Tim Duncan's Pump-Up Mix

A list of the songs Tim Duncan (assumedly) listens to all day to get pumped up for the NBA Finals, with takes from Tony and Carlos.

TIMMY DUNK-DUNK'S JAM SESH DELUXE
1. "Jump, Jive an' Wail" - The Brian Setzer Orchestra
2. "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" - Wang Chung
3. “Hey, Soul Sister” - Train
4. "Wild Wild West" - Will Smith
5. "Mambo No. 5" - Lou Bega
6. "Uptown Girl" - Billy Joel
7. "Macarena" - Los Del Rio
8. "Don't Stop Believin'" - Journey
9. "We Built This City" - Jefferson Starship
10. "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" - Bryan Adams
11. "Iris" - Goo Goo Dolls
12. "Amish Paradise" - Weird Al
13. "Love is a Battlefield" - Pat Benatar
14. “Hotel California” - Eagles
15. "Come With Me" - Puff Daddy
16. "Livin' la Vida Loca" - Ricky Martin
17. "You Oughta Know" - Alanis Morissette
18. "Born In The U.S.A." - Bruce Springsteen
19. "One Of Us" - Joan Osborne
20. "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" - Green Day
21. "Closing Time" - Semisonic

Three Songs I Wrote

This is old news to the blog, but I posted three songs I did a while back on Facebook for the first time, so I'm keeping a record of it here too.

In 2010, I released an EP called Great Western Skies (which, as you've figured out by now, was just a burned CD and cut-out pieces of paper). It had four songs, an it was pretty darn fun, even though I can't really sing or play guitar all that well. I worked on a follow-up of four more songs, and it's been left undone for going on three years.

Well, one of the songs has actually been near completion for a while. It's kind of inspired by Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes ("Autumn Magician"). Maybe, one day, I'll finish the other three songs, release another EP, and mail it to you. But, until then, I recorded two other songs last year, one when I accidentally got drunk in the ol' basement with Grant, who wrote and read poetry on the spot ("Darling") and one when I stayed home sick with a supremely wild fever and tried to learn Ritchie Valens ("Olly Olly Oxen Free").

The songs can be heard here:
https://soundcloud.com/jake-kilroy

And the lyrics can be read here:

SONG #1
"Autumn Magician"
by Jake Kilroy

Hey, autumn magician, when will the spooky winds come?
I've got questions for pagan gods
about youth, nostalgia and love,
and I'll ask them without
jokes, poetry, sarcasm, threats or irony.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Memories are like old movies,
playing on a rusty projector
until it's just you, cold and asleep,
in the empty theater.

Think of carnivals and tattoos,
and wonder which better represents you.
You can't have both, which you probably know,
sustaining some laughter and growth.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Surely, you've tasted the salt of summer skin,
just to spit it up after too much rum
that went straight to your new autumn head
as you were finding balance in a winter bed.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

SONG #2
"Darling"
by Jake Kilroy and Grant Brooks

It was the week I couldn't sleep.
You were out of town and the dog kept me company.
I slurred my words as I cooked with wine.
Sometimes, I can't stand this heart of mine.

Darling, I built a fire for you
with hands that do shadow puppets too
as well as hold candles, cup water, fix cars,
stir pasta, wash windows, and point out shooting stars.

Let me whisk you away
to the same fields that you grew battled up on.
Let me build us a house from the trees
that cracked during your favorite lightning storm.
Let me burn those bridges of friends
that forget your birthday every single year.
Let me mouth off to the men
who said you'd look good as someone else.

From the steeple I built in my room,
I prayed to myself for the answers to unasked questions.
I wrote about my hands shaking before,
and I wrote about my heart breaking as a kid.

But my eyes have grown weary of the lines in the road.
I'm having such a hard time finding way my home,
not that I ever had an idea of where that was.
I never raked the same yard twice.

I kissed girls on nights I should've stayed in,
and I shared glass bottles with friends
that were out looking for the same sea-lost ship.

I spent those early days like how a heavyweight
spends the hours leading up to a fight,
sleepless and wistful.

Give me the wood pirates. Give me the flower boats.
Give me the Holy Grail, filled with the blood of youth.
Smear it across my mouth like a clown grin.
Put me in a tux and tell me where the party is.

Let me whisk you away
to the same fields that you grew battled up on.
Let me build us a house from the trees
that cracked during your favorite lightning storm.
Let me burn those bridges of friends
that forget your birthday every single year.
Let me mouth off to the men
who said you'd look good as someone else.

SONG #3
"Olly Olly Oxen Free"
by Jake Kilroy

Roll out the red carpet tongue to lick wounds,
filled to the salt-encrusted brims with doom.
I've got a mouth of hot teeth laced with swears,
a throat graffitied with words like a junkie prayer.

But you...you were gorgeous,
whistling dixie on the porch of America,
and me with my fever,
it just wasn't enough to remember you.

No more barley wine or royal bloodlines.
She told me that I had a smile like a jack knife.
I said, "Your black dress keeps me honest."
She said, "You act like you could keep a promise."

Hey, you.

Debutantes in mini skirts
that want to take a thrashing and give a beating,
they put their lips together and they whisper,
"Every charming man's renaissance is fleeting."

I'll never forget when I dressed well
and posed as a pioneer out on the rails.
When spring came, I pulled out my heart
and drank its insides so I wouldn't starve.

Hey, you.

Are we really looking for Christ at night
or do we just want a drinking partner that'll tip right?
Sing me a tune, precious atrium rib cage,
because we can't sleep and we won't change.

Hey, you.

How To Record Music

"I'd been living in Los Angeles for about a year and a half, just being a drunk, getting fucked up every night and doing horrible shit, and I'd finally gotten sick of that new car smell. So I bought this great house in Virginia and told everyone I was building a studio in the basement. It was literally a basement with sleeping bags on the walls!

