a decade full of 'em, the same way we all can safely admit that "We Built This City" is the worst song of all time. Whatever the case, cW's rise to genius status is nearly complete. Not sure who can stop him now, especially with Brian Castro still fuming because I haven't mailed him his lyric stumpah II prize yet.

Five points for each athlete you can name whose replica jersey I once owned. Hint: there ain't many.

Elton Brand is rapidly becoming my favorite NBA player. Still a little behind KG, but closing.