Paul Sharar on the Replacements

FLYER by PAUL SHARRAR

I heard the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me for the first time in 1987. I was 14, a freshman at Miraleste High, and it would take two years for the band to catch me—to grab me and help me grow into the person I am today.

I had maybe three cassettes floating around back then—Regatta De Blanc by the Police, some Bobby McFerrin album (his avant-jazz period, pre-“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”), and 10,000 Maniacs’ In My Tribe. I liked the Cars and Ian Dury, too—all of it more cartoony than the Replacements.

But a year later, I stumbled across TIM, the Replacements’ 1985 record, and immediately related to the track “Swingin’ Party.” It’s about being afraid, the perfect anthem for a teenager. The fact that you couldn’t figure out all of the words added to the allure of what seemed the heart-wrenching dilemma detailed within: “If being strong is your kind/Then I need help here with this feather./If being afraid is a crime, we hang side by side/At the swinging party down the line.”

I didn’t get the idea that committing a crime may end in hanging, and I didn’t really understand that the line “bring your own lampshade, somewhere there’s a party” refers to partying and the possible dead-end, cul-de-sac effect of partying. I don’t think I consciously grasped the brilliance that “hang side by side” had a terrifying double meaning—hanging out at a party and the eerie feeling of being accused of something, maybe even the possible undertone of suicide. I was just a kid. And like a lot of kids, I just felt the song, and knew—thanks to the Replacements—that somewhere, someone else was feeling the uncertainty, confusion, and fear I felt. It was liberating to know I wasn’t alone.

I played the TIM cassette over and over, sometimes even just for the put-you-to-bed, otherworldly, soothing quality of the music. I got into the rockers “Dose of Thunder” and “Bastards of Young” and could see why my older brother played TIM on his way to work for like a month straight, a 35-minute drive with a soundtrack of promise, hope, childhood, money, drugs, bad jobs, fear, the need to feel special, domestic violence, unwanted children, alcoholism, mortality.

It wasn’t art to me. The Replacements weren’t the cool band to like. I just adored them because they saved me from confusion, though I’d never have put it that way, not then.

I unearthed Pleased to Meet Me, and started to like that too, and then I bought ’em all, all the albums, and pushed them on friends with something like religious exuberance. In 1989, the appearance of Don’t Tell a Soul (and a concert date at the Palladium) was like Christmas. I was 16.

I wrangled up the converts, my older brother and his friend, and we were off to LA. We were nervous and excited, but my older brother was a punker, a veteran of a few shows, so we felt secure. In line, the Replacements’ tour bus parked in front of the line. I hoped for a glimpse of something, and then the curtain on a bus window moved to the side, and bassist Tommy Stinson—spiked hair and a mug like Keith Richards meets Sid Vicious—peered out as if the bus were his stage, as if this whole experience—the drive, the waiting, the months and months of listening to their albums—as if this too was a part of the concert. I was thrilled.

We made our way in. People were actually sitting. They seemed mellow, were talking about their favorite tunes. I felt home. Then the lights went down, and the whole place was black, except for a single cigarette’s cherry glowing, bobbing from the wing to the middle of the stage, rings and clouds of smoke emanating in the pitch black of the large hall. I can still see that cigarette’s smoke against the black canvas. I was ready to hear the Replacements treat their fear—my fear and uncertainty—with something like irony. That was our defense. This teenage boy was ready to go from uncertain to somewhere else, somewhere cool, somewhere “at the swingin’ party down the line.” The passage was loud.

Artist Paul Sharar graduated from CSULB and plays in the Replacements-influenced Fifth Story Tenants. You can see his art exhibit (“Fifth Flyers: A History of Long Beach Punk Flyers”) and watch Fifth Story Tenants, the Bolides and a Jam cover band during the Bixby Knolls First Friday at Nino’s Italian Restaurant, 3853 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach 90807, 562.427.1003.

Tags: Long Beach, Music, the fifth story tenants, the replacements