Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Replacements Banned from Saturday Night Live 1986





What a mess
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The video above is from the January 18th, 1986 Saturday Night Live episode.
This is the first Replacements performance of the night. They had just finished up the Tim album and Sire got them a spot on SNL. The host that night was Harry Dean Stanton who had roles in Paris, Texas and Repo Man in the past few years and his performance in Pretty in Pink would be released in a few weeks. The Mats look pretty good in this perfomance, but legend has it they hit the champagne pretty hard before the next performance of the night.


That's where we're riding
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Bob is wearing Paul's wife's jumpsuit and the other 3 are wearing each other's clothes. Paul is adlibbing the lyrics and Bob becomes a hero by hitting that last note perfectly at about the 3 minute mark. Just after that the ending segment is shown and you can see the hobbled together cast that SNL had that year (Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Randy Quaid, Robert Downey, Jr, Joan Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall and Damnon Wayans) The Mats performance was definately the highlight of that season.

Mined this from a great post on the Calves Maloney website here

24 comments:

  1. I remember that show, because I'd never heard the band before, but I HAD to hear more after that! Fabulous to see the video again!

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  2. Nat, Glad ya liked it. The clips got pulled from Youtube recently, so I had to track'em down. I wanted to put up the EC SNL clip, but it's been pulled also.
    Love your contributions to the CP. Zappa, X and Devo - right up my alley. Goin' to see X on the 23rd - can't wait.
    Jerry

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  3. Wow. Wish the album (Tim), that Mats insanity on it. "Bastards of Young" needed to be that rockin' and loud and "Kiss me on the Bus," shoulda been that sloppy and sweet....doesn't matter the chorus is gorgeous.

    FANTASTIC.

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  4. Peter,

    Thanks for the Kudos - I agree 100%!

    Jerry

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  5. I saw the video and it left me quite astonished since I belong to the magical age of 1986. That was the time where my grandpa used to have a farm and crops, by the way he was customary to have a daily Generic Viagra when he was due to intimate with his young girlfriend. My grandpa was a good guy Buy Viagra Cheap Viagra.

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  6. Career suicide was never so entertaining. Damn they were good. Best rock band of the last 30 years. "Bastards of Young" should have been a stadium anthem, #1 platinum hit. Somehow the fact that never happened makes it even better. It's Westerberg's magnum opus, still gives me goosebumps after hearing it thousands of times. Rumor has it that Lorne Michaels gave them a verbal reaming after Westerberg yelled "motherfucker" during the song as he backed away from the mic. Notice during "Kiss Me On The Bus" the lyrics sound suspiciously like they've been changed to "Kiss Me On The Butt." Classic Replacements, a subtle fuck you to the establishment.

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    1. i love this comment. quoted here if that's ok w/ you: http://abcdetc.tumblr.com/post/16003250586/how-the-replacements-got-banned-from-snl-1986

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    2. "Somehow the fact that never happened makes it even better."

      Just read Jim Walsh's oral history of the 'Mats ("All Over But the Shouting") in which someone remarks that they were probably just a little too intelligent to ever actually become a mass phenomenon, which struck me as astute.

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  7. Ray, I like your comment that it is even better that their success never happened. The band is a bit of a secret weapon because of that. I hope that keeping these video clips up on the web helps to open up lotsa new eyes to the greatness of Westerberg and crew.

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  8. this got them banned? why? Lorne Michaels is such a tool

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  9. Banned Costello too for Radio Radio. Major tool...

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  10. It really is hard for people to get the context of what happened on this SNL. Getting on SNL should have easily propelled you into rockstar status, with Stings of the world. They had already played LA (Long Beach) and blew us away. The "big" record was out and this was the next step up the ladder. We were fast becoming aware that our favorite bands were calling it quits because they weren't getting their "big breaks" but here was these guys, who had just blew the roof off in LA (despite the warning that they might play nothing but covers, and badly) and they had a big record and now were going to be on National tv. We stopped our little band practice and huddled around a tv to witness this next step. One that, would take our little secret great band away, but finally put someone from "our team" in the big leagues.

    Then, this is what happened!! Even us...hardcore punk rockers...sat there with our jaws on the ground! Every night in Hollywood, we saw strange and shocking bands...but these guys just blew us away! ALL they had to do was "behave" and they probably would have been bigger than REM. But they just couldn't do it!! They were brilliant and applied that brilliance to sabotaging themselves.

    I for one don't agree with the opinion that this is what destined them for greatness. Had they played "nice" every now and then, they would have STILL been brilliant and there is a chance they would still be together. Nothing is for certain, but the fact is that this destructive behavior meant they have been gone for for more than twenty years now, probably never to return. (certainly without either Bob)

    But, they did what they did. The were definitely mind blowing, magical and the funniest bands that could make your lose your mind or tear up when you heard them.

    Had this gone another way, the world may not have even heard of Nirvana and people would be "celebrating" 4 guys from Minnesota today.

    But if you take this SNL in that context, if you can even imagine that NO ONE in a band at this time would have done what these guys did on national tv, on what was to be their "big break"....It was absolutely brilliant! And if you want to believe they were "choosing" their little weird fan base over a huge audience...get over it! They did it to please themselves.

    Never be another band like them! Not even if the remaining members tried to do it themselves! They were simply the best!

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    1. What are you gassing on about? They're hardly the first band to have had a drink before going on stage. The fact is, nobody bought Tim, so nobody knew the words to Kiss Me On The Bus, making Paul's ad libbing utterly unnoticeable. If you think these really minor antics kept them from becoming as well known as Nirvana, you haven't been listening closely enough.

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  11. rather go down in infamy, then die a staid fool. I saw them in Madison around this time, but Bob was gone (sad as hell, let me tell you) and their amps caught fire.

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  12. Cool to finally see this Red Red Wine on Sunday! What surprises me, now I finally see it for myself: It’s not one of those woeful/hilariously bad drunk jams I’ve heard on their bootlegs. It sounds like Rock n’ Roll to me (and a door-opener for Nirvana and others). Not too sloppy either.

    Oh, so an infamously snotty, funny and great rock n roll band imbibes some alcohol and plays and has a good time?! No way! Who’d a thunk bands did that?!

    Thanks again for sharing. I hope this is cool way to link here: http://abcdetc.tumblr.com/post/16003250586/how-the-replacements-got-banned-from-snl-1986

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  13. abcdetc - thanks for spreading the Replacements SNL show around - I have no problem with you linking to video.

    Cheers,
    Jerry

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    Replies
    1. and on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/abcdetc/posts/223954234356455?ref=notif&notif_t=share_comment !!

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    2. And here's Bob w/ the news... http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150476431015493&l=c500a505e5

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  14. Vincy - They had the best taste in women's clothes....

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  15. Yay!!!!! I finally get to see this clip after seeing the Bastards clip about 10,000 times (i taped a repeat of this off Comedy Central ages ago and they only showed that one). Thank you Thank you!!!!

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  16. MrC - glad you got to finally see - ya got to love search engines!

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  17. Although I hate it when people comment about a vid and can only obsess over era comparisons, watching this I realize we will NEVER see anything like this again.

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  18. Listen, it's been my experience that here are only two entities in rock history that embodied what "rock and roll" was really all about: Keith Richards, the actual, physical manifestation of rock and roll, and The Replacements, the band that REALLY showed us that it was always about the underdogs, telling the cool kids "fuck you!"

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