Twin/Tone label co-founder Peter Jesperson recounts 50 years worth of music biz tales in his new book Euphoric Recall out today.
Here's the scoop...
Record executive, producer, band manager, club DJ, booking advisor, record store manager--few people had as deep an impact on the Twin Cities alternative and indie rock scene as Peter Jesperson.
A passionate music fan since his early childhood, Jesperson found his way into Minneapolis's burgeoning music world of the 1970s and followed a path that put him at the center of the scene as it grew and blossomed. Beginning with his time working at the legendary Oar Folkjokeopus record store, Jesperson helped shape the tastes of local music fans and foster the Twin Cities as a destination for touring acts from around the globe. His tastemaker role continued while he worked as a DJ and booking assistant at Jay's Longhorn bar, the landmark venue that elevated the Twin Cities' reputation as a mecca for left-of-centre artists.
In 1977, Jesperson, along with two partners, founded Twin/Tone Records, which over the next 20 years released more than 300 records, including by such groundbreaking artists as the Replacements, the Suburbs, Soul Asylum, Babes in Toyland, the Jayhawks, and many more. With Twin/Tone, Jesperson further solidified Minnesota's place on the map as a hotbed of musical creativity and a leader in the indie music world. Just three years after starting Twin/Tone, Jesperson made the discovery that changed his life, and the Minneapolis music world, forever: the Replacements. As A&R man and then full manager, he guided the development of this talented and out-of-control foursome, while taking a break to road-manage an upcoming sensation out of Athens, Georgia: R.E.M. But as his career was on the rise in the wild '80s, Jesperson began his own descent into substance abuse, until he overcame his demons and launched a second act in the industry.
In Euphoric Recall (published by Minnesota Historical Society Press), Jesperson speaks frankly about his struggle with drugs and alcohol, and how it nearly derailed his career and his life. Motivated by his love of music, Jesperson rallied to pick up where he left off with Twin/Tone and the Replacements before heading west to begin the next phase of his career in Los Angeles. While working alongside such noteworthy artists as Dwight Yoakam, Kris Kristofferson and Vic Chesnutt, Jesperson experienced firsthand the dramatic changes in the music industry of the 1990s. Through it all, he has retained his passion for the industry and the art, and now, after a half-century in the music business, Jesperson shares his insights, anecdotes, and lessons from his unique vantage point.
If you can't find a copy of Peter Jesperson's Euphoric Recall at your local book store, you can get it from Amazon right here.
Watch WCCO-TV's A.J. Hilton chat with Peter Jesperson at Minneapolis record store Electric Fetus (which, he discovers on camera, has no Replacements records in stock) followed by a zoom chat involving Tommy Stinson.
Watch Cat Power perform Frank Ocean's "Bad Religion" off her forthcoming Covers album due in January.
Here's the scoop...
Cat Power, aka singer, songwriter, musician and producer Chan Marshall, will release her new album Covers on January 14th 2022, via Domino Records.
The announcement arrives after Cat Power debuted a fresh reimagining of Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion” on The Late Late Show with James Corden. Watch that performance of “Bad Religion” below.
Cover songs have always occupied a crucial place in the Marshall canon, and Covers completes a trilogy of sorts, following beloved past Cat Power collections Jukebox (2008) and The Covers Record (2000). While she frequently delights and surprises with the songs she chooses to cover, it’s Marshall’s total commitment to the performance - imbuing the songs with a creative singularity that rivals her original work - that make Cat Power covers so special. Says Pitchfork, Marshall can “rearrange a song simply by squinting at it.”
Produced in its entirety by Marshall, Covers features fully reimagined songs by Frank Ocean, Bob Seger, Kitty Wells, Jackson Browne, Iggy Pop, The Pogues, Nick Cave and more, plus an updated rendition of her own song “Hate” from The Greatest (2006), retitled “Unhate” for this album.
Marshall’s take on “Bad Religion” originated after performing the excoriating original “In Your Face,” from 2018’s Wanderer, on tour: “That song was bringing me down,” she admits. “So I started pulling out lyrics from ‘Bad Religion’ and singing those instead of getting super depressed. Performing covers is a very enjoyable way to do something that feels natural to me when it comes to making music.”
Covers closes with a powerful take on the Billie Holiday-associated standard “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which was inspired by recent losses within Marshall’s creative inner circle—including Sun collaborator Phillippe Zdar, who tragically passed in 2019. “When people who you love have been taken from you, there’s always a song that holds their memory in your mind,” Marshall says. “It’s a conversation with those on the other side, and it’s really important for me to reach out to people that way.”
