11. The Replacements, Hootenanny (1983) 12. The Replacements, Let It Be (1984) During our years at Chaska High School in Chaska, MN, my friend Lisa F had THE BIGGEST crush on Tommy Stinson, bass player for the Replacements. He seemed accessible (unlike, say, John Taylor of Duran Duran) for a couple of reasons: a) he was born in 1966, so he was close to our age and b) he was reasonably local. I’d look for him at Shinders whenever I snuck into town, but I never saw him, not once. His brother, Bob, was another story entirely. But oh! What a privilege to have BOTH these records serve alongside Duran Duran, Journey, Foreigner, and Prince as the soundtrack to my teenage years! How awesome that the Replacements (and Husker Du, and Prince, and the Suburbs) were my local music scene in high school (thus providing an entree into the local music scene whilst in college, which included Soul Asylum, the Jayhawks, Run Westy Run, etc)! How well both these records have aged - they’re seriously timeless. Timeless! They were the best band - badly behaved some (much?) of the time, unpretentious, brilliant, troubled, troubling; you’d be so disappointed in their behavior or the occasional bad live show.. but the first to vigorously defend them to a detractor. So. The Replacements’ catalog is being remastered and reissued with bonus tracks/outtakes this year by Rhino. The first half of the catalog (through Let It Be) was reissued this week; the latter half (starting with that old heartbreaker, Tim) will be released later this summer. I’m rebuilding my collection. ####################### Now Cody has whatever Lilly had, with slightly different presentation. He’s out of school today. Jim has it too, but it attacked just his voice instead, leaving him to squeak over the phone at work. I have a touch of it too, also in my throat, but I just sound like I used to sound all the time back when I smoked (I quit almost 4 years ago, and still think about having a cigarette every day). Lilly has recovered, but the cough sounds terrible, just like the doctor said it would. ####################### There’s a guy at the Wall Street Journal - not some doom-and-gloomer survivalist website straight outta 1999, but the Wall! Street! Journal! - advising people to, yes, stockpile food: Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you’ll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax. Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year. And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They’re all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%. These are trends that have been in place for some time. And if you are hoping they will pass, here’s the bad news: They may actually accelerate. Amazing stuff. I’m hoping for high yields in the garden… and stocking up on lids and rings for canning jars. It makes you wonder (well, it makes me wonder) if this really is the beginning of the Long Emergency…

Not tonight, either. I am a little le bored with the whole 365 Days of Music thing, to be honest. It’s not the recent lack of feedback (though I suspect the preponderance of boy-noise is an issue, and where are you, Steve??) as much as it is the tiresome task of scanning all the different CD covers and then uploading them to Flickr and then sitting here listening to the record, all the while being assaulted by a bunch of feelings when I really should be hanging with my kids and my husband or reading a book or plotting the rest of my garden or washing the dishes or sitting on the couch, doing sweet NOTHING. I am just not the kind of person who can commit to doing something every day that is relatively superfluous to the off-blog day-to-day life that I lead. I mean, I can barely do the stuff I’m supposed to be doing sometimes. I will review more records, though. Eventually. In other news, Ed With the Breakaway Head is providing me and my friend P with some weight training at the gym. We hung out in the seriously-testosteroned free-weight area and everything today. I am a total weakling - like I told Jim, I’ve turned into a person with a desk job with a body to match. Sore does not even begin to describe how I’m going to feel in the morning; I wish I could get more sleep. I’m very much looking forward to when my work schedule switches to Tuesday-Saturday, though. Mondays off, people. For 7 months. My new local pal The Sandwich Life tagged me for that book meme, the one where you ask 5 of your pals to tell you what’s on page 123 - the three sentences after the 5th sentence. I don’t read much fiction, so you’ll be getting a selection from the wonderful (truly!) Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis: “Pettijohn’s claimed that, unlike other ready-to-eat ‘fad foods’, its cereal, was genuine, humble ‘whole wheat not altered in an attempt to improve on nature.’ Shredded Wheat ads plainly asserted in large boldface capitals: ‘MAN CANNOT IMPROVE NATURE.’” “Transcending mere pleasantries, a dialogue about the grand existential question so pressing in the face of rapidly urbanizing culture - what was the place of people in nature? - occurred in so mundane a venue as newspaper food ads.” I know what you’re thinking, and you’re not wrong, but I love it so! Finally, an old high school friend of mine got in touch last night, praise Facebook. Among the pleasantries tossed my way was a link to a series of articles about the son of a pair of friends from high school. It made me feel feelings about my high school experience and my friendship with the female half of this union and gifted children and kids leaving home to pursue excellence and the opportunities available to kids whose parents have money and live in the suburbs and how maybe those opportunities are slipping away even from those folks and then, even, a little bit of pride in this child - he’s 16 - that I met one time when he was seven-going-on-eight and his father was the hockey player in the family.