It was all about just settling into the next phase of your life, that place where you can sit back and relax, because there had been so much crazy shit in the past three years. At that point, it was me, Taylor, and Nate, and we were best friends. It was one of the most relaxing times of my whole life. All we did was eat chili, drink beer and whiskey, and record whenever we felt like it. 

We'd have a barbeque every day after recording.

When I listen to that record, it totally brings me back to that basement. I remember how it smelled and how it was in the spring, so the windows were open, and we'd do vocals until you could hear the birds through the microphone. And more than any other record I've ever done, that album does that to me." 

- Dave Grohl, on There Is Nothing Left To Lose

Bully Bands: Tycho

I can't remember the last time an instrumental made me think this much. This song's been carving out my insides and filling it with a watery stir of dreams and memories recently. It's also been shoving and shaking the open future in me like I was a teenager with a world ahead that is remarkable and endless. This thing is morning plans, afternoon daydreams, and late-night sex rolled into one heavenly smirk of a tune. Fuck yeah.

"A Walk" by Tycho

Bully Bands: Built By Snow

I've had so little down time these last few months, it's become pretty obvious that this blog has evolved into some sort of half-assed poetry collection (since they only take me a few minutes to write most of the time). To provide some diversity while I don't sit down to write long essays or pieces of fiction, I'm introducing my new segment called Bully Bands for two reasons:

1. I really like music recommendations on personal blogs.
2. I really like the word "bully" to describe cool things.

Anyway, let's start it up with a song I discovered on the Fang Island pandora station yesterday at the library and haven't been able to stop listening to in my bedroom. Built By Snow has an album called Mega that I've heard a few songs from before, but somehow this song slipped by and, holy shit, it's catchy, cutesy, and noisy. Give it a listen. It's super fun.

"Science of Love - Built By Snow

New Song: "Olly Olly Oxen Free"

I took a sick day last Friday and spent the entire morning and early afternoon in bed, which is something I tend not to do on sick days. Usually, I end up roaming around the house or running errands. But I decided to really treat myself to a sick day of reading in bed. Needless to say, by late afternoon, I had gone fucking insane. Sometimes, that's just way too much time to spend in bed by yourself.

While sweating out some shakes toward the end of the disease, I picked up my guitar and started recording a song that sounded like a bastardized garage buzz version of "La Bamba." Determined to do at least one thing that wasn't laying on my back and letting the aches sweep over me like an air raid, I wrote some lyrics too (and sang them with my very bogus sore throat). Anyway, this is the song that up until the very last second was actually called "Sick Day," because, hey, sometimes, I'm the laziest idiot alive.

Also, days later, I wrote more words to the chorus so that it wasn't just "hey you" (though, again, I must stress that I can be the laziest idiot alive). There was also a whole crazy thing of me yelling a few more sentences and then "olly olly oxen free" over and over at the end, but none of it was turning out and I got fed up with it. Whatever the fuck ever, song. You win. I either work on a song for months or I do a song in its entirety in a few hours. This jam very quickly proved to be the latter. Maybe I'll come back to it and add those other words when I understand how to actually play guitar or how to sing like a real human being. Until then, I'm just going to keep making music that sounds like noise because I have a shit-ton of fun doing it. Enjoy!

"Olly Olly Oxen Free"
by Jake Kilroy

Roll out the red carpet tongue to lick wounds,
filled to the salt-encrusted brims with doom.
I've got a mouth of hot teeth laced with swears,
a throat graffitied with words like a junkie prayer.

But, you, you were gorgeous,
whistling dixie on the porch of America,
and me with my fever,
it just wasn't enough to remember you.

No more barley wine or royal bloodlines.
She told me that I had a smile like a jack knife.
I said, "Your black dress keeps me honest."
She said, "You act like you could keep a promise."

Hey, you.

Debutantes in mini skirts
that want to take a thrashing and give a beating,
they put their lips together and they whisper,
"Every charming man's renaissance is fleeting."

I'll never forget when I dressed well
and posed as a pioneer out on the rails.
When spring came, I pulled out my heart
and drank its insides so I wouldn't starve.

Hey, you.

Are we really looking for Christ at night
or do we just want a drinking partner that'll tip right?
Sing me a tune, precious atrium rib cage,
because we can't sleep and we won't change.

Hey, you.

Only Son of the Ladiesman

Is there a frontman out there with more steez than Father John Misty?

"Autumn Magician" - New Song

This is only my third post about making music, as the only other two posts I can think of were about my EP, Great Western Skies, and the song I recorded with Grant called "Darling." I don't make music often (enough), but, when I do, boy-howdy, it is a hoot!

This song is called "Autumn Magician," and it'll be on the new EP I'm (very) slowly working on, tentatively titled Criminal Chants. There could be a song about women. There could be a song about dinosaurs and lasers. Who knows? Anyway, hey, here's this song I made. You can hear my dog's collar in the chorus, and, as always, disclaimer: I can't really play guitar or sing. Thumbs up.

The Story
Two years ago, I had the house to myself (and Charlie the dog) on a Saturday. Naturally, I spent the afternoon trying to play guitar, which I can only compare to an inexperienced 14-year-old trying to go all the way for the first time. I'm clumsy and hesitant when I make music, but I have so much fun doing it. I'll probably never actually invest time in it to legitimately improve my barren skills beyond "guy who mostly plays easy folk chords as fast and recklessly as he possibly can."

Anyway, it was August, and I had read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes that summer, and I thought it was just terrific. I started drinking a good helping of Jameson and then wrote a song, from start to finish, in four hours. A lot of the lyrics were lifted from a poem I had written the month before, which was also influenced by Bradbury's tale of two boys reevaluating their thoughts on age when a mysterious carnival comes to town.

The Lyrics
"Autumn Magician"
by Jake Kilroy

Hey, autumn magician, when will the spooky winds come?
I've got questions for pagan gods
about youth, nostalgia and love,
and I'll ask them without
jokes, poetry, sarcasm, threats or irony.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Memories are like old movies,
playing on a rusty projector
until it's just you, cold and asleep,
in the empty theater.

Think of carnivals and tattoos,
and wonder which better represents you.
You can't have both, which you probably know,
sustaining some laughter and growth.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?

What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Surely, you've tasted the salt of summer skin,
just to spit it up after too much rum
that went straight to your new autumn head
as you were finding balance in a winter bed.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?

What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Cerebral: Sambalero

This is an experiment in cerebral writing. Is that a thing, you ask? Maybe. Yes? Fuck, I don't know. I got the idea from Rex when he had me look at Pinterest pictures in a specialized order while listening to a Ryan Adams song when the singer/songwriter was all strung out on heroin. It was pretty awesome. So, I decided to do something sort of similar. This first outing is for women. Ladies, did you ever want to disappear to the South American forests of your untamed heart? Well, then find the song "Sambalero" by Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfá, and play it while reading this simultaneously.

"In The Forest Eternal"
a cerebral narrative to the song "sambalero" by jake kilroy.

It is early evening, and you are in a sundress. The sun has just set, it is beloved darkness that sails over you and whispers a sweet breeze into the pores of your skin. You blink madly, finally deceived by life, you think. There is a live band off to your left and a gorgeous dinner party spread with several tables. Your eyes are trying to seduce your brain. Your stomach aches with energy. Your heart slows to a cough, as if pulling on the final ashes of a bourbon-laced cigar. You are happy. You are more than happy. You have reached the precipice of joy, as it puts its fingers around your waist and breathe into your ear, only to let crystalized laughs float through your head like hot air balloons in spring time.

Your dress and your shoes are the color of a well-groomed lover's teeth, so you stand out in the forest where you cannot place the moon. It hangs above you like a chandelier. You look at the settling sky until your neck groans. You look down again. Somehow, you had not noticed the many people before you when you first snuck into wilderness. They are dancing, and they are happy. They are sick with happiness. It has riddled their bodies perfect. The band plays samba for them, and they move like waves against each other, crashing with salty air pluming from their small mouths like slender, dark engines.

A gentleman takes you by the hand. He has skin that looks like coffee with generous helpings of sugar added and stirred. His arms are strong, his jawline is straight, and his smile is soft. He leads you to the dance floor where the people are moving as if they are underwater. The black hair of the women twists and falls with grace like cliff divers at the end of summer, when there is no reason to go home. You sway with the locals and breathe in air that coats your lungs like coconut milk. You watch the band. They treat their instruments like first loves, and you can pick stars out of the glowing brass of their horns. All of their eyes are closed, as they too have disappeared into the great spell of the evening.

You sigh with relief, feeling the dazzling spectacle of music swallowing your insides, and you forget time. You forget places. You forget your name. You forget all that was before this moment, and you are without thought, even now. It is just sounds and sights, and the others agree without words. It is just a dance floor at a dinner party in the middle of a forest somewhere in the depths of summer.

The world is truly beautiful and glorious, and all that exists now is joy.

My First Work Mixtape

Column Five has started doing up weekly playlists, and I scored the rad job of being in charge of them. They were also nice enough to let me go first. Dig it: The C5 Mixtape, Volume 1: I Got Five On It.

Five Music Videos You Should Watch Right Now

1. "Queen Of Hearts" by Fucked Up


2. "Four Winds" by Bright Eyes


3. "Lessons Learned" by Matt And Kim


4. "Good Time" by Brazilian Girls


5. "Swim Until You Can't See Land" by Frightened Rabbit

"Darling" - A New Song

At the Easter celebration at my parents' house last night, my father's mix was putting out one good song after another. It was The Ramones, then it was Elvis Costello, then it was Bobby Darin. But then there was a good block of doo-wop tunes and oldies, and it was just one sentamental guy after another promising a girl "the good life."

Well, once I got home, I went immediately to the basement and started playing guitar. I can't really play guitar, but I can manage the most basic possible strumming patterns most of the time. By midnight, I had written half a song (with lyrics from prior poems I've penned, which I've realized I do more often than I should). Then Grant came home and he wrote a poem while I played music. So, naturally, we got drunk on bourbon and mixed the two, and then I finished the song sometime around 3 a.m.

The song's called "Darling" for now. It's unpolished (and I can't sing like a real person), sure, but, hey, it's a song put together from start to finish in just a few hours. That's pretty neat, right?

"Darling"

by Jake Kilroy, featuring Grant Brooks

It was the week I couldn't sleep.

You were out of town and the dog kept me company.

I slurred my words as I cooked with wine.

Sometimes, I can't stand this heart of mine.

Darling, I built a fire for you

with hands that do shadow puppets too

as well as hold candles, cup water, fix cars,

stir pasta, wash windows and point out shooting stars.

Let me whisk you away

to the same fields that you grew battled up on.

Let me build us a house

from the trees that cracked during your favorite lightning storm.

Let me burn those bridges

of friends that forget your birthday every single year.

Let me mouth off to the men

who said you'd look good as someone else.

From the steeple I built in my room,

I prayed to myself for the answers to unasked questions.

I wrote about my hands shaking before,

and I wrote about my heart breaking as a kid.

But my eyes have grown weary of the lines in the road.

I'm having such a hard time finding way my home,

not that I ever had an idea of where that was.

I never raked the same yard twice.

I kissed girls on nights I should've stayed in,

and I shared glass bottles with friends

that were out looking for the same sea-lost ship.

I spent those early days like a heavyweight

spends the hours leading up to a fight,

sleepless and wistful.

Give me the wood pirates. Give me the flower boats.

Give me the Holy Grail, filled with the blood of youth.

Smear it across my mouth like a clown grin.

Put me in a tux and tell me where the party is.

Let me whisk you away

to the same fields that you grew battled up on.

Let me build us a house

from the trees that cracked during your favorite lightning storm.

Let me burn those bridges

of friends that forget your birthday every single year.

Let me mouth off to the men

who said you'd look good as someone else.

Musical Thoughts

At a constant, I want to:

• Do drugs, clear out the furniture of a living room and dance with my friends to Matt & Kim, Passion Pit or LCD Soundsystem.
• Get drunk in my basement, crowded with friends, and rock out to Against Me! or Motion City Soundtrack.
• Drink alone to Lucero or Johnny Cash.
• Get high to Explosions In The Sky.
• Speed on a crowded freeway to Black Flag or Death From Above 1979.
• Cruise a semi-empty highway to Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen.
• Drive through forest roads to Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
• Terrorize neighborhoods to The Misfits.
• Dance with a lady to Ella Fitzgerald.
• Fall asleep on my floor to Chet Baker or Billie Holiday.
• Listen to The Replacements or The Clash.

News Of The Day

Refused is reuniting.

The Replacements

The Replacements
by Jake Kilroy

I saw the Replacements documentary Color Me Obsessed in Los Angeles on Friday with Lindsay. The "rockumentary" (one of my least favorite words ever actually) featured friends and fans, but no actual members or music of the Replacements. So, when someone mentioned a song or an album cover, you just had to know it. It was sort of a documentary made for serious fans, I guess.

The Replacements, for those (for whatever reason) who haven't discovered them, were incredible. Their career was basically the 1980s (1979-1991) and, to many, they were the last great rock 'n roll band. The four drunks from Minnesota were Paul Westerberg on vocals and rhythm guitar, Bob Stinson on lead guitar, Tommy Stinson on bass and Chris Mars on drums. Slim Dunlap and Steve Foley stepped in at the end, when the band was falling apart, but The Replacements, as in the legendary boozing goofs from Minneapolis, are those original four.

They were critic darlings, they influenced way too many bands to count and, yet, when you find a fellow Replacements fan, it's like acknowledging a member of your secret club. Shit, I was at a show last year when I was talking to the singer of a band called Whitman. I asked him what his band sounded like. He told me, "Well...my favorite band is The Replacements." I cut him off and said that I'd just buy his albums right then and there, as if supporting another Replacements fan is always the right thing to do.

The 'Mats (nicknamed that because of a misprint they found hilarious when promoted as The Placemats) are one of my all-time favorite bands, if not my actual favorite. Ok, they are my favorite band, but it's hard to say sometimes, because I think Bob Dylan was the best songwriter of the 20th Century and The Clash was easily the most talented (without getting into the whole Beatles debate). But The Replacements resonate with me like no other band out there. They were having more fun than anyone, they couldn't help but get famous, they played shows in the flannel or t-shirt they wore all day and they would get drunk in lawn chairs. They were so astoundingly talented without really giving a shit. While serious musicians would sit in a studio and craft a song for weeks, meticulously working towards perfect musical harmony or whatever, The Replacements recorded entire albums in a day, all while drinking cheap beer. And then critics would tell them how great they were.

When a magazine called The Replacements "the band of the year," pissed-off top-selling artist of the year Jon Bon Jovi infamously remarked, "If they're so famous, why haven't I ever heard of them?"

To which, I can only assume The Replacements laughed and said, "Who the hell gives a shit about Bon Jovi?"
Maybe the reason I have trouble naming them definitely as my favorite band is because I'm always kind of mad at them. I'm mad at them for never properly considering how great they were. I'm mad at them for kicking Bob out (as one dude in the documentary stated, "How much of a mess do you have to be...to be kicked out of The Replacements for being a drunk?"). I'm mad at them for wanting to leave the past behind. I'm mad at them for biting every hand that ever fed them. I'm mad at them for sentimentality getting the best of Westerberg's writing in the end. A lot of their friends in the documentary said it was hard to be a Replacements fan sometimes, because every time they had the opportunity to move on, they'd just blow it off most of the time.

But all of that shit is also why I adore them. And I didn't even discover them until a year after their Fourth of July on-stage break-up.

I was in second grade when I dug through my father's glovebox and rummaged through his music collection. I found cassettes for The Cure's Disintegration, Rickie Lee Jones's Traffic From Paradise, Los Lobos's Kiko and, most famously, The Replacements' Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash. And that album straight up changed my world. It was my first instance of finding new music and I technically did it on my own. My parents would've shown me them at one point or another, I figure, as my parents were responsible for getting me into really cool music: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Who, Fine Young Cannibals, Johnny Cash, et cetera. My dad was even the one who got me into The White Stripes and Outkast.
But what I found in that Replacements tape was overwhelming. At that young age, all music is polished. Everything you're exposed to is flawlessly done. But you're also not exposed to much music. So, it's very easy to assume, "oh, so this is music." To hear four guys play the shit out of what they called "power trash" probably shaped me right then and there. Everything was inconsistent. There were random yells and no chorus sounded the same. Songs tapered off, the guitar was lower in certain parts, there were mistakes everywhere. One woman in the documentary described the solos as "hitting all the wrong notes at the right time."

But that's what I love them for. Nobody could say, "hey, there's a lot of mistakes on this album," because The Replacements would smugly reply either, "Are there?" or, "Yeah, so?" They put out punk classic after punk classic before evolving into a complex alternative band, because, as Westerberg stated, "We write songs rather than riffs with statements." So, they got sick of the punk scene and moved on to acoustic songs and songs with horns.

On Let It Be, there's a soft, tortured piano tune about laying off gender benders ("Androgynous") alongside a loose punk jam called "Gary's Got A Boner." Respected music critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A+. Also, it was named Let It Be, because their producer was a huge Beatles fan. The Replacements joked about naming the album Let It Be and their producer told them they couldn't. Ever the dissenters, the 'Mats decided on the spot to name it Let It Be, because, hey, why the hell couldn't they?
When I recorded my four-song project last year, I kept trying to fix it up and make it sound like a professionally recorded album, which was clearly stupid. Then I thought of Sorry Ma and wondered, "Aren't all the mistakes, like, half the reason I love The Replacements?"

I love them for their shrug-off-everything spirit, because it makes them impossible to criticize without them getting in the last word. They're like those brilliant kids in school who don't fully apply themselves. They may be slackers, but everyone knows what they're capable of, if only they really tried. Who knows what The Replacements would've become if they sobered up and started really putting in efforts with the fame machine? Now, sure, that may absolutely appear to be a cop-out, but I like that they existed during an era of hair metal bands and new wave groups being way too into themselves, with everyone tripping over themselves to be a one-hit wonder. All the while, The Replacements scored critical praise and just sort of laughed about it. And it wasn't like they "just wanted to be artists" or "ignored the fame in order to create." They seemed like they just wanted to do whatever made them happy, which was just being a band.

So, instead, they showed up drunk to their shows. They even showed up drunk to their 1986 performance on Saturday Night Live, which got them banned forever, as one reviewer noted that they were "mouthing profanities into the camera, stumbling into each other, falling down, dropping their instruments and generally behaving like the apathetic drunks they were." Rumor has it that NBC had to rebuild the green room because The Replacements got into a food fight and destroyed the whole thing.

Fans would arrive at their shows without knowing what the hell would happen. They were deemed "the greatest live band ever" by someone once with a tongue in cheek, because either they played harder than anyone else or they got too hammered to really care how things went. No show was ever the same. And everyone's favorite shows, it seems, were usually the ones when The Replacements also became "the world's greatest cover band." Realizing the band was too drunk to correctly do their own songs, fans at their shows would yell out random songs they wanted to hear. If one of the members knew how to play it, he'd try and the rest of the band would follow, everything from the Defranco Family's "Lovebeat - It's A Heartbeat" to "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams. One fan remembered a show where they were too drunk to play anything but The Beach Boys' "Help Me, Ronda."

When a teacher found out I liked The Replacements in high school, he burned me copies of their bootlegs (as well as The Shit Hits The Fans), just so we could talk about their live shows.
Some memories that fans shared:
- A guy went to a Replacements show with his cousin, who was a huge fan of the four-piece. While playing pinball, a dude asks him for a spare quarter to play the machine next to him. Guy gives the dude a quarter. They played pinball. The Replacements come on stage and start playing. Guy notices there's only three people on stage and wonders what happened to the fourth one. After two songs, guy turns to the dude and says, "Hey, I'm gonna go watch the band." Dude grabs his arm and says, "No, man, we started this together. We have to finish it." They keep playing pinball until the dude's last ball drops. Dude smiles and says, "Thanks! Gotta go!" Turns out that the dude who bummed a quarter is Bob Stinson. He tries to climb on stage, but Westerberg keeps kicking him.

-The Replacements opened for Tom Petty following the release of Pleased To Meet Me. At a music festival on their tour, they showed up on stage in drag (clothes they stole from Petty's wife). Westerberg then yelled into the microphone, "Tom Petty said he'd fire us if we fucked up again. But you know what? Fuck you, Tom Petty! And fuck you too, Nashville!" The band then played four or five songs before launching into a ten-minute instrumental version of Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side."

- A show was over, but Paul Westerberg was drunk and wanted to keep playing, so he did solo songs until hardcore kids started heckling him. He said, "Hey, come up here and play if you think you can do better." So, he took his spot behind the drums and the two hardcore kids played guitar and bass, and the three of them played "Louie, Louie" for half an hour.

That last one might be The Replacements in a nutshell: anyone can play music. They started off as a drunk (Bob), a janitor (Paul), an artist (Chris) and a 14-year-old little brother (Tommy). They were a crew of misfits who kind of gave a hard time to anybody who complimented them. They wanted to play music, but it seems like nobody could ever tell if they really wanted to leave the garages and basements. When they found commercial success, they would shoot themselves in the foot to keep from going mainstream. And it's hard to tell if it was systematic or they really just couldn't help themselves, like they had to self-destruct to live up to their own reputation. So it's funny that when they were self-destructing, they put out two pretty, well-constructed and polished-sounding records (which I, as well as most fans, actually like the least).

When sound engineers would tell them to play songs slower or faster, they'd just say, "Oh, I forgot the chords...so we'll just have to keep it the way it is." They'd draw marker lines on the clothes of studio representatives. They'd drink their weight at the bar with fans before a show.
But they never became charity cases. They never started doing heroin with groupies. They never trashed a million dollar hotel room. They never made personal regrets or public apologies. They were just drunks, for the most part (but, I mean, seriously reckless drunks). They weren't going to after-parties or big bashes in their honor. Someone once described them as "one of the most famous bands that never really left the garage." They could play a show in a basement or a stadium and it would've been the same. They would've gotten hammered, worn whatever they felt like (including tutus) and then played their music however they wanted, no matter what other people wanted them to do. If somebody told them to play their old songs, they'd either play all the old songs to be really true to their fans or they'd only play new songs just to piss them off. They even covered a Kiss song on one of their albums because they knew how many their fans hated Kiss. I suppose that's why being a fan of The Replacements in the '80s was a complicated ordeal, because you never knew if The Replacements were really on your side.

When the just-starting-out Goo Goo Dolls opened for The Replacements on what would be the Mats' last tour, the four drunks ripped apart all of their backstage passes and slapped them to the stage, so when the Goo Goo Dolls (who were too poor to afford shoes at the time) would walk on stage, their feet would get stuck. Meanwhile, The Replacements sat off to the side, howling with laughter and drinking cheap beer from a cooler they brought from home.
After the movie, it was midnight and I didn't feel like going home. The movie put me in a weird mood. So I just sped along the Southern California coastline. I ended up in San Pedro, cruising around the port and listening to "Within Your Reach." Pretty soon, I was in Redondo Beach listening to "Careless." And then I was atop Signal Hill blasting "Buck Hill." It took me more than two hours to get home, just from aimless meandering. Apart from what I learned on the drive (like how this state has way too many CVS stores), I acknowledged some curious feelings about the band that's always, always, always been closest to my heart.

The fans of The Replacements can be like the actual band. Towards the end of the documentary, a drunken couple kept heckling the lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls whenever he came on the screen. As much as it bothered me, I wondered, "Isn't that what The Replacements would've done anyway?" I mean, The Replacements didn't respect anybody. This is the same band that drunkenly broke into their studio and stole what they thought were the master copies of their previous four albums and threw them into the Mississippi River. The band knew what they were doing, but they either got too drunk or played dumb all the time. And I figure they did it so nobody would ever make them into something they didn't want to be. Hell, when they got the chance to make their own professional music video, everyone gave them a million ideas. Do this, do that, said everyone. So, just to be dicks, The Replacements shot their entire music video for "Bastards Of Young" with a speaker playing. That's it. Seriously. The entire music video for "Bastards Of Young" is just one, long black-and-white shot of a speaker.

So, as I made my way home at the slowest of rates, I recognized landmarks from past times of getting lost. I ended up at the San Pedro bridge that Jeff and I reluctantly went over after getting lost trying to find a record store in Long Beach in my Deathmobile, I passed a coffee shop where I caught up with an old flame one summer after a playhouse flooded and we were left with nothing to do and I finally found my way back to the freeway because of a round-about Non and I circled when trying to find Cal State Long Beach.

But, because I've been listening to The Replacements for practically my whole life, a whole lot of their songs carry weight with memories too. I remember Bret, Rex and I myself dancing around Chase to "Can't Hardly Wait" in my old backyard, I remember dissecting "Customer" with Jeff and Nick on our way to Mission Viejo to spend the summer as punks in foreign territory and I recall driving fast every time "Hayday" comes on.

The Replacements is my band. They're the most personal band I listen to, since I discovered them by myself and they've been with me since I was a kid. And nothing they did ever felt forced. They weren't trying to be big stars or punks. They acted like they didn't care because they legitimately didn't care. And, because music history is all sorts of screwy, not enough people listen to The Replacements, so I actually get to tell people about them. I don't show very many people bands they haven't heard before. I'm very often on the receiving end of it. But The Replacements is the band that I get to show to people and it's, like, crazy exciting to do. It's amazing that I get to be the one who says, "Holy shit, you've never heard The Replacements? Ok, I'm going to give you The Replacements."

So, anyway, if you've never listened to Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash or Stink or Hootenanny or Let It Be or Tim or Pleased To Meet Me or Don't Tell A Soul or All Shook Down...well, then...I give you The Replacements.

Five Great Songs With Great Videos

1. "Blood" by The Middle East

2. "Cameras" by Matt & Kim

3. "Queen Of Hearts" by Fucked Up

4. "New Noise" by Refused

5. "Modern World" by Wolf Parade

Mix Memories: Volume Two

"So Much For The Afterglow" by Everclear
This may have been the first song where I could cite influences. I heard the opening forty seconds of this song and thought, “These guys must have been influenced by the Beach Boys,” and thought I was a goddamn musical genius. I mean, this was in eighth grade when it was an absolute miracle if I could think about something other than boobs and vandalism for more than ten seconds.

"Flat Top" by Goo Goo Dolls
The Goo Goo Dolls' album A Boy Named Goo represents a specific time in my life. It was the summer before seventh grade, I think. I'm not sure. I just remember either playing video games at Jeff's house or having bunk bed wars with my brother. I also remember thinking this song was a wonderful social criticism. Leave it to a sheltered 12-year-old to think that the Goo Goo Dolls were the new Black Panthers.

"Alex Chilton" by The Replacements
When I accidentally discovered The Replacements in second grade by rooting through his cassettes, I thought they were a secret. It was like this fun little punk band that only my dad knew about and had unknowingly bestowed upon me. Then, years later, he bought their later albums for the family and I realized that The Replacements evolved into one of the most influential bands of the 1980s. Then all my family did was listen to this song in the car, making The Replacements our family's band. It was nice of my dad to share.

“The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth” by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
In the summer of 2007, I was doing my first internship at the magazine and it was my first adult job and I was starting to feel like a real sell-out asshole. It was summer and friends were on road trips and I was working in an office building. I would end up staring at my computer or staring out the window contemplating just why the hell I was trying to grow up. To combat such feelings, I listened to this song every day in the elevator and would rock the hell out. So, with just a big moment of silliness before working, I felt way better about it all.

"I'm A Flirt (Shoreline)" by The Hood Internet (Broken Social Scene vs. R. Kelly)
Bret put this on at Chris and Rich's Christmas party one year and then everyone talked about how R. Kelly should just join Broken Social Scene and make us all really happy. Seriously, any mash-up with an R. Kelly song is almost immediately everyone's favorite jam.

"Debaser" by The Pixies"
If I had to choose one band to be remembered as the soundtrack of my high school weekends, it would undoubtedly be The Pixies. I feel like that's almost the only band my friends listened to in their cars. When I think of all the weekends spent at Julia's, I can almost always hear The Pixies on in the background. However, it was my dad who told me that the song was about a film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí called Un Chien Andalou. I thought it was just about randomly slicing people's eyeballs.

"Only Got One" by Frou Frou
I got really obsessed with this song right before leaving for Australia. I was 19 and I had been wanting to go to Australia since I was in grade school. My grandmother and I arrived in Sydney and she took a nap after the 15-hour flight. I, on the other hand, took an hour-long bubble bath in the only tub to ever fit me. It was like three feet deep and six feet in length. I had all the bathrooms lights off except for one soft night light and, with the Sydney skyline out the window and this song playing, I honestly don't know if I've been so goddamn delusionally happy since.

"Buggin" by The Flaming Lips
I remember listening to this song after doing yard work at my grandparents' house with a stupid amount of bugs around me. That's about it. Also, this song isn't very deep, but it's really, really cool.

"Like I Needed" by Rogue Wave
I stole this album from my school newspaper. It references Star Wars. It combined two of my favorite things: Star Wars and stealing.

"Pictures Of Success" by Rilo Kiley
I have no idea how many times Rex and I listened to this song when we drove out to Arizona, but it was a shit-ton. The time was June 2005, I was barely 20 years old, Rex was 19 and each of us had way too much free time. So, somewhat on a whim, we road-tripped it to visit Ashley, who was staying with Eileen for the summer. We got there around midnight and it was still hot. Within minutes of arriving, Rex and I were swimming in the backyard pool and cackling our lungs out, all while some crazy storm started up and lightning was cracking above us. Both girls watched us swim like drunk little kids and then the four of us drank more beer together, sitting around Eileen's bedroom listening to music. I don't remember when, but sometime that weekend, we were all passed out, spread about Eileen's bedroom and this song came on again, and it was so ungodly perfect.

"Penelope" by Pinback
When I discovered this song, it became the only song I listened to for, like, two weeks. I came into the school newsroom one afternoon wearing an Explosions In The Sky shirt with doodlings of cavemen on it. Katy said it looked like the shirt ripped off her brother's band. I told her that the shirt was for a band that's been around for a while and asked what band her brother could possibly be in. She said Pinback. I was quite speechless. I then told her to tell her brother that this song was incredible. Her response: "You know that song's about a pet fish, right?" I did not, and it suddenly made the song seem less beautiful.

"Painter Song" by Norah Jones
During my first year of college, I fancied myself a painter. And guess what? I can't paint, and I knew it within minutes of trying. But that didn't stop me from listening to this song shirtless in my garage while messing up some canvases with paint for a few months.

"Two Janes" by Los Lobos
This song was my absolute favorite song off the album Kiko, which, even in my twenties, I still consider to be a flawless album. When I would snag the cassette from my dad's glove box to listen to it in my room, it was the first time I thought I was really expanding my musical horizons. Keep in mind I was in, like, third grade, so my horizon was pretty much my front yard.

"Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen
I remember showing this song to Rex in my Oldsmobile on our infamous drive to San Diego for a party that most definitely wasn't happening. I told him how Bruce Springsteen recorded the entire album locked up in a bedroom in some old country house with just an acoustic guitar and a four-track recorder. When we showed up to the Mira Mesa House and found out that there wasn't a party, we just drank a bottle of whiskey and a jug of wine out in the garage and recorded songs on acoustic guitars we found.

"Mine Tonight" by Lucero
When you're driving down the California coast for any stretch at night as some undergraduate who hasn't figured things out...you have a lot of time to figure things out. I don't know how many times I drove down to the Mira Mesa House with Rex, Jeff and Matty Punk, but it felt like a whole lot and this song always seemed to be playing on those night drives down the coast and it put me in the weirdest mood.

"I Still Miss Someone" by Johnny Cash
I got really into to this song at the wrong time. This melancholy tune is about missing someone in autumn. Well, it was summer and I didn't miss anyone. I was just getting drunk in people's jacuzzis and stuff. Johnny Cash and I don't always see eye-to-eye.

"Epistrophy" - Cootie Williams
I listened to this song a lot when I'd smoke cigarettes at the Chapman parking garage behind the law school when I was a senior in high school. I think I'd narrate random stories over it. I don't know why. I was just looking to get out of the house on school nights and the beginning of this instrumental almost invites narration.

"Kingdom Come" - Coldplay
This song was playing when I dropped Sam off at their airport when she first left for Spain. I couldn't listen to this song for a year without feeling sick to my stomach. Now, I just wonder why the hell Coldplay doesn't write more quiet epic acoustic jams instead of the same twinkling falsetto arena rock hits.

Romantic Rights, Live on Conan

Hey, remember when Death From Above 1979 played on Late Night With Conan O'Brien and it was just, like, the best? If you forgot why it was so awesome, wait for 2:30 in the video below:

"Romantic Rights" - Death From Above 1979, Live on Conan

On a related note, I feel like "Romantic Rights" was playing at every party I went to the summer of 2005. Shit, whenever that song comes on, I still want to get hectic.

Mix Memories: Volume One

I don't listen to music as often or intently as I once did. These days, I typically have an audiobook in the car and a movie usually going in my room. At work, I sometimes have Pandora on or I listen to one artist's discography on my iPod. And I think I've realized why it's never one of the many playlists I've made over the years. When I listen to those mixes, they're a collection of my favorites and I find myself distracted with the memories the songs bring. So, I decided to put some of them down, if only as some self-preservation. Some memories mean more than others and some are just observations.

"The New Year" by Death Cab For Cutie - I spent a lot of the summer of 2004 either playing music in my garage or hanging out in front of Bogart's. My friends worked there and the owner hated us loitering around the parking lot. I mean, we were 19 years old and our friends made sandwiches for a living, so obviously we were moochers. But it felt like you could stop by any time of the day and there was someone there doing nothing. I remember Rex showed me this song in his car in Bogart's parking lot once when we were bored and playing catch. You could spend all day there and it wasn't until the sun went down that you had to figure out what to do with your time.

"A Tender History In Rust" by Do Make Say Think - I don't remember why I was coming home from Los Angeles that night, but I remember Sarvas was driving and Jeff put this on. I watched the skyline fade behind the trees and the houses as we headed home.

"The Remains Of The Day" by Mono - Jeff showed me this song once and I told him that it was hardly a song. He gave me a copy of the album anyway, and I listened to it on my own a few more times and loved its airy sound. It was perfect music for sitting around my room.

"Digital Love" by Daft Punk - When Ryan and I visited Boston, Cousin Eric drove us to New Hampshire to see his friends and we listened to Daft Punk as we took our time through the the forested countryside. Once we arrived in that small town in New Hampshire, the three of us wandered along a river and then sat at an outdoor table at Eric's friend's restaurant. The patio was covered and we watched a heavy storm come and go, all while Ryan and I fell in love with the same girl we couldn't have.

"Don't Stop" by Brazilian Girls - Chris and I took a long bike ride around Old Towne Orange one spring afternoon, all while talking about how our relationships would soar or sink with no middle ground. We stopped by his girlfriend's apartment and she was cleaning her room with this song on. I demanded to know who it was and then listened to it for a week straight.

"Us" by Regina Spektor - I was watching Conan O'Brien one night I couldn't sleep and she was performing this song. I leaned closer to the television because I couldn't believe how good it was. I thought about lucky the guy was that the song was about (not so much the lyrics, but just to have such a good song about him being played on national television). I then decided to date a pretty singer/songwriter that could play the piano for me on Sunday mornings in our New York City loft with brick walls while I made her breakfast. I have since been unsuccessful.

"Die" by Carissa's Wierd - I remember finding out this band the summer I spent hanging with Bret and Randy at the hookah bar. This song gave me the chills the first time I heard it. Who could be this beautiful and broken?

"Road To Joy" by Bright Eyes - I remember driving up to Thanksgiving with my mom, my brother, my sister and my grandma one year. My siblings hated Bright Eyes and I couldn't stop listening to this song. I made them put it on and I either forgot or didn't care about the part where he yells "Let's fuck it up, boys! Make some noise!" Well, I'll tell you, nobody was happy. Except me. I was really happy. This song ruled then and it rules now.

"Old School Reasons" by Alkaline Trio - I can't think of a better song to blast while cruising around on summer afternoons with the windows down. I listened to it the entire summer of 2006 when all I recall doing was swimming, drinking and writing. I feel like I only worked at my restaurant job just enough to afford gas that summer.

"Twelve" by Forward, Russia! - I was sitting in a gas station with Jeff while Rex was getting gas and we were trying to figure out what the lyrics were as it was playing. I think we cheated and finally pulled out the album insert.

"Indian Summer" by Pedro The Lion - I love the phrase "Indian summer" and this song sort of puts the right vibe to those two words. Also, for a few-week period, Bret had to repeatedly ask me not to sing-talk like the singer. I couldn't stop. I had a problem. I was crazy addicted to sing-talking like the singer of Pedro The Lion.

"Bruised" by The Bens - This song makes me think of Julia, but not because of this specific song. I just feel like I got into each Ben in the band at her house (Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee). Actually, maybe I did listen to this song at her house when I went there every other weekend. I don't know. The more I think about it, I feel like this song reminds me a lot of the end of the summer after high school when everyone left for college. Ugh. What a cliche.

"West Coast" by Coconut Records - I first heard this at a party at the Columbus House and everything suddenly felt like some weird indie music video. Everything seemed to be moving slower and everyone was smiling all nostalgic. Or I think that's how it was. I'm not entirely sure. I was on drugs at the time.

"Every Direction Is North" by El Ten Eleven - Randy one gave me a heap of electronic and post-rock music. I didn't listen to it for a long time. I finally put one of the albums in my car and I remember this song standing out as I pulled out of a gas station. I put it on a mix for someone later that week. That's about it. Sorry. Not much on this one.

"We Have A Map Of The Piano" by Mum - I took this in a gigantic steal from Jenelle's computer. We had lunch at Jalapeno's and then went back to her apartment and she showed me all the music she considered for choreography. I didn't listen to Mum for years. Then, one night when I was sitting at my computer, I put it on and it put me in the weirdest place. It felt like a Bjork-like digital ghost was seducing me with opium and freaky slow dancing from the east. I think I laid on my floor and listen to the barely-there ambient music wondering what dance Jenelle came up with for this song.

"Swimmers" by Broken Social Scene - I listened to this song and it made my way into a dream one night. I think it was me, a girl I loved in the dream and didn't know in real life and our collective friends all swimming at some lake with a rope swing. It was in slow motion and it looked like my brained film it on an old video camera. My dream couldn't have looked more like a memorial video to play at some hipster's funeral if it tried.

"Suicide" by Eulogies - I have no idea how I scored this album. I found it tucked in my car's backseat when I was cleaning out my mess of an interior. There was no case. It was just the actual disc. I put it in my stereo when I got home. After I heard this song, I thought, "Well, it doesn't matter whose this was. It's mine now."

"Up On The Roof" by The Drifters - The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent a lot of afternoons driving around with Sarvas and smoking cigarettes for the first time. We listened to a lot of oldies and he told me this was his cheer-up song. Everyone has their own cheer-up songs, but I don't normally adopt them. This one, however, I kind of lifted for myself. I listened to it once on an actual roof and I probably ripped a hole in the space-time continuum. Sorry, universe.

"Mood Indigo" by Duke Ellington - Some summer nights, the weather is perfect. You sleep with the windows open and maybe one blanket on top of you. And you almost don't want to fall asleep, because then it'll be loud and bright and you'll get distracted with the morning world. But for those minutes or hours you lay in bed, waiting to fall asleep in the cool breeze, you think of somebody. That's this song.

Hey, I recorded four songs! You wanna hear 'em?

I recorded an EP.

Wanna hear it? Give me your address and I'll send you a copy in the mail.

Maybe I should explain.

Sure, I can't really sing all that well and I can't really play guitar all that well either, but I thought it'd be something fun to try and do. So, through trial and error (and special effects), I figured out a few things on guitar and wrote four songs. They were actually recorded a year ago, but after a summer lull and a cold season's return to yuppiedom, I started burning copies for friends.

So, anyway, I kinda-sorta played guitar and I kinda-sorta sang and I'm kinda-sorta stoked on how it turned out. The CD is called Great Western Skies and I made it into a funny little album complete with cover and lyrics (as I'm fairly certain this is as far as I will ever go musically). So, if you'd like a copy, give me your address and I'll mail you one (I don't care how far away you live). Or just mention it the next time I see you.

GREAT WESTERN SKIES by Jake Kilroy:
1. A New Landfill
2. The Shakes
3. Pretty Stand-Up Guy
4. San Francisco (Older & Darker)