Geometry was a tough class for me back in high school. I think it was the abstract space and math part of it all. If I would get really stressed out while taking a test, I would think, “While I am here fretting about this test, Tommy Stinson is not much older than me in a van somewhere and rocking the clubs full throttle.” I don’t really know why, but this fact helped me focus and realize life gives everybody different choices, and not to stress about everything. Unfortunately, trying to explain this whole thing to my parents when I got a D in that class didn’t really go over too well. “Who the hell is Tommy Stinson?”
Tommy, of course, was the rock punk kid holding down the bottom in the one and only Replacements. This week, we take the way-back machine to 1993 and revisit the album where Tommy picked up the six string and moved to the center mic with his post-Replacements band Bash & Pop (Sire Records 1993 and iTunes). For my money, this album is a true lost classic. It has the driving drums, the anthemic and candy guitar leads, some gut bucket singing, nice verse chorus song structures, a little bit of acoustic, and just enough loosey goosey Faces goodness to put the roll into real rock and roll. All this and Tommy proves himself to be quite the wordsmith laying down some of the most insightful cry in your beer lyrics since, well that other guy who shared the van with him all those years.
When the aliens come down and ask me what rock is, I am just going to play the clip of this plaid punk tearing it up on Letterman as exhibit A -
Tommy also gives us his take on an indie rock Holly Golightly in this video for the album’s first single “Loose Ends” -
Bash & Pop only put out this one album before breaking up the next year. But this album has it all from the rockers to the singles to the ballads; all combined into one artfully packaged CD. Nowadays you can find Tommy back to rocking the bass in an obscure little band called Guns and Roses. But it is Tommy front and center in the obscure little band Bash & Pop that makes my Hall of Fame.
- PLC
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be sure to check out Pat's other awesome music monday reviews:
- last week - Guided By Voices
- last month - The Black Keys
- full archive of Music Monday with PLC - HERE