Not happening tonight. I can barely keep my eyes open. Cody claims he is processing photos. Lilly’s tooth finally came out. My hands are dry and my eyes are tired. Jim makes excellent dinners. The daffodils are blooming.

10. Monster Magnet, Spine of God (1992) I used to work at a wee little indie record store in CHGO called Blackout!Records - I was there from spring 1992, pregnant with Cody, until sometime in 1995 or maybe even 1996. This record came out in the US while I was pregnant, working at the store and unable to decide between twee pop and dirty rock music and alt.country and le grunge (why I thought I had to choose is a mystery), and generally all kinds of pissed off, so I loved it. All the drug references - so forbidden! The stoner groove - so hypnotic! Bombast! Feedback! Psychedelia! References to Yes’ Fragile album! Oh, it made me feel feelings. I felt feelings around this record even more after having Cody and after the Big Breakup when he was 6 months old - 1993, the year I fondly refer to as the nadir of my existence, had been ushered in, and I fancied myself a little bit of a badass. Monster Magnet had another record, Superjudge, come out in 1993 (more about that one further into the project), and while it sounded major-label great and carried some of the angry stoner vibe that I had grown to love, there were so many other records out that year. Plus, you know, DISTRACTIONS. [ETA: I just remembered - I interviewed Monster Magnet main dude Dave Wyndorf in 1993. He was in a phone booth in Milwaukee, WI, and I was at the CAKE magazine office in MPLS on a little 1993-style jaunt (said jaunt may have involved Chank, driving all night, and hanging out at a Posies show at First Avenue, but I can’t remember for sure and my journals are out in the garage). It was a good interview, but just the fact that the whole band were huge fans of Mule has stayed with me for 18 years.] ################## Lilly hates losing teeth. The last week has been an ordeal… but the tooth! Is! Finally! Out!

9. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Extra Width (1993) “JSBX”, I would doodle in the margins of the order sheets I used to take phone orders, orders from places like Let It Be in MPLS and Atomic in Milwaukee. Extra Width was one of those rare records that continued to sell really well after its release; I was new to my job six months after it came out and we’d still sell hundreds a week to places like Love Garden and Wax N Facts. Their music was the kind that could inspire a girl to doodle in the margins. One night I found myself following someone, I have no idea who, into the basement at Lounge Ax. There sat Jon, looking preppy and reading a book, slightly annoyed at his solitude being disrupted. He was not at all like his Nick-Cave-meets-Elvis stage persona. He was around some high-maintenance people, though. The record, though? A rollicking good time. The distortion sounds a little badass early 90s, and that dates it (just like the production on Liz Phair’s first record totally dates it), but hey - it was part of the soundtrack, and live? They were incredible. [My ex-boyfriend not only differed, he was an asshole about it. Husband differs but (mostly) keeps it to himself. And, well, shit - neither one of them was totally wrong, because this record hasn’t aged all that well.] ################# Watching the Kansas vs Memphis Final Four basketball final tonight and Cody, our resident photog, pointed out the photographers at either end of the court. Their cameras are plastered to their faces when the ball’s at their end, and they all follow the action in unison - like cats following a laser pointer on the wall. When the ball leaves that half of the court, they all put the cameras down… IN UNISON. Hilarious.

8. Various Artists, Sweet Relief: A Benefit For Victoria Williams (1993) It was the first nice weekend since November (sunny, temperatures in the 60s), and when it’s a particular kind of nice outside, I trot out this record. It’s a tribute record to Victoria Williams from 1993, a year that I used to refer to as the nadir of my existence, and there are a few versions of her songs here that send me. The Jayhawks’ version of “Lights” is sweet and communal; Maria McKee’s “Opelousas” is at once raucous and raw; Matthew Sweet’s “This Moment” is, arguably, one of the best things he’s ever done. It was a heady summer, 1993. Calmer days and cooler heads now, but somehow this record is the taste of snakebites going down too easy in the dark cool of the Rainbo on a hot July night. ###################### I let my lettuces go to seed in the fall and this is what I got. Sadly, they didn’t make the cut - too much debris that needed clearing and compost that needed spreading. np: Silversun Pickups, “Lazy Eye” - my current favorite band - I’m so late to the party! I recommend, though, on the off chance you haven’t heard them.