Covers is the first album from Cat Power since Wanderer, her widely-acclaimed 2018 Domino debut, which earned rave reviews and features with the New York Times, The Guardian, The Cut, a NPR Tiny Desk, and a duet with Lana Del Rey on "Woman," which The New Yorker called a "trembling manifesto." Marshall’s work as Cat Power has defied genre and convention, her legacy rippling through the work of a wide range of contemporary musical luminaries.
Covers is available to pre-order now digitally, CD, LP and limited edition silver vinyl LP with an exclusive 7” featuring a cover of the Rolling Stones' "You Got the Silver" from the Domino right here. Watch Cat Power perform Frank Ocean's "Bad Religion" followed by her version of The Pogues' "A Pair Of Brown Eyes"
Cat Power – Covers
Bad Religion - Frank Ocean
Unhate - Cat Power - Chan Marshall
Pa Pa Power - Dead Man’s Bones
A Pair of Brown Eyes - The Pogues
Against the Wind - Bob Seger
Endless Sea - Iggy Pop
These Days – Jackson Browne
It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels - Kitty Wells
The Replacements' Dead Man's Pop 4 CD + LP + cassette box set – including five songs cut with Tom Waits – is due Sept 27 from Rhino.
Here's the scoop from Rhino...
Back in 1987, Minneapolis rock and roll renegades The Replacements famously stole their Twin/Tone master tapes and threw them in the Mississippi River. A year later—while wrapping up work on their Warner Bros. album, Don't Tell A Soul—the group absconded with a collection of their reels from Paisley Park studios. Thankfully, those tapes were spared a watery fate, and instead stashed away for decades by the band. Now they’ve been recovered to form the basis of The Replacements first-ever boxed set, DEAD MAN’S POP.
Although Don’t Tell A Soul ultimately became the group’s best-selling effort, The Replacements were unsatisfied with the sound of the record. The band has radically reimagined Don’t Tell A Soul to create a 4CD/1LP set that features the album mixed as it was originally intended (Don’t Tell A Soul Redux), along with a collection of previously unheard tracks (We Know The Night: Rare & Unreleased), and a classic concert from 1989 (The Complete Inconcerated Live).
The box features a newly completed mix of the album by Don’t Tell A Soul producer Matt Wallace (based on his 1988 Paisley Park mix); a disc of unreleased recordings (including a session with Tom Waits); plus the band’s entire June 2, 1989 show at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In total, the box includes 60 tracks–58 of which have never been heard before.
Presented in a 12 x 12 hardcover book – loaded with dozens of rarely seen photos - the set features a detailed history of the Don’t Tell A Soul era written by Bob Mehr, who produced the box with Rhino’s Jason Jones, and also authored The New York Times bestseller Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.
Mehr writes: “While it’s impossible to unhear a record that’s been around for three decades, this version, Don’t Tell A Soul Redux, is the album the band made and intended to release. In addition to Matt Wallace’s mix, Redux also restores several crucial elements from the sessions, including original drums tracks, vocal takes and tempos that were altered in post-production…[and] the band’s original sequence of the album.”
Wallace says: “The true spirit of The Replacements was always there on the recordings we did back in 1988, and now you can hear and feel it clearly…This was the project of a lifetime for me when we recorded it 30-plus years ago, and it’s even truer today as we’ve finally fulfilled our original vision.”
Paul Westerberg, Slim Dunlap, Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars started recording Don’t Tell A Soul in June 1988 with Tony Berg at Bearsville Studios, but the chaotic sessions were cut short and mothballed. Nine unreleased tracks from Bearsville appear on Dead Man’s Pop, including early versions of “I’ll Be You,” “Darlin’ One” and “Achin’ To Be” and the previously unheard “Last Thing in the World.” The collection also features tracks the band recorded with Tom Waits, five of which have never been officially released: among them, “Lowdown Monkey Blues,” “We Know The Night” and a cover of Billy Swan’s “I Can Help.”
The final two CDs of Dead Man’s Pop capture the band performing live in Milwaukee during the “Don’t Tell A Soul Tour.” A few songs from the concert originally appeared on the promo-only EP Inconcerated Live (1989), but the bulk of the 29 tracks included have never been released. The entire show has been newly mixed by Brian Kehew (Ramones, The Faces).
This limited edition and exclusive bundle comes with a 14-track cassette featuring highlights from the box along with two additional unreleased tracks: the outtake “Asking Me Lies” and an instrumental of “I Won’t” (Bearsville Version). The cassette also features the original, unused cover art for Don’t Tell A Soul.
Additionally, Dead Man’s Pop will include Wallace’s Don’t Tell A Soul Redux mix on 180-gram vinyl.
Pre-order The Replacements' Dead Man's Pop package directly from Rhino right here. See the complete track list after the clips.
The Replacements - Dead Man's Pop (Rhino)
Disc One: Don’t Tell A Soul Redux
1. “Talent Show” – Matt Wallace Mix *
2. “I’ll Be You” – Matt Wallace Mix *
3. “We’ll Inherit The Earth” – Matt Wallace Mix *
4. “Achin’ To Be” – Matt Wallace Mix *
5. “Darlin’ One” – Matt Wallace Mix *
6. “Back To Back” – Matt Wallace Mix *
7. “I Won’t” – Matt Wallace Mix *
8. “Asking Me Lies” – Matt Wallace Mix *
9. “They’re Blind” – Matt Wallace Mix *
10. “Anywhere’s Better Than Here” – Matt Wallace Mix *
11. “Rock ’n’ Roll Ghost” – Matt Wallace Mix *
Disc Two: We Know The Night: Rare and Unreleased
1. “Portland” – Alternate Mix (Bearsville Version) *
2. “Achin’ To Be” – Bearsville Version *
3. “I’ll Be You” – Bearsville Version *
4. “Wake Up” – Alternate Mix – Bearsville Version *
5. “We’ll Inherit The Earth” – Bearsville Version *
6. “Last Thing In The World” *
7. “They’re Blind” – Bearsville Version *
8. “Rock ’n’ Roll Ghost” – Bearsville Version *
9. “Darlin’ One” – Bearsville Version *
10. “Talent Show” – Demo Version
11. “Dance On My Planet” *
12. “We Know The Night” – Alternate Outtake *
13. “Ought To Get Love” – Alternate Mix *
14. “Gudbuy T’Jane” – Outtake
15. “Lowdown Monkey Blues” – Featuring Tom Waits *
16. “If Only You Were Lonely” – Featuring Tom Waits *
17. “We Know The Night” – Featuring Tom Waits (Rehearsal) *
18. “We Know The Night” – Featuring Tom Waits (Full Band Version) *
19. “I Can Help” – Featuring Tom Waits *
20. “Date To Church” – Matt Wallace Remix*
Disc Three: The Complete Inconcerated Live, Part One
1. “Alex Chilton” *
2. “Talent Show” *
3. “Back To Back” *
4. “I Don’t Know” *
5. “The Ledge” *
6. “Waitress In The Sky” *
7. “Anywhere’s Better Than Here” *
8. “Nightclub Jitters” *
9. “Cruella De Ville” *
10. “Achin’ To Be” *
11. “Asking Me Lies” *
12. “Bastards Of Young” *
13. “Answering Machine” *
14. “Little Mascara” *
15. “I’ll Be You” *
Disc Four: The Complete Inconcerated Live, Part Two
1. “Darlin’ One” *
2. “I Will Dare” *
3. “Another Girl, Another Planet” *
4. “I Won’t” *
5. “Unsatisfied” *
6. “We’ll Inherit The Earth” *
7. “Can’t Hardly Wait” *
8. “Color Me Impressed” *
9. “Born To Lose” *
10. “Never Mind” *
11. “Here Comes A Regular” *
12. “Valentine” *
13. “Left Of The Dial” *
14. “Black Diamond” * * previously unreleased
After hearing The Replacements' The S&%t Hits The Fans cassette in 1985, aspiring rocker Matt Simons of Thief River Falls, MN
wrote to the group asking if they'd like to hear a new song he'd written. Here's Paul Westerberg's response...
Setlist
Takin’ A Ride
I’m in Trouble
Favorite Thing
Hangin’ Downtown
Color Me Impressed
Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
Kiss Me on the Bus
Androgynous
Achin’ to Be
I Will Dare
Love You Till Friday
Merry Go Round
Wake Up
Borstal Breakout
Little Mascara
Left of the Dial
Alex Chilton
Swinging Party
Can’t Hardly Wait
Bastards of Young