7. Throwing Muses, “Not Too Soon” and “Counting Backwards” maxi-singles from The Real Ramona (1991) The Throwing Muses were dead to me me until The Real Ramona came out just ahead of the lilacs in early spring 1991. I’d always been very attracted to the testosterone thing in rock music (with a few notable exceptions - see Sinead O’Connor), and I had passed the Muses off as “difficult”. Another Lisa got me to listen; the way she scrunched up her face as she sang along to “Not Too Soon” got me thinking that maybe I was missing out. The Real Ramona got women in music my permanent attention. [A couple months later, she and I were in a band with a couple guys, one of whom was Jason Keillor, for a few months before I moved to Chicago.] The two lead songs on these singles are from the record, which boasts a truly developed pop sensibility, the most of any of their releases. These singles also feature a couple of remixes, one from TRR and one from 1989’s Hunkpapa (”Dizzy” just shines), and a cover apiece. ############# The Muses’ Kristin Hersh is posting a photo a day here. Songs from 6 of the 7 releases (no Motorpsycho yet) I’ve profiled this week can be streamed here. Stream it while you surf the tubes! I’ll be doing it every week for that week’s reviewed releases. Garden photos tomorrow.

6. Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen (1993) This is a soul-flavored indie rock/post-grunge major-label record about pain, addiction, cruelty, obsession, depression, and abuses of all kinds. I embarked upon a relationship I knew wouldn’t last in late summer 1993 with this release as the soundtrack, an advance tape supplied by the woman the man in question had just split with. 1993 punished. In 2008 I notice that despite being about endings, this record is full of excellent beginnings. Every song starts out with such promise of being sonically strong, but then something happens and it begins to meander. The music follows singer Greg Dulli’s aimless caterwaul, and what sounded so right in 1993 seems just sad now. ######################### I just want to add to the above - the song “My Curse”, sung by Marcy Mays of Scrawl, remains one of the most beautiful, fragile, exquisitely and ruefully pain-filled songs I’ve ever heard from this era. Her voice is not accomplished or slick. The band is not raging all over the place. Dulli doesn’t sing, and that’s a plus. Sorry, Greg.

5. Soundgarden, Superunknown (March, 1994) I’ve been summoned, so of course I go as soon as I can get away. Lunch. It’s February, chilly and damp. “Who’s this?” I ask, removing my shoes. Whatever it is - it’s pretty, obviously big-budget and sounds vaguely like the Chili Peppers. Darker. Oh, the new Soundgarden, he says dismissively, which means that he is wishing he wrote the song , that he can’t stand the fact he’s not able to write songs so virile-yet- vulnerable. A song this beautiful was enough to set his world wrong again, because it wasn’t his. He’s not the only one with an advance copy of something. “I have something for you,” I say. ######################## I worked late tonight, feeding the crew that’s going to run the Market with me this season. I met spouses and kids and when it was all over I sent everyone home and washed the dishes in the break room sink. I think I deserve to get into my pajamas and to have a glass of wine.

Curve, Doppelganger (1992) 4. I skipped out on my tickets to see Curve in 1992. I was a new mother, feeling fragile and identifying too much with this record (which had come out during my pregnancy) during a time when I had one foot firmly planted in my Old Life and the other poised over the New. I couldn’t watch - hearing was plenty sensory; I would just close my eyes and respire distorted guitars. Bands like Garbage owe much to Garcia/Halliday, who outgrew shoegazing and into more confrontational, compelling, sexydark territory. ################################## Today I was once again reminded how lucky I was to have the time at home with my kids that I did - time free from working outside the house, time away from school for them. We were completely, horribly broke and things were intense sometimes, but that time together helped them grow into who they are - these thinky, lovely human beings. Cody’s really concerned about his school - the food they eat at school, how kids are disciplined, No Child Left Behind, testing - all of it. He’s exploring these issues within the confines of his school paper, where he reports investigatively despite the clamor for more prom and photo pages. Lilly writes and writes and writes and writes and writes and writes and writes and writes and plays soccer and Pokemon cards and is an awesome friend. Late this afternoon I had a conversation with Cody that made me realize he’s growing past me, that he knows way more about some very important things than I do, that his opinions are strong but that the world is still getting teenagers like him down by helping convince them that they’re powerless. He’s fighting that ennui - I hope he can hold out. That he still comes to me and engages me in conversation and listens when I talk is beautiful to me, but I have to admit I’m a sucker for the post-talk hug. Now playing: The very awesome Silversun Pickups, “Lazy Eye” - fourth track here